Hagel's Extremely, Really Awful, Most Certainly Very Bad Day On Capitol Hill

WHAT CAN BE SAID, except Senator Hagel flunked his job interview today and will probably not get hired as President Obama's new Secretary of Defense? What ever was he thinking when he prepared to attend his Senate grilling? Questions with few answers, except that he may very well not get the job and many of his detractors are not disappointed. To say Hagel stumbled is an understatement. His preparation and performance were cringe-worthy, and he should not be confirmed. Very sad.

Guilty As Charged: Escaped From the Gray and Rain and Cold

BEACH LANDING THAT DOESN'T END SO WELL

THE LAPPING WAVES OF THE OCEAN, THE SMELL OF SALT AIR, THE LIGHT OF THE SUN. What's not to like after days---weeks---of dreary rain and gray and intermittent chilly weather?

Have I ever spoken here about how little I think of Colin Powell?  And what a disgrace he is as a faux member of the GOP?  He's really a liberal Dem and needs to cross-over and never look back.   Call it a politics-change-operation. He will never be missed.  What a racist ,and  bitter-depressed man he is, whining on Fox about how white people have used the word 'jive' and hurt blacks feelings.  They evidently now own that word for their exclusive use.   How pathetic that he's drunk the  racism coolaid.  Powell, once a giant of a man gets smaller by the hour.

Continuing, Sexuality and the Sin of Sodom

FROM ROSARIA BUTTERFIELD'S BOOK, The Secret Thoughts of An Unlikely Convert:

I began to understand....my sexuality was sinful not because it was lesbian, per se but because it wasn't Christ controlled. My heterosexual past was no more sanctified than my homosexual present. God had revealed that to me powerfully as I sat under the preaching of his word, as I read the Bible, and as I talked to other Christians in my church about what sexuality meant in God's economy. In understanding myself as a sexual being, responding to Jesus---committing my life to Christ---meant not going backwards to my heterosexual past, but going forward to something entirely new. At the time I thought that this would most likely be celibacy and the single life. Sexuality that did not devour the other person seemed unthinkable to me. And while I never really liked the idea of growing old alone, I accepted that if God could take me this far in life safely, he would see me through this next part too.

Every aspect of my life came under the scrutiny of my new Christian worldview. It was like someone turned the search light on and I couldn't dim the intensity. I understood why the Pharisee Saul was struck blind on the road to Damascus for three days from the light of the gospel! I learned that sin roots not in outward behaviors, but in patterns of thinking.

---Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Weekend Matinee: Armed Resistance and The Battle of Athens

               

GROUP OF WWII VETERANS RESTORE THE RULE OF LAW IN A SMALL TENNESSEE TOWN USING THEIR SECOND AMENDMENT FREEDOM IN 1946

THIS IS A LITTLE MOVIE OF A TRUE STORY FIT FOR JOHN WAYNE OR RONALD REAGAN.    If you don't believe me, take a chair and prepare to be amazed. Here a group of patriotic veterans return to a town taken over by a fraudulent political machine headed by the Cantrell family.

People in Athens had been bullied and threatened for years;  voter fraud was rampant.

Finally these brave veterans had enough and took matters into their own hands. Former gun-toting Diane Feinstein should listen up:  No one is going to take our guns away.  The Second Amendment is just too precious and vital to our freedoms, the rule of law and concept of federalism.  I have My Bad Influence to thank for sending this yesterday with the added note:  Is this fact or fiction?

The correct answer: it's all true.  True in 1946.  It remains to be seen if it's true again. This is precisely why the Second Amendment is in the Bill of Rights---to guard against government tyranny on all levels, at all times.

Here's another short video on The Battle of Athens and machine politics of Tennessee at the time:



More on The Battle of Athens.

Compliments of Hillary: If I Were Looking For A New Cottage Industry....Here It Is

PROVERBS FROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE

CAN'T YOU JUST SEE IT? AN OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME: A little company designed to grind out t-shirts, bumper stickers, key rings, jewelry, baseball hats, signs, music, coffee mugs and underwear starting with one simple phrase: What Difference Does It Make?!

