Elena 
Join Jen and the other Quicktakers over at the Conversion Diary
1. The world didn’t end. We’re still here.
Ha!!! Thought so!
This quip from Facebook summed it up nicely.
2. So even though we survived the end of the Mayan Calendar, I do think the issue of time running out is a very powerful one. People talk about family traditions, but really- how old is a “family” tradition? My family changes regularly. This year I have a new brother-in-law. Ten years ago I had a houseful of little kids and my mom and dad were still alive. Hopefully within a few years I will have new daughters-in-law. Grandchildren will come, and sometimes my own children will be away over the holidays. And then of course Mr. Pete and I won’t be here for ever. I think the only real traditions that last are Faith, Family and Love. And that’s what we really need to pass on from generation to generation.
3. I am a firm believer that we have to let businesses, organizations and individuals know that elections have consequences. So in that spirit, I cancelled my local newspaper a few weeks ago and I don’t miss it at all. When they asked me why I was cancelling I told them,
“Because with high unemployment, and record national debt you still endorsed Barrack Obama for president. How inept does a candidate have to be before you’ll pull your endorsement? Apparently I have the bar set for incompetence much lower than the powers that be at the paper, and so I am ending my subscription.”
The person on the other end of the line was speechless.
I felt great!
4. Ann Coulter had a great piece on what we could really do to reduce these school shootings.
Luckily, some years ago, two famed economists, William Landes at the University of Chicago and John Lott at Yale, conducted a massive study of multiple-victim public shootings in the United States between 1977 and 1995 to see how various legal changes affected their frequency and death toll.
Landes and Lott examined many of the very policies being proposed right now in response to the Connecticut massacre: waiting periods and background checks for guns, the death penalty and increased penalties for committing a crime with a gun.
None of these policies had any effect on the frequency of, or carnage from, multiple-victim shootings. (I note that they did not look at reforming our lax mental health laws, presumably because the ACLU is working to keep dangerous nuts on the street in all 50 states.)
Only one public policy has ever been shown to reduce the death rate from such crimes: concealed-carry laws.
Their study controlled for age, sex, race, unemployment, retirement, poverty rates, state population, murder arrest rates, violent crime rates, and on and on.
The effect of concealed-carry laws in deterring mass public shootings was even greater than the impact of such laws on the murder rate generally.
Someone planning to commit a single murder in a concealed-carry state only has to weigh the odds of one person being armed. But a criminal planning to commit murder in a public place has to worry that anyone in the entire area might have a gun.
To which I say…”well duh!!” I can’t figure out why it is so hard to accept this – except that a lot of my more left leaning friends cling to the idea of utopia. But for the rest of us living in the real world I think we should learn from this study and instead of making schools gun free zones (or target-practice-on-the- unarmed-innocents zones) we should let the teachers that want to, pack some heat!
5. Obama voters – own this one! The Little Sisters of the Poor might leave the country because of the HHS mandate.
A religious order of nuns is concerned about its future presence in the United States because of Obamacare’s impact on its charitable operations. The Little Sisters of the Poor told The Daily Caller that it may not qualify for a long-term exemption from Obamacare’s healthcare mandate. The law requires the order to provide government-approved health insurance to its 300 sisters who tend to the elderly in 30 U.S. cities.
The little sisters only take care of the poor and elderly – not big priorities for this administration anyway.
6. Another Jib jab video featuring my oldest son Calvin, his girl Sarah, Sam, Mr. Pete and Rosie
7. On cheery note- my Christmas throw that I purchased last year at a tag sale, has been getting a lot of good use so far this season! Finally got a picture of it without the cat, dog, kids or husband on it!
