Maggie's Farm

Watch when he sees his owner arrive to pick him up. Poodles do all sorts of human-like things.

'Girls,' 'Mad Men,' and the Future of TV-as-Literature

The rise of the honeybee business

Why We Love the Pain of Spicy Food (h/t Hot Air)

Study says fairy tales too bleak for kids — but that’s what they need

Archaeologists find possible site of Jesus’s trial in Jerusalem

The Craziest Zero Tolerance Stories of 2014

Kudlow:  Forget the Naysayers: An American Renaissance Is in the Making

The Pope’s Mistaken Moral Calculus On Global Warming

What leading feminists want to accomplish this year (h/t Insty)

Health Care Fixes Backed by Harvard’s Experts Now Roil Its Faculty

Malanga:  State of Disunion - The growing conflict between public and private labor

Bernie Kerik: 'Opportunist' Sharpton Would Take Hush Money

American versus Muslim culture when it comes to dogs

Leslie Gelb: Countering the Neocon Comeback - The neocons are back, and they’re trying to get Hillary Clinton’s ear. Which makes this exactly the moment for Clinton to forge her own distinct path.

Democrats lose the ‘torture’ debate

"Now There’s Not Even Soap” Maduro Heads To China To ‘Save’ Socialist Utopia Venezuela

In China and Cuba, Totalitarians Trump Capitalist Engagement

Late church on Christmas Eve was a miracle, as always. Tears of course. We brought mostly the whole team along, as always. Gals' boyfriends, etc. Gave each of our pastors a good Christmas hug after because they deserve it.

Photo is the car in my driveway at Christmas. Darn - not from Santa - it was a daughter's boyfriend's wheels. Disappointing, but I did get Christmas socks, and good ones, along with the espresso machine from my in-laws which I wanted but really have no space for. Some rare, fancy stinky cheeses too. Simple pleasures.

Married too long? Mrs. BD and I gave each other the same gift by complete chance. We had already planned out our 2015 travel/vacation sched a while ago, but I gave her an additional "5 Days Anywhere You Want in March." She gave me 5 days in rustic and wild Dominica rain forests in March for birdwatching, diving, swimming, hiking, and snorkeling. Not the DR, Dominica.

Who wrote the best bird ID book for the West Indies? James Bond. That's where Ian Fleming got the name for his famous character!

Christmas Day dinner for 20 or so went just great, and I made it all myself to give Mrs. BD a break from the holiday season craziness, parties, gifts, etc. Fireplaces blazing nicely. Crown Roast of Pork with stuffing, Corn Pudding, Applesauce, Brussell Sprouts, Scalloped Potatoes with Bacon and Cheese; apple, pork and fresh sage stuffing - "best stuffing I've had in my life" said many -  and Christmas cookies for dessert. Beer, wine, and mulled cider. Jolly indeed, and Mrs. BD and a daughter on the olde pianny with carols and some homemade Tchaikovsky too. Tchaikovsky is growing on me lately.

Can't beat it. God willing, I will repeat the same next year because it can't get any better. Well, the Porsche would be like totally ok for driving to Dunkin Donuts but I would rather the adventurous travel if I had to choose and, anyway, I know how the cops single out the Porsches and Aston Martins for the tiniest infractions.

Why are we so obsessed with plane crashes?

Our old friend Tigerhawk is now a contributing writer at Conservative Wahoo

Edward
Brooke, The Former Massachusetts Republican Who Was The First Black
Person Elected To the U.S. Senate Since Reconstruction, Died Saturday

Markets in everything, spas for seven year olds

2014: The Year of Peak Stupidity

"You see, Elly, I raised you like a boy, and I was wrong to do it."

Here's the main problem with feminism. Bat shit crazy broads

Home Schooling: More Pupils, Less Regulation

Klavan:  we will have to offend people. A lot of people. A lot of the time.

