dot com Top Stories

I don’t know about you, but I love the NBA. I really can’t wait for the new season to begin, and I believe that it should be a great one. so many rivalries building in both the Eastern and Western conferences. from the Celtics, Magic, and Cavs triangle to the Lakers, Spurs, and the rest of the competitive West, you can be sure there will be some hard fought battles on the basketball court next season. I also love the fact that the East is finally catching up to the West in terms of talent. While I only see 4 or 5 good teams in the East, the top 3 are great, and the rest are slowly improving. I like the fact that so many teams have shuffled talent around, and we’ll see some new faces in new places.

Anyway, the point guard has always been my favorite position in basketball. They’re great floor leaders and they really dictate the success of the team. Here are the NBA’s best three point guards in my mind.

1. Chris Paul. I don’t care what you say, but there’s no one better than CP3. his stats are unbelievable, and he’s exceptional on both ends of the floor. CP3 is a legend in the making.

2. Deron Williams. Last year was somewhat of an off year for him, but Williams is an incredible talent who should continue to improve with each season. I don’t know where the Jazz would be without him.

3. Chauncey Billups. Look at the Nuggets pre-Billups and post-Billups. enough said.

Top 3 NBA Point Guards

The idea of 30 years is a long time in the basketball world. this generally spans the length of two or three full careers of NBA players, as most players generally last for about 10 to 15 years in the league. with that said, looking at a 30 year window on NBA franchises gives us an opportunity to see which teams have most successfully rebuilt themselves from the ground up, each time the old has gone out and the new has come in. Let’s look at three of the more successful NBA franchises during this span to see which teams have withstood the test of time.

3. the Boston Celtics. having had huge success with Larry Bird in the 1980s, the Celtics remained respectable in the 1990s with players like Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker leading the way. but it wasn’t until 2008 where the tandem of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen with Pierce led the team to another championship.

2. the San Antonio Spurs. while much of their run started in the early 90s thanks to the presence of David Robinson, they’ve been a highly competitive team ever since. Tim Duncan has carried the Spurs since those days, and they’ve won four NBA titles in the span.

1. the Los Angeles Lakers. Whether it’s Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and James Worthy, or Shaq and Kobe, or now Shaq, Pau, and Artest, this team has always been the best at attracting huge names to the roster. They’re the defending NBA champs and something tells me they could win some more.

The 3 Most Successful NBA Franchises of the Last 30 Years

It’s amazing what scripts look interesting to a talented director when the actress who hands him the script is sitting on his lap.

I mean, sheee-yoot, just ask Guy Ritchie! Madonna brought him plenty of interesting scripts.

To give Rodriguez credit though, he gave McGowan her best role in a pretty good movie. Maybe this pairing will be good to cinema like Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter have been.

Come to think of it, Carter has nice “scripts” too.

Rose McGowan to Play Rodriguez' 'Red Sonja'

Vote now – Buzz this up!

Niall O’Dowd column / Halloween: made in Ireland / Click here

This Halloween, Irish hauntings are getting religious.

The demonologist who investigated the infamous Amityville murders has been called to Ireland to help out a Belfast family who believes they’re being visited by an anti-Catholic ghost.

But this isn’t just your ordinary specter – the family claims they are being visited from an angry Unionist from beyond the grave.

The Fitzpatricks of north Belfast say that the ghost of the controversial Unionist politician Richard Dawson Bates, who died over 60 years ago, may be haunting them because they are living in his former house – and they are Catholic.

Maria Fitzpatrick and her twins sons Nathan and Carl, 22, have heard strange noises and have noticed mysterious smells. The family claims to have seen human-shaped figures, heard breathing and human cries in empty rooms and have smelt tobacco smoke.

They say these unexplained happenings first occurred about five years ago after one of them brought a Ouija board into the house.

The Irish family is so disturbed by their ghoulish visitor that they’ve hired ghost hunter Lorraine Warren, of the Amityville investigation fame, to look into their claims. Warren will be in Belfast for an event on November 19, and plans on stopping by the Fitzpatrick home.

The Fitzpatricks have confirmed that they live in a house that used to belong to Bates (1876-1949), who was Northern Ireland’s first minister of home affairs. The politician, who was known to have a strong hatred toward Catholics, lived in the property for over 30 years in the early 1900s.

Bates was involved with the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) during the anti-Home Rule campaign of 1912-1914. he then became a minister in Northern Ireland’s government in 1921.

The Protestant politician made no secret of his prejudice against Catholics. G.C. Duggan, a former Northern Comptroller and Auditor-General has said that: “Such a prejudice against Catholics that he made it clear to his permanent Secretary that he did not want his most juvenile clerk or typist, if a Papist, assigned for duty to his ministry.”

Bates is said to have remained “vigorously suspicious” of Catholics right up to his death.

Vote now – Buzz this story up!

Family calls Amityville demonologist to investigate ghosts

Before this 2010 State of the Union moment passes, a bouquet to the Republicans: Nice job on your SOTU response. it was clever to lift this out of the familiar humdrum of a lonely guy speaking into a camera in an office somewhere on Capitol Hill and take it on the road before a live audience. Classy choice of venue, too: the House Chamber of Virginia’s Capitol, a building designed by Virginia’s second governor, Thomas Jefferson, is about as close as it gets to replicating the telegenic, klieg-lit majesty of Capitol Hill, where the president speaks.

what a difference a year makes: Poor Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal looked lost and small when he countered President Barack Obama after the new president’s first speech to a joint session of Congress last February. By contrast, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, sworn in just a few days ago, clearly was energized by the noisy partisan crowd gathered around him in Richmond.

Gimmickry? Sure. But nice political stagecraft, too.

And McDonnell delivered a message that deserves hearing. He spoke of working with President Barack Obama, particularly on health care, and reminded Americans that the party has presented its own 25-page bill of reforms. With the numbers changing from 40 to 41 Republicans in the Senate, that’s probably a document a lot of folks should be downloading, if they haven’t already.

Today’s new buzzword is bipartisanship. the president has been on it almost nonstop since his Wednesday speech. He met with House Republicans in Baltimore on Friday and has promised to do so on a monthly basis. Veteran Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah assures us that every Republican on Capitol Hill is in favor of some version of health care reform. McDonnell made the point in his response.

All good things, but what does bipartisan mean? We liked what Washington veteran Candy Crowley had to say on the subject the other evening on CNN. Crowley, the cable network’s senior political correspondent, offered that too many people in Washington think it means getting people to agree with you. wrong, she says. That’s a sure conversation-ender in these polarized times. what it really should mean, Crowley observed, is sitting down and finding areas of agreement, then moving forward.

Thank you, Candy Crowley. You’re right on target. Bipartisan compromise is a lost art that needs to be rediscovered in today’s Washington. now would be a good time to do so. Health care would be a good place to start.

State of the GOP Random thoughts on Republicans' response to State of the …