Category: politics

09:42 – We made a trip down to Winston yesterday. Barbara dropped Colin and me at the house and then left for a haircut appointment and a trip to the dentist. Colin and I packed stuff up while she was gone and we then loaded the stuff into the Trooper and headed back to Sparta. She’s off to the gym and supermarket this morning, while Colin and I await the mail pickup.

A lot of my libertarian-leaning friends vote Republican, on the theory that a Libertarian has no chance of being elected while a Republican is likely to be at least marginally better than a Democrat. And I think that’s generally true, in the sense that I’d far rather have a Cruz or even a Rubio as president than Clinton or Sanders. But this year I don’t think that’s going to be the choice. I’m afraid it’s going to be a choice of Trump or Clinton, and I really don’t think it’s safe to assume that Trump would be better than Clinton. He may in fact be even worse, as hard as that is to imagine. Trump, like any psychopath/politician, will SAY whatever he thinks voters want to hear. What he actually DOES once he’s elected would almost certainly bear no resemblance to what he promised. I mistrust Trump at least as much as I mistrust Clinton, and that’s saying something.

10:42 – We’re working today on getting the downstairs better organized and on making up chemicals and filling bottles for science kits.

More primary elections today, none of which matter in any real sense. No matter what, we’re going to end up with two psychopaths in the November election.

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.

09:31 – We made a quick run down to Winston yesterday to pack up a bunch of stuff and haul some of it up. Among that was the last of the food–about 30 pounds of white sugar and three-count-’em three cans of baked beans–and three telescopes–our main 10″ Dob reflector, our 4.5″ widefield Dob reflector, and our 90mm refractor, along with eyepiece cases, binoculars, charts, and other accessories.

Perhaps the pushback is beginning: Armed protestors occupying national wildlife refuge building vow long stay Hey, if the progs and SJW’s can do it, why not normal people?

Speaking of normal people pushing back, it seems that normal Europeans have finally woken up to the invasion of moslem scum and started to do something about it. Even some of their political masters have begun to realize that their actions to date are nothing short of national suicide. I expect to see this pushback become increasingly violent as more and more normal Europeans begin to understand that their politicians have sold them out to an invading force of barbarians. It’s probably far too little and far too late, but at least Europe is beginning to recognize the threat.

National governments are the real threat, in Europe, here, and elsewhere. They’ve always been the threat, and will always be the threat.

13:20 – We just got back from a quick trip up to Galax, Virginia to visit the Lowe’s Home Improvement Center and the Walmart Super Center. Barbara picked up a ceiling fan for our upstairs den. It used to be the dining room, and the ceiling fixture was a light intended to be over the dining room table. We got a low-profile fan-only unit to replace it. We looked around the Walmart. The only things we bought were a couple boxes of dog treats, some snap caps to cover open food cans, six jars of Bertolli alfredo sauce, two 28-ounce cans of Keystone chicken, and one 28-ounce can of Keystone beef. Barbara is making a chicken alfredo pasta skillet dinner tonight.