Washington Capitals record in the past four games: 4-0
Washington Capitals record in the past ten games: 4-4-2

That is what in the business of hockey you call “streaky”.

When your recent winning streak includes wins over Dallas (16-8 at the time, 19-9 now) and Eastern conference leading Buffalo (20-3-2 then, 21-4-2 now), you can feel pretty good about yourself. Being only one point out of the playoffs doesn’t hurt either.

On the other hand, the East is a beast this year. Only Florida and Philadelphia are below .500. Everyone else is in the thick of the playoff hunt. Another six game slide would really hurt the Caps’ playoff chances. By comparison in the West, seven of the fifteen teams are below .500 (i.e. everyone not currently in a playoff spot). Dallas, at ten games over .500 is 3rd in the Pacific Division behind Anaheim (+18) and San Jose (+12).

Finally, it’s always nice to be looking down on the Penguins in the standings. But their not far behind. Their 26 points puts them in 13th place in the East, but they’re at .500 (11-11-4) and only five points out of a playoff spot. Next Monday’s game should be a good one. It’s even on national TV in HD!

Most of the technical blogs I read are individual blogs (like this one). Yet, most of the political blogs I read are multi-user. Typically, there is a primary poster – such as Josh Marshal from Talking Points Memo. But TPM has at least four other bloggers on their home page (Paul Kiel, David Kurtz, Greg Sargent, Justin Rood). I wonder why these two blogging communities are so different?

With the real and serious problem we face in this country – the civil war in Iraq, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, rebuilding New Orleans, etc. - it boggles the mind that we waste any time at all on faux controversies such as the so-called “War on Christmas”. Getting Wal-Mart to use “Christmas” instead of “Holiday” in their marketing seems like a dubious accomplishment at best.

But where I rail against such stupidity, my brilliant wife writes poetry. One of Julie’s conservative friends sent her an insipid poem that’s been making the rounds on the Internet called “How The ‘Left’ Stole Christmas”. I must have missed Wolf Blitzer changing his name to “Wolf Blitzen” or the Senate passing legislation to take away Christian’s faith and forbid them to speak of salvation and grace.

My response would have simply been “Read the First Amendment, idiot!”. My wife, however, wrote a poem of her own in response. Check it out.