Let's see. First t-shirts with Beyonce lip-syncing the national anthem. Then, Hillary testifying before Congress on Benghazi. Pro-Lifers can list the millions and millions of unborn babies aborted since Roe-v-Wade followed by the phrase. We can show the Constitution being shredded by executive fiat, followed by the phrase What Difference Does It Make? Then there's the shrinking dollar due to the Fed's out-of-control money printing and Congress' gargantuan spending spree.

Truly, the possibilities are limitless! I'm sure the presses and 3-D printers are already rolling out new products even as I write.  It's a fun business idea and you never know from day-to-day what new material will materialize out of thin air. Take yesterday on Drudge....the president was shown with a pesky fly on his face. What about instead of fly man we instead do  Lord of the Flies?

Rescue! Not A Great Day On the River

WARREN COUNTY RESCUE SQUAD RESCUES TWO MEN BEFORE LETTING THE BOAT GO OVER THE DAM.
WAS A BEAUTIFUL, WARM DAY IN MY OLD HOMETOWN of McMinnville, Tennessee last Sunday. Perfect for an afternoon of fishing.

Unfortuanly for these two fellows, the swift current---after 8  solid days of rain---was too much for  their boat which ended up perched, dangling by a thread on the edge of a dam's precipice for three hours.  The Warren County Rescue Squad finally dragged them back from the brink. Wow!

No doubt,  they all had tales to tell when they got home.  Just not about fishing.

Source: Southern Standard

Sunday, More Wisdom with Rosaria

FOR THE PAST TWO WEEKS, I'VE POSTED EXCERPTS from Rosaria Champagne Butterfield's stunning book, The Secrets Thoughts of An Unlikely Convert, which I cannot recommend highly enough for anyone, ANYONE, who wants a deeper walk with Christ. Week 1 here, Week 2 here.

Through her conversion and subsequent Bible study, she realizes that pride or going our own independent way, not sexual impropriety, is at the base of every sin. Sodom was not completely destroyed because of homosexuality and depravity but rather because of pride as well as its lack of humility, discretion and compassion for the poor and outcast and preoccupation with entertainment and wealth of all kinds.

Let us take up there:

But God is a God of mercy, redemption, second-chances, and salvation. And therefore, when Jesus uses Sodom as an example during his ministry on earth, the examply reveals that God is angrier at the religious people (the legalistic Pharisees) of Jesus' day than the inhabitants of Sodom. Jesus says this to God's people in Capernaum:

And you Capernum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which wer done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you. (Matthew 11:23-24)....

These passages also convicted me that homosexuality---like ALL sin--- is symptomatic and not causal---that is it tells us where our heart has been, no who we inherently are or what we are destined to become.

These passages forced me to see pride and not sexual orientation as the root sin. In turn, this shaped the way I reflected on my whole life, in the context of the Word of God. I realized that my sexuality had never been pure and my relationships never honored the other person or the Lord. My moral code encompassed serial monogamy, 'safe' sex, and sex only in the context of love. Love, grounded only in personal feelings as mine had been, changes without warming or logic. The truth is....outside of Christ, I am a manipulator, liar, power-monger, and controller. In my relationships with men and women, I had to be in charge. I killed with kindness, and slayed with gifts.....

---Rosaria Butterfield

Amen sister...and.to be continued....next week she takes on quick evangelical believism.

Behind Lance Armstrong's Most Recent Tour de Foie Gras

GEORGE WILL: TIME BOMB OF OBAMACARE MAY MEAN IT'S UNFEASIBLE AFTER ALL

REED ALBERGOTTI AND VANESSA O'CONNELL HAVE DONE a bang-up job of investigative reporting as to why Lance Armstrong----after 15 years of doping, drugs, deceit with massive threats and recriminations to whistle blowers----finally decided to come clean and squeal on himself with Oprah. Today's WSJ has the piece Behind Lance Armstrong's Decision To Talk and it's well, well worth reading.   If the interviews left you speechless, you'll be struck dumb after this.

