Three people are already in: umpire Hank O'Day from the early 1900's, one time Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert (who bought Babe Ruth from the RedSox), and Deacon White who was a catcher in the 1870's before they used gloves (ouch).

Ryan Grim and Sabrina Siddiqui of the Huffington Post got hold of a PowerPoint presentation for incoming members of Congress. It comes from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and lays out, as the authors says, "the dreary existence awaiting these new back-benchers." In particular note that they expect five hours out of every day to be devoted to fundraising (call time + strategic outreach).

That's no surprise, really. What's also no surprise, I suppose, is the number of hours they expect new members to engage in studying up on the issues. That number would be zero. I guess that's what staffers are for. No need to fill their beautiful minds with tedious policy stuff when there's money to be raised, after all. http://tinyurl.com/a7nm2mt

A communication professor known for conspiracy theories has stirred controversary at Florida Atlantic University with claims that last month's Newtown, Conn., school shootings did not happen as reported -- or may not have happened at all.

Moreover, James Tracy asserts in radio interviews and on his memoryholeblog.com. that trained "crisis actors" may have been employed by the Obama administration in an effort to shape public opinion in favor of the event's true purpose: gun control. [...]

Tracy said he believes the deaths at Sandy Hook may have resulted from a training exercise. "Was this to a certain degree constructed?" he said. "Was this a drill?

 With concerns of deja vu all over again with the Reverend  Rick Warren, albeit the presentation of the invocation at the first inaugural,  concerns were registered.   The Inaugural Committee, in  a statement, said that "we were not aware of Pastor Giglio's past comments at the time of his selection so they don't reflect  our desire to celebrate the strength of our diversity..."  

The Pastor, for his ungracious part, stated that the "prayer I would offer will be dwarfed by those seeking to make their agenda the focal point of the inauguration."   Effective pressure, good call.  

Sounds like someone heard the same bizarre factoid I did:

Including last night's game, all 15 BCS championship games ended with either the underdog winning (7) or the favorite beating the spread (8).

Many of us wish he'd kept his public promise of Nov 1962 and retired permanently from politics, but being Nixon, after he'd sobered up the next day, he was soon back at it, plotting his comeback, thinking of 1968.

I haven't heard much new about him in recent years to change my initial (1974) summing up:  he was one of the worst influences on American political life in history, and except for a few nice things he did in FP and in deciding mostly not to contest some liberal legislation from the Dem Congress, he was a malign presence in the WH, a madman who thought it a clever thing to engage in madman diplomacy with foreign adversaries.  Mentally unstable, in a nuclear era, and personally corrupt.

Harry Truman had him pegged correctly early on as a "lying shifty-eyed essobee" or similar, and named Nixon as one of only two pols in his career he truly despised.  Helen Gahagan Douglas also had hiim named correctly -- "Tricky Dick" (even as she had a blind spot as to another highly deceptive pol, Lyndon).

Bill Clinton was much too kind to him, and publicly too laudatory, while, natch, Nixon behind the scenes was dissing Bill and encouraging the anti-Clinton Republican counterattack.

Post-vice presidential life has been very good to Al Gore.

Thanks to the $500 million sale of his liberal news station Current TV to Al Jazeera this month, Gore now has a personal fortune of $300 million, Forbes magazine estimates. That puts him ahead of Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, whose estimated $230 million left him vulnerable to charges that he was out of touch with the common man.

As I understand it, the people selecting those who are awarded that honor are writers.

My interest is music. In particular, Jazz. I am not particularly knowledgeable about sports.

But I do know about the level of writing on the subject of Jazz.
It is abysmal. Ignorant. Self-serving. Agenda-ridden. People who can't feel Jazz, judge those who can. And then they write books. They make up facts. And other writers read the made-up facts and cite them. And then others cite the second generation of made-up facts. Then they become accepted as truths.

Overwrought. Overbearing. Overblown. Overlong. Relentless. Bombastic. And at times, pretentious.

"Les Mis" is often visually stunning, without a doubt, but while director Tom Hooper and his very game cast do try their level best to make it all work, the film ultimately collapses under its own excessive weight -- not the least of which has to have been everybody's high expectations for it.

I mean, I thought it was noble try, especially its first hour or so. But the film's world-class production values can't overcome the fact that its musical score is eminently unmemorable, which is probably not a good trait for a musical.

"Les Mis" just didn't work for me, and was thus a major disappointment, IMHO, because it surprisingly reminded me of John Huston's 1981 screen adaptation of "Annie." I wanted to like it, and I tried to like it, but in the end, I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Does "Les Mis" deserve an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, which is expected tomorrow morning by practically everyone who's anyone in Hollywood?

No. Not even close, in my estimation. If "Les mis" does get its expected passel of nominations, it'll be primarily due to the movie's hype, and not because of its substance. It would be interesting to know how many of those Academy members who voted for it -- the ballots are already in -- actually saw it before doing so.

San Francisco Chronicle | January 10, 2013
Jerry Brown: California's deficit is gone - "For the first time in five years, California is not facing a deficit as Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers work to put together a spending plan for the next fiscal year. Brown released his budget Thursday morning for the 2013-2014 fiscal year, proposing a $97.7 billion plan that is 5 percent higher than the current year's spending. [...] The budget represents a massive change for California's finances, which at their worst in February 2009 faced a $42 billion deficit. That resulted in emergency action on the budget as the state treasurer was unable to sell short term bonds, construction projects came to a halt and the controller was forced to send out IOUs instead of tax return checks."

I really hope Democrats on the east coast have been paying attention to what's happened in California over the last few years, because Jerry Brown & Co. have just given a primer on how to govern effectively as Democrats in the face of looming fiscal catastrophe and economic uncertainty.

"This budget finally puts California on a path to long-term fiscal stability. What must be avoided at all coats is the boom and bust, borrow and spend, of the last decade. Fiscal discipline is not the enemy of democratic governance, but rather its fundamental predicate. That is the spirit I trust will characterize our work together in the coming year."
- Gov. Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Budget Message to California Legislature (January 10, 2013)

Jerry Brown kept his word to voters, and performed as promised upon his return to the governor's office after 28 years. He made the tough budget calls, he stared down GOP radical obstructionism and marginalized that party's naysayers politically, and he banished the ghost of Howard Jarvis by securing voter approval of Prop. 30 to raise taxes as necessary. And after over a decade of floundering, the books are balanced and California is finally poised for its comeback.