The Finals begin tonight..

...with the Blackhawks solid, though not prohibitive, favorites to take home Lord Stanley's mug.

This feels a lot like the eve of Super Bowl XX. The Hawks, like the Bears, figure to win. But there's just enough uncertainty to make it interesting.

Maybe it'll take the Hawks six games rather than five.

Go Hawks! ONE GOAL!

Earth from deep space

Quite a sight!

The Japanese get the credit. It's from their Akatsuki probe, which is on its way to orbit around Venus.

This one, on the other hand, is ours, from Voyager I:



...while this one is a joint NASA/ESA production, from the Cassini probe. Earth is the pale blue dot to Saturn's upper left, well to the right of the middle of the picture- the one that makes you want to reach up and brush it off your computer screen. For my money, this is the most amazing of humanity's deep-space self-portraits...



...unless it's this one: a family portrait of the larger members of our solar system, taken by Voyager:

Meanwhile, below .500 or not, don't count the Cubs out yet

Despite the fact that everybody concedes the National League Central to the Cardinals, and have... well, since last season ended, I'm frankly not that impressed with them.

Nor do I think it out of the question, despite the fact that they're a couple of games under .500 right now, that the Cubs might end up winning the division and maybe even saving Jim Hendry's job.

Here are ten reasons why.

Flyers fans...

...are, as a group, turning out to be nearly as obnoxious as Red Wings fans.

Not quite. But almost.

Everybody else has written the line, "The clock ran out on 24 last night," so I might as well, too

The role of President Suvarov and the Russians in the murder of President Hassan has been exposed. Snake-in-the-grass former President Charles Logan has suffered massive brain damage in a failed suicide attempt. President Allison Taylor- at the last possible moment- has come to her (moral) senses and once again became the leader she was before she began listening to Logan. And Jack Bauer is once again a fugitive, just as he was at the beginning of the Taylor administration- this time fleeing not only American justice but also the vengeance of the Russian "organs."

President Taylor- the leader who let her own daughter, Olivia, be sent to prison rather than cover up Olivia's role in the murder of the evil Jonas Hodges- might just be forgiven for her participation in the cover-up of the Russian role in the Hassan assassination, impeachable though her offenses might be. After all, she "outed" herself, and her motive for participating in the cover-up was simply a desire to finally bring peace to the Middle East. Her major PR problem might well be not the cover up itself, but her association with the morally repugnant Logan.

But we'll have to wait for the feature film to find out. Personally, I'm hoping the Senate and the American people give Allison Taylor a second chance.

It's the Flyers

Philly closed out the Habs last night, and will be the Blackhawks' opponents in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Michael Leighton, the Flyers' goalie, came up with the Hawks a few years ago. He has apparently improved since.

Meaning no disrespect to the Broad Street Bullies, my call is the Hawks in five. But anything can happen in the Stanley Cup Finals, and teams don't get there that don't deserve to be taken seriously- especially when they've already pulled off a comeback from a three games to none deficit earlier in the playoffs.

On to the Finals!

The Blackhawks beat San Jose yesterday afternoon by a score of 4 to 2, swept the series, and will be favored in the Stanley Cup finals against either Montreal or, more probably, Philadelphia.

Buffy scored the game-winner yet again.

The Sharks- one of the NHL's best teams- did not deserve the humiliation of being swept. But as one of the San Jose sportswriters conceded the other day, the Hawks are simply a better team- and, what is even more important in the playoffs, a team that's jelling at precisely the right time.

Rookie goalie Antti Niemi, "the Finnish Fortress," has played like Martin Brodeur or Jacques Plante or Terry Sawchuck or Glenn Hall in their prime. And he was supposed to be the weak link.

The Hawks are a deep, balanced team that is peaking as it goes into the Finals. If they are a better team than San Jose- and they are- they're better by several orders of magnitude than either the Canadiens or the Flyers. But both of those teams have been playing 'way, 'way over their heads since the playoffs began, and the cliche is right (which is generally, of course, the reason why cliches are cliches to begin with): anything can happen in a short series.

Trying not to get my hopes up too high. But you'd better believe I'm savoring the moment. It's been 49 years in coming.

Byfuglien- pronounced "Conn Smythe winner"

Dustin Byfuglien's last name is pronounced "Bufflin," just like Jonathan Toews' name is pronounced "Taves." There is, however, an alternate way of pronouncing Buffy's name.