The reporters shed light on motivation and timing behind Lance's confession.  I'll be back later with the few comments on this disgraceful and embarassing story of pride, hubris, arrogance, and self-delusion that evidently know no bounds.  God can redeem Lance and his past and I pray that happens.  Meanwhile,  he's a fallen dead man living in a culture that idolizes fame, fortune, power and self-adulation.  None of us can claim we haven't been there.  Only by the Grace of God can we not stay there.

Obama To the Little Children

MY CHILDREN, SANDY HOOK WAS TERRIBLE, HORRIFIC but beyond that, we want to keep each and every one of you alive as long as we can, so we can strap trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars of our spending---and my spending---on your little backs and shoulders and make you slaves of the state when you grow up!

It's you little buggers who are going  to pay for MY spending---and we have no intention of stopping anytime soon!

So yes, we'll try to keep you safe from deranged people who want to use high-tech weapons, but not from the deranged power of the federal tax man when you're a little older.

Jessica and Salma Shine In Black

WHILE I DIDN'T WATCH THE GOLDEN GLOBES SUNDAY, I did see lots of photos of actresses walking the red carpet, and as usual except for a scant few, didn't see anything that particularly thrilled me. To wit, I did not like Jessica Chastain's hair or dress during the awards ceremony. But WOW! did she ever redeem herself at the after-party. Get a load of this:

Doesn't she look good, like a woman should? Recombing her hair from that silly center part earlier in the evening (who praytell talked her into that?) and adding a snappy black cocktail dress to her great figure and perfect pair of gams made all the difference. She's a mighty acting talent who has paid her dues and clearly enjoying her moment of recognition for playing most recently in Zero Dark Thirty.

And speaking of ZD30, I saw it last weekend with HG and thought it was extremely well-done and----wait for it---very pro-American. Go if for no other reason than to see the torture scenes of the first 20-30 minutes of the film.While nobody I like likes torture,  I can't see how it could make you anything but proud of how useful it can be in extreme circumstances, like after 9-11. Even as Hollywood whines about how bad torture is, who are they to talk? anyway, after all the non-sensical violent films they've churned out en masse over the past 50+ years?? What a ridiculous cultural double standard Hollywood uses.  Hollywood is the consummate hypocrite.

But getting back to black: below is a pic of Salma in what I think is the most stunning gown on the Globes red carpet. When you get down to it, even if you search the fashion world over,  simple, elegant black always takes the prize in my playbook. While Salma is a little too over-ripe and busty looking for my taste, and won't be nearly as svelte in middle age,  she is a great looking woman who knows how to dress and make the most of her fortunate good looks:
 

Beating the Market With Orlando

ROGER KIMBALL:  SANDY WRECKED OUR HOUSE BUT BUREAUCRATS ARE KEEPING IT WRECKED

GOT MOUSE?

A PANEL OF SO CALLED STOCK-PICKING EXPERTS HAVE BEEN UPSTAGED BY A GINGER FELINE NAMED ORLANDO. This clip from The Guardian says it all:

The Observer's panel of stock-picking professionals has been undone in our 2012 investment challenge by a ginger feline called Orlando who spent time paw-ing over the FT. The Observer portfolio challenge pitted professionals Justin Urquhart Stewart of wealth managers Seven Investment Management, Paul Kavanagh of stockbrokers Killick & Co, and Schroders fund manager Andy Brough against students from John Warner School in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire – and Orlando. Each team invested a notional £5,000 in five companies from the FTSE All-Share index at the start of the year. After every three months, they could exchange any stocks, replacing them with others from the index. By the end of September the professionals had generated £497 of profit compared with £292 managed by Orlando. But an unexpected turnaround in the final quarter has resulted in the cat's portfolio increasing by an average of 4.2% to end the year at £5,542.60, compared with the professionals' £5,176.60. While the professionals used their decades of investment knowledge and traditional stock-picking methods, the cat selected stocks by throwing his favourite toy mouse on a grid of numbers allocated to different companies.

Are there take-home lessons here? Perhaps. Like don't take yourself or your expertise too seriously. Josh Brown has more @ The Reformed Broker---Chasing the Cat. 

