* The Capitals finally won a playoff OT game against the Penguins! The Caps finally beat the Pens in a playoff game when they had to!
Washington forced a seventh game with Pittsburgh–which will be held in the Verizon Center on Wednesday–by winning 5-4 in OT.
The Caps led 4-3 in the third period, only to see Sidney Crosby score his 10th goal of the playoffs at 15:42, stunning the visitors.
Pittsburgh, who has already won two OT games in this series, looked to knock the Caps out of the postseason–again.
But Dave Steckel’s goal 6:22 into the extra period extended the series to seventh game showdown.
* The Blackhawks beat the Canucks in Game Six of their Western Conference Semi-Finals, by a score of 7-5!
Vancouver had a lead in all six games, but it’s Chicago moving on.
The Canucks’ defense was horrible, and captain Roberto Luongo allowed seven goals on 30 shots. This after proclaiming (ie. Luongo) after their Game Five loss that they should have won the previous two games at the United Center (they went 1-1) and were going to in the sixth game.
Well, they can go play golf now.
* If Randy Johnson of the Giants can beat Johan Santana of the Mets in his next start, it will be The Big Unit’s 299th career win. Significance? That means he’ll go for win # 300 in Seattle next.
Chances are he won’t be able to do it… Santana is off to a terrific start.
But knowing baseball, knowing how sometimes things are aligned in this universe, knowing how Santana has had tough luck this year (see below)… who knows? Maybe it might happen.
Somehow I don’t think it will.
* Santana was pulled with the score 1-1 between the Mets and Braves in the seventh inning, after he’d put a runner on base.
Then a single and flyout happened to make it two outs in the inning.
Alas, Brian McCann reached on an error by SS Jose Reyes, loading the bases.
The next batter singled to score two runs, with the go-ahead run charged to Santana.
The Mets lost 8-3.
That go-ahead run was unearned thanks to the two-out error. But the first run he allowed was also unearned, thanks to David Wright’s error in the first inning.
Thus, Santana allowed ZERO earned runs and still lost.
He had already lost earlier in the year in Florida, 2-1, with both runs charged to him unearned.
So, it was the second time that he’s allowed ZERO earned runs and still lost.
He has also won a pair of 1-0 games this year (both times he pitched seven innings).
Santana’s stats: 4-2 record, 0.78 ERA.
His mound opponent on Monday, Derek Lowe: 5-1, 3.80.

Is it true that the rancher and geologist Harold Cook discovered a human-looking tooth in Nebraska in 1917? Yes. But then what happened?
The tooth was passed along to Henry Fairfield Osborn, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History. Osborn identified it as an ape tooth, and quickly published a paper identifying it as a new species, which he named Hesperopithecus haroldcookii. He subsequently had 26 casts made of the tooth and sent them to institutions in Europe and the United States for review. The recipients of the tooth were immediately skeptical. British paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward was very skeptical, stating “The occurrence of a man-like ape among fossils in North America seems so unlikely that good evidence is needed to make it credible.”
But How did it get to the London News in the form of a human looking creature? It turns out a Illustrator for the London News (not a scientist) got hold of the story and concocted the ‘popular’ image. What was the response by the science community? How about this:
“such a drawing or ‘reconstruction’ would doubtless be only a figment of the imagination of no scientific value, and undoubtedly inaccurate.” (from Osborne, yes the same one who had identified it as a new species)
Forestier’s reconstruction of Nebraska Man was not reproduced in any scientific publication.
in 1925 Osborne and his colleagues went to the site of the discovered tooth to continue investigating. As they accumulated evidence, they became aware that, despite the tooth’s uncanny superficial resemblance to an anthropoid molar, Hesperopithecus was probably an extinct peccary. A retraction was announced in 1927.
So, what really happened here? A tooth was found. They surmised it was an ape of some kind. They did further research and discovered it was not an ape tooth. This is the VERY core of science, you make an hypothesis, then you research and gather information to back it up. The fact that one person made a wrong hypothesis in the 20’s is hardly a blow to science…
Today, with the evolutionary prehistory of humans firmly documented by African fossil discoveries beginning with Australopithecus in 1924, Hesperopithecus is irrelevant.

When we inquire whether creation really happened, we

The turth on baseball:
Wow! Roy Halladay is 6-1 and has an era of 3.42… the bad new Matt Grieki is 6-1 with an era of .20. Poor Halladay will finish 2nd in Cy voting once again if the season continues to unfold on this same path. Every year there is a flash-in-the-pan pitcher who keeps Halladay from getting the hardware he so deserves. Maybe one day a WS ring will come his way and all the missed Cy’s will seem very unimportant.
The truth on Hockey:
Goaltending wins cups. If you want to build a winner you need to start in goal first. This has to be a priority for Burke. I love Vessa… but can you see him stealing a series from the Red Wings? I can’t. Thanks to JFJ the best goalie prospect the Leafs have had in the past 10 years is now in Boston and Pogge’s career is practically over. Who did we get back for Rask? oh yeah… Raycroft. Good one.
The truth on Bagels:
On Satuday I felt a little adventurous so I drove all the way from the Beaches to Little Israel (Bathurst & Steeles). I hit Moe Prancers deli for a Smoked Meat sandwich for lunch. Moe’s has been around for 60 years or some such and is Toronto’s answer to Schwartz’s in Montreal. Too bad the smoked meat was not as good as Schwartz’s. It was good… just not great. Then I decided to grab some bagels.. so I hit Bagel World and picked up a bakers dozen. Turns out they were not bagels at all… just round pieces of bread, :-(. What did I learn? It’s better to drive the 6 hours to Montreal if you want real bagels and a great smoked meat sandwich.
The truth about a posting called ‘Is science beleivable’:
When I first saw this posting, I was actually intrigued. It looked pretty lengthly so I figured some thought had actually been put into it. I was rather surprised that a university post grad article lacked all things that a University level paper requires:
1. Critical Thinking
2. Analysis
3 sildenafil tablets 100mg. Research
Just on the brontosaur alone I would have expected the following angles to be covered:
1. Why did O. C. Marsh go public with a different head?
2. What are the differences in scientific techniques and verification between 1874 and now?
3. Who discovered that the head was not correct?
4. Is the analogy of a dog with a cat’s correct? No, more like a German Shepperd and a Rottweiler.
5. Is the claim that it ‘never existed’ correct? All the bones existed… just that the head was slightly smaller. So it did exist… that creature did walk the earth.
6. Who produced this stamp? under who’s authority? Which group were the first to complain that it was not accurate?
The matter of the tooth is even worse…but I’ll leave that for another post.
End the end, there was little analysis done… and what’s the result? Propaganda. I expected so much more…
The truth for now.

I awoke to the sound of someone pounding on the door. It was 4 o’clock in the morning. I was a high school student at the time, living at home. The banging at our door continued until someone finally got up and opened it. A voice spoke in urgent tones. There had been a terrible car accident. Three young men had been killed. Police officials found that I had been once been close friends with them and knew them. Since their families lived far away, could I please be the one to go and identify the bodies for law enforcement officials? I did my grim duty. It turned out that the three victims had been out drinking at a nearby bar. The young man who was driving had been under the influence of alcohol.
That was one my first brushes with the deadly power of alcohol, but it wasn’t the last. Someone I knew was arrested for armed robbery. He did it while he was drunk. Another person I knew was charged with raping his best friend’s girlfriend. The rape charge didn