2013 Stanley Cup Playoff predictions Round 1

By Rick Morris

CONFERENCE QUARTERFINALS

1 Pittsburgh over 8 New York Islanders in 5

2 Montreal over 7 Ottawa in 7

3 Washington over 6 New York Rangers in 6

4 Boston over 5 Toronto in 5

1 Chicago over 8 Minnesota in 4

7 Detroit over 2 Anaheim in 7

3 Vancouver over 6 San Jose in 6

5 Los Angeles over 4 St. Louis in 6

CONFERENCE SEMIFINALS

1 Pittsburgh over 4 Boston in 7

2 Montreal over 3 Washington in 6

1 Chicago over 7 Detroit in 5

5 Los Angeles over 3 Vancouver in 6

CONFERENCE FINALS

1 Pittsburgh over 2 Montreal in 5

1 Chicago over 5 Los Angeles in 6

STANLEY CUP FINALS

Chicago over Pittsburgh in 6

History Intrigue for April

By Rick Morris

Welcome to our eighth version of this new feature in The FDH Lounge, entitled History Intrigue.  We’re going to be flagging interesting-looking tidbits of a historical level.  While part of this is just going to come from general web surfing, many links each time are courtesy of Real Clear History, who does a great job aggregating for this topic just like all the others in the Real Clear brand.

We always work to be class acts in our own aggregation, so we’ll always give a mention of the site involved in the link.

^ From Newsweek, LBJ, RFK and MLK: the worst week of 1968.

^ From Macleans, the shocking supposed real cause of FDR’s passing.

^ From Crime Library, John Gotti: The last mob icon.

^ From Slate, the unanswered questions of Watergate.

^ From US News, President Truman’s side of the story about why he fired General MacArthur.

^ From History of War, why the US Army stopped short of Berlin at the end of World War II.

^ From Real Clear History, the little-remembered disappointing Vegas debut of Elvis.

^ From Financial Times, Margaret Thatcher, ruler of Britannia.

^ From The History Channel, history’s most famous epitaphs.

^ From Sports Illustrated, the history of the original Yankee Stadium.

April FDH Lounge News Nuggets

By Rick Morris

We’re adapting a segment that we have used on our show repeatedly in order to try to highlight some of the more intriguing news headlines going today.  We have also posted links here for geopolitical headlines in the past and we’ll work this into this theme.  Much like The FDH Lounge itself, we’ll try to keep it broad-based as far as what is catching our eye.

^ From Stratfor, how the Boston bombing was executed.

^ From The National Interest, lifting the veil on North Korea.

^ From Chronicles Magazine, the media-censored butchery of “Doctor” Kermit Gosnell.

^ From the Wall Street Journal, 15 Days in Rome: How the Pope was picked.

^ From The Long War Journal, attacks on US forces by the supposed allies in the Afghan government forces.

^ From the Daily Caller, what’s fueling the ammo shortage – from the perspective of ammo manufacturers.

^ From The Atlantic, reassessing Henry Kissinger.

^ From Taki’s Magazine, how the trends in the culture war point to open season on American churches.

^ From The Rational Optimist, the true global energy revolution that will come from the development of methane hydrate.

^ From the Washington Examiner, how environmental policy hurts the environment.

2013 NFL Draft impact player team rankings

By Rick Morris

Based on Jason Jones’ Top 75 Overall (Most Talented) in our PRO FOOTBALL DRAFTOLOGY 2013, here are team rankings based on the first three rounds.  The top player, Luke Joeckel, gets 75 points, all the way down to TJ McDonald at 75 getting two points.  This year, we incorporated our fantasy sports habit of incorporating tiers, with a break inserted every time there is a drop of 20 or more points.  Here’s how this graded out last year – very interesting that Indy placed third and Minnesota fifth and each made long-shot runs to the playoffs.

TOP TIER

1 NYJ 368

2 Min 358

SECOND TIER

3 Cin 316

4 Caro 312

5 Phil 298

THIRD TIER

6 St L 278

7 Ariz 274

8 SD 270

FOURTH TIER

9 Jax 246

10 NYG 232

11 NO 220

12 Mia 204

13T GB 186

13T Ten 186

15 Den 168

16 Det 166

17 KC 162

18 Pit 152

19 TB 138

20 SF 136

21 Pit 124

22T Dal 120

22T Indy 120

24 Buf 118

25 Cle 108

26 Balt 102

27 Oak 92

28 Wash 80

29 Chi 76

30 Hou 62

FIFTH TIER

31 Sea 34

SIXTH TIER

32 NE 0