Just call him "Conn Smythe winner."

Buffy's overtime goal last night game the Blackhawks a seemingly insurmountable 3 games to none lead over the San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference Finals. If they can manage somehow to beat a team they've defeated six of the seven times they've played them this season once more out of four tries, they'll be in the Stanley Cup Finals against either Montreal or Philadelphia- neither of which figure to give them much trouble.

Savor this, fellow Hawk fans. Savor this.

The Democrats' ace-in-the-hole

John Dickenson on the Democrats' secret weapon for 2010, one they can't wait to use: Rand Paul.

HT: Real Clear Politics

After all, the Sac and Fox lived in Iowa, too

It's been cool here in Des Moines- too warm for a jacket, really, and I couldn't wear a sweatshirt to the job I was at. And so, given the playoffs and all, I've been "representing" with the road Blackhawks jersey I bought in St. Catherine's, Ontario maybe twenty years or so ago, worn as an outer garment.

Interesting the "thumbs up" signs and beeps from passing cars it's drawing. Apparently the Hawks' Stanley Cup run is being widely noticed here in the far, far western suburbs- and is making quite an impression. The Pro-Image at the mall is even featuring a Jonathan Toews jersey in its window.

And to think that only a few years ago "Dollar Bill" had driven the franchise into the ground even in Chicago itself. Hopefully a Cup will cement the progress the Hawks seem to be making toward becoming a truly regional team, like the Cubs are.

Obama and the "Born Alive" Act: the facts

(NOTE: This post is from another blog of mine. It was written during the 2008 presidential campaign. Since that blog is soon to be deleted, and since the facts this post relates continue to be misrepresented by both the administration and by the media, I"ve chosen to preserve it by republishing it here.)

One evening in 1999, nurse Jill Stanek of the Labor and Delivery Department of Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois had an experience that changed her career- and her life.

Christ Hospital routinely performed second and third-trimester abortions. Particularly favored are what are euphemistically called "induced labor abortions." Premature labor is induced, the baby is born- theoretically before survival is possible- and the baby is simply left to die. In essence, it's passive infanticide, and not really abortion at all.

Hospital guidelines required that the babies be held until they died, and given the "comfort care" of at least a warm blanket. The trouble was that the hospital staff was often too busy. The babies were often simply put in a corner somewhere, and left to die.

One night Jill encountered a colleague who was taking a Down's Syndrome baby she estimated at between 22 and 23 weeks gestation- 24 weeks is generally considered the threshhold for more than a minimal chance of survival- to a soiled linen closet, where she intended to leave him to die, alone and uncared for. Jill couldn't bear the thought. So she held and cradled the baby for the 45 minutes it took for him to die.

Understandably shaken by the experience, she mentioned it to her fellow nurses. They began to tell her about shattering experiences of their own: a baby aborted because of presumed spina bifida, born prematurely (by design) but alive- with its spine intact- and left to die; a baby born by induced labor at more than 23 weeks, neglected to death (despite showing early signs of thriving, only "comfort care" was given her, and she expired); a baby left to die even though it was born weighing two pounds, and might have had a fighting chance at life if given any help; and- infamously- an infant left to die, wrapped only in a disposable towel, on the counter of a dirty linen closet. Initially, this living baby had been- accidentally, it should be said- literally thrown into the garbage. While the trash was being searched for the child, it fell out of the towel in which onto the floor. From there, it was taken to the linen closet, and abandoned.

Jill Stanek began to agitate for changes to the law to protect these babies. Remember, we aren't talking about abortion per se; these children had already been born alive. Stanek's position was that if they had even a fighting chance to survive, they should be given every bit of medical help available- and if they didn't, they should at least be given palliative care, and never, ever simply abandoned to die alone.

When she approached the administration of Christ Hospital, it refused to change its policies. She took her case to Congress and to the Illinois Legislature. Eventually, Christ Hospital fired her for her outspoken opposition to its barbaric policies.

Now, here is a key point, which both the Obama campaign and its water-carriers in the media have managed to totally ignore: attempts to prosecute the doctors involved and the administration of Christ Hospital failed, because the 1975 Illinois Abortion Law protected only "viable" infants- and the sole criterion of viability, literally regardless of the medical facts, was the stated opinion of the abortionist!

