Wednesday Phainopeplas

G'evening. I hope you are not too hot. I'm okay because I'm inside. If I were outside, I'd be too hot. I can tell. Anyway, stay cool and stay looking at these links.

- Phainopeplas are in the family Ptilogonatidae-- silky flycatchers-- and have the soft plumage customary of the group (the male's is particularly shiny, hence Phainopepla, which comes from the Greek for "shining robe"). Though they do catch flies, they're more known for their love of mistletoe berries. They're crucial for mistletoe seed dispersal and, in fact, have specialized gizzards for processing the berries.

- The Knicks officially announced the training camp signings of Toure' Murry and Chris Smith today. Non-guaranteed deals, both. The training camp roster stands at 16.

- Jerome Jordan, who, as far as I know, isn't being considered for a training camp invite, may have an invitation to head back to Europe.

- Cool article about Tyson Chandler's daughter, who's already training to be a tennis player.

- Yeah...Raptors fans may be taking Knicks games pretty seriously for a couple years. Can't say I blame them.

- Knickerblogger things: Following James Dolan's money and whatever is going on in Jim's brain here.

- Lest you regard Carmelo Anthony as anything other than a mastermind of business, here's Melo spinning the usual free agency rumor-deflection into a promotion for PowerCoco. He's good.

- Melo was one of several Knicks to participate in today's 9/11 memorial telethon. Jason Kidd also showed up and said things.

- Very, very, very detailed dissectionn of Iman Shumpert's budding offensive game.

- As Jared Zwerling points out, Amar'e Stoudemire copied Iman Shumpert's streak of orange hair, so there's that.

- It comes as no surprise that J.R. Smith is among the most accurate shooters from ridiculous range.

That's all. Have a good one!