I receive a threat: "whoever video taped this has no life and needs to be shot in the head."

That's a comment on my YouTube video about the salt trucks that circled the Wisconsin Capitol yesterday, blowing horns, apparently in support of the protesters. (I blogged the video here.)

Coincidentally, last night, one of my readers sent this email to the Madison Street Superintendent:

I work in Madison, so I was delighted to read on madison.com this morning that the snow plows were out "the moment" precipitation began today.

You might want to double check whether those plows were pouring salt, however, or whether the drivers were more interested in showing their support for anti-Walker ralliers:

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/02/madison-city-salt-trucks-circle-capitol.html

The Street Superintendent responded:

I want to thank you for bringing this to my attention. While it was necessary with the storm system we had yesterday to have crews working the overtime to be salting and plowing our main streets, we never should have had the trucks involved in the rally around the Capitol.

We are checking our GPS and determining the what operators were involved and will be dealing with this.

While people are free to rally and support whatever cause they believe in, it should not be done at the expense of the taxpayers such as you and I.

I thank you again,

Al Schumacher
Street Superintendent
1501 W. Badger Rd.
Madison, WI 53713
(608) 266-4681

aschumacher@cityofmadison.com

At the Blue Snow Café...

... you can talk all night.

At the Winter Sunset Café...

... tell us all your subtly dark thoughts and secrets.

My snow-walk...

... around the neighborhood today.

At the Springtime Café...

... can't you see we're almost there?

How are you dealing with the national blizzardification?

Here's what it looked like when I opened the door this morning:



That made me laugh, even though I'd already seen the view from the window:

3 Madison things.

1. We're having a blizzard. Classes canceled tomorrow. Meade's watching the basketball game on TV — the Badgers are playing downtown tonight. The announcer explains the cheer from the crowd: They just saw the news that classes are canceled tomorrow.

2. Eating in Madison A to Z put up its review of the new restaurant 43 North, and Meade and I went along with JM and Nichole for that one.

There were rolls served with butter and oil in three square glass dishes. The rolls were also squarish, with a very airy crumb and a shiny, leathery crust that was especially hard on the bottom. The butter was from Wolf Ridge (if we recall correctly) and came in two forms: slightly chilled and set, or powdered with tapioca flour. The oil was also served as a powder. Ann nailed it: the lipids were the Dippin' Dots of bread toppings.

3. Larry Kaufmann lambastes that play we were talking about the other day:
The dialogue between the lefty grad students and these conservative adversaries is also about as subtle as a flying mallet. These conversations are the heart of the play and lead to the murder of four of the five grotesque conservative thugs; only a seventeen-year old girl promoting abstinence is deemed too young to kill (kind of like not imposing the death penalty on minors, I suppose)....

All I need is a big bottle of syrup...

... can sit down to Madison's biggest sno-cone.

I'll have caramel!

A midday ski.

Meade and I squeezed in a lunch-hour ski break today.





Feel free to talk about anything you want in the comments. The photography — by Meade — is just for fun. This is an open thread.

ADDED: I changed the video. This one has more of a semblance of motion.

Is it possible to ski after class, when class ends at 4:50 and it's January?

Yes, with some help from the moon.

At the Frozen Lake Café...

... maybe you can catch something.

At the Cold Hands Café...

... we're taking the gloves off.

Barehanded snowball fighting, Althouse-style....

... in a scarf beautifully knitted by Irene. Wait a minute...



... in a hat spiffily hand-knitted by Martha.



Gotcha!

(Seriously, thanks, Irene and Martha, for the cool handmade birthday stuff.)

Now We Are 60.

At the Frozen Playground Café...

... all you cold-hearted bastards can have your fun. Nice people... be careful!

Ice skating conditions on Lake Mendota today...

... after yesterday's sun on clear black ice, it's hard to tell that thing is the sun and the ice is powdered over with snow:



It was a bit unnerving to skate so far from shore without the visual confirmation of the thickness of the ice that we had yesterday. But the ice couldn't have melted since yesterday. Could it? What was that strange pinging sound, like the lake was a tight-stretched drum and some unseen hand was dropping boulders on it somewhere in the distance?

"Even the dead can't escape the ineptitude of the city's Sanitation Department."

"Sanitation crews dumped tons of dirty snow from the Christmas-weekend blizzard into the city's biggest Jewish cemetery, toppling 21 gravestones and wrecking an iron fence."

"That's pretty cool. I love the open buckles and how they pick up the silver of the tin foil/duct tape..."

Comments on a Sartorialist photo from the scene of the NYC blizzard:

Awesome! I love the boots, but it's the duct tape in classic silver that made me take notice. It just goes to show that even a homeless person or city worker or whoever this person is can accessorize with wit and style, given what's available to them....

Whoever this person is, there's always a slight line between what's ridiculous and what's considered "fashionable"...nowadays it seems that everything can work and be "cool"! ...

I battled with this photo. It affects the emotions in that it could be of a homeless or an eccentric person. Maybe you could have indicated that the guy is a construction worker. It comes close to the bone....



I was outside today photographing snow in Central Park, and let me tell you – this is a smart idea to tape your pants to your shoes! Of course, it is also sad because this picture is most likely of a homeless person, and this isn't a good time for them. Either way, the silver cheers up the idea, if only a little bit...

Why would people be offended with this being a homeless person? Scott's blog isn't just about girls in bandage dresses and high-heels. He takes photos of people coming from ALL aspects of life. Homeless or a billionaire, both are worthy of a photograph. Good golly, you picky, whiney people.

I hate snow falling in my boot tops and have thought of doing this several times. Also, interesting how many people who posted earlier equate functionality with homelessness.

uhh...sorry this isn't creative or stylish at all. If it was deliberate, maybe it'd be cool, but it's just a homeless guy keeping warm. Oh how avant-garde! Not really....

20-inches of snow, people. Add to that the mountains on curbs where you could easily sink in to your mid-thigh. Duct tape dude has the right idea.

Ha. Angst-ing over duct tape in New York City. Meanwhile, in Alaska....

"Sanitation Department's slow snow cleanup was a budget protest."

Headlines the NY Post in an article that begins:

These garbage men really stink.

Selfish Sanitation Department bosses from the snow-slammed outer boroughs ordered their drivers to snarl the blizzard cleanup to protest budget cuts -- a disastrous move that turned streets into a minefield for emergency-services vehicles, The Post has learned....

New York's Strongest used a variety of tactics to drag out the plowing process -- and pad overtime checks -- which included keeping plows slightly higher than the roadways and skipping over streets along their routes, the sources said.

The snow-removal snitches said they were told to keep their plows off most streets and to wait for orders before attacking the accumulating piles of snow.

At the Red Tail Hawk Café...

... you can be as hawkish as you like. Or dovish.