If, as in the case of the babies Jill Stanek and her co-workers watched die, they had been born as a result of induced-labor abortion with the express intent of killng them, the law did not apply if the individuals who had deliberately induced premature labor in order to kill them simply opted not to regard them as "viable."

It seems incredible that the Obama campaign has gotten away with claiming that a law with a loophole that large already protected babies who were born alive with the express intention of subjecting them to passive infanticide. It is even more incredible that the media have allowed the Obama campaign to get away with it. But such is the case.

No baby with a fighting chance at survival- or even a greater than fighting chance- was protected by the 1975 law if a doctor, having induced premature labor for the purpose of killing the child, decided that the child wasn't viable. Or, more to the point, if the doctor presiding at a child's live birth in Illinois decided that the child wasn't viable, it could be abandoned and allowed to die with absolutely no legal consequences!

One product of Jill's efforts was a Federal law, the 2002 Born Alive Federal Infants Protection Act, which unanimously passed both houses of Congress. No member of Congress in either House, no matter how strongly pro-choice, opposed it. In fact, even NARAL did not object to it (though its statement to that effect has been deleted from its website!).

But regulations of this kind are, after all, finally a matter of state, not Federal, law. Naturally, in Illinois- the state where Christ Hospital is located- an effort was made to introduce one that would offer the protection the 1975 law patently did not to children born alive whose doctors, having set out to perform the equivalent of an abortion, simply decided to declare them non-viable, and let them die.

In 2003, the Illinois Born Alive Act was introduced. It would have required a second opinion as to the viability of an infant before it could be subjected to passive infanticide. State Sen. Barack Obama opposed it. His argument, given on the floor of the Illinois Senate, was that requiring a second opinion placed an "undue burden" on the doctor and, indirectly, on the choice of the mother to abort- even though, by the very terms of the situation the bill dealt with, the baby had in fact already been born- and passive infanticide, not abortion, was the issue!

Obama's campaign insists that his actual concern was that the law would have undermined Roe v. Wade, and that he would have voted in favor of the bill if it had contained a provision similar to that in the Federal law.

Even though FactCheck.org misses the critical point that the Illinois Attorney General had declined to prosecute in the case of Christ Hospital- that the 1975 Illinois law was, as a practical matter, unenforcable if the doctor simply decided to consider the baby non-viable- it does note that on September 13, Obama joined his collegues on the Senate Health and Human Services Committee in adopting an amendment to the bill which in fact inserted language almost identical to that of the Federal bill.

This is the Federal language, which Obama says he would have voted for:

(b) As used in this section, the term ''born alive'', with respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the complete expulsion or extraction from his or her mother of that member, at any stage of development, who after such expulsion or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut, and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion.

(c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being ''born alive'' as defined in this section.

This is the language of the Illinois bill, as amended- which Obama says he feared would still compromise Roe:

(c) A live child born as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law.

(d) Nothing in this Section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being born alive as defined in this section.

If Obama "would have" voted for the law if it had contained such a provision, why didn't he- after his own committee had unanimously inserted that language into the Illnois bill-and with his support? Is Mr. Obama in the habit of voting for amendments to bills in a state of unconsciousness such that he is unable to later recall having done so?

Does he suffer from such fugue states often? If so, shouldn't the voters know about it? After all, who knows what he might do as president in a mental state such that he would be unable to recall it later!

The wording of the section protecting Roe is identical; the wording of the section defining "born alive" in the Federal bill is actually more restrictive than that in the Illinois bill! Furthermore, the Illinois language specified that, in order to be protected, a baby would have actually had to have been born alive. The law could not have been used as a cat's paw with which to overturn Roe, because it excluded fetuses in utero!

And does he seriously believe that his assurance that a law protecting infants with a fighting chance of survival was "on the books" bears examination, given that the law in question- the 1975 Illinois Abortion Law- had been held by the state's Attorney General to be unenforcable in the case of Christ Hospital- protecting, as it did, no child, regardless of the actual medical facts, the abortionist decided wasn't viable?

Sen Obama's website continues to repeat these distortions of the truth to this very day. It should be noted that he has changed his explaination for his vote, and seems to suggest that somehow the language of the Illinois bill, as amended, didn't really mean what it said.

