6 December 2010 Baby its cold outside!

The high for the day was 27.64 °F at 1404. The thermometer, or the digital depiction of an analog thermometer, has been sliding slowly downward, aiming at a bottom of around 15°F sometime around midnight.

I slept in this morning and enjoyed the extra hour quite a lot. Today’s hike with Mike was done in red-cheeked, runny-nosed, small-talking mode as we lurched down valley and then back up with a ten know wind in our faces. Loki enjoyed the opportunity to scent mark the new fallen snow. There were two red pit bulls that periodically appear along the road and menace other dogs and people who walk by. They are part of a pack of four owned by someone along the west valley wall. I really don’t trust them when they are out. They exude aggression and malice. Both Mike and I are prepared to defend ourselves if necessary. Loki is on a lead and would be at a decided disadvantage if they ever decide to attack. I continue to hope that the owner will retrieve them and keep them secured. Pit bulls in this neighborhood are suggestive of a need to proceed with care and to avoid seeming curious about anything.

The morning, after our return home, was spent bringing firewood onto the deck and layering old pool cover material around the well filter housing to provide some more protection from the cold by holding in a bit more heat from the lamps that are burning inside the housing.

Current activities include laundry, this blog, and little else. Dinner will be salad and chili over linguini. Last night’s white beans and greens went down very well and will join what passes for the rotation around here. It was greatly aided by Gloria finding a package of sweet Italian sausage to replace the mildly spiced sausage I had intended to use.



CNN “TRENDING: Huckabee draws contrasts between him and Palin

I just don't understand how it is that a person can read these polls day after day and the narrative is constantly everybody but me," Huckabee told Politico.”

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/06/huckabee-draws-contrasts-between-him-and-palin/#more-138304

Cassi Creek:

Huckabee, former Arkansas Governor, Fox News paid proto-candidate, Southern Baptist ordained, is complaining that he is not receiving the amount of respect he feels he should.

It is probably time for someone with more patience than I have to remind Huckabee that respect is earned, not demanded. He may poll well in comparison to Palin, Romney, and Gingrich. Those polls are conducted primarily by questioning people who would vote GOP/teavangelist in the first place. That sorry collection of un-announced candidates are all hoping to hit the same GOP/teavangelist voter base; the culturally reactionary, bible thumping bigoted, anti-intellectuals that Richard Nixon played to in pitting hard hats against students.

Huckabee has a history of letting his evangelism intrude into political life. He was known for issuing pardons to many felons who underwent jailhouse conversions. Two of his more notorious interventions into the legal system resulted in the deaths of law officers in other states and subsequent rape and murder by yet another Huckabee-pardoned felon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/01/AR2009120102601.html

This intrusion of religion into government is highly disturbing. Yet it is eclipsed by Huckabee’s statement that he would like to re-write the Constitution to make it compliant with biblical law as accepted by the Sothern Baptist Convention and found in the King James Bible.

Huckabee does not believe in evolution. He is opposed to birth control education and would outlaw all abortions. His professed religion chooses to retain women in a subservient position not that greatly different from the status of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban.

He is supposedly personable, well spoken, possessed of some sense of humor, and would be a good dinner guest in comparison to Palin’s abrasive and English language deficient nature. He may feel that such demeanor combined with his fundamentalist evangelical position makes him worthy of respect. I don’t. He deserves neither respect nor political office. As with Palin, Romney, and Gingrich, Huckabee deserves to be nothing more than they are today, demagogues who pick up where Joe McCarthy and Ross Barnett stopped.