The oversize photos of Blake Griffin, Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan painted onto the three towers of the Hotel Figueroa has stopped traffic outside of moncler jackets Staples Center since last week, but nothing has brought the arena to life more than Paul connecting with Griffin and Jordan for their signature lob dunks.
Late in the third quarter of the Los Angeles Clippers' 117-89 win over the Houston Rockets, consecutive lobs from Paul to Jordan and then to Griffin not only brought the sellout crowd to their feet but put the game away for good, allowing the starters to be relegated to towel-waving cheerleaders in the fourth quarter.
The first lob developed slowly and methodically in the half-court with Paul eying Jordan, who cut to the basket along the baseline and jumped as soon as Paul let the ball go. The second happened on a fast break, as Paul released the ball near midcourt and hit a streaking Griffin above the rim. Both plays could have been spotted from as far away as their recently emblazoned downtown towers.
In a city that thrives on entertainment and excitement, there may be no better show right now than "Lob City," an endearing nickname that accurately describes this team's most exciting play & and one that the Clippers have actually grown to despise.
"It's unfortunate," Griffin said. "It's one of those moncler jacket for men things where we understand it, but that's not what we're about. Before the game we're not going out thinking, 'All right, its Lob City tonight.' We're just trying to win games and trying to get better."
It was Griffin who famously coined the phrase when a camera crew caught him uttering the nickname as he chest-bumped Jordan after he heard the news Paul would be traded to the Clippers. He now wishes he would have never said it.
"If anybody says it in [the locker room], it's just a joke, making fun of the whole thing," Griffin said. "It's not on our minds at all."
Simply uttering the word "lob" draws an immediate roll of the eyes from Paul, who will usually switch the topic to half-court offense, tight defense or any other aspect of the game.
"It's something we can't control," Paul said. "We are a complete team, and we want to continue to be a complete team. That's the only way we're going to win games. It doesn't matter if you get 10 lobs and lose the game. It's all about winning at the end of the day."
If the Clippers are to become a winner, they had better improve on the league's worst defense. And they've done just that in their past two games, albeit inconsistently:
On Monday, they held the Portland Trailblazers to 52 points through three quarters before giving up 36 points in the fourth. On Wednesday, they gave up 55 points in the first half before holding the Rockets to 34 points in the second half. In both games, the Clippers held the opposition to under 90 points and 47 percent shooting from the field.
"We're improving because we're communicating better," Paul said. "We're trusting each other. That's the only way you can be a good defensive team, is by trusting one another.Cheap moncler scarves caps, 2011 moncler accessories for sale. It's a process. We're not finishing the game tonight and saying, 'We finally solved it.' We have to keep working."
As much as the Clippers claim to dislike the nickname "Lob City," nobody at Staples Center was on their feet quicker and longer than Paul, Blake and Jordan in the fourth quarter, when Clippers forward Trey Thompkins connected with Clippers guard Travis Leslie on a lob of their own late in the game.
"Make sure you mention that dunk," Jordan said. "Make sure you mention Leslie's dunk."
Of all the unusual things we will see in this lockout-shortened season, the image of the Pacific Division-leading Clippers -- with their starters laughing cheap moncler on the bench late in the fourth quarter during a 28-point blowout win -- may be among the most bizarre.
2012年1月5日星期四
Parents were required to sign a release paper to pick up their children
Jaime Gonzalez, 15, was pronounced dead at a local hospital at 9:15 a.m., about an hour and 15 minutes after police responded to a 911 call reporting an moncler jackets individual with a gun at Cummings Middle School in downtown Brownsville.
“The suspect was ordered numerous times to drop this pistol and he disobeyed officers' commands,” interim Police Chief Orlando Rodriguez said at a news conference. “He pointed the weapon at the officers, at which point the officers that were actively engaged by the suspect fired at least twice.”
No other students or faculty were injured, he said.
The gun Gonzalez was carrying, a CO2.177-caliber pellet pistol, looked like a dangerous firearm, said Detective Jose Treviño, a police spokesman.
“It has the exact appearance of Glock,” Treviño said, adding that the Texas Rangers will join the investigation.
The school, which has an enrollment of more than 700 students, was to remain closed today as the investigation continues.
“He wouldn't hurt somebody,” Gonzalez's godmother, Norma Leticia Navarro, told the Brownsville Herald. “It was not right. ... They didn't give him a chance.”
Navarro said the teen was helpful and caring, always carrying things for her because she's disabled.