So there are the facts. The mainstream media has carefully finessed the unenforcable character of existing Illinois law supposedly protecting "viable" infants (while leaving any child- no matter what the facts of the case might be- unprotected if the "medical judgment" of the doctor said that it is not viable). While occasionally acknowledging that Obama did, in fact, vote against a bill providing the same protections for Roe v. Wade as the Federal law,(in fact, he did so immediately after his own committee had inserted that very language into the bill!), it has utterly failed to hold him accountable for continuing to insist that he would have voted for the bill if it had contained language which it did, in fact, contain when he voted against it.

But then, this is Barack Obama. The MSM will let him get away with pretty much anything, it seems.

Here is a studiously balanced analysis of the controversy from Steven Waldman of Beliefnet.

Actually, that "artificial life" isn't artificial at all

Scientists claim to have created "artificial life."

They are wrong. To have used artificially-constructed genetic material to hijack and "control" a pre-existent cell is at best to create a kind of biological cyborg. When they do it without the cell, then they will have created life, rather than merely modified it.

I am not going to hold my breath. And I think the glib mischaracterization of the accomplishment both by those responsible for it and by the media says a great deal about the prospects of what they falsely claim to have achieved actually being accomplished any time soon.

HT: Drudge

Anti-establishment gestures, both welcome and silly

Now that I'm out of the parish, I can write about politics again.

Tuesday primary results: Arlen Specter lost the Democratic nomination in his bid for re-election in Pennsylvania (his first race as an actual, rather than a vitual, Democrat), and extremist Rand Paul, son of extraterrestrial former presidential candidate Ron Paul, won the Republican nomination for the Senate in Tennessee.

Hopefully both of yesterday's winners will be losers in November. We need fewer, rather than more, extremists in Washington, and also fewer supporters of the current administration.

Blackhawks' outlook couldn't look much better. So why am I so nervous?

The Blackhawks beat the San Jose Sharks again last night, 4-2, and now lead the series two games to none. They have yet to play their first game of the series at home. And since they set a record last night for the most consecutive playoff victories on the road, maybe coming home to the UC isn't an unmixed blessing.

If the Hawks win the series with the Sharks, they will play either Montreal or Philadelphia for the Stanley Cup. By rights, they shouldn't have much trouble with either one. But I grew up fearing the Canadiens and their tradition, and (as I've noted before) the last time the Hawks went into the Stanley Cup Finals as favorites (in 1971), they lost to a Montreal team with a hot rookie goalie named Ken Dryden. This year's Montreal team has a hot rookie goalie named Jaraslav Halek.

But no matter. The Flyers, too, have a two-games-to-none lead in their series, and they're objectively a better team than the Habs. It looks at this juncture very much like the Hawks will be playing in the Finals, and against a team they certainly ought to be able to beat with little trouble.

So why am I so nervous? Ok, it has been 49 years since that memorable night in Detroit when the Hawks won their last Cup. And I am a Chicago sports fan- and a Cub fan to boot- who is used to teams who, on paper, should have no trouble winning championships breaking my heart.

But the closer we get to the Finals, the more it looks like this will be the year the Hawks will hoist the Cup. Thing is, though, that the Sharks- even if the Hawks have beaten them five of the six times the two teams have met this year- are a very, very good hockey team. In fact, they had a better record than the Hawks did this year (though only by one point).

There is another scenario alongside the one in which the Hawks and the Flyers continue to dominate their respective series, and Chicago beats Philadelphia in the Finals. In this one, the Hawks discover their inner Cubitude, and find a way somehow to blow their two-zip lead and somehow lose this series to the Sharks. And then there's the possibility that the Flyers might do to the Hawks what the 1969 Mets and the 1984 Padres and the 2006 Marlins and the 2008 Dodgers did to the Cubs, and against all odds and reason somehow upset a far superior Chicago team.

To grow up a sports fan in Chicago- and specifically both a Blackhawks fan and, in particular, a Cubs fan- is to grow up paranoid. I remember a cartoon in one of the local papers back in 1984 in which a fan sat chewing his fingernails in the bleachers of a moonlit Wrigley Field beneath a scoreboard proclaiming a Cubs victory in the seventh game of the World Series several hours before. The caption: "They're gonna blow it. I don't know how, but somehow they're gonna blow it."

And sonuvagun if they didn't find a way to do precisely that.

I'll believe this when I see Captain Serious and his merry men skating around the boards with Lord Stanley's Mug. And maybe not even then.