I won't be replacing my money guys anytime soon no matter what!

Hollywood Wins Best

NEO @ PJMEDIA: WITH MASS MURDERS, MANY OFTEN COME FROM IN-TACT FAMILIES

OVER DECADES, Hollywood has taken every prize in promoting violence of all kinds as a primary way to solve problems and interpersonal conflicts and become notorious. Is it any wonder we've come to where we are today? What's wrong in America is not guns, and never will be. It's the glamorizing of violence over decades of time in movies, television, video games and music----accessible to our children 24-7-365---that's staring us down the barrel. Add to that high-tech weapons mixed often with anti-depressants and high-tech drugs of all kinds and we have a much more complicated and entrenched violent culture with no quick or easy answers.

 President Obama and his congressional cronies continue to point fingers at the NRA, GOP as if it's all their fault and passing a few laws will solve the problem. What a joke. No matter what we do at this point, it won't stop  random shootings and violence.  It's too embedded in the culture and cutting it out by curtailing Second Amendment rights would do more damage than good to our Republic.  

Never in the history of this country has viewer discretion, parental discretion with our children, and ourselves been more desperately needed in all  sectors of  culture. I mean who wants to pay for their kids to go see Madonna with a narcissistic machine gun bra?  Nothing could be more boring or ridiculous to an adult, but to an impressionable kid it's a vastly different story.

For the record,  I have no problem in restricting semi-automatic and assault weapons in the general population.  However now there's  a huge black market for them,  like drugs, that transactions will go underground but are not ever going to dry up.  Better drug and mental health testing and screening might help curb some of this.

Sunday---The Defining Sin of Sodom

UPDATE:  HOW STANLEY AND KELLER PREACH THE GOSPEL WITH NON-BELIEVERS IN MIND

CONTINUING FROM LAST WEEK'S POST as I except from Rosaria Champagne Butterfield's book The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. The author comments on what she is realizing from a passage in Ezekiel and how she sees that homosexuality was not a defining sin of Sodom but rather a secondary symptom of other sin stemming from other more serious sins:

As I live," says the Lord God, "neither your sister Sodom nor her daughters have done as you and your daughters have done. Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw fit."

---Ezekiel 16:48-50

Rosaria writes that after pride and wealth that produces idleness and an entertainment driven society, there's more that God had against Sodom:

Third, we find lack of mercy ("neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy"). Refusing to be the merciful neighbor in the extreme terms exemplified by the Samaritan traveler to his cultural enemy left to die on the road to Jericho in Luke 10:25-37 leads to egregious sin. I think this was a shocking truth and I image that most Bible-believing Christian would be horrified to see this truth exposed in such bare terms!

God calls us to be merciful to others for our own good as well as for the good of our community. Our hearts will become hard to the whispers of God if we turn our backs on those who have less than we do.

Fourth, we find a lack of discretion and modesty---"they were haughty and committed abomination before Me". Pride combined with with wealth leads to idleness because you falsely feel that God just wants you to have fun---If unchecked, this sin will grow into entertainment driven lust---If unchecked this sin will grow into hardness of heart that declares other people's problems no responsibility or care of your own---If unchecked, we become bold in our sin and feel entitled to live selfish lives fueled by the twin cultural values of acquiring and achieving.

Modesty and discretion are not old-fashioned values. They are God's standards that help us to encourage one another in good works rather than covetousness.

You might notice that there is nothing inherently sexual about any of these sins:  pride, wealth, entertainment driven focus, lack of mercy, lack of modesty.  We like to think that sin is contained by categories of logic or psychology.  It's not. So why do we assume that sexual sin of all kinds has sexual or affectual origins? 

That is because we have too narrow a focus about sexuality's purview. Sexuality isn't about what we do in bed. Sexuality encompasses a whole range of needs, demands and desires.

Sexuality is more a symptom of our life's condition than a cause, more a consequence than an origin.

Importantly, we don't see God making fun of homosexuality or regarding it as different or an exotic sin.  What we see  instead is God's warning:  if you indulge the sins of pride, the preeminence of wealth, entertainment lust, lack of mercy and lack of discretion, you will find yourself deep in sin---and the type of sin may surprise you. Sin, if ignored, excused or enjoyed progresses, grows, spreads like Poison Ivy.....

