The Dumbest Comment Of the Year

Hello folks!
How are you? Today I would like to present you with the dumbest comment of the year. Well, the year 2020 is not even half gone,....so who knows what's still in store.

I did not publish this one in the comment section as it was signed "anonymous" and as such does not qualify there. But for entertainment it is quite interesting. It also shows again how stupid and brainwashed people really are. So have a look:

"Why don't you fellas load your happy butts up and go to Russia or China to see what socialism is really like and then you won't be preaching it for us!!! You won't be able to preach AT ALL!!! Bye now!! 

So what are we noticing here? First of all we have the eye-popping believe that both China and Russia are socialist countries. Let go, that their governments are widely different, but what they have in common is that they do not practice SOCIALISM. The Federal Republic of Russia has become an OLIGARCHY where money and the MAFIA rules every-day life. This happens to be the same goal Mr. Trump is working after. He is just these days following Putin's playbook.

The People's Republic of China has a formal communist government, with a strong capitalist undertone. There certainly is no socialism present in that country either. If the brainless commenter here had known just a tiny little bit about socialism, he could have mentioned NORWAY, SWEDEN or DENMARK. Under their democratic socialism all three of them prospered to be between the richest  industrialized nations in the world. And besides of practicing democratic socialism they are also monarchies with Royal Families representing their respective countries.

But, OK, he/she doesn't know that.

What he/she also thinks is that people cannot "preach", aka have the right of free speech, under a socialist system. Again, his/her failing education shows through once more. 

It is especially in countries with democratic socialism that people enjoy being able to voice their concerns and take influence in the political process. Countries like Russia and China do not permit such freedom, because they do not embrace socialism. Again, we have a parallel to the current efforts of the Trump administration and the GOP. Voter suppression is their way how they want to stay in power. Also they view the free press as the enemy of the people. The latter statement has been used in China, Russia and every other dictatorship in the world.

Now, I am not surprised to hear and read folly comments like the one above, when they originate from an American (or Canadian) who has never travelled anywhere outside of North America.

So next time, Mr./Mrs. Anonymous, before you comment again, you should start using what is commonly called brain. 

Back to school!

How An Irresponsible Health Care Worker Starts New Covid Cases In Our Province

Do you trust your doctor? I do trust mine - normally. But our trust can get on shaky ground when we hear about malpractice or simple sloppyness. A case of an unspeakable irresponsibility happened just a few days ago in our home province. After having fought down the Covid-19 cases to zero, a health care worker (which is a male doctor) travelled to neighbouring Quebec. picked up the virus there and returned to New Brunswick, without following provincial law and quarantine for 14 days. Then he went back to work treating hundreds of patients. The results are devastating. As of today 6 people have already tested positive. But the contact base for all people who had been with this doctor is stretching far and wide across the province.

On Wednesday, Premier Blaine Higgs announced a medical professional in their 50s, travelled to Quebec for personal reasons, "was not forthcoming about their reasons for travel upon returning to New Brunswick and he did not self-isolate as a result."

This professional then saw patients for two weeks at the Campbellton Regional Hospital and possibly other locations, forcing Higgs to order that region back into a stricter phase of pandemic recovery, known as the orange phase.

The policy for any health-care workers who travel outside the province for any reason is to self-isolate for 14 days. "It is mandatory."

Information about the case has been passed along to the RCMP to determine exactly what took place and whether charges are warranted.

As this case shows, the spread of the virus happens through travel (movement). In the case of this careless doctor it has led to a major setback for thousands of people. And it makes me wonder about the consequences when protesters are getting out on the streets, when people gather along beaches, and businesses and public parks are opening up - with other words, when the economy takes a front seat. In a couple of weeks we will know more, both here at home, and south of the border. But one thing is very clear: The International border will stay closed all summer long, and if a 2.wave of the virus will hit the country, it may stay closed until next year.

Yes! Why Not?

Donald Trump, Resign Now for America’s Sake: This is No Time for a Dangerous, Law-breaking, Bungling, Ignorant Ship Captain

by

Ralph Nader

 78 Comments

(Image: DonkeyHotey/cc)

Where are the calls for Trump’s resignation? Since his first months in the White House, Trump has been the most impeachable, most lawless, most self-enriching, most bungling President in U.S. history. He relies entirely on lying and scapegoating to avoid taking responsibility for his failures. Trump didn’t even win the popular vote – the Electoral College selected him. President Trump has fomented chaos and corruption in his administration without encountering insistent demands for his resignation.

The supine Republican Senate shields Trump from any political accountability. Dominated by the evil “Moscow Mitch” McConnell, the Senate prevented Trump from being convicted under the impeachment clause of the Constitution. But Trump makes the case against himself – “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” Trump makes good on that statement every day, making decisions with reckless abandon and doubling down, falsely accusing people of crimes, turning our government over to big businesses, and firing inspectors general investigating crime and corruption in Trump’s regime of corporatism, favoritism, and nepotism.

