mrrnice2

Maybe there is no bottom. The United States is a country of horror.

From one stranger to another. Happy Birthday Old Dog. Have a great day.

Oh I'm over it. Just pretty sad.

It is no longer Donald Trump this or Donald Trump that. When you speak of him substitute the words the United States instead because he is being supported by both houses of Congress and a large percentage of the American public. I shall be interested to see what the people of Alabama decide on December 12th but apparently there is a good chance that an accused pedophile and stalker of young teenage girls will be elected as a senator of the United States. He is supported by the President of the United States. I am feeling very sad about the fact that so many millions of people are ready to throw women under the bus and the LGBTQ community along with them. I am perhaps more nervous that Trump will resign or be impeached and they will have Mike Pence in his place. A true hater. Just some musings.

I'm just looking in on the site again after a very long hiatus. I used to be pretty much a daily regular but that seems to have gone. It's nice to see some familiar names and there are certainly a lot of new ones! At the moment I have just finished putting on a new home brew. MN2

First, if there's anyone out there that missed me, I'm still alive and kicking. :) I have been seriously interested in alternative sources of energy since I moved to PEI in the 70's and at that time we were a world leader in wind turbine research. Unfortunately government dropped out of the initiative and we lost our advantage, however we do now generate up to 25% of our electricity now from wind in the province. As well I have always had an interest in solar energy and last April I installed 20 solar panels. So far so good and if they perform as advertised then they will generate a little more than half of my annual electricity. I can monitor them literally minute by minute so after a year I shall consider whether to add another twenty. Of course I have always had the interest but when the United States began to withdraw from so many of their environmental regulations and were making motions about withdrawing from the Paris Accord, that was the final piece that helped me to make this decision. So in a way this is my FU to the United States. For those who are interested, the payback is estimated to be about 10 years. I have looked at going off grid but battery storage is cost prohibitive, even with the new Tesla powerwalls or any other type of battery storage. Right now my over production is credited to my local power utility and I will get that back through the winter months. I have always loved blue skies and nothing but sun but now I look forward to those days more than ever. :) Sunny days everyone. MN2

It is probably no coincidence when I look back that my last post on here was on election day in the United States. Yes I am Canadian but the result of that election put me into a tailspin. Today I have to dump this off of my shoulders even if only for me and if not a single person reads it or replies. My personal therapy. Where to start. The election result itself is very distressing. I know that many people did not bother to vote and I know that Hillary won the popular vote by close to 3 000 000 but I also know that millions upon millions of our American neighbors did vote for him. Whether it was because of desperate financial situations, or it was a total disgust with the political norm and politicians or that many people are or can just ignore misogynist and racist behavior or who knows what, millions of people consciously chose Donald Trump. As months have gone by since his election and now only days have gone by since his inauguration, my profound concerns about the United States and Canada and the world grow. They say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing but I am a very amateur historian with my primary interest being that of the rise of Hitler and Fascism in the 1930's. I know, I know, so may are saying that this is different. Well I hope that you are correct. Never again? Well, here we are. Lies repeated so often that they become truth, suppression of the press, selecting a group for the people to focus their hatred on, nationalism in the sense of everybody has done wrong by us, insulting other nations, sending refugees back home and on and on there are so many similarities. Fascism by any name. Prime Minister Trudeau has been one of the first world leaders to stand up for human dignity. I know that we cannot save everyone, we can't, but we can at least say that we will do what we can. We will not say the hell with them as the Americans have done. His father when he was Prime Minister had the quote about sleeping beside an elephant. It was true then and equally true now, but regardless I believe that Prime Minister Trudeau should not visit Washington nor invite Mr. Trump here. If Trump visits I will be there with my sign. In Canada we did good. Harper is gone and was sent packing with his tail between his legs. It's looking like the Conservatives are going to replace him with our own Trump, our own extreme right wing evangelical with Kelly Leitch or Kevin, O'leary. I hope not but if we do, remember that at the next election. Back to the initial topic. Where will things go from here? Isn't it crazy or ironic that for the first time ever an elected politician is doing exactly what he promised to do. Having Steve Bannon in the White House while removing the military and intelligence agencies from the inner circle cannot end well. The question is ultimately and I fear sooner rather than later, whether American police and troops will fire on their own people or not. I can see their own Tienanmen Square. In Trumps words, "Sad." To end on a really positive note, I felt really good the day after the inauguration with the women's marches not only all across the United States but all over the world. May all of this be wrong, but i am fearful. See you in Ottawa with your signs. It's good to back. MN2

Well it's Tuesday the 8th and now only a few hours until votes start to be counted. Any predictions or final thoughts? For me I will lean on my long history of idealism so I have to believe that hate will not win out. I think it will be Clinton by a wide margin, but even as I write that I am terrified that Trump will have more millions of secret voters who were too embarrassed to admit they would vote for him.

