Maggie's Farm

The Bird Dog would like to plug The Teaching Company. He is neither paid by them nor does he own any shares in their company, but he does wish he had started the business. They collect the best college teachers - not the most famous, just the most engaging. Look at their website - on left column, under Other Swell Places. I have done about 8 of their courses and each has been wonderful. The music stuff by Greenberg is a pure delight. It is excellent for the car or for workouts. You can fill in all of the gaps in your education, and no exams!

Like Brooks Brothers, they have regular sales, and that is the time to stock up.

The only thing nuttier than Australia banning gun ownership - so that the Army has to be called in to shoot infestations of rabbits - is the banning of fox-hunting, otherwise known as "hunting," in the UK.  Thank God for our revolution, or we might have become as nutty as England, Australia and Canada. This has got to be one of the saddest days for the time-honored Brit sporting traditions. What will be the next target of the self-righteous weenies?  Soccer, because it leads to fighting? Pathetic.

But maybe we can offer psychological counseling for those ex-hunters? Teach them knitting and TV-watching? And maybe those beautiful horses can be re-trained to be therapy-horses....hey - that would be a better world, right?

Read Norman Geras' piece in Dissent. A well-known Brit socialist, a retired professor, Norm is notable for not only being open-minded but for being a nice guy. And an articulate blogger. Got in hot water with the Brit Left for violating the Party Line on Iraq - how shocking ! Can you imagine such a thing ?!  Bad form. Almost as distressing as a lady forgetting to wear a hat at Ascot, or sipping her tea before the hostess sits down.  Who knows - it could lengthen the time 'til the Revolution, when we all will get free apple pie (or, more likely, guillotined).  Click here: Dissent Magazine - Winter 2005

Another delectable dog bone. Speaking of guillotines, the Bird Dog is on the trail of The Enlightenment these days, with a fine Himmelfarb piece coming up tomorrow maybe. But this piece sets the stage. Whatever The Enlightenment was, it wasn't perfect, and even though we may live in it, like fish in water, we have to think about it. That is what Dog thinks is so cool and great about Western Civilization -  not only can we think, but we don't get shot for doing it. Click here: OpinionJournal - Leisure & Arts

In case you had the impression that New Zealand had grown out of the Stone Age. Maybe we don't let their astronomers use the Hubble.

Courtesy of Instapundit - Law suits brewing at CBS:

A Milk-Bone to M and Gwynnie for retrieving these links:

Remarkable: Click here: Photos - Ice Hotel

Is there a life-boat for us when the universe dies?

You can read his work by clicking here.

The remarkable Belmont Club fills me with humility because of his/her/their  intelligence, breadth of knowledge, and breadth of information. But their  commentators are equally good. I hope people read them along with Belmont's commentary. Please note the following harvested (stolen?) from Belmont's readers recently:

"Both the Left and Salafist Jihadism are thouroughly modern rejections of modernism. Both are eschatological creeds, promising heaven on Earth and the abolition of injustice. Both see the US as main impediment to their dreams. Both are so fully convinced of the correctness of their creed, of the better future for humanity that they offer, that the ends justify the means. So it is no surprise that the Left would jump into bed with the Jihadis, and that Stewart, the promotor of civil rights, would make common cause with the choppers of heads and stoners of gays."

Note from Gwynnie:

Gwynnie noted that a pack of dogged blogs sank their canines into Eason and hounded him out of the CNN kennel yesterday.  Good dogs.  At least he had the dignity not to try the Mary Mapes/Dan Rather defense (there's no proof, in fact not a shred of evidence, but I want to believe in my heart it's true so I'll report it as news).

Dear File:

In the possible event of any PETA lawsuits, remember that working dogs, like all dogs other than goofy ankle-biters,  must go outdoors sometimes, if only to poop or pee-pee, regardless of weather and other conditions. Bad weather is not the fault of the owners, unless they are Republicans, in which case it probably is their fault. We will not move to Florida, nor can we wait for Global Warming to save our dog's dainty feet from crusty snow up here in Yankeeland.

I was PERFECT !  Just to prove that I can be - if I feel like it. (Ya gotta understand, we dogs never outgrow adolescence.)

The Gods were pretty good - not totally alert, but not bad, for Gods.  Swing the gun, Gods - swing the darn gun and just let it roll !  I don't run around all day in the snow, covered with prickers and with bleeding feet, for my health.

The power of the news and commentary blogs is demonstrated once again with the resignation last night of CNN News chief Eason Jordan. Michaelle Malkin reviews the sequence of events here: Click here: Michelle Malkin: EASONGATE: A RETROSPECTIVE

But the real story isn't the blog angle. The real story is the old story about the arrogance, condescension, dishonest impulses, and left-wing bias of the MSM - the Mainstream Media - who have monopolized Big Media during our lifetime.  With their infotainment approach, their silly star system, their money, and their power, they painted a consistent picture of reality for us, the passive and dumb TV-watching great-unwashed who cannot be trusted to think for ourselves. A similar complaint applies to the DTM - the Dead Tree Media: The NY Times, the LA Times, the Boston Globe, the news services, etc.  Well, this is just old-hat polemical stuff The Bird Dog is venting here, but the BD hates to have partial or false realities presented to him.Two recent examples: the MSM essentially ignored and buried the Jordan story, but tried their damndest to make a story last week about General Mattis - a straight-talking soldier. What is guiding news "selection" is as obvious as the invented non-story about missing explosives two days before the election.

What is now happening is that the MSM have finally met some real competition from some real smart folks - amateur journalists like Captain Ed, Powerline, the great Instapundid, Michelle Malkin, etc. - all impossible before the net.

Power to the Dogs !