Trump exercises his pouting, unstable ego as the determinant of misgoverning on a deadly scale, as with his delaying, downplaying, over-riding science, and providing lethal advice regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. For which he boastfully gives himself a perfect ten.

Trump keeps flailing, failing, and using foul-mouthed rhetoric because about 43 percent of voters stick with him, no matter what.

Well – the parents of many Trump supporters did not stay with Richard Nixon in 1974. Public demands for “Tricky Dick” to leave office ultimately included much of his “base” including scores of Republicans in Congress, led by Mr. Conservative Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ). Why? Nixon had defied a Congressional subpoena and committed an obstruction of justice. Trump, on the other hand, has defied many Congressional subpoenas and engaged in over a dozen obstructions of justice, many of which are ongoing.

Why no demands for resignation? Have too many Americans lost their proper sense of honest public service and accountability? From 1974 to now, the American Bar Association (ABA) – supposedly a first responder against the destruction of rule of law and constitutional observance – has done nothing to challenge above-the-law presidential abuses. (In 2005-2006 the ABA displayed some courage and charged the Bush/Cheney administration with three sets of unconstitutional behavior.)

Many Trump voters seem to expect more of virtually every public figure who isn’t Trump! Ask Trump voters if they would support their local fire chief if he or she lied daily about the fire department’s readiness to fight fires? Would they support a fire chief who appoints firefighters with no experience? Would they support a police chief who accepts no responsibility for a street crime wave while disabling the force?

Would they support a CEO of a major hospital who promotes, against the advice of his/her medical scientists, chemicals and drugs that can take the lives of patients? Would they support a super predator bank CEO who gives sweet-heart deals to the rich at the direct expense of customers of modest means? Would they support a CEO of a big construction company, spouting anti-immigrant hate, while hiring hundreds of poorly paid undocumented foreign laborers taking jobs away from American workers? The answer is pretty clear.

These people in positions of power would have lost their jobs if they engaged in such reckless and unjust behavior. Corrupt Donald, on the other hand, has done all of these continually and remains an escapee from justice. In addition to these previously acknowledged failings, Trump has wrecked the federal health, safety, and economic protections including many life-saving controls on deadly pollution, dangerous business practices, and business theft of your earnings as consumers, workers, and savers.

In addition, here is a top betrayal: Trump promised his voters a big infrastructure repair and upgrade program in all communities – with good-paying jobs. He betrayed them, giving instead about 2 trillion dollars in tax cuts to the rich and big corporations, like the drug and banking industries and even his own family!

Trump voters need to ask themselves – what else does Trump have to do to our livelihood, health, safety, and dignity before you say – “no more!” If you want more details about Mr. Trump’s lying betrayals, read Fake President by Mark Green and me and judge Trump by his own contemptuous words and misdeeds.

Most puzzling are the many columnists – both Democratic and Republican – who week after week show how disastrously unworthy and unfit Trump is, yet never conclude with a demand for his resignation or further impeachment. Many in the opinion class may believe it would never happen. My response is that judging the odds is not the primary responsibility of a columnist. Making the demand is telling readers that your critique is serious enough to warrant a necessary remedy.

Devastating critics like Dana Milbank, Republican Michael Gerson, Eugene Robinson, Margaret Sullivan, and conservative Max Boot of the Washington Post, or Charles Blow, Paul Krugman, David Brooks, Maureen Dowd and Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times have cogently taken Trump apart on very serious matters since 2017, yet they leave their readers without the obvious conclusion -Trump has to go. A clear daily peril to innocent Americans “I’m in total control”, why not try bleach, etc. The country cannot wait until January 2021 – assuming dictatorial Donald and his determined GOP don’t criminally suppress enough votes to postpone Trump’s departure until January 2025.

A Road Too Dangerous To Travel

Trump's Nazification of the GOP is why there's serious discussion of killing off the 'unfit

"Very fine people" at the deadly 2017 Nazi rally in Charlottesville

Under Donald Trump, the Republican Party is racing toward a transformation that mimics the greatest evil of the 20th century. Long before the Nazis fully engaged with genocidal murder against the Jews, there were persecutions of people deemed "unfit." These were people whom Adolf Hitler’s extremists arbitrarily deemed insufficiently able to contribute to the greater German society. They included the infirm, people with learning disabilities, the mentally ill, those suffering from epilepsy, the physically disabled, and those struggling with alcohol issues.

According to the Nazis' white supremacist ideology, those people were not only impediments to their quest in perfecting their master race, but were also economic burdens to society. The Nazis started a campaign of propaganda to mock them. They were called "unworthy of life” and labeled as "useless eaters." The propaganda even expanded to math textbooks, which were revised to include arithmetic problems on how much it costs to care for these undesirables. This was the first stage.