Gun Trouble - The rifle that today's infantry uses is little changed since the 1960s—and it is badly flawed. Military lives depend on these cheap composites of metal and plastic. So why can't the richest country in the world give its soldiers better ones?

Listening to Dr. King, I wonder what happened to us

How Sharpton gets paid to not cry ‘racism’ at corporations

What’s your top priority in 2016? Let this poll help you pick! We’ve got 99 problems, and we can’t run on all of ‘em.

Government is the Country's Biggest Problem, Say Americans

Government Orders Wage Hikes in 20 States

"...imagine if at some point from late 2001 through the end of 2008, a troop of American soldiers turned their backs on George W. Bush during a speech*, they’d be praised as brave dissent demonstrators, and possibly “Salon’s People of the Year.”"

Cause of Pause in Global Warming

Snow in Palermo, Sicily

Kim Jong Un: Slavetrader - North Korea is actually a vast slave labor plantation and human trafficking operation run for the profit and hedonistic pleasure of its morally degenerate rulers.

India's Government Will Now 'Check and Verify the Use of Toilets' - It's an unprecedented plan aimed at eliminating open defecation across the country. Could it work?

France Joins the Supply Side: Paul Krugman Hardest Hit

Mental patients, screaming "Allahu Akbar," are storming France.

Egypt’s al-Sisi Makes Extraordinary Speech on Islam

Maoists in China, Given New Life, Attack Dissent

In instructions published last week, Mr. Xi urged universities to “enhance guidance over thinking and keep a tight grip on leading ideological work in higher education,” Xinhua, the official news agency, reported.

John 1:(1-9), 10-18

1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

1:2 He was in the beginning with God.

1:3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being

1:4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

1:5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

1:6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

1:7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.

1:8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.

1:9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

1:10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.

1:11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.

1:12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,

1:13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

1:14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.

1:15 (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'")

1:16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

1:17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

1:18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.

Toon via the WSJ

I'm an "aye," especially if the vote is to remove laws, rules, and regulations.

Related: A political system is often at its best when it does nothing.

Doctor: "death from cancer is the best"

“Those that get up at 5 a.m. rule the world.”

I'm a 4:30 guy myself, and I rule nothing

Hot Sauce Maker Blisters Federal Nanny

Common Core Sparks Rise in Home Schooling

Are UNC centers politically biased?

The numbers add up to one fact: Cops are a blessing to NYC

Want a President Who Loves America

Oh Yeah, Jeb’s Running — But Should He?

Salon: Our scary new Congress: Meet 5 Tea Party extremists taking office this month

Jonah quotes:

“The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don’t really understand the New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie-chart format. . . . The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country, and they did a far superior job of it, thank you very much . . .

December 31, 1912

Land is subsiding but they call it sea level rise

Cleric Shakes Up Saudis: Uncover Your Face, Wear Makeup, Mingle with Men

The logic behind President Obama’s Cuba normalization, assuming there is one, is the nylon strategy.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings, 1919 (here's what a copybook is, and, by "markets," he means the political speakers in the marketplace of ideas)

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed, they sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

After a holiday brunch this morning, the tree goes outdoors for a while dressed in his CVS lights with an extension cord. Thus the dude abides. It saddens me to see and hear how many people use fake trees these days. Me? Never. There's enough fake and phony in the world, I feel. Why add to it?

We like our farmy-comfy parlor. We do not use it enough, because we work too much and have too much to do. We can shove the furniture to the side and fit 40 people in there for jolly sit-down dinner parties, Are cigars allowed? Definitely yes. All tobacco is welcome.  Boob tube? Absolutely not. Home-made and recorded music? Certainly. The pianny is excellent. Bring yer fiddle.

Best instruments in the world? The fiddle and the pianny. Just my opinion. Ye organ is just a different pianny. Ye guitar is just a half-baked fiddle.

Some years ago, after his governorship of NY, Cuomo had a short-lived national radio talk show.

