The sign of the Dragon is associated with intelligence and good fortune. It is considered that people born under this sign  will be successful.

(Travel Pod)

(MSNBC.com)

(Deshow.net)

(Flickr: teacherholly)

Animal Planet has a list of things that you can do to celebrate the wonderful squirrels in your life! See 6 Ways to Celebrate Squirrel Appreciation Day.

Articles with links for further info: Mashable talks about why this legislation is dangerous, CNN Money discusses the legislation and why it matters, and a  New York Times article about the event today.

Here is a petition from Google: End Piracy, Not Liberty

I support the effort to protect intellectual property online and to make laws better in that regard. However, I cannot support these bills as they are with the ability to take down a website without having to prove that there is actually a problem. And doing it in a way that the website would not be able to recover or really even fight for its own reputation.

Here is what Wikipedia says about the legislation:

“SOPA and PIPA would put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites won’t have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Big media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn’t being infringed. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won’t show up in major search engines. SOPA and PIPA would build a framework for future restrictions and suppression.

In a world in which politicians regulate the Internet based on the influence of big money, Wikipedia — and sites like it — cannot survive.

Congress says it’s trying to protect the rights of copyright owners, but the “cure” that SOPA and PIPA represent is worse than the disease. SOPA and PIPA are not the answer: they would fatally damage the free and open Internet.”

Some websites that are taking part in the blackout: Google (take a look at the censor bar over their logo)

Wikipedia has a blackout page on the english language version of their site (see it here)

wordpress.com has censor bars all over the main page stories, Moveon.org, Craigslist, Reddit, Boing Boing, Firefox browser creator Mozilla, and the Cheezburger network are all participating today.

Again, here is one of the easiest ways to voice your opinion - from Google: End Piracy, Not Liberty

Here is the little guy:

Photo: Matt Sayles , AP

The dog’s name is Uggie, and he is a Jack Russel Terrier. He has won a palm dog award, and is in the running for a Golden Collar Award.

I do not know anything about the movie , or how prominently featured this dog actually is. The movie is rated pg 13 and IMDB explains “Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.”

In the movie:

Photo seen here

Standing on the red carpet:

Photo: Joel Ryan, AP

Posing with a Golden Globe:

photo from teddyhilton.com

If you would like to see more pictures of Uggie or read more about him, see The Washington Posts article ‘The Artist’ dog steals show at Golden Globes.

Wishbone, which aired on PBS from 1995 – 1998 with reruns until 2001, featured a Jack Russel terrier named Wishbone. As IMDB explains – “An intelligent and witty dog imagines himself in the role of characters from classic books and gets involved in similar real-life adventures.” Each episode featured a different classic book, in which Wishbone plays the main character, and the story plays out along with the day in the life of the dog with his owners. The classic story helping Wishbone to explain or teach something happening in his real life. The book story is shortened and simplified, but it does not take anything away from the book and served to show that these stories can be interesting and relevant to kids.

Here are some pictures of Wishbone dressed up in costume for various roles:

There are 48 episodes listed on Wikipedia for the show, where you can see all the books featured and whether the episode has ever been released on DVD or VHS.

Currently available on DVD:

Wishbone features 4 episodes of the show The Impawssible Dream, The Hunchdog of Notre Dame, Hot Diggety Dawg, and Paw Prints of Thieves. Currently $8.73 on Amazon. Each of the episodes is also avaiable seperately on its own DVD for around $7, but it is a much better deal to get this dvd.

Other Interesting Items:

The show’s theme song:

About the dogs who played Wishbone -

The animal actor who played Wishbone most of the time was Soccer the dog. He was in almost every episode of the show. Four other dogs also played Wishbone throughout the series:  Slugger, Shiner, Phoebe, and Bear.

It was known previously under the names Marley and Me the Terrible 2s, and was supposed to come out last year.

Here is the preview:

Best Buy’s ad for the week features a picture of the bluray of the movie with a price of $7.99. The website has pre-orders for the dvd for $4.99, and a two disk edition for $9.99. Pre-order them, or order them tomorrow, on bestbuy.com.

Walmart is selling the DVD on its website for $13.99, for an exclusive widescreen version. See it here.

There have been lists of some of the best animal photos of 2011 going around the internet, and I pulled a few cute examples from those lists to share with you.

1. Baby Pandas napping at a Giant Panda breeding center in China

photo from BuzzFeed

2. New born female Asiatic Elephant

photo from Joe Klamar

3. One month old Jaguar cub in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Photo from BuzzFeed

4. Dogs Surfing

From our family to yours, please enjoy this wonderful season with your family and friends!

The camera is on all day and night, and is an awesome opportunity for kids to see these amazing animals. The reindeer with antlers is actually female, male reindeer drop their antlers come December.

The makers of the site have a camera that features the white tail deer they raise and decided to create this cam when a friend suggested they do something for Christmas. They did not expect it to be so popular, so sometimes the servers become overloaded. But it is worth watching for a bit if you get the chance. It has been viewed by people in over 126 different countries.

Go to Reindeercam.com to see them in action!

Here is a still shot of the reindeer:

Here is a time when Santa was visiting and reading the Night Before Christmas, also pictured is a tame white tail deer.

You can read an article about the site here.

I am sad that I did not know about this before now because the cam will be turned off after Christmas until its return next year.