BAD IDEAS delivered with just a hint of condescension.

A CALL TO ARMS: America was once a land of hope; it is becoming a land of dopes.

We must tell our kids to go outside and look at the stars, sit under a tree, read a book. We must encourage them to seek, understand and value our rich heritage and to do that -- they must study, they must read. We must teach them. We need to turn off the television and read a book of history at the dinner table; be the example. We need to revolutionize our thinking, our moral foundation and our academia.

To quote from one of my favorite forefathers, John Adams:

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

We have come full circle. We have studied painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain for too long.

Janine Turner reminds me of Robert Heinlein, speaking as as Lazarus Long: “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.”

It’s politics and war, mathematics and philosophy. Quoting Lazarus Long again, “Specialization is for insects!”

A RHETORICAL PRESIDENCY: “A majority of Americans have come to doubt Mr. Obama's leadership not because he isn't overflowing with ideas or lacks for charm. They are increasingly skeptical of his performance because he has yet to follow through on some of his most basic promises.”

AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGY. Eugene Robinson bashes Toyota for poor quality control; Toyota apologizes and promises to do better, and the most interesting point is missed: we’ve reached the technology point where we’re going to have our cars recalled for software upgrades.

THE SNOWFALL is over, finally, and the blowing snow has just begun. I've scraped a path out to the shed a couple of times and the wind fills it back in within a half hour.


The effect reminds me of the sand dunes at the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico.

SNOW MUSHROOM



Growing on the back deck.

WHY ARE LIBERALS so condescending?

It's a variant of the "Those who can, do; those who can't, patronize" principle. With no record of accomplishment, condescension is the last resort.

IT'S SNOWING, and money's falling.

OBAMA SALUTES NAVY "CORPSE-MAN". Just another pathetic display of ignorance.

Ignorance can be overcome if one is willing to learn; willful ignorance cannot. In Obama's case, the ignorance is willful.

EXACTLY RIGHT.



And as punishment, it snowed some more.

WEDNESDAY MORNING UPDATE: the ruler and yardstick tell me that between 4 and 5 inches fell since the snow started yesterday afternoon, which isn’t too bad.

But ... the wind is up (gusts at 40+ mph). and it’s started to snow heavily. Whiteout conditions. The radio reported that in Manassas even the snow removal trucks have been told to park for a while.

It’s going to be a long, long day.

1775 AGAIN. Charles Krauthammer on the Democrat's agenda:

This being a democracy, don't the Democrats see that clinging to this agenda will march them over a cliff? Don't they understand Massachusetts?

Well, they understand it through a prism of two cherished axioms: (1) The people are stupid and (2) Republicans are bad. Result? The dim, led by the malicious, vote incorrectly.

Blinded by their ideology, the Democrats continue to fuel another Tea Party.

A BRIGHT SIDE to the blizzard of 2010: anything that brings the federal government to a dead halt can't be all bad.

SNOW UPDATE: 17 inches at 8 pm; that's roughly an inch of snow per hour. It's going to be a long night.

UPDATE: 10 pm; just under 3 inches so far, with a lull in the snowfall.

If there's no more than another inch or so before morning (ha!), we might get through this one relatively unscathed.

THE RIGHT WAY FORWARD on space exploration?

It sounds lovely - all hopey changey - and it would probably work if we had the government today that we had in the mid-20th century.

But we don't. And the next men on the moon will likely be Chinese.

THE LOCAL SCENE. These pictures were taken Tuesday afternoon after most everyone had managed to dig out. For the most part, roads were passable, although for the most part, the secondary streets had only one lane open each way and many of the residential streets (like ours) were one lane only.

Parking lots were half-cleared, with the other half used for snow storage. This pickup was almost completely covered in snow.

Most homes in the neighborhoods were like this one – snow piled up 3-4 feet along the road, with the passable width just barely enough for two cars.

Manassas train station in Old Town.

The skating pavilion in Old Town Manassas.

Signal Hill road.


The Buckhall Store at the entrance to our subdivision.

Moore Drive, leading home. The road is typical of the secondary streets, still layered with snow and wide enough – barely – for two cars to pass.

SCENIC BEAUTY from the neighborhood as – and after – we dug out on Monday.

Sunday afternoon from the front porch.

Along the driveway (which really is there underneath the snow).

The back yard (almost pictured is the wood pile at the far left).

Monday morning, looking across the street. We’re just beginning to dig out.

Monday afternoon. We’ve finally reached the street.

Finally! The mailbox is roughly 4 feet above the street. Amazingly, both mail and the newspapers arrived on schedule ... well, the paper delivery was a bit later than usual.

IT'S STARTING AGAIN: 5:47 pm and the snow has just started. It's cold enough that the snow is sticking immediately; the driveway already has a thin covering.



Time to start the snow countdown (er, countup?). The base is 15-1/4 inches on the back porch yardstick.


Please, let the power stay on tonight ....

BACK AGAIN. Let’s see ... my last (unscheduled) post was Saturday at 8 am. We lost power at 3 pm; not restored until Monday at 4:30 am. Since we have an all-electric house, there was no heat, no light, no telephone, no cable TV, no internet, no water (the well pump is – wait for it - electric). And no leaving as the driveway already had a foot of snow covering it.

We have a fireplace and plenty of firewood, but only after a 25-yard trek through hip-deep snow, Here’s the path I finally stamped out in order to bring firewood into the basement.

The cats weren’t happy and we weren’t happy as we settled in to camping around the fireplace, but at least we had coffee.



Now we’re about to to it again ... 10 to 20 inches is forecast for tonight/tomorrow, and the snow has already started in parts of the DC metro area.

RUSH LIMBAUGH on the State of the Union adddress:

I heard it all before. There was nothing new in it. The only difference was the tone. I went back and listened to some of his soaring rhetorical speeches during the campaign. This was defensive, petulant, immature, childish, sarcastic. He's clearly angry that he's been rejected -- that his wonderfully brilliant ideas (health care and cap and trade) have been rejected. I saw a guy, a young, inexperienced guy just mad. I think, Gretchen -- I really do -- I think this is the first time in his life that there's not a professor around to turn his C into an A or to write the law review article for him that he can't write. He's totally exposed. There's nobody to make it better. I think he's been covered for all of his life. The fact that his agenda has totally failed this year is the best thing that could have happened to this country. I thank God every day that this is going down the tubes, that that Massachusetts election happened. Not that God had anything to do with it. That's just the person I thank.

Link from Don Surber.