I phoned in once, on a whim. He was gracious, warm, and pleasant, and I was pleasant to him. I asked him what was on liberalism's agenda. He said government needs to provide and run medical care in the US. I said "OK, what after that?" He hesitated. I said "How about government car insurance?" He said "That's definitely something to look into."

Then I got to my point: I asked him "At what point is the progressive agenda complete - where does it end?"  He hesitated again, then said (approx) "Government needs to assure that all Americans get what they need." I cheerfully responded "That's what I thought." It went on for a brief while.

He emailed me the next day, and asked me to call again. Said I had interesting comments. I never bothered to do so, though, figuring he was hopeless. An affable guy, though, unlike his son "Evil Eyes" Cuomo, aka Michael Corleone. They took Mario off the air a while later because he acquired no listeners.

Sleazy politician, good speaker, decent fellow, and deeply misguided which is disappointing in an immigrant family.

Barrels: a history of hogsheads, kegs and puncheons

Don’t Like Guns? Then Regulate Them Like Cars!

Re guns: "hilariously pretentious"

Taco Town!

Biological bad luck blamed in two-thirds of cancer cases

Cheer up. Things are not all that bad for the world

Can’t Find Enough (Excellent) Programmers Here

France Finally Runs Out of Other People’s Money

Climate: Ask Questions and Endanger Your Career

Giant fans kill birds

Williamson: 2015 Non-Predictions And one prediction, too

Dino:

...you have the bizarre spectacle of the media running from city to city and village to village to find an event to fit the narrative. Boy, these progressive narratives, one after the other and non-stop, are getting to be really annoying.

WALL OF SHAME: Top 10 most outrageously biased professors of 2014

Professor – It’s Time for UVA to Apologize

Unarmed White Man Killed by Alabama Police; No Protests, No Riots, No National Media

Goldberg -  A Year of Liberal Double Standards What seems like staggering hypocrisy is actually remarkably consistent from liberals’ perspective:

 Peaceful, law-abiding tea-party groups who cleaned up after their protests — and got legal permits for them — were signs of nascent fascism lurking in the American soul. Violent, anarchic, and illegal protests by Occupy Wall Street a few years ago or, more recently, in Ferguson, Mo., were proof that a new idealistic generation was renewing its commitment to idealism.

For in-laws, kids, and their significant others

Roast Boneless Leg of Lamb to 120 degrees (F) - rare - au jus of course
Steamed haricot verts with olive oil
Steamed spinach with garlic and olive oil
Mashed Oregon Gold taters
I forgot to get the beets at the store - I have never gone to the market without forgetting something
Green salad of baby spinach, baby kale, and arugula, with goat cheese

Hard crusty bread

Prosecca, Mt. Etna Rosso, Martinelli's

Christmas cookies and espresso from my Christmas machine

2014 Man of the Year: Hillary’s Service Dog

A Farmer Discusses How His Marshmallow Crop Is Threatened by Heavy Rains

The Benefits of Being Cold - Year-round warmth is a modern luxury, and one that could be affecting body weight and health.

Rescuing Boys from Disney Princesses

You Might Think This Was The Most Maine Thing Ever

For Paul McCartney, "it’s ridiculous, and yet very flattering" that college students now take courses on the music of The Beatles. "Ridiculous because we never studied anything..."

And The Highest-Paid US Government Employee is....

A streetcar not desired?

U.Va. professor, son want apology to those 'wrongfully punished'

Of course: Anti-police protesters call the police after road blockade goes bad

PSA To Kids: Steal Parents’ Guns, Give Them To Teachers

4 Ways Neo-Victorianism Reared Its Ugly Head in 2014

Hands up–I’m lying–Thomas Sowell comments on race hustlers and demogogues

Is Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients Catching On?

Bad idea

White Liberals and the New Racism

SHOTS FIRED at Ferguson Police During Burglary Call – Six Arrested

There goes the neighborhood

The Effect of Broken Windows Policing in New York City

High Taxes, Regulations Send New Yorkers Fleeing

Fleeing the state, not the city

Obama said 'Tehran is a large, sophisticated country.'