-----Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, Secret Thoughts of An Unlikely Convert

Will plan to do more next week.  As an after-thought I remember this verse from 1 Peter:

God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5).

This applies to all people---all of us--across the board.  After reading and thinking about Rosaria's above piece,  it's interesting to note that the gay community's favorite slogan is gay pride.  God's response would probably be....Exactly!....only God would be referring to pride that goes before being gay, rather than after.

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18)  This applies to everyone.

In God's economy, pride is the sin lurking beneath all  other sin.  All sin is predicated on pride, especially spiritual pride which is going our own way outside of  seeking God's will or obeying his Word.  However, in the fallen world, pride is evidently seen as  virtue.  I do understand that pride in the gay world is meant to overcome and neutralize shame.  However, in God's world human shame in all its myriad forms which is certainly not limited to gays, is always overcome in only One Way:  a  personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

At Red Rocks: Favorite Group, Favorite New Song

TERRIFIC SONG BY A GREAT NEW BRITISH GROUP. I owe my favorite son a debt of gratitude for introducing me to Mumford and Sons. It's a ten.  And the Red Rocks---thanks Bob---venue couldn't be better.

Amazing Photos of Family Taking Refuge Under Jetty From Raging Fire in Australia

Ennui, Dreary Weather Begs For Humor, Poetry

WIND CHILL---VANDERLEUN HAS THE MOST FETCHING WINTER POEM

I ADMIT THESE EARLY, DREAY DAYS OF JANUARY coupled with gray skies and recovery from a cold have left me in a strange state of unenthusiasm for much of anything pertaining to politics, economics, guns, royal pregnancies, glamor, beach fashion or anything else that's at the top of the current news scroll.  I'm in a major down time.

It will surely pass. Meantime, I'm the queen of dull.

 Think I've laughed out loud only twice in the past week---the above video which I saw on Ann Althouse being one of them. What that says about the state of my intellectual curiosity or attention span is not good. However, this is the only thing I feel like posting today and hope you also find this bit of ridiculous prankster humor sorta fun too. *******

Last year, at the beginning of 2012, I vowed to spend less time online and more time in real life. I actually succeeded in doing this and it wasn't that hard. This year, I intend to build on that and spend even more time offline. Sure with smartphones being a click away is always a temptation. But when you have other things you value and love, it's possible. I mean how much time do you really want to spend checking the Drudge Report which is getting more and more tabloid and emotionally crazy-making? Not me.

 More and more,  I'm starting to go to Yahoo and Google News for a quick look and then to some of my favorite more in-depth sites with commentary. It gets easier to stay away the more one practices. Today, Marks Daily Apple has a piece on reclaiming your life: 13 Ways To Spend Less Time Online and Reclaim Your Life. I intend to take many of these suggestions to heart and put them into practice.

A Few Words About SEC Football and the Alabama-Nortre Dame Game

HEAVEN KNOWS, I'M NO SPORTS EXPERT. AND HAVE ZERO AGENDA IN SPIKING THE FOOTBALL.

 Having said that, last night's BCS College Championship game between Alabama and Notre Dame is another testament to some undeniable truths:

1. SEC football rules in America. Period. Stanford, Oregon or Notre Dame no matter how good in their leagues, cannot begin to hold a candle to the tough guy, well-disciplined SEC heavy-hitters.

2. A team of nice slow white guys will never win over a gang of fast, heavy black boys who play with some smart country white boys with good looking, voluptuous girl friends who happen to be Miss Alabama.

3. Good colleges in the  north and east can't begin to compete for players against the SEC powers-that-be in the football recruitment department.  High school players want to go where the surest football action is, and it ain't anywhere on earth but the Southeastern conference.

4.  SEC college football, and specifically Alabama football, did more for voluntary intergration in the South than any single factor. Bear Bryant and his all-white football team simply got tired of being routed by integrated teams from the likes of LA.