“He was always wanting to help,” she said.
The event began with Gonzalez assaulting another student moncler jackets 2011 randomly, Rodriguez said, after which school officials discovered the pistol and called for police assistance.
Officers confronted the teen as other students remained in classrooms on lockdown.
“The officers gave numerous commands,” Rodriguez said.
Gonzalez's mother was quickly notified and was at the hospital as the boy was brought in, Brownsville Independent School District Superintendent Carl Montoya said.
Brownsville school officials worked throughout the day to notify parents, telling them to retrieve their children at a high school to which they'd been bused.
Many found out before, via text messages from students, media reports and word of mouth.
City and school district police guarded the entrance of the high school as the line of vehicles stretched down the street.
Students emerging from Porter High School with parents recounted teachers locking the doors of their homerooms as the principal announced a lockdown over the intercom.
Some students crouched under desks; others were told to gather in the corner of their classroom; still others were shaking and praying.
“The teacher told us, ‘This is the real thing,'” said Renee Almazan, 12, a seventh-grader who said she heard two or three gunshots from her classroom.
Seventh-grader Abigail Lozano said she was in her homeroom when the school was locked down. Teachers and administrators didn't tell students much as they were hustled to buses.
“I was kind of nervous,” she said. “They didn't tell us what was happening.”
Jackie Salinas, 14, a freshman, said students at both Cummings and Porter were sent home for the day. School at Cummings is canceled today, but students who want to attend class can report to Breeden Elementary School.
Daniel Lozano, the father of a 14-year-old eighth-grader, said he and his wife closed up their small grocery and rushed to the school to find information. He expressed alarm that someone had been able to get a gun into the middle school.Moncler bags outlet, buy cheap moncler 2011 new bags.
“This is really messed up,” said Lozano, no relation to Abigail Lozano. “I thought they had more security.”
Dina Coronado, a teacher at another BISD school whose son attends Cummings, said the district handled things well. Parents were required to sign a release paper to pick up their children, and the scene inside the high school was orderly. Still, Coronado said, she was terrified when she heard about the shooting.
“What mother wouldn't be?” she said. “I really lost it. You think the worst as a parent.”
Montoya, the superintendent, said the district's response went as smoothly as possible.
“We can't just release 700 students; we had to have a systematic procedure to check each student to make sure the correct guardian picked up each student. Otherwise it would have been chaos.”
Still, he said, the event merited a complete review cheap moncler of district security. He said metal detectors were a possibility, though they would be useless to detect an air gun made of plastic.
“The suspect was ordered numerous times to drop this pistol and he disobeyed officers' commands,” interim Police Chief Orlando Rodriguez said at a news conference. “He pointed the weapon at the officers, at which point the officers that were actively engaged by the suspect fired at least twice.”
No other students or faculty were injured, he said.
The gun Gonzalez was carrying, a CO2.177-caliber pellet pistol, looked like a dangerous firearm, said Detective Jose Treviño, a police spokesman.
“It has the exact appearance of Glock,” Treviño said, adding that the Texas Rangers will join the investigation.
The school, which has an enrollment of more than 700 students, was to remain closed today as the investigation continues.
“He wouldn't hurt somebody,” Gonzalez's godmother, Norma Leticia Navarro, told the Brownsville Herald. “It was not right. ... They didn't give him a chance.”
Navarro said the teen was helpful and caring, always carrying things for her because she's disabled.
“He was always wanting to help,” she said.
The event began with Gonzalez assaulting another student moncler jackets 2011 randomly, Rodriguez said, after which school officials discovered the pistol and called for police assistance.
Officers confronted the teen as other students remained in classrooms on lockdown.
“The officers gave numerous commands,” Rodriguez said.
Gonzalez's mother was quickly notified and was at the hospital as the boy was brought in, Brownsville Independent School District Superintendent Carl Montoya said.
Brownsville school officials worked throughout the day to notify parents, telling them to retrieve their children at a high school to which they'd been bused.
Many found out before, via text messages from students, media reports and word of mouth.
City and school district police guarded the entrance of the high school as the line of vehicles stretched down the street.
Students emerging from Porter High School with parents recounted teachers locking the doors of their homerooms as the principal announced a lockdown over the intercom.
Some students crouched under desks; others were told to gather in the corner of their classroom; still others were shaking and praying.
“The teacher told us, ‘This is the real thing,'” said Renee Almazan, 12, a seventh-grader who said she heard two or three gunshots from her classroom.
