Good Thursday morning to you…

Weather: Mmmmm. You may be seeing some patchy fog this morning, but it will burn off soon and the rest of the day will be sunny and warm with a high near 80. Tonight’s low will dip to the middle 50s. Thursday will pretty much duplicate today.

Round one to…: Opinions as to the winner of the first presidential debate in Denver did not fall along party lines, as many of President Obama’s own supporters criticized him openly for what they believed to be a lackluster, uninspiring performance against GOP challenger Gov. Mitt Romney. “It looked like Romney wanted to be there and President Obama didn’t want to be there,” as said by Democratic strategist James Carville, was one of the more polite quotes from the left. Meanwhile, Romney’s performance was widely praised, as he came out forcefully against Obama policies. A CNN flash poll after the debate showed that 67 percent of respondents thought Romney won, as opposed to 25 percent for Obama; a similar CBS poll gave 46 percent to Romney, 22 percent to Obama and 32 percent declaring a tie. By the way, we have our own NJN poll on the debate running today; see our home page to vote.

Number 58 with — an offering plate? An album of praise and worship music recorded by the praise team at Irondale’s Church of the Highlands has debuted on Billboard Magazine’s Hot 200 list of albums in the 58^th position. It’s also listed as No. 3 on Billboard’s Contemporary Christian chart. The album, which was recorded live during a service and features all original sings, comes on the heels of a book by the church’s pastor, Chris Hodges, which opened in the sixth spot of The New York Times advice/how-to best-seller list.

Sports: Triple Crown at long last. A historic achievement for Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers, as he locked up the first Major League Baseball player to win his league’s Triple Crown — the batting average, runs batted in and home run titles — since Carl Yastrzemski did it for the Red Sox in 1967. Cabrera hit 44 homers, 139 RBIs and a .330 average, and locked them all up as the Tigers beat homestanding Kansas City, whose fans brought Cabrera out for two curtain calls… Meanwhile, as the regular season ended Wednesday, the playoff picture was finally put into focus. The Yankees locked up the AL East title, while Baltimore and Texas locked up wild card berths. Those two teams will play each other at Arlington on Friday night at 7:30, while Atlanta hosts the Cardinals in the NL wild card playoff game at 4 p.m.