I've just gotten into a heated debate with my friend at the midnight hour.  I thought for sure he was on my side of the partisan divide but discovered that he (gasp!) prefers the Summer Olympics to the Winter Olympics.  And he's a native Minnesotan!  The nerve of that man knows no bounds!

This article, in the Roanoke Times, should be a heads up to everyone in the country.

Roanoke, Virginia is in a very temperate region, with winter temperatures falling from slightly below 20 degrees and rising to a high of over 100 degrees, with an annual average of between 60 degrees and 80 degrees.

With the startling statement:

No matter how you heat, be prepared for costs to rise significantly this winter.

our local newspaper is delivering a dire warning and begging for people to begin to prepare for the coming Fall/Winter season.

Time for some silliness.

In Tampa, we don't get winter, so the point of Groundhog's Day winter-wise is lost on us.

And besides, it's a city, and you generally don't see groundhogs in cities.

But in Washington, D.C., they're lucky; they can use the Vice President instead. I hear that Saturday morning, he came out from his undisclosed location and shot his own shadow.

That means we're going to get another year of the Bush administration.

Put your own silly Groundhog's Day joke in comments.

Sitting here working with a cat curled up (paws, ears, and tail now toasty after her scampering out on the back porch) nearby, I look out into the snow coming down out in the back yard...

My thoughts turn from the hurly burly of the world outside my corner of the world and towards the deep silence out back as I watch the small clumps of flakes fall.

The northeastern United States is warming rapidly according to a recent analysis of weather data which showed winters are 2.5 degrees warmer than they were just 40 years ago.

A study of weather station data from across the Northeast from 1965 through 2005 found December-March temperatures increased by 2.5 degrees. Snowfall totals dropped by an average of 8.8 inches across the region over the same period, and the number of days with at least 1 inch of snow on the ground decreased by nine days on average.

The administration, however, doesn't want us to know about global warming.

Later tonight, if you are watching C-SPAN or MSNBC glass-eyed because your candidate is making his or her concession speech, I have a sure-fire way that you can feel better about yourself, especially for those of you who live in cold-weather climates.

It's not alcohol. It's not drugs. It's not even a gesture like throwing your support behind whomever wins the Iowa Caucus tonight.

Think about your furnace. Is it running? If so, you have a lot to be thankful for.

SKIATOOK, Okla. - Huddled near her fireplace, Marla Carter wondered when Skiatook will be mentioned in news reports about the storm-related power outages that have left her without electricity for the past 10 days.

"It's kind of like we've been forgotten about out here," she said Tuesday. "There is life outside Tulsa."

So you’re sitting at home, riding out the big storm, and the next thing you know the power goes out.

It’s not just you, either. Tens of thousands of your neighbors are out as well, and you immediately know power won’t be restored for days.

This can be an utter disaster...or not that big a deal...depending on the things you did before the storm.

Because I’m watching Mae West movies as I write this, we have today a most unusual story: serious tips that can help improve the disaster experience greatly; and Mae West’s snappiest quotes to add just a spoonful of sugar to the medicine those tips represent.

I live in the lovely San Francisco Bay Area. There are marvellous things to be said for this heart of liberalism. Having 4 seasons is not one of the things you will find here!

Growing up in the intermountain states of Utah, Colorado and Wyoming mostly, I loved the seasons. There is a crispness in the air for autumn, the leaves are crunchy on the streets, and no matter your age you have fun kicking and crunching autumn leaves.

In Utah Halloween always seemed to get the first snow in the valley. Although a dusting of snow always was there on top of the Wasatch mountains.

     I'm one of millions in the northeast U.S. tonight 'enjoying' the wind and snow from a nasty nor'easter, the first really big winter storm some of us have seen this winter. (I've also got a family member going to school in Oswego, NY, so it's not like it hasn't been happening already for some of us.) As the wind howls around the house, I've been reflecting on the situation.
    Sara Robinson over at Orcinus linked to an interview with Thomas Homer-Dixon about "Is the Deadly Crash of Our Civilization Inevitable?"
     Sitting here semi-warm while the wind howls thanks to fuel oil refined from stocks imported from who knows where, and electricity provided by a vast international conglomerate, I'm very aware how delicate is the barrier between my comfortable life and freezing in the dark.

Well, it's snowing and blowing outside.  Twenty-six with forty m.p.h. winds which results in a windchill factor of negative four hundred and thirty-two.  But who cares?  

My lovely hometown council told the homeless of our community to freeze to death. In their last meeting of the year before heading to their warm homes in our suburban town, they denied a request by the Interfaith Community Services to use their own building to house a few homeless during our unprecedented cold snap we're having (temps have pretty regularly dipped below 30F, which is very cold for a So Cal town):

Four of the five council members said during their last meeting of the year that they couldn't support a request by officials of the Salvation Army and Interfaith Community Services to open a temporary winter shelter in the gymnasium of the Salvation Army at Las Villas Way near Centre City and El Norte parkways.

The council didn't vote on the matter because no motion was made. Only Mayor Lori Holt-Pfeiler, who put the item on the meeting agenda, said she supported opening the shelter. No city money was requested for the shelter, only the council's approval of the building's additional use.
From the NC Times. Read the comments, they're amazingly gross at times.

I very nearly puked reading this.

At 4:22 West Coast Time today, we will pass the Winter Solstice. The darkest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, it alwasy puts my in a reflective mood. Where I live, in Seattle, it doesn't get cold, although we have had a very rough fall so far. And yet, there are a few plants that seem to hold the promise of springtime already, with buds on their branches. Staring into the abyss as many of us are, and as our nation is, we can hold fast to those little glimpses of hope. Even on the darkest day of the year, there is still a little light, even if you have to light it yourself. We must not give in to hopelessness, but rather stare fearlessly into the farkness. We are sparks, and we are reflections, we bring light, and we magnify the light that comes through Nature. I wish you all peace in this day...

Winter has arrived here in Colorado, after burying Washington state and is now on its march east across the country.  For my first-ever diary entry, I wanted to share with you a tale of Karma and invite you to help make your part of the country a little better as the weather becomes tough for so many.

The storm arrived Tuesday evening in the Denver area, and the city was slow getting their snow clearing underway meaning that traffic across the evening rush was slow, accidents were plentiful, and ice caused many people to spin their wheels.

My ride home took about two hours.  I have a new all-wheel drive Escape, and this was my first real experience in snow with it.  It performed marvelously, and I was able to drive up hills and through trouble spots that caused others to stack up.  On one hill, there were several people who were trying to get their rear-wheel and front-wheel drive cars up it. (more down the slope)

There's been a touch of Autumn in the air for the last week or so and today's a rainy Sunday with the students moving back into town for the beginning of school.  Looks like it's time to get ready for winter.

Back in WWII, the government was exhorting people to Prepare for Winter Now! not because it was a social welfare or nanny state, not because, in the words of Dick Cheney, "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue," but because we were fighting a serious war against a deadly serious enemy and conservation of just about every resource was a necessity in order to win.  

The Bush/Cheney administration has been amping up their rhetoric recently but that's all they are doing.  They have been invoking the images and ideas of WWII (and Godwin's Law), but they are not taking any serious actions toward conservation on the homefront.  As a matter of fact, their history shows that they are constitutionally opposed to conservation.  

"Conservatives" who deny conservation, how post-modern!

But that is not the point of my post today. Today I want to open a discussion about how and where we fight as progressives.

Torino, Italy - The 2006 Olympic winter games in Torino, Italy next month are shaping up to be some of the more interesting in recent memory, with stories of sexual harassment and drunken downhilling swirling around these Italian Alps.