10:14 – When I took Colin out this morning, I thought at first that our digital outdoor thermometer was reading 39F. It was actually 3.9F (-15.6C). Our lows this week are to continue being very cold. The Friday forecast is for 8″ (20 cm) of snow. None of this seems to bother Colin at all.
The heat pump is working fine. I periodically look at the thermostat, which has an indicator for Emergency (resistive) heat, and so far I haven’t seen it running in emergency mode. Of course, we have the woodstove in case of power failure, but I haven’t gotten around to burning it in yet, to burn off the chemical residue from the paint. We have a cord or more of “junk” wood in a pile out back. It’s rotting and has been sitting exposed to the elements for a long time, but I’m sure it’ll burn if we need it in an emergency. Burning much of it would probably glop up the flue with creosote, so I don’t plan to burn it unless we really need to.
Today I need to get our Obamacare situation straightened out. As of 1 January 2016, we changed from BCBS to United Healthcare, but they still have our address as Winston-Salem. I need to get that changed to Sparta and get our primary care physicians changed to up here as well.
I called Costco yesterday and canceled my order for the new notebook. The stamps.com software runs fine on Barbara’s Windows 8.1 notebook, and I should be able to use their web interface to print labels on my Linux system. If not, I’ll re-order a new notebook.
As Stephen Stills sang 50 years ago, “There’s battle lines being drawn.” As a libertarian, I find myself part of a group that’s too small to make a difference. Or perhaps I should say too disorganized. In fact, those who skew libertarian are probably about 25% of the population, which is more than the 15% or so that are true conservatives and the 10% or so who are classical liberals. Unfortunately, the other half are a collection of lefties, progressives, socialists, and populists.
I’m afraid that Kurt Schlichter’s article back in August–Hillary’s Hipster Army Prepares For The Second Civil War–may be prescient, except that it may not turn out as favorably as he foresees. There are already movements afoot in many red states to reclaim rights that the federal government has arrogated to itself over the last century. Those movements are still nascent, but growing. There has even been a call for a Constitutional Convention, which may gain momentum. Be careful what you wish for. But the real point is that conservatives, classical liberals, libertarians, and others opposed to a large, intrusive federal government are, as the saying goes, mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore.
I find myself increasingly sympathizing with the conservatives, even the Religious Right like Schlichter. I disagree profoundly with many of their positions on social and religious issues, but they may be the only thing standing between us and a complete progressive victory. If I have to choose, I’ll side with the so-called conservatives rather than with the progs every time.