Title: “Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back”

Authors: Todd Burpo, Sonja Burpo, Colton Burpo, and Lynn Vincent

Rank: 38

Blurb: “Colton said he met his miscarried sister, whom no one had told him about, and his great grandfather who died 30 years before Colton was born, then shared impossible-to-know details about each. He describes the horse that only Jesus could ride, about how ‘reaaally big’ God and his chair are, and how the Holy Spirit ‘shoots down power’ from heaven to help us.”

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Well, as Mr. Bono would advise, nothing changes on New Year’s Day.  And, thus: Sport.  It begins with outdoor hockey in Pittsburgh at — oh, no, wait.  The NHL pushed the start of the Winter Classic from 1300 (ET) to 2000, on account of rain.  (See: you can play hockey outdoors when its, oh, 50 degrees or colder.  But rain is a killer.  Showers this afternoon give way to plain old dreariness tonight, so the start is pushed later.)

This is unintentional genius by the NHL.  See, they now get a prime-time slot.  The counterprogramming is… Oklahoma v. Connecticut in a Fiesta Bowl that precisely NOBODY wanted to set up, and NOBODY will watch.  Putting two of their top marketable stars — Sidney Crosby (Pgh.) and Alex Ovechkin (Wash.) against the slaughter of UConn will work quite nicely for the League.

Preceding that, it’s Cheeseheads and Frogs as the Rose Bowl features Wisconsin and Texas Christian.  Should have been Stanford in this game against the Badgers, of course, but it spares me (Tree B.A. ’00, Madison J.D. ’03) a bit of a quandry.  Again, unintentional genius.

Open thread of Sport for you, for the New Year.  Enjoy.

ADD: post-jump, a newish find on the music front.  Just got around to buying Florence + The Machine’s album, “Lungs.”  Holy shit.  I SAY AGAIN: HOLY SHIT.

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Normally we reserve this image for anniversaries of This Blogging Establishment (not to be confused with anniversaries of This Blogger, or of This Neverending Wonkette Commenter Strike — life is complicated), but seeing how we turned the odometer on 100,000 comments this week, we thought we’d dust it off for the occasion. Next time, remind us to buy a keg.

Why all the clocks? The first year we did this, we ran separate posts for each time zone, and inadvertently created a Singularity. Now we just leave it at the East Coast, because really, the rest of America doesn’t count.

A story self-evident to anyone personally experiencing (or who knows someone experiencing) the effects of the Great Recession. However, it is a revelation to the editors at the Gray Lady:

Career Switch by the Jobless Can Lower Living Standards

[ABC]

On this most sacred of drinking days, it is our solemn tradition to observe that it is now midnight in Sydney, and declare everybody an honorary Aussie.