It is hard to believe, almost beyond my comprehension actually, but there is a very good chance that Trump is going to be the next President of the United States. I have felt from the beginning the anger at politicians and politics as usual, but had no idea that there are millions and millions of people who are that angry that they are willing to go with a Trump to make their point. The politics of hatred, xenophobia, misogyny and extreme right wing evangelical ideology was tossed out in Canada a year ago and we shall see how that works out, but I fear the worst in the U.S.case. Trump makes Harper look like a cupcake. Why do I care? I care because the U.S. is a world power, perhaps THE world power and what they do has a profound impact on everyone in the world. I am truly worried about the economic impact of a Trump presidency, the potential for major world conflicts of a Trump presidency, and of the message that he will send to our young people about how to treat each other. Canada and Canadians will not be immune to his rise to power unfortunately. That election has been unbelievable to watch and follow and I still hope that sanity will prevail even if Clinton is certainly far far less than an ideal President.

With this being 2016 and with sixty plus years of experience behind me I really thought that we had progressed, that we had learned, that times have changed. I knew that we were not all the way there, or perhaps even knew that there was a long way yet to go, but never did I think that we have made such little progress. I refer of course to the present debate in the United States over the words and actions of Donald Trump as related to women. The fact that a man can brag about his past history of sexually assaulting women, who brags of being a voyeur behind the scenes of his beauty pageants, who verbally degrades women so obviously can be a candidate for the President of the United States blows me away. Totally. That however is not the worst of it. The fact that he still has thousands of people who attend his rallys, has millions that plan to vote for him, and that the majority of his party's political candidates still will support him is beyond scary. Women in the United States should be terrified of the tone that he is setting and of the message that he is very directly giving to boys and men. What he has said is not simple locker room talk or boys will be boys stuff. These were not just words but rather were descriptions of actions and to this point he has been correct in saying that, "If you are a star then you can do anything." Is it however just in the United States that this is dangerous? Canada has a pretty powerful neighbor just to the south and its actions and its beliefs influence us in this country, like it or not. As a man even from a foreign country to the United States I am embarrassed and angry about his words, his actions, and his normalizing of behavior that promotes violence against women. I am not like that and in my heart I don't believe that the majority of men are like that. The other question that arises, as this has in fact has brought the most blow back on Mr. Trump, is why did it take so long? Comments that are blatantly racist concerning blacks, Latinos and Islam, his comments about the disabled, his comments inviting foreign governments to hack his opponents, his willingness to jail a political opponent all received a general pass. That is for a different thread. Right now it is about women and our respect for them and this is personal to me. Apparently there are many who still in 2016 do not have that respect. Sad. I wish I had a vote in the U.S. If anyone did not hear the speech today from Michelle Obama on this topic, it was probably the best speech that I have ever heard.

Pretty simple but I am still kicking and it was a gorgeous day in PEI. I was outside from morning till night and got a lot of outside work done. I am planning an early Thanksgiving visit with my girls in Halifax. :) I can't believe that it's October, but October is also one of my favorite months.

Making pickles, pickles and more pickles. :)

Home. Sore. More scars for the collection. Reasonably mobile for the moment. Time will tell. I am glad to be home. :)

I am presuming that in no way you are speaking of revisionist history which is a pet peeve of mine. A constitution is a very difficult thing to change from a political sense. In the U.S. the issue is their undying faith in founding fathers and the sacrosanct belief that the constitution is inviolate. For them the desire to hold on to the past will be a difficult thing to get over. Religious texts are also inviolate to those who believe, whether it be the Bible or the Koran. How one interprets the text has always been and will alwys be open to interpretation. On a more local level it would seem that most Canadians would like to have an abolished senate or a revised one but in order to do so a constitutional amendment would be required and unfortunately that is no small thing.

Have you ever rolled the dice in any serious way? If so, how did it turn out? I have decided to do a roll of the dice in a medical sense. My choice is to lose my leg above the knee or a surgery that will prevent that but with the down side being to lose the one leg above the knee and the other below. The safer bet is to sacrifice the one leg. I have chosen to roll the dice though the risk of a bad outcome is medically significant. Surgery Friday and then we shall see over the next few weeks how it turns out. For the last while I have been pretty upset about what to do. Now I am content with my decision, no matter how it turns out.