Seventh-grader Abigail Lozano said she was in her homeroom when the school was locked down. Teachers and administrators didn't tell students much as they were hustled to buses.
“I was kind of nervous,” she said. “They didn't tell us what was happening.”
Jackie Salinas, 14, a freshman, said students at both Cummings and Porter were sent home for the day. School at Cummings is canceled today, but students who want to attend class can report to Breeden Elementary School.
Daniel Lozano, the father of a 14-year-old eighth-grader, said he and his wife closed up their small grocery and rushed to the school to find information. He expressed alarm that someone had been able to get a gun into the middle school.Moncler bags outlet, buy cheap moncler 2011 new bags.
“This is really messed up,” said Lozano, no relation to Abigail Lozano. “I thought they had more security.”
Dina Coronado, a teacher at another BISD school whose son attends Cummings, said the district handled things well. Parents were required to sign a release paper to pick up their children, and the scene inside the high school was orderly. Still, Coronado said, she was terrified when she heard about the shooting.
“What mother wouldn't be?” she said. “I really lost it. You think the worst as a parent.”
Montoya, the superintendent, said the district's response went as smoothly as possible.
“We can't just release 700 students; we had to have a systematic procedure to check each student to make sure the correct guardian picked up each student. Otherwise it would have been chaos.”
Still, he said, the event merited a complete review cheap moncler of district security. He said metal detectors were a possibility, though they would be useless to detect an air gun made of plastic.
2012年1月4日星期三
The league has revealed its inexperience by appointing a crusty military intelligence
The first 50 members of an envisioned 150-person monitoring group arrived in Syria on Dec. 26. The plan calls for a monthlong mission to ensure President moncler jackets Bashar al-Assad follows through on a pledge to withdraw security forces from cities, release political prisoners and allow demonstrations.
Yet in a concession that may jeopardize the league’s credibility, Sudanese Lieutenant General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, a 63-year-old close associate of Sudan’s President Umar al-Bashir, leads a mission that was whittled down from an intended 500 observers on Assad’s request.
“The league has revealed its inexperience by appointing a crusty military intelligence guy who presumably gets on swimmingly with Assad’s cronies,” said Jeff Laurenti, a United Nations analyst at the Century Foundation, a New York-based research group. “This discredits the league just when it was shaking off decades of always being the doormat of authoritarian regimes.”
Al-Dabi’s mission to Syria didn’t get off to an auspicious start. After he visited the city of Homs, the scene of killings by government forces, the BBC cited him as saying on Dec. 29 that “some places looked a bit of a mess but there was nothing frightening.”
Killing Continues
Moreover, the killing of protesters has continued even under the presence of observers, and snipers are still on the prowl after tanks have withdrawn from cities, according to Nabil el-Arabi, president of the Arab League.
“Yes, there is still gunfire; yes, there are still snipers, and we wish for all these aspects to end,” he said in televised remarks on Jan. 2 addressing the mission’s shortcomings.
At least 49 people have been killed since Dec. 31, many by government snipers, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said yesterday. Syria is “far from meeting” its commitments to the Arab League, she said in Washington.
With Russia resistingg U.S.- and European-led efforts to seek punitive action at the UN Security Council against Assad, the Arab League remains the best hope for protesters in the 10- month-old conflict that the UN estimates has claimed more than 5,000 lives.
Still, human-rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have raised concerns that the team dispatched to Syria consists of bureaucrats with little expertise or training in how to uncover and report abuses or get access to military sites where prisoners may have been relocated.
‘See No Evil’
The attitude of delegates seems to be “see no Moncler Women Vest - Cheap Moncler Jackets evil, hear no evil,” according to Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division.
Also, al-Dabi is a “poor choice” as leader of the group, he said in a telephone interview. “His own role with Sudanese military intelligence and more recently being the point person in Darfur gives him experience in impeding human-rights investigations. He is still on the same side of the fence.”
Elevated to head of military intelligence in Sudan in 1989, al-Dabi was dispatched by al-Bashir a decade later to West Darfur as his personal representative and laid the groundwork for the government’s ensuing crackdown on insurgents. Al-Bashir is accused by the International Criminal Court of genocide in Darfur where civil war exploded in 2003.
Not everyone is critical of his selection. Mahmoud Merei, head of the Arab Organization for Human Rights, said he spoke to al-Dabi on Jan. 2 in Damascus and that “the criticism against him is baseless and uncalled for.”
