Great timing, as usual

Babble on.

Well, isn't this perfect. As usual, my timing is impeccable.

Just as I'm about to go on a camping vacation for the next week, just as I'm going to let the blog go silent for a little while, Gerry Nicholls and the good folks at the NCC decide to publish a newsletter for their members. A newsletter with a small piece on blogging, written by yours truly. A piece that incidentally invites readers to drop by and visit my blog.

And what awaits my brave guests as they make their first journey into the blogosphere? My blog's porch lights are off, the doors are locked, and nobody's home. Some host I am.

So, dear NCC readers, in the absence of any of my Babbling to keep you amused, let me recommend you click through to a few sites on the blogroll - that's the list of links running down the right side of your screen (anything underlined is a link to another site). If you like what you see when you get to a site, stay and read awhile. If you don't, click on your back button, come on back to Babbling Brooks, and try again with another site.

If that sounds too daunting for you, here are a few places you might want to start:

• InstaPundit - it's an American site, but it's a clearinghouse for all the stories you won't read about on the front page of the New York Times, or see on CBS Evening News.


• The Blogging Tories - this is a collection of those of us in the blogosphere who have declared our support for the Conservative Party of Canada. That doesn't mean we're blind to the party's faults, or that we take our instructions on what to blog about from head office, or that we all kneel down three times a day facing Parliament Hill and pray for Stephen Harper. It means we support the party - with our criticism if necessary, and with our praise when warranted - and want to see it form the next government.


• The Red Ensign Brigade - another group of bloggers, with no particular party affiliation, but with a deep and abiding respect for our country's past history and traditions. Every two weeks, one of our number rounds up the best posts of the member blogs in The Red Ensign Standard.

Beyond the groups, here's a handful of other places you might like to visit:

• Let It Bleed on the Supreme Court of Canada healthcare decision.


• Daimnation! on the "Ethics Commissioner" and the Gurmant Grewal affair.


• Being American In T.O. on the importance of fathers in the raising of children.


• Small Dead Animals on "limousine Liberals" in Dalton McTrustMe's Ontario.

This is by no means a comprehensive list. In fact, I could go on, but I'd be here all night, and that kind of defeats the purpose of, y'know, taking a break from blogging. Besides, with over six million blogs out there, I'm sure there are some fantastic writers ranting away in the ether on blogs that I've never even read. Get out there, Stanley, and find yourself a Livingstone.

With that, we now return you to our regularly scheduled dead air, already in progress. Later 'gator.

Babble off.