NHL at Trade Deadline

Let’s take a look at the standings today as the NHL Trade Deadline has past.

In the East, the top eight teams in order are: Devils, Senators, Hurricanes, Penguins, Canadiens, Rangers, Bruins, and Flyers.  There are six teams within 7 points of the final spot held by the Flyers.

In the West, the top eight teams in order are: Red Wings, Stars, Flames, Ducks, Sharks, Wild, Canucks, and Predators. There are five teams within 8 points of the final spot held by the Predators.

It is still real competitive in the race for playoff spots.  I see that the Senators lost their top spot for now, but they could regain it.  Most teams have less than 20 games remaining.  Also, in the East, the Flyers, the most improved from last season, last night rebounded with a win after 10 game losing streak.  In the West, the Stars are now challenging the Red Wings for the top spot.  So, it is to become real exciting as we reach the end of the season.

So, what is the big deal today?  Well, the trade deadline was at 3 PM ET.  So, who has improved? Check out the latest news headlines at the NHL here.

Colorado looks like it improved alot.  They got Forsberg and Foote back.

Pittsburgh landed Hossa from Atlanta.

Check how your team did. Here is the news on this year’s completed trades to date.

Since I Fell For You – James & Sanborn

Since I Fell For You, a hit from Bob James and David Sanborn’s 1984 Double Vision album, is one the best Jazz vocal songs I have ever heard. The song is sung by Jazz legend Al Jarreau. I really enjoy this version of the song than other current ones out there. Mr Jarreau delivers an excellent way of communicating the love you have for your love after a disagreement, fight, or break-up.

Recently searching on YouTube, I found a live version feature Jarreau and Sanborn.

Please note you will need to adjust the volume for your computer. For some reason, the recording’s volume was not set very high.

Forget global warming @ National Post

I found an interesting article at the National Post called Forget global warming.  It was interesting to find out this year’s snow cover has not been greater any time since 1966.  Could this mean we moving from global warming to global cooling?

Here are some excerpts from the some experts:

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

According to Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona — two prominent climate modellers — the computer models that show polar ice-melt cooling the oceans, stopping the circulation of warm equatorial water to northern latitudes and triggering another Ice Age (a la the movie The Day After Tomorrow) are all wrong.

“We missed what was right in front of our eyes,” says Prof. Russell. It’s not ice melt but rather wind circulation that drives ocean currents northward from the tropics. Climate models until now have not properly accounted for the wind’s effects on ocean circulation, so researchers have compensated by over-emphasizing the role of manmade warming on polar ice melt.

But when Profs. Toggweiler and Russell rejigged their model to include the 40-year cycle of winds away from the equator (then back towards it again), the role of ocean currents bringing warm southern waters to the north was obvious in the current Arctic warming.

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as “a drop in the bucket.” Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to “stock up on fur coats.”

He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

Although it may be too early to tell, but I got to think that Algore and his minions might be unhappy now.