‘Capable Military Man’
“Al-Dabi is a capable military man who is working objectively,” Merei said in a telephone interview yesterday. “It is very hard to judge on the delegation’s performance in a week, but a lot was accomplished, and there is a lot more to be done, like increasing the numbers of monitors. There should be at least 500 of them in all Syria.”
The Arab Parliament, an Arab advisory body, sounded the alarm on Jan. 1 by saying the mission had failed and should be terminated immediately for undermining the body’s credibility.
“The mission of the Arab League team has missed its aim of stopping the killing of children and ensuring the withdrawal of troops from the Syrian streets, giving the Syrian regime a cover to commit inhumane acts under the noses of the Arab League observers,” said Ali Salem al-Deqbasi, the Kuwaiti head of the 88-member parliament, in a statement.
Outliving Libya
Inspired by a wave of discontent that swept the Arab world and toppled autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the uprising in Syria has now outlasted the one in Libya and may turn even bloodier.
For now, the Arab League may be the only thing preventing that outcome. The State Department’s Nuland said yesterday that the U.S. “was not going to pass judgment on the Arab League mission.”
In exchange for the Arab League dropping plans to submit a proposal to the UN Security Council, Syria agreed on Dec. 19 to let the monitors into the country. The focus cheap moncler vest may yet shift to the 15-member body, which alone has the power to impose sanctions on the UN’s 193 member states.
On Jan. 7, the Arab League is scheduled to meet in Cairo and probably vote on whether to continue the mission its own advisory body has said should be sent back home. It will also discuss whether to revive plans to refer Syria to the UN. Jeffrey Feltman, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, plans to meet with league officials that day, according to Nuland.
Morocco Replaces Lebanon
A significant change that may play against Assad has taken place in the 15-member Security Council: The Arab seat has passed from Lebanon to Morocco.
The former was constricted in its ability to act against Assad because of the influence the Shiite Hezbollah movement, backed by Iran and Syria, has on its government. With Morocco, a former French colony and a moderate Muslim country, the Western powers will have an ally.
An obstacle persists in the form of veto-wielding Russia, which sells arms to Syria and maintains a naval base on its Mediterranean coast. The Kremlin has stuck to its Soviet-era ally, resisting European and U.S. calls to impose sanctions and asset freezes in line with the Arab League’s initiative.
Caught Off Guard
Instead, it caught its colleagues on the council off guard by penning a draft resolution that demanded “that all parties in Syria immediately stop any violence, irrespective of where it comes from.” The text was deemed unacceptable by Western powers for failing to place most of the blame for the violence on security forces acting under Assad’s orders.
Under the presidency of South Africa, the council will discuss the amendments made to the draft by its four European nations: Portugal, Germany, France and the U.K. They want the council to “adopt further targeted measures, including sanctions, as appropriate,” according to a draft obtained by Bloomberg News.
European nations also asked for a travel ban and asset freeze on 19 Syrian officials and an asset freeze on the country’s central bank and the Syrian cheap moncler Commercial Bank. The council also wants a flight ban to and from Syria and a ban “on governmental trade transactions with the country, except for strategic commodities affecting the Syrian people,” the draft says.
Yet in a concession that may jeopardize the league’s credibility, Sudanese Lieutenant General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, a 63-year-old close associate of Sudan’s President Umar al-Bashir, leads a mission that was whittled down from an intended 500 observers on Assad’s request.
“The league has revealed its inexperience by appointing a crusty military intelligence guy who presumably gets on swimmingly with Assad’s cronies,” said Jeff Laurenti, a United Nations analyst at the Century Foundation, a New York-based research group. “This discredits the league just when it was shaking off decades of always being the doormat of authoritarian regimes.”
Al-Dabi’s mission to Syria didn’t get off to an auspicious start. After he visited the city of Homs, the scene of killings by government forces, the BBC cited him as saying on Dec. 29 that “some places looked a bit of a mess but there was nothing frightening.”
Killing Continues
Moreover, the killing of protesters has continued even under the presence of observers, and snipers are still on the prowl after tanks have withdrawn from cities, according to Nabil el-Arabi, president of the Arab League.
“Yes, there is still gunfire; yes, there are still snipers, and we wish for all these aspects to end,” he said in televised remarks on Jan. 2 addressing the mission’s shortcomings.
At least 49 people have been killed since Dec. 31, many by government snipers, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said yesterday. Syria is “far from meeting” its commitments to the Arab League, she said in Washington.
