Quote of the Day: The Dalai Lama

His Holiness the Dalia Lama of Tibet made an appearance on Capitol Hill this week, of all places, to offer the opening prayer for Congress. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va) was among those who had photographs taken with the most recognized Buddhist in the world.

The Dalai Lama also came to Washington, DC, as CPAC 2014, a gathering of arch conservatives like Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) were essentially giving rough drafts of would-be TED Talks focusing on how wimpy President Barack Obama has allegedly been with regards to Russian head of state Vladamir Putin regarding the hostile takeover of the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea coast of Ukraine.

Of course, many Republicans, such as Rudy Giuliani have professed admiration for Putin, which lead center-left political columnist E.J. Dionne of "The Washington Post" to suggest on NPR that Republicans are suffering from Putin Envy.

His Holiness was also in Washington, DC, when the Washington Capitals were playing vital home games. The Caps were able to put away the Phoenix Coyotes last night 3-2; we imagine very few people in Tibet or Bhutan watch pro hockey games.

Here is our quote from the Dalia Lama:

"The true hero is one who conquers his own anger and hatred."

http://www.dalailama.com/

http://boulderzen.org/ (Boulder Zen Society in Boulder, Colo.)

http://www.politico.com/

http://thehill.com/

http://www.rollcall.com/

Very Cheap Things to Buy for the Holidays

On our other blog "The Daily Vampire" http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com we loved at some very expensive things one could get for the holidays, including a $600,000 ocean-front property in Nags Head, NC, in the Outer Banks.

Here we are looking at considerably more inexpensive things, and we will go from the cheapest item to the most expensive, which happens to be a velvet Jesus painting, like the one below.

1) 1984 Topps baseball card for Billy Sample, who is arguably the most-famous pro athlete from my hometown of Roanoke, Va: $0.84

2) Crayola crayons (8-pack) $0.99

3)"Neil Diamond's Greatest Hits" on vinyl (pictured center) $0.99

4) Candy Land Gingerbread Pawns game $4.50

5) Dashboard Buddhist monk (pictured top) $7.95

6) Velvet Jesus painting $32.99

SIDEBAR: Well, we were going to tell you some exciting women's college volleyball games to look for this Thursday and Friday, but we will go ahead and give you our final four selections: Oregon, Penn State, Stanford and USC. The finals will take place in Louisville, Ky. We are going to project third-ranked Stanford as the women's volleyball champ for this year.

http://www.neildiamond.com

http://www.thevelvetstore.com

http://www.gostanford.com