Imagine if Bush...

Commenter re the EU here: "They've been killing each other for centuries to avoid shit like this..."

Commenter here:  "Never, ever hire a person with a degree in ethnic or black studies,
critical race theory, or anything with feminist in the name. They are a
walking lawsuit or HR disaster..."

Obamacare: Even More of a Scam Than You Thought - A welfare program by another name...

It’s time the good Muslims cleaned house.  It’s time they swept the jihadists and terrorists into the well.

Gaza Is Nowhere

It's their own darn fault

That barbarian holiday is today.

Related,  Is New Year’s Eve the Worst Holiday?

I was just informed by my social secretary that "we" had accepted a black tie cocktail party, and then later a late-night black tie dinner event with music and dancing, for tonight. I had been happy to imagine that we had no plans.

Glad I had my dress-up uniform cleaned. The rules which apply to me generally seem to be "Suit up and show up" -  and shut up.

I hate New Year's Eve and I will never watch that idiotic Times Square thing, but I am a curmudgeon. Of course, I was there for that once in youth, and once was enough.

I will not have a drop of ETOH, and I do not like champagne, but I greatly enjoy the stimulating and amusing people we'll be seeing. I will ask our readers to be careful out there today. We need all of the live readers we can get, so drive defensively because there are lots of amateur drinkers out there.

Tomorrow, I am told, leg of lamb for family. I got Prosecca and a very nice Mt. Etna Rosso. Life goes on, God willing.

Best curmudgeonly wishes to all for a happy, healthy, grateful, and prosperous 2015.

It's neither Protestant nor Catholic -it's from the excellent Anglican and Episcopalian Great Litany which is well-worth perusing once in a while:

That it may please thee to give us true repentance; to forgive us all our sins, negligences, and ignorances; and to endue us with the grace of thy Holy Spirit to amend our lives according to thy holy Word, we beseech thee to hear us, good Lord

Image swiped from Pirate

2014 News Bloopers

Steal Kate's style at Nora Gardner

Seabourne cruises on sale

The 10 Coolest Dinosaur Discoveries of 2014

The Real Feud Between the Hatfields and McCoys (h/t Am Digest)

Internet Explorer must die

The Thankless Persuasion - Review: Roger Scruton's 'How To Be A Conservative'

On the ‘Liberal’ Left, Perfect Totalitarianism in the Devil’s Pleasure Palace

Daniel Mael: Badge of Courage at Brandeis

Walter Williams:  Liberals' use of black people

Also from Williams:  Black progression and retrogression

On trying to shoehorn populism into the modern Left. Somehow. Somewhere.

Repeal The Second Amendment? Professor Says We Should

Stunning data on average compensation for municipal employees in California

Krauthammer: Pope Deserves Criticism on Global Warming Stance

Revisiting Tawana Brawley and Al Sharpton - There are similarities between the case of the 15-year-old Brawley, who cried rape, and today's grievance culture.

Regulation gone wild – Christmas lights are the next target of nanny state thinking

Cracking the Sitcom Code - After signing up to write a script for Croatian television, I learned that virtually all TV comedies, from Seinfeld to South Park, follow a simple formula.

Let Them Eat Quiche: How the Local Food Movement Swerved Right

Prostitution Was Made Illegal — Is Porn Next?

Should adultery be illegal?

California Moonbats Demand Schools Teach “Sexual Consent” To Kindergarteners…

In LA, CBS Station Pretends There Was a Real Kwanzaa Parade

Cop Killings in New York: Who's Responsible?

Michigan Has More Food Stamp Recipients Than Students

Pope Francis to Lead Fight Against Global Warming Junk Science

Will Elizabeth Warren sell ‘outside the bubble’?

When Republican Nixon Listened to Liberal Moynihan

Drug prohibition and mass incarceration

Sweden to Opt for Suicide by Immigration?