With Russia resistingg U.S.- and European-led efforts to seek punitive action at the UN Security Council against Assad, the Arab League remains the best hope for protesters in the 10- month-old conflict that the UN estimates has claimed more than 5,000 lives.
Still, human-rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have raised concerns that the team dispatched to Syria consists of bureaucrats with little expertise or training in how to uncover and report abuses or get access to military sites where prisoners may have been relocated.
‘See No Evil’
The attitude of delegates seems to be “see no Moncler Women Vest - Cheap Moncler Jackets evil, hear no evil,” according to Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division.
Also, al-Dabi is a “poor choice” as leader of the group, he said in a telephone interview. “His own role with Sudanese military intelligence and more recently being the point person in Darfur gives him experience in impeding human-rights investigations. He is still on the same side of the fence.”
Elevated to head of military intelligence in Sudan in 1989, al-Dabi was dispatched by al-Bashir a decade later to West Darfur as his personal representative and laid the groundwork for the government’s ensuing crackdown on insurgents. Al-Bashir is accused by the International Criminal Court of genocide in Darfur where civil war exploded in 2003.
Not everyone is critical of his selection. Mahmoud Merei, head of the Arab Organization for Human Rights, said he spoke to al-Dabi on Jan. 2 in Damascus and that “the criticism against him is baseless and uncalled for.”
‘Capable Military Man’
“Al-Dabi is a capable military man who is working objectively,” Merei said in a telephone interview yesterday. “It is very hard to judge on the delegation’s performance in a week, but a lot was accomplished, and there is a lot more to be done, like increasing the numbers of monitors. There should be at least 500 of them in all Syria.”
The Arab Parliament, an Arab advisory body, sounded the alarm on Jan. 1 by saying the mission had failed and should be terminated immediately for undermining the body’s credibility.
“The mission of the Arab League team has missed its aim of stopping the killing of children and ensuring the withdrawal of troops from the Syrian streets, giving the Syrian regime a cover to commit inhumane acts under the noses of the Arab League observers,” said Ali Salem al-Deqbasi, the Kuwaiti head of the 88-member parliament, in a statement.
Outliving Libya
Inspired by a wave of discontent that swept the Arab world and toppled autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the uprising in Syria has now outlasted the one in Libya and may turn even bloodier.
For now, the Arab League may be the only thing preventing that outcome. The State Department’s Nuland said yesterday that the U.S. “was not going to pass judgment on the Arab League mission.”
In exchange for the Arab League dropping plans to submit a proposal to the UN Security Council, Syria agreed on Dec. 19 to let the monitors into the country. The focus cheap moncler vest may yet shift to the 15-member body, which alone has the power to impose sanctions on the UN’s 193 member states.
On Jan. 7, the Arab League is scheduled to meet in Cairo and probably vote on whether to continue the mission its own advisory body has said should be sent back home. It will also discuss whether to revive plans to refer Syria to the UN. Jeffrey Feltman, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, plans to meet with league officials that day, according to Nuland.
Morocco Replaces Lebanon
A significant change that may play against Assad has taken place in the 15-member Security Council: The Arab seat has passed from Lebanon to Morocco.
The former was constricted in its ability to act against Assad because of the influence the Shiite Hezbollah movement, backed by Iran and Syria, has on its government. With Morocco, a former French colony and a moderate Muslim country, the Western powers will have an ally.
An obstacle persists in the form of veto-wielding Russia, which sells arms to Syria and maintains a naval base on its Mediterranean coast. The Kremlin has stuck to its Soviet-era ally, resisting European and U.S. calls to impose sanctions and asset freezes in line with the Arab League’s initiative.
Caught Off Guard
Instead, it caught its colleagues on the council off guard by penning a draft resolution that demanded “that all parties in Syria immediately stop any violence, irrespective of where it comes from.” The text was deemed unacceptable by Western powers for failing to place most of the blame for the violence on security forces acting under Assad’s orders.
Under the presidency of South Africa, the council will discuss the amendments made to the draft by its four European nations: Portugal, Germany, France and the U.K. They want the council to “adopt further targeted measures, including sanctions, as appropriate,” according to a draft obtained by Bloomberg News.
European nations also asked for a travel ban and asset freeze on 19 Syrian officials and an asset freeze on the country’s central bank and the Syrian cheap moncler Commercial Bank. The council also wants a flight ban to and from Syria and a ban “on governmental trade transactions with the country, except for strategic commodities affecting the Syrian people,” the draft says.
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