I don't know why he swallowed the fly.

I hope he doesn't die.

Admittedly, the content of the broadcasts of Keith Olbermann and certain other MSNBC stalwarts does tend to attract flies, and for obvious reasons. But this is the first such on-the-air ingestion of one I've heard of at the Left-leaning network.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

24 is breaking my heart

First President Taylor goes over to the Dark Side, and now it's revealed that Russian President Suvarov himself- and not merely a renegade faction in his government- was responsible for the assassination of Kamistani President Hassan and the murder of Jack Bauer's girlfriend, Rene Walker. Two previously exemplary characters- beacons of rectitude, even, in an evil world- now turn out to be corrupt, or at least corruptible.

It's enough to make you lose your faith in the goodness of the writers. Disturbing, too, to see Jack willing to kill innocent Secret Service agents in order to pursue his vendetta against Logan and the conspirators.

Funniest line of the season: former President Logan, with Jack's automatic at his temple: "Ok. ok... I was involved in the cover-up. But not the conspiracy. Hey- I'm not the bad guy here!"

Next week's series finale should be a barnburner. Jack has gone so far over the line that it's hard to see how he can come back. Hopefully President Taylor, at least, can find her moral compass again.

The road to the Cup looks suspiciously smooth right now

Sunday's 2-1 victory over the Sharks was fun to watch. That makes four out of the five games we've played this year against San Jose that we've won. Hopefully things will continue to go well tonight. The Sharks are a good team, and at this point seem to be the biggest obstacle between the Hawks and the Cup.

Having the two teams with the worst records make it to the Eastern Conference Finals is certainly a good sign for whichever team wins the Hawks-Sharks series. And a Philadelphia victory would make me feel even better in the next round- should we get there. Better to face ex-Hawk Michael Leighton than Halek.

Blackhawks- Sharks on NBC this afternoon!

Huzzah! The Hawks and the Sharks are on NBC! I'll actually get to watch the game- and at home!

Here's hoping that the Hawks taking three out of four from San Jose during the regular season foreshadows the outcome of this series.

Has the King of the Planets been busted in rank?

Jupiter seems to have lost a stripe.

Les Canadiens sont la!

Unbelievable.

After ousting the President's Trophy-winning Washington Capitals in the first round, the playoff team with the worst record- the Montreal Canadiens- knocked the defending Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins out of the playoffs last night. Les bleu-blanc-rouge will play either the staggering Boston Bruins or the resurgent Philadelphia Flyers in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Now, I mean no disrespect to any of those teams. But with the demise of the Pens, the only team left in the playoffs that the rational side of me is really afraid of is the San Jose Sharks, who are playing my Blackhawks in the Western Conference Finals. The winner of that series should win the Stanley Cup- which statement might well prove to be the hockey equivalent of Frank Chance's now-ironic 1908 question, "Who ever heard of the Cubs losing a game they had to have?" It isn't necessarily the best team that wins the Stanley Cup. It's the hottest team- and in particular, the team with the hottest goalie. And they don't come much hotter than Montreal's Jaroslav Halak.

Just a couple of months or so there were rumors that the Hawks might trade perhaps Patrick Sharp and maybe another young star along with Cristobel Huet to Montreal in order to be able to go into the playoffs with a tandem of Halak and Antti Niemi in goal. Probably the fact that both Halek and Niemi are rookies (logically, the Hawks would have been looking for a veteran to pair with Niemi) torpedoed any chance that the offer would ever be made. The Hawks chose, in any case, to stand pat. But somewhere in my gut there is a queasy feeling, a disturbing memory of the last time the Hawks were in this position.

It was 1971, the year the Habs knocked the best team in hockey, the Bruins, out of the playoffs. The Hawks- on paper probably the next best team- were favored to beat Montreal in the Finals. The series went the full seven games, culminating in a 3-2 Canadiens victory in what has been called the greatest hockey game ever played.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Hawks had the better team. But the Habs had wa hot young goalie who was built like a giraffe and named Ken Dryden. I imagine there are ex-Blackhawks who still have nightmares about Dryden making impossible save after impossible save as the good guys crashed the net over and over again, dominating the last half of the third period, but somehow never able to get the tying goal past him.

