An international classic given the world nearly 190 years ago by an Englishman named Clement Clark Moore. It is performed here by Dick Van Dyke and the Vantastix. Enjoy as you prepare for your own celebration.
THIS IS A SPECIAL YEAR WHEN HANUKKAH BRACKETS CHRISTMAS
As Jews celebrate the 8 days of Hanukkah this year, a rare thing is happening. Hanukkah, December 20-27, is bracketing Christmas.
Hanukkah is the celebration of the completion of the rebuilt Second Temple and marks miracles given the Jews from G-d during the Temple dedication. The rebuilt Temple was the grand legacy of King Herod the Great. The rebuilt Temple was a larger more glorious structure than the original Solomon’s Temple and the Second Temple It was likely completed less than 10 years before the birth of Jesus Christ and was essential in His birth as well as His last Passover week.
Christmas is, of course, always celebrated on December 25th by all Western Christians. Christians do not observe Hanukkah. Perhaps we should.
The Church in Rome established the celebratory observance of the birth of Christ to co-opt the pagan celebration that marked getting through another winter solstice. But this “political” decision allowed for the occasional bracketing of Christmas by Hanukkah. Clearly King Herod used the rebuilt Second Temple for his own ego and glory. But G-d (to honor all Jews celebrating Hanukkah) used Herod’s ego for His purpose and His glory.
That link above gives you a wonderful explanation of the Hanukkah miracles.
Posted in Advent and Christmas
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MITT ROMNEY ON OBAMACARE: REPEAL THE BAD AND KEEP THE GOOD
Different Candidates, Different Minds
Governor Romney’s fix for Obamacare is to sort through the 327,911 words on more than 2,700 dirty pages. Watch:
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, on the other hand, is determined to start with a clean sheet of paper, “I will not rest until we repeal Obamacare.”
Posted in 2012, Reclaiming and Restoring America
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“ALL AMERICANS HAVE THE RIGHT TO RISE,” CONGRESSMAN PAUL RYAN
Jefferson enumerated “life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness” among our God given rights. Speaking at the Heritage Foundation, Congressman Paul Ryan called our Liberty and our right to pursuit happiness, “The right to rise.”
(Watch his whole speech.)
Today Governor Jeb Bush wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal putting Ryan’s argument in his own terms:
Capitalism and the Right to Rise
In freedom lies the risk of failure. But in statism lies the certainty of stagnation
Congressman Paul Ryan recently coined a smart phrase to describe the core concept of economic freedom: “The right to rise.”
Think about it. We talk about the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to assembly. The right to rise doesn’t seem like something we should have to protect.
But we do. We have to make it easier for people to do the things that allow them to rise. We have to let them compete. We need to let people fight for business. We need to let people take risks. We need to let people fail. We need to let people suffer the consequences of bad decisions. And we need to let people enjoy the fruits of good decisions, even good luck.
That is what economic freedom looks like. Freedom to succeed as well as to fail, freedom to do something or nothing. People understand this. Freedom of speech, for example, means that we put up with a lot of verbal and visual garbage in order to make sure that individuals have the right to say what needs to be said, even when it is inconvenient or unpopular. We forgive the sacrifices of free speech because we value its blessings.
But when it comes to economic freedom, we are less forgiving of the cycles of growth and loss, of trial and error, and of failure and success that are part of the realities of the marketplace and life itself.
Increasingly, we have let our elected officials abridge our own economic freedoms through the annual passage of thousands of laws and their associated regulations. We see human tragedy and we demand a regulation to prevent it. We see a criminal fraud and we demand more laws. We see an industry dying and we demand it be saved. Each time, we demand “Do something . . . anything.”
As Florida’s governor for eight years, I was asked to “do something” almost every day. Many times I resisted through vetoes but many times I succumbed. And I wasn’t alone. Mayors, county chairs, governors and presidents never think their laws will harm the free market. But cumulatively, they do, and we have now imperiled the right to rise.
Woe to the elected leader who fails to deliver a multipoint plan for economic success, driven by specific government action. “Trust in the dynamism of the market” is not a phrase in today’s political lexicon.
Have we lost faith in the free-market system of entrepreneurial capitalism? Are we no longer willing to place our trust in the creative chaos unleashed by millions of people pursuing their own best economic interests?
The right to rise does not require a libertarian utopia to exist. Rather, it requires fewer, simpler and more outcome-oriented rules. Rules for which an honest cost-benefit analysis is done before their imposition. Rules that sunset so they can be eliminated or adjusted as conditions change. Rules that have disputes resolved faster and less expensively through arbitration than litigation.
In Washington, D.C., rules are going in the opposite direction. They are exploding in reach and complexity. They are created under a cloud of uncertainty, and years after their passage nobody really knows how they will work.
We either can go down the road we are on, a road where the individual is allowed to succeed only so much before being punished with ruinous taxation, where commerce ignores government action at its own peril, and where the state decides how a massive share of the economy’s resources should be spent.
Or we can return to the road we once knew and which has served us well: a road where individuals acting freely and with little restraint are able to pursue fortune and prosperity as they see fit, a road where the government’s role is not to shape the marketplace but to help prepare its citizens to prosper from it.
In short, we must choose between the straight line promised by the statists and the jagged line of economic freedom. The straight line of gradual and controlled growth is what the statists promise but can never deliver. The jagged line offers no guarantees but has a powerful record of delivering the most prosperity and the most opportunity to the most people. We cannot possibly know in advance what freedom promises for 312 million individuals. But unless we are willing to explore the jagged line of freedom, we will be stuck with the straight line. And the straight line, it turns out, is a flat line.
