2006-07 Stanley Cup Playoffs

Anaheim :: Stanley Cup Champions :: Ducks First Stanley Cup Win

The 14-year-old Ducks captured their first NHL title with a 6-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday night, ending the series in five games in front of the home folks yet again.

For the first time, the Stanley Cup resides in California and at the expense of Canada, which hasn't boasted a winner since Montreal in 1993. Calgary, Edmonton and now Ottawa -- in its first trip since the Senators were reborn in 1992 -- each had a chance the past three seasons only to be done in by a U.S. club from the sun belt.

Tampa Bay, Carolina and Anaheim aren't exactly traditional hockey hotbeds but they have been the Cup's warm weather homes since 2004. [espn]

The win makes the Ducks the first West Coast-based team to capture the title since the NHL assumed control of the Stanley Cup playoffs prior to the 1926-27 season. Anaheim joined the league in 1993. [bloomberg]


Conn Smythe Trophy Winner :: Scott Niedermayer :: [awards ceremonies June 14]


Ottawa
2 - 0 - 5 - 2 - 2
vs.
Anaheim
3 - 1 - 3 - 3 - 6 - Anaheim Wins 06-07 Stanley Cup



Last years final: [Carolina wins 7th game to beat Edmonton for the cup]
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Count the Vegas Offices among those happy to see Selanne hoist the Lord's Mug. A truly deserving and ambassadorial template player.

It has to be serious cool to win the cup with your brother, as in the case of the Niedermayer brothers, Scott and Rob. ( The first brothers to win the Cup together since Brent and Duane Sutter won with the New York Islanders in 1983. )

I would have liked to see it go seven games - always do - and though I also would have liked to see the Senators take it (wagered on the Ducks in the last game - jamming the faithful Anaheim fan, QM, with Ottawa...hehehe), Anaheim clearly played the better series. Late third period goals got them rolling in the first couple of games and after that it seemed the tone was all but set.

So ends another year, our second full on wagering escapade around the Offices. We've been enjoying it and oddly, are a little sad it's over and will surely continue the tradition next year.


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The Stanley Cup
Lord Stanley of Preston in 1892, at a sports banquet in Ottawa:
"I have for some time been thinking that it would be a good thing if there were a challenge cup, which would be held from year to year by the leading hockey club in Canada. There does not appear to be any outward sign of a championship at present, and considering the interest that hockey matches now elicit, I am willing to give a cup which shall be held annually by the winning club."

The following year Canada's governor-general was true to his word, purchasing a silver bowl for $50 and naming it the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup. Hockey folks went with a less formal designation, the Stanley Cup.

The first winner was a Montreal team that finished atop the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada, considered the best league going at the time. But in its early years, the prize was not exclusive to one hockey league, nor was it meant to be. It was a challenge cup, changing hands in much the same way as a boxing title. Contenders issued challenges, and the champions held the Cup for as long as they could fend off all comers. Independent trustees ensured that legitimate challenges were met on a regular basis.

In later years, as professionalism swept the game, it was accepted that the Stanley Cup could not remain exclusive to amateur teams. The Stanley Cup officially turned pro in 1910, when the National Hockey Association took possession of it. But it was not until 1926 that the National Hockey League emerged indisputably as the top league in North America, effectively taking control of the Cup. That control was formalized in an agreement signed with the Cup trustees in 1947. [about.com]

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Gene Simmons Commentary

On the phone to Radar from L.A., Simmons exercised his oversize tongue on a range of issues, including the Iraq war, the need for racial profiling, and the "enemy of Western civilization," Sean Penn.

Radar: You seemed to have a deep respect for the soldiers you met at Camp Pendleton. What did you come away with?

Gene Simmons: It is embarrassing what's happening to America nowadays. I'm embarrassed. The same thing happened in Vietnam, and I lived through that era. It was unbelievable. The answer seems to be, from some political experts, just get up and leave and the bad guys will decide, "Hey let's disarm and everything's going to be okay." I'm so fucking sick and tired of such idiotic behavior.

I'm guessing you're not in favor of the Iraq troop withdrawal bills being proposed right now in Congress.

It's not the policies and the bills; it's how we treat our military. It's how we treat our young men or women who go out there, at 18 years old, and risk their lives. There's no fame, they're certainly not getting rich, and a lot of them are dying, simply for something they believe. By the way, it's a volunteer army, all volunteer. The fact that anybody would have a fucking thing to say about that is astonishing.

And the VA hospital that Sophie and I went to, it's about an hour and a half down the road from Malibu. These morons can't get up off their asses and out of their $10 million homes, get into their SUVs, and drive down to the VA hospital just to say, "Hey, what you do matters." Doesn't matter what they think of President Bush. It matters that 18-year-olds are getting out there and risking their lives. I didn't see a single person there. That's the most embarrassing thing. I'm furious at Hollywood. [radaronline]

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I've read that some students have had to suffer through Al Gore's film up to four times in a year with teachers of various courses screening the thing. Who said indoctrination?

High school student Kristen Byrnes from Portland Maine offers an impressive rebuttal that is getting some deserved attention.

This report is a comprehensive look at the global warming issue without financial or political bias. It uses the most updated information provided by scientists and researchers and interjects common sense, an important component missing from the global warming debate.

[Ponder the Maunder]

Also to be noted is the bonus section, Facts and Fictions of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth". At the risk of ruining the ending and hopefully it's OK to do so (read the entire works), we offer this from the essay:

Conclusion

It’s easy to see why Al gore’s movie should not be shown in schools. An Inconvenient Truth is a political commercial that misrepresents a whole area of science. He admittedly uses scare tactics to get people to listen then shows them a professional slide show that blames every thing bad on so called man made global warming.