And then, there's the myth. While they haven't been anything like their old, dominating selves in recent years- like the New York Yankees of a few years ago, they had a long dry spell- les Habs are historically, when all is said and done, the Yankees of hockey. They've won more Cups than anyone else, and just the tradition those colors represent is itself something to fear. The first several years I was a hockey fan, Jacques Plante and the Canadiens broke my heart over and over again in the post season, and I'm still feeling the effects of the trauma.

I don't necessarily fear the Habs as such. But I fear Halak, and- rationality aside- I fear the sweater he wears. Whether Boston or Philadelphia ends up winning Game Seven in their series, I'll be rooting for them to take out Montreal.

But first things first. First, we have to dispose of the one team in the Western Conference that had a better record than the Blackhawks- though only by one point: the San Jose Sharks.

Oh, and by the way: the Blackhawks and the Sharks played four times during the regular season. For what it's worth, the Hawks won three of those games.

Time for the Blackhawks to break out the bangsticks

Divers often carry special poles called powerheads or bangsticks, which operate essentially as shotguns triggered by impact with a shark. Time for the Blackhawks to metaphorically exchange their hockey sticks for bangsticks.

The Hawks advanced to the Western Conference Finals against the San Jose Sharks last night with a 5-1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks. The Sharks ousted the Hawks' perennial nemesis, the Detroit Red Wings.

The winner of the Blackhawks-Sharks series will advance to the Stanley Cup Finals to face an opponent still to be determined.

ONE GOAL!

Monday's lesson from 24

If you've murdered Jack Bauer's girlfriend, and he has a knife, swallowing something is not an effective means of hiding it from him.

But I guess we really always knew it wouldn't be. Too bad a certain Russian assassin didn't know Jack as well as we do.

Too bad for the assassin, that is. And I don't even want to think about what Jack did with that blowtorch...

The Hawks- hopefully- will wrap it up on tomorrow night

I frankly expected Vancouver to win Game Two, and was surprised to see the Hawks dominate them again, this time at GM Place. But last night's Canucks victory at the UC was no surprise. I've said all along that it would take the Hawks six games- or even seven- to dispose of the pesky Blue and Green.

I just hope it's six. I don't want to have this go to seven games with the momentum Vancouver's- even if the decisive game is played in Chicago.

Hawks 5, Canucks 3- in Vancouver!

We go up on Vancouver two games to one!

Next game Friday night at GM Place.

Everything's going from bad to worse on 24

24 is really getting dark.

First, Allison Taylor- the best president the series has featured since David Palmer- has been seduced to the dark side by her snake-in-the-grass predecessor, Charles Logan, and is covering up the Russian involvment in the murder of President Hassan (despite the warnings of Secretary of State Kanin that she's committing an impeachable offense) in order to keep the Russians at the bargaining table and get the Middle East peace treaty signed. Noble though her reasons may be, she has likely squandered her presidency on a peace built on such a fragile foundation that it would probably be doomed in the real world (once again, the willing suspension of disbelief its fans so readily- and justifiably- accord 24 is making a wholly implausible chain of events somehow plausible in the context of the show.

President Taylor's betrayal of President Hassan's widow and successor is itself a tragedy. As a result, Jack Bauer has gone rogue- again.But last night he crossed a line it will be hard to cross back from. He's committed outright murder as a matter of practical necessity before. But when he shot Dana Walsh last night (not that she didn't richly deserve it), he did it in cold blood and for no better reason than vengence for Renee Walker's murder.

I heard that the final weeks of this series would be dark, but they seem headed into the realm of the downright tragic and utterly depressing. I hope Jack can somehow find his way to the side of the angels again- and that President Taylor can, too, before both her administration and her place in history are utterly ruined.

A warning for the Blackhawks from Frank Chance

Well, after letting the Canucks run roughshod over them in Game One on Saturday, the Hawks knuckled down and beat the Canucks with three third-period goals last night, 4-2. Once again they demonstrated an ability to come back and win when it really counts, an attribute which bodes well for their prospects in the playoffs.

Still, I can't help but reflect on one of my favorite quotations from Cub history, from Manager Frank Chance in that world championship season of 1908: "Who ever heard of the Cubs losing a game they had to have?" The irony is a warning against taking anything for granted against a team as evenly matched with the Blackhawks as Vancouver.

The key to this series, as it was in the previous one against Nashville, is going to be somehow finding a way to steal back home ice advantage by winning one of the next two games at GM Place.

I still predict the Hawks in six.