 Woe to anyone in Sweden who dissents from the orthodox view that welcoming large numbers of indigent peoples from such countries as Iraq, Syria, and Somalia is anything but a fine and noble idea. Even to argue that permitting about 1 percent of the existing population to emigrate annually from an alien civilization renders one politically, socially, and even legally beyond the pale. (I know a journalist threatened with arrest for mild dissent on this issue.) Stating that there exists a Swedish culture worth preserving meets with puzzlement.

116 foreign fighters who had joined Islamic State but later wanted to return home, were executed in the Syrian provinces of Deir Al-Zor, Raqqa and Hassakeh since November.

Why political arguments ruin family holiday parties

Josef Cardinal Ratzinger on Christmas

Hollywood Barbarian - Column: The Romantic genius of John Milius

Ask the Captain: Is a Gulfstream smoother than a big jet?

Dave Barry's Year in Review

Via Insty,  What was the most significant story in mathematics in 2014?

2014: The Year of the Imploding Narrative

Why Airlines Want to Make You Suffer

Eleanor Roosevelt Had a Carry Permit, So Why Can't You?

Self-defense is a constitutional right

Americans have a duty to express unpopular opinions

Editor of CUNY Student Paper Defends Call for Violence

Brandeis Student Under Attack for Calling Out Leftist Hate

Christmas Day at McDonald’s

Driscoll:  Death Wish VI: On the Turning Away

Not Showing Up To Riot Is A Failed Conservative Policy

Obama’s Executive Memoranda Highlights Constitutional Crisis

Obama, a One-Man Revolution - In his “fourth quarter,” he feels free to ignore popular opinion, the rule of law, and Congress.

Hillary Clinton Shifting Left to Meet Democrat Base

The liberal health care dream blows up

Egypt Bans Ridley Scott’s ‘Exodus’ Over ‘Historical Inaccuracies’

Not many interesting birds around thus far this winter, but a Red Tail Hawk has been screaming at me all day from the top of a Sugar Maple. I've been hauling firewood, which seems to annoy. My regular Great Horned Owls are of course hooting each morning at 4:30.

Which reminds me that on Christmas afternoon a Bald Eagle flew right over my roof. Not an everyday occurrence here. I mentioned it to Mrs. BD and she said "Oh yeah, they have been nesting down on --- Road this summer. Watched them raising their chicks every morning on my morning exercise walk with friends."

Sheesh. Could have mentioned that to me. I, the Bird Dog, would have been interested.

Wonderful to see those big fish eagles coming back. I didn't think it could happen, but then I never expected the Ospreys to come back so strongly either. Or, God knows, the Wild Turkeys. The resilience of nature is a wonder.

I was glad to inherit my Mom's huge and complete set of Cuthbertson Christmas china - including the coffee cups. She kept expanding it, so the designs vary a little as the company made minor changes over the years.

My sibs still get to use and see them here at the Maggie's HQ, every Christmastime. It is sentimental for all of us.

Like most nice stuff, they are not ok for the dishwasher despite what they may say.

Frederick Cuthbertson of Greenwich, CT, designed these classic and charming things in 1922 for his shop in NYC. Still made in England, though. You can buy them today and leave them to your kids. They don't get heavy use.

We loved this family-friendly hotel in the Dolomites - southern Alps - now part of Italy but Austrian in culture and food. People speak German and at least some Italian, and also Ladin. Mostly Ladin at home, because nobody else in the world speaks it.

This hotel is in the Val Gardena. You get a rental car in Malpensa airport, and drive north almost to the Brenner Pass.

Hiking the Dolomites is on lots of folks' bucket lists.  It can range from easy and relaxed to very challenging hiking. You do not have to climb those peaks, although we have a neighbor who climbed each one of them. A good thing is that there are refugios with coffee, beer, snacks, and frische buttermilch every few miles. There are trail maps to sort-of help you from getting too lost, but getting a little lost is part of the fun.