Hockey's back.

With the new salary cap, the Wings won't necessarily be the powerhouse of the NHL they've been in years past, but by god, come October, they'll still be wearing the winged wheel on their chests. And I'll still be there cheering them on. That is some fantastic news.

The big downside here is that the Wings will likely be saying goodbye to some longtime stars. Yzerman, McCarty, Shanahan, and even Lidstrom could all be gone. That's a huge bummer for all the Wings fans who love these guys, but it's probably a good thing for the future of the sport.

The rosters will shake out in the next few weeks and months. I'll cover it as best I can, but for day-by-day tracking, I highly recommend On the Wings.

King Kaufman's Salon.com column today is dead, solid perfect. Ernie Harwell is a national treasure, and Fox is too stupid to realize it.

I watch because seeing the All-Stars line up along the baselines in the pregame introductions reminds me of all the other All-Stars I've seen, of the singular moments that this meaningless game can provide -- the 1970 collision, Reggie's '71 homer, Fred Lynn's grand slam in '83, Bo Jackson's titanic shot to lead off the '89 game, Barry Bonds throwing Torii Hunter over his shoulder, and then that tie ending, in 2002.

I watch because these memories form a chain that has meaning for me, that connects Willie Mays to Fernando Valenzuela to Ken Griffey Jr. to Barry Bonds to Albert Pujols, and the 7-year-old me to the 17-year-old me and so on to the me sitting here today. And it's a chain that connects me to my father, who had his own chain with his own father, just as I'm about to start another with my son.

I'm not speaking for every baseball fan here, but I'm not unusual either.

Fox doesn't care about any of this. It'll use the highlights of those old games, but only if it can use them to sell some soda, some tacos, some cars, some movie, some rock band. I like all of those things. There's nothing wrong with selling them. But the price is too high. The price is insulting baseball at every turn.

From this week's Shank:

XVIII. OSAMA CLOCK

1,390. Number of days it's been since George W. Bush promised he would catch Osama Bin Laden.

1,365. number of days it took the U.S. to defeat the nation of Japan after Pearl Harbor was attacked.

Source: Randi Rhodes

O'Connor has made it happen. Rehnquist is right behind. Heck, even Justice Stevens might get into the act. The summer is going to be fun.

Problem is, the current fight is probably much ado about nothing. Most observers think that the absolute best we could do is putting Alberto "Torture" Gonzalez on the high court. That's the best case scenario.

The reason is simple. George Bush is in the White House and we only have 45 Democratic senators. Elections matter. And if you really want Supreme Court justices committed individual rights and freedoms, than you better be electing more Democrats.

Luckily, the DSCC (my employer) does just that. Two ways you can help them today.

1. Sign the Petition.

2. Make a Contribution.

I'll have more to say about the London Bombings this weekend, but for now, this is on my mind.

Like I said, my brother-in-law was in downtown London during today's horrible events. He wrote us with his account of what happened. Chilling.

Okay, so here's my update from what is more or less the epicenter for two of the attacks. At about 9 AM, I was on a bus coming from Camden Town into Euston Station, which is a few blocks from the British Library and Kings Cross Station. As I walked east down Euston Road, I was struck by the swarm of people coming at me, towards Euston -- I realize now that the Kings Cross tube had closed (the bomb had gone off at 8:56), and these people were flooding towards Euston. These people didn't know what had happened, the Underground thought the first two explosions were the result of power surges.

The BL didn't open until 9:30, so I sat outside having a coffee and reading the Guardian -- a few people around me commented on electrical problems on the Tube. Then I went in and worked in the Manuscript room until a senior colleague told me about the bombs. At the time they had secured the BL, and we could not leave, which was fine, we just all went back to work. Luckily I had WiFi, and was able to e-mail everybody Stateside before they woke up, so they would know right away I was okay.

The BL closed early, and the transport in Central London is now closed down, so I am stuck here (though it's only a 45 minute walk north to my digs). So I am holed up in a collegue's hotel room who also has free wireless. By coinicidence, this hotel is a block from Tavistock Place, where the bus was blown up, one hour after the tube blasts (which was deviously clever, when you think about it -- they waited till the buses were jammed 'cause the tubes were closed).

I feel very lucky -- two blasts happened right where I was, more or less when I was there.If I took the tube, instead of the bus, I would have been coming into King's Cross right at the time of the blasts (albeit, on a different line). The bus they blew runs along the route of the bus I took this morning. In fact, I took a bus home from pub crawl with colleagues last night that stopped where the bus blew up (the bus blew near Russell Square, almost equidistant between the British Library and the British Museum -- one of the police officials on the news mentioned that an American university was also close by -- that would be the FSU London Centre, where I taught for two semesters before coming to Hood). The second tube blast, at King Cross, took place at 8:56, right when I was getting off a bus about 4 blocks away. At this point 33 are confirmed dead, and they didn't count the bus blast. The images of the bus are frightening -- the top is peeled right off -- so there is sure to be a higher count by the end.

Things seem to returning to normal pretty quickly -- I'm watching the news, and a BritRail train is leaving Liverpool Station, where they first tube blast was -- everyone here remained extremely calm, almost no panic at all, which has helped immensely. It made me wonder whether a city in America would have reacted the same way. I was going tonight to see an experimental musical based on Smiths' songs -- that's been cancelled, but the good news is they booked me in at a higher priced ticket for tomorrow.

So, for now, though the Starbucks are closed, the freehouse pubs seem to be open, and my colleague and I (as soon as he is finished being interviewed by his hometown paper about all this) are going to a pub for a pint and some dinner. We haven't been able to get in touch with another colleague of ours, which is a little worrisome, of course, but we imagine he is okay. We will, though, be walking right by the blast site of the bus, I think.

So for now, that's what's up -- I'll stay safe, and update again if need be. Take care, everybody.

My brother-in-law was essentially walking around downtown London when the bombs went off. Thankfully, he's totally OK, but it's made today's events feel really close to home.

The massive outpouring of grief and support from around the world on September 11 was inspiring and comforting. I can only hope that the tears I shed today can provide some small fraction of that to Londoners dealing with the attacks. We are with you. We are all Brits today.

For those looking for anger or blame-casting or politics, please look somewhere else. Despite our differences, the only people to blame today are those who blew up innocent people on their way to work. There will be plenty of time for anger and politics tomorrow. Today, all I feel is a terrible, terrible sadness.

While in Cleveland, did I use the restaurant-provided crayons to scrawl anti-Ohio graffiti on the place-mats? Yes. Yes I did.