5.  3/4 BCS crystal footballs in four years ain't too shabby for SEC Pwerhouse Alabama.
 
6. Nick Saban is---with complete dedication--- one of the greatest football coaches of all time. Whatta guy!

Sunday An Excerpt--- Repentance and the Sin of Sodom

WAS HOMOSEXUALITY THE REASON FOR SODOM'S TOTAL DESTRUCTION BY GOD IN GENESIS?

AM STARTING TO COME BACK FROM A MISERABLE POST-CHRISTMAS COLD/FLU but think I'm up for this fairly long and extremely important post.

What follows is an excerpt from Rosaria Champagne Butterfield's dazzling book, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, and deals with the question of whether homosexuality was the defining sin of Sodom that caused its total destruction in the Old Testament. I will post more next week, if I don't get it all done today:

*******

In April 1999, I felt the call of Jesus Christ upon my life. It was both subtle and blatant, like the peace inside the eye of the hurricane. I could in no way resist and I in no way understood what would become of my life.....How did I know it was Jesus? Maybe it was my Catholic guilt, my caffeine-driven subconscious, or last night's curry tofu? Well, I didn't. But I believed----and believe----it was Jesus.

At this time I was just starting to pray that God would show me my sins and help me to repent of them. I didn't understand why homosexuality was a sin, why something in the particular manifestation of same-gender love was wrong in itself. But I did know pride was a sin and so decided to start there.

As I began to pray and repent, I wondered: could pride be the root of all my sins? I wondered: what was the real sin of Sodom?

I had always thought that God's judgment upon Sodom (in Genesis 19) clearly singled out and targeted homosexuality, I believed that God's judgment against Sodom exemplified the fiercest of God's judgments. But as I read more deeply in the Bible, I ran across a passage that made me stop and think. This passage in the book of Ezekiel reveal to me that Sodom was indicted for materialism and neglect of the poor and needy---and that homosexuality was a symptom and an extensnion of these other sins.

In this passage, God is speaking to his chosen people in Jerusalem and warning them about their hidden sin using Sodom as an example. Importantly, God does not say that this sin---the practice of homosexuality---is the worst of all sins. Instead God uses the sin of Sodom to reveal the greater sin committed by his own people:

"As I live," says the Lord God, "neither your sister Sodom nor her daughters have done as you and your daughters have done. Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw fit."

I found this passage to reveal some surprising things. In it, God is comparing Jerusalem to Sodom and saying that Sodom's sin was less offensive to God than Jerusalem's.

Next, God tells us what is at the root of homosexuality, and what the progression of sin is. We read that the root of homosexuality is also the root of a myriad of other sins. 

First, we find pride----Sodom and her daughters had pride.  Why pride? Because pride is the root of all sin. Pride puffs one up with a false sense of independence.  Proud people always feel that they can live independently from God and from other people. Proud people feel entitled to do what they want when they want to.

Second, we find wealth---fullness of food---and an entertainment driven worldview---abundance of idleness.  Living according to God's standards is an acquired taste.  We develop a taste for godly living only by intentionally putting into place practices that equip us to live below our means.

We develop a taste for God's standards only by disciplining our minds, hands, money and time.  In God's economy, what we love we will discipline.  God did not create us so that we would, as the the title of an early book on postmodernism declares, 'amuse ourselves to death.'

Undisciplined taste will always lead to egregious sin---slowly and almost imperceptibly.

(I'll continue this next Sunday, God willing.) 

God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5).

Interesting to note that the favorite slogan of the gay community is Gay Pride! isn't it?

Got Leopard? A Few Fashion Tips From The Telegraph

NICE LITTLE SLIDE SHOW FOR THESE BLEAK WINTER GRAYS.

Saturday, Two Greats: Johnny Football Triumphs and Notre Dame Makes A Comeback

STUART SCHNEIDERMAN ASKS AND ANSWERS: DO WOMEN LIKE HILLARY?

IT'S OFTEN SAID, JOHNNY MANZIEL aka Johnny Football, freshman starting quarterback at Texas A&M is too good a football player to be a white boy. Be that as it may, Friday's dazzling Cotton Bowl win--pitting the Texas Aggies against Oklahoma--only proves that Johnny has more than earned his nickname and then some.

