Fitting - since it's the anniversary of the Newtown shooting.

All in all, at least 91 children were killed by deliberate gunfire in 2012.

On a recent afternoon, executives at Goldman Sachs invited a few hundred major investors to the Conrad Hotel in lower Manhattan. The bankers and their guests filed into a large room and turned their eyes to Hillary Clinton.

Ordinarily these masters of the universe might have groaned at the idea of a politician taking the microphone. In the contentious years since the crash of 2008, they've grown wearily accustomed to being called names--labeled "fat cats" by President Obama and worse by those on the left--and gotten used to being largely shunned by Tea Party Republicans for their association with the Washington establishment. And of course there are all those infuriating new rules and regulations, culminating this week with the imposition of the so-called Volcker Rule to make risky trades by big banks illegal.

But Clinton offered a message that the collected plutocrats found reassuring, according to accounts offered by several attendees, declaring that the banker-bashing so popular within both political parties was unproductive and indeed foolish. Striking a soothing note on the global financial crisis, she told the audience, in effect: We all got into this mess together, and we're all going to have to work together to get out of it. What the bankers heard her to say was just what they would hope for from a prospective presidential candidate: Beating up the finance industry isn't going to improve the economy--it needs to stop. And indeed Goldman's Tim O'Neill, who heads the bank's asset management business, introduced Clinton by saying how courageous she was for speaking at the bank. (Brave, perhaps, but also well-compensated: Clinton's minimum fee for paid remarks is $200,000).

Certainly, Clinton offered the money men--and, yes, they are mostly men--at Goldman's HQ a bit of a morale boost. "It was like, `Here's someone who doesn't want to vilify us but wants to get business back in the game,'" said an attendee. "Like, maybe here's someone who can lead us out of the wilderness."

Clinton's remarks were hardly a sweeping absolution for the sins of Wall Street, whose leaders she courted assiduously for financial support over a decade, as a senator and a presidential candidate in 2008. But they did register as a repudiation of some of the angry anti-Wall Street rhetoric emanating from liberals rallying behind the likes of Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). And perhaps even more than that, Clinton's presence offered a glimpse to a future in which Wall Street might repair its frayed political relationships.

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But rest assured, she was only doing it for the kids who watch her show, and anyway, can't you people take a phuquing joke? Besides, it's commercialism's fault that Santa is white.

I hereby offer the use of my bong with a free bowl full to any parent who forces his or her kids to watch Fox News, because clearly, you need it much more than I do. Of course, you'll have to wait your turn, because Jimmy Kimmel's not through using it.

Is it just me, or has anyone else also concluded that we're all living as extras in a Fellini film, and just don't realize it yet?

"Marxist ideology is wrong," the Pope told the Italian newspaper La Stampa in an interview published on Saturday. "But I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I don't feel offended."

O'Toole first burst on the scene with a spectacular debut in David Lean's sweeping 1962 epic, "Lawrence of Arabia." But speaking for myself only, I'll remember him as the swashbuckling, hard-partying Alan Swann, in Richard Benjamin's 1982 comedy "My favorite Year" -- "I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star!"

Los Angeles Times | December 13, 2013
Giant cross ordered removed in San Diego; supporters hope for appeal -- "SAN DIEGO -- Supporters of a giant cross atop Mt. Soledad are holding out hope for an appeal to a federal judge's order Thursday that the display be removed within 90 days as a violation of the separation of church and state. After two decades of legal and political wrangling, U.S. District Judge Larry Burns on Thursday issued the order, although he also issued a stay so that those defending the cross have time to appeal."

Supporters of the cross argue that it is a war memorial, but it really only became a war memorial in the 1990s, when the first veterans' placards were set in place. According to my tea party uncle who's lived in the San Diego area since 1948, the original intent of the Mt. Soledad cross -- first erected in 1954 -- was to serve as a none-too-subtle hint to Jews who might have otherwise desired to live in La Jolla, that the coastal enclave was very much a "Christian" community.

Given that the SCOTUS has already declined to hear the case, thus kicking it back down to the trial court for final disposition, this should be the end of the matter. Hopefully.

Authorities on Friday arrested a 58-year-old Wichita, Kan., man [Terry L. Loewen] who they said tried to commit a suicide bombing at the airport there.[...]

The bomb was inert, the complaint said. Mr. Loewen had constructed it with the help of a man he thought was tied to the al Qaeda arm based in Yemen, but the man was actually an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to the complaint.

Federal prosecutors aren't accusing Mr. Loewen of plotting with any actual terrorists. Instead, the complaint said, he communicated online over the summer and fall with another FBI employee who also pretended to be connected with al Qaeda's Yemeni arm, known as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

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And some one got executed for "dreaming different dreams" link

Last Saturday morning, in the immediate wake of Nelson Mandela's passing, "Woolie's" in Parkview (a district of Johannesburg) came up with a rather unique way to honor the late president, teaming up with the internationally renowned Soweto Gospel Choir in a moving flash mob tribute, by which choir members first posed as shoppers and clerks scattered throughout the grocery section of the store.

At 10:15 a.m., they broke into song with the spiritual "Asimbonanga" ("We Have Not Seen Him"), as they came together and passed out long-stemmed roses to surprised onlookers (many of whom were white), and most of whom were obviously touched by the seemingly impromptu musical offering to their country's beloved Tata Madiba.

Since SA Woolworth began airing the tribute on South African television, the video has gone viral around the world. It is scenes such as this which offers one confidence in and hope for the people of South Africa, as they begin to seek their way in a post-Mandela world.

link

But most important, Colorado and Washington must show skeptical federal authorities that they can control this new world of regulated marijuana, and keep it from flowing to underage consumers, into other states or into the grip of drug traffickers and violent cartels. Even as the Justice Department announced in August that it would not block states from regulating marijuana, it also warned that their enforcement rules "must be tough in practice, not just on paper."

The funeral service in Nelson Mandela's home village has just commenced. You can watch it HERE.

And the rest of last week's comics, for those who missed any.

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