Al did not make and publicize this movie because he cares; something obvious when you consider his own lifestyle. He did not make this movie to run for president. This movie has grossed over 60 million dollars to date and it hasn’t even made it to cable. Al charges over $100,000 per slide show. But the real money that Al will make is through his new company, Generation Investment Management, a company that seeks to establish the rules and licensing for the new carbon-trading scheme. We have all heard of politicians who lie for money and power; it looks as if Al did not retire after all.


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Day by Day's Memorial Day cartoon by Chris Muir




Military historian Victor Davis Hanson is the guest for three segments on Hugh Hewitt's Memorial Day broadcast.

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Chicago, IL— Senator Barack Obama released the following statement today in response to statements made by Senator John McCain and Governor Mitt Romney on last night's vote.

"This country is united in our support for our troops, but we also owe them a plan to relieve them of the burden of policing someone else's civil war. Governor Romney and Senator McCain clearly believe the course we are on in Iraq is working, but I do not.

"And if there ever was a reflection of that it's the fact that Senator McCain required a flack jacket, ten armored Humvees, two Apache attack helicopters, and 100 soldiers with rifles by his side to stroll through a market in Baghdad just a few weeks ago.

"Governor Romney and Senator McCain are still supporting a war that has cost us thousands of lives, made us less safe in the world, and resulted in a resurgence of al-Qaeda. It is time to end this war so that we can redeploy our forces to focus on the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and all those who plan to do us harm."

###

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date: May 25, 2007

STATEMENT BY SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN

For Immediate ReleaseContact: Press OfficeFriday, May 25, 2007703-650-5550ARLINGTON, VA - U.S. Senator John McCain has issued the following in response to a statement by Sen. Barack Obama:

"While Senator Obama's two years in the U.S. Senate certainly entitle him to vote against funding our troops, my service and experience combined with conversations with military leaders on the ground in Iraq lead me to believe that we must give this new strategy a chance to succeed because the consequences of failure would be catastrophic to our nation's security.

"By the way, Senator Obama, it's a 'flak' jacket, not a 'flack' jacket."


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OK...here we go. The Wings were left with the offerings of the fickle finger of fate, delivered on the action of a flubbed pass. A pivotal point in that series with Selanne ending Detroit's quest. Made all the more bitter with many considering Detroit to have played a better round.

Sure we've got a soft spot for Teemu - he's such a nice guy and well recalled are his beginnings in the league and subsequent connnections to that. Yea, yea. But this year has found me to acquire (for no reason at all) a couple of teams that I dislike. Anaheim is one. New Jersey is the other. There's no reason, it just happened. Yea. Oh, and I will continue to call you the "Mighty" Ducks for as long as I walk this planet. Saddled you are.

Therefore I have to throw my lot in with Ottawa Senators for this 06'-'07 final. Pulling for the Sens. Not that confident, but that should make it an enjoyable last round of wagering for the year too. I'm the lone Ottawa supporter so....




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transmission at 3:05 AM | Permalink

[findlaw] Recently, two prominent bloggers -- political pundit Michelle Malkin and celebrity gossip purveyor Perez Hilton (not to be confused with "Paris" Hilton) -- have been involved in battles over the scope of the exception for "fair use" of copyrighted material.

In this column, I'll explain why Malkin prevailed, and Hilton probably will not.

The Traditional "Fair Use" Factors

In assessing a "fair use" claim under the Copyright Act, courts weigh four factors:

First, there's the purpose and character of how copyrighted material is used. (Use of copyrighted material or work is commonly referred to as "a use" for short). A use is more likely to count as "fair use" if it is non-commercial and/or if it is transformative -- turning the original into, in effect, a different work. Criticism -- or any type of commentary upon the work-- is a prime example of a transformative use, because it transforms the work by including it as evidence in support of an argument expressed in another piece of work in which it is included.

Second, there's the nature of the copyrighted work. Creative, original works receive a higher level of protection than derivative works -- that is, works that are "derived" from other material -- or fact-heavy works. As-yet unpublished works receive a higher level of protection than already-published works.

Third, there's the amount and substantiality of the portion of the work used, as compared to the copyrighted work as a whole. Using a single line from a book is less problematic than using a large chunk of its text. And cherry-picking the good parts (say, a crucial plot twist or revelation) is more problematic than, say, choosing a sample paragraph at random.

Finally, there's the effect of the use upon the potential market for the copyrighted work. The Supreme Court--in its 1985 decision in Harper & Row Publishers Inc. v. Nation Enterprises -- emphasized that what matters here is market substitution -- not other harms to the market. Thus, if a satire kills the market for a novel by making the novel look ridiculous, that's tough luck for the novelist. But if a novel competes with a prior novel by stealing from it, the thief cannot cloak his theft in the mantle of "fair use."

This fourth and last factor -- market substitution effect -- is the most important. And rightly so: The point of copyright law is to ensure that creators of works recoup profits from their efforts. When a competitor steals from a prior work in order to steal part of its audience and thus its profits, he strikes at the heart of the reason we protect copyrights in the first place.

transmission at 12:13 AM | Permalink

[wired] The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

"This is the final nail in the coffin for combat blogging," said retired paratrooper Matthew Burden, editor of The Blog of War anthology. "No more military bloggers writing about their experiences in the combat zone. This is the best PR the military has -- it's most honest voice out of the war zone. And it's being silenced."

This will cut off the best source of credible information and news regarding the issues at hand available by far today.

Even as it is, the majority of citizens don't get exposed to these writings and the MSM with apparent lack of interest in anything other than their own myopic reporting, who choose to run their drivel, repeated ad nauseum, will carry one as they do.

transmission at 9:09 AM | Permalink