  It's always fun to read a little about a sports sensation. It makes watching even more interesting and fun. Anyway, here's his background in case you don't know it.  It's also interestiing to note, Johnny got into a scuffle with a friend last summer and ended up spending a night in jail.  Calling it a critical mistake in his life,  Johnny now says he's learned a lot from from his run in with the law and has had to make a number of changes in his life.

Clearly and forotunately, his episode last summer didn't hurt his running or passing game last night.

Another good football story is the comeback of Notre Dame.  Former champion coach for ND,  Lou Holtz sat down the the WSJ and talked recently about why and how he predicted  it was going to happen.  ND faces Alabama Monday night in the NCAA championship game. God willing,  I'll be there watching with HG!

Cruzing Into Town For Opportunity, Is Not Lost

KUDLOW: 1 CHEER FOR THE FISCAL CLIFF DEAL, 2 THUMBS DOWN

SENATOR TED CRUZ FROM RED-STATE TEXAS. What a breath of fresh air in a city of increasing dismal air quality and mean-house gases.

Maybe he can successfully reframe conservatism in refreshing new ways. He certainly gets off to a roaring good start with this piece in the WaPo today:

WHAT THE GOP SHOULD STAND FOR: OPPORTUNITY ....

(Criticizing) the overall narrative of Republicans:

Voters were convinced that the GOP is the party of “the rich” and that Democrats are the party of everybody else. That characterization is false, but as long as a majority of Americans believe that Republican policies do not benefit them, Republicans will continue to lose.

And far too many Republicans believe it as well.

So let me suggest an alternative course: opportunity conservatism. Republicans should conceptualize and articulate every domestic policy with a single-minded focus on easing the ascent up the economic ladder. We should assess policy with a Rawlsian lens, asking how it affects those least well-off among us. We should champion the 47 percent.

Couldn't agree more. Here's a great piece on the art of gentle persuasion @ WSJ that should be useful to Ted and his fellow conservatives.

I Win, Country Loses

CHRIS CHRISTIE EXPLODES VANDERLEUN'S CLEVER REJOINDER

IN TWO MONTHS, WE'RE BACK TO A BIGGER CLIFF and putting trillions more in debt on our childrens' and their childrens' backs. In other words, we're enslaving them and us with unimaginable, unbearable obligations.

And, charitable deductions from big donors in 2013 will go down.

Governor Chris Christie has a melt down. He's a dem in the making. Call him what you may, I call him a slob whining to the feds.

Disgraceful What Happened In the House

 TOTAL AND COMPLETE SURRENDER?

WHERE THINGS STAND VIA BREITBART NEWS:

It’s unclear if House Republicans will support the bill tonight that passed the Senate around 2 a.m. Tuesday morning by an 89-8 vote. Only five Senate Republicans--Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Richard Shelby of Alabama--voted against the deal. Three Senate Democrats joined them. If less than 50 percent of House Republicans support the deal in caucus, principle would require Boehner to refuse to bring the bill to the floor of the House for a vote.

MORE: Unravelling

New Year's Eve Night---The Shortest Hitters

AFTER A NICE EARLY DINNER, ONE GLASS OF RED WINE with a great friend and dinner partner, we proceeded to go straight to football watching. What's a girl to do but chill after weeks of non-stop activity and be a scintillating-not! New Year's Eve companion?  Snickers the Cat took full advantage and colluded to have the camera brought out without permission as she climbed aboard for her long winter's nap and photo-op. Some of us are simply not wired to be night people---especially in the dead of winter when the sleeping is worldclass---but call us at 5 am, we're totally wired and ready for whatever the day, the year brings.

Wishing you the best of health, sanity and happiness in 2013 and beyond.

BTW:  My favorite, amazing books of 2012:  Law Man by Shon Hopwood, Anywhere I Wind Up by R.A. Dickey,  Secrets Thoughts of An Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Butterfield,  Wheat Belly by William Davis, M D, Primal Blueprint by Mark Sissoms.