IT WAS A TOUGH ROAD FROM NAZARATH TO BETHLEHEM
And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. 2(And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) 3And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. 4And Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, unto the City of David which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of David) 5to be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, who was great with child.
We honor the birth of Jesus Christ December 25. The 90 mile trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem and the birth of the Savior was almost certainly in September. (The Bible doesn’t say) We picture Mary riding a donkey. She may have or she may have walked. The Bible does not record that either. We know for a very pregnant girl, riding or walking, this was a difficult road. There were many difficulties and dangers including thieves—especially the last 40-50 miles before Jerusalem.
This is a figurine (available here) depicting the wear and tear of the trip.
Posted in Advent and Christmas
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GOT 5 MINUTES? ACCEPT THIS 2011 CHRISTMAS GIFT FROM THE CARLSON SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT
The Curtis L. Carlson School of Management is the Business College at the University of Minnesota—just down the road from my place. It is the scene of a surprise “Flash Mob” invasion from the U of M School of Music in November. Their “Deck the Halls” went viral. You may be busy; take a five minute break. You’ll feel a smile of joy develop. Then, please—go out and randomly wish people a blessed Christmas. Can’t get out? Call someone and send an email linking this treat. Here ya go:
Posted in Defending Christianity
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AN ARKANSAS SCHOOL TAKES A STAND AGAINST THE SECULAR DESTROYERS OF AMERICA
We post an entire article on rare occasions. Today is one. This Blaze story is another example of citizens courageously stepping forward to oppose the destruction of America.
Public School Defends Posting Nativity Scene Despite Potential Church-State Challenges
A superintendent at Green County Tech Primary School in Paragould, Arkansas, is taking a strong stance in support of a Nativity scene at an elementary school in his district — a scene that has been posted for 20 years without incident.
After ordering the bulletin board be taken down, Superintendent Jerry Noble has decided to allow it once again.
The traditional Nativity scene includes the words, “Happy Birthday, Jesus,” which Noble, a Christian, is adamantly defending. After receiving two complaints this year, the superintendent initially consulted with lawyers and decided to remove the Nativity. But — the community’s reaction led to a change of heart.
“Enough is enough,” Noble explains. “It’s His birthday. We celebrate Jesus’ birthday. One person should not be offended by that. We don’t leave it up all year. We’re not promoting religion. It’s not an effort to convert anybody.”
He explains that he initially removed the Nativity, because he didn’t want to put the school district at risk. “I could not take it upon myself to get the school in a legal entanglement over separation of church and state because we would have to use tax dollars to fight it and that’s not my job to do that,” he explained. But once he removed the display, the community criticized the decision.
Then, a group came forward to support the school if and when a legal challenge against the display was waged. So, Noble decided to put the board up again. “To be honest with you, we offended a lot more people by taking it down than leaving it up,” he said
The Paragould Daily Press has more about the legal issues potentially facing the district:
…the school district’s attorney, Donn Mixon, who advised him to have the decoration removed. Mixon admitted he was not given all of the details surrounding the controversy and was simply asked whether a nativity scene displayed in a public school was a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. […]
“I gave the opinion that yes I believe, based upon what I was told about it, that if challenged, it could well violate the First Amendment,” Mixon said. “Prayer at graduation, the posting of the Ten Commandments, those are all issues that have been litigated under that establishment clause. The courts have generally held that if public schools do those types of things… that can violate the Establishment Clause.”
The district’s pro-Nativity stance is already frustrating those opposed to Noble’s actions. The American Civil Liberties Union Arkansas (ACLU) has already said that the school must abide by the Constitution. Rita Sklar, the state’s ACLU director, has come out strong, saying that it’s sad to see Noble and others not respecting the First Amendment. Fox News Radio has more about the controversy:
The Nativity scene was erected by Kay Williams, a counselor at the primary school. She’s been doing it for more than 20 years without any hint of controversy.
“We do live in the Bible Belt,” Williams told the Paragould Daily Press. “One thing that really disturbed most of [the supporters] was we hear about things like this all the time in other parts of the country. But, this is kind of a first for the Bible Belt, here in Arkansas.”
Noble says that Christians have been silent for too long.
BUSH vs OBAMA: YEARNING FOR CLASS IN THE PRESIDENCY
I’m reprinting, without attribution, one of those forwarded emails. The originator is anonymous. (I have checked the accuracy of the selections.)
The Difference Between “Class” and “an Ass”
George W. Bush statement December 14, 2003 announcing the capture of Saddam Hussein.
Good afternoon. Yesterday, December the 13th, at around 8:30 p.m. Baghdad time, United States military forces captured Saddam Hussein alive. He was found near a farmhouse outside the city of Tikrit, in a swift raid conducted without casualties. And now the former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions. . . .
. . . The success of yesterday’s mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq. The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator’s footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers in the hunt for members of the fallen regime, and in their effort to bring hope and freedom to the Iraqi people. Their work continues, and so do the risks. Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate ’em.
And Now Classless
The Obama Speech May 1, 2011
. . . And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of my war against al Qaeda, even as I continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.
. . . Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by the intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that I had enough intelligence to take action, and I authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.
. . . Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. . . . [T]hey killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.
D’Wayne D.
PROVIDENCE ACADEMY: “GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH
To restore America or simply to save her from extinction, education must be “fundamentally transformed.” The entire public education system must be rethought. Public colleges and universities must be cleaned out from top to bottom. The entire public elementary and secondary (k-12) system must be replaced.
That replacement will have many forms. We can already see some of them right here in Minnesota. One form is superior Parochial schools such as Providence Academy.
Here is a powerful video introduction to Providence Academy.
The Patriot's Trumpet 