Then the Nazis moved to the next stage; they worked with political and medical authorities to divide communities between who they deemed as the “fit” and “unfit” members. The arbitrary classification system would serve a deadly purpose.

This ultimately led to the final stage: the systematic, targeted killing of those labeled as a burden. At that point, the Nazis had groomed the German population by getting a little bit worse every single day—just enough to normalize the inhumanity. By the time the Nazis reached this stage, the populace had gotten so used to the cruelties, it seemed like murder of “the weak” was simply the next logical step. They had justified it in their minds.

The concept of social Darwinism and arbitrary human classification is based upon Friedrich Nietzsche's Übermensch theory of superhumans. These are people not impeded by the needs of others deemed inferior. The weaker humans—characterized as the burdens of society—are to be left to fend for themselves. Hitler used this theory as the ideological foundation for his belief in a master race. Another person known to borrow heavily from this theory is the prophet of American conservatism, author Ayn Rand.

Born, raised, and educated in Russia, Rand’s entire philosophy is centered around the concept of individual supremacy and radical free market fundamentalism. Rand and her ilk applied the Übermensch theory to capitalism, which justifies the wealthy’s belief that they have an absolute right to plunder. She called it ”the virtue of selfishness.” Her philosophy was simple: The weak are weak and should be taken advantage of, because it is the natural order of things. Therefore, society needs to focus only on developing the strong, and allow the weak to suffer or die.

Rand’s theory did not spare anyone, even children. Two years before her death in 1982, she appeared on Phil Donahue’s eponymous talk show to explain why it was wrong for our government to ever consider the needs of “subnormal” children and the “handicapped.”


AYN RAND: “The newest proposals of having special, millions spent on subnormal children and on the handicapped. You are getting the so-called "needing" [school] buses is the attempt to bring everybody to the level of the handicapped. 

But it includes the mentally retarded which is the subnormal, which is the children who are unable to learn, so that at the end of spending thousands or millions of taxpayers’ money, you're left with a half-idiot who MAY learn to read and write. MAY.”

She goes on to explain how she values some human lives over others … to applause.


Ayn Rand isn’t the sole driving force behind the right-wing’s belief in their superiority over others, but she is probably the most direct and honest about it—and the Grand Old Party loves her for it. Rand’s brand of social Darwinism can be found in the right-wing support of eliminating social safety nets for the poor in order to support massive tax breaks and subsidies for the top 1% of the wealthiest Americans. It’s this sort of mindset that forces the poor in this nation to fight for the crumbs that rarely trickle down.

Randian capitalism hit the mainstream in the 1980s. It was the Reagan era, when a new crop of right-wing devotees adopted the principle that good governance, which is supposed to work toward the collective good, was no longer an ideal. Conservatives during this timeframe focused heavily on deregulation for big business, giving tax cuts to the richest Americans, and ending antitrust protections against monopolies. Ever since, Republicans have retooled their party to only serve the interests of the ultra-rich. Their destructive policies on everything—from education, health care, and shifting the tax burden away from the wealthy—has made U.S. income inequality the highest it’s been since the Census started tracking it over a half-century ago.

You would be hard-pressed to find any Republican today who doesn’t speak fondly of Ayn Rand. White House officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pay homage to her ideals. Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said he got into politics because of her. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was even named after her by his father, former presidential candidate Ron Paul. But it’s Donald Trump—infamously known for hating to read—who said that The Fountainhead was one of his favorite books of all time, because it glorified the alpha male capitalist who had no regard for human consequence.

Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump also subscribes to the theory of inherent biological superiority. His father, Fred Trump, a white supremacist who marched with the Klan, instilled in his son the idea that their family’s success was genetic, according to Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio. According to D’Antonio, the elder Trump told his children that he and his wife were superior people, and produced superior offspring. To be fair to Donald Trump, a lot of autocrats also subscribe to this idea. The Koch brothers were taught by their father, a Nazi-sympathizer, that plutocrats deserved the right to rule, even at the expense of democracy, because they were naturally superior.

Donald Trump, who idolized his father, took his lessons to heart. He repeatedly tells people that he has “good genes”; he primarily consults with himself over anyone else because he believes he has such a great brain. Hilariously, Trump even claims his orange skin tone is the result of "superior" genes.

Democrats, of course, hold views that are the polar opposite to Rand’s ideology. Our values stem from our unshakable belief in equality and opportunity. We don’t subscribe to people being genetically superior or inferior, or makers and takers, or fit or unfit. We don’t see any class of people that doesn’t deserve basic human rights, or shouldn’t be treated with a humane level of decency, even though our political foes might label them with terms such as “vermin” or “an infestation.” Democrats see value in the lives of all humans, even our enemies.

Even though many Democrats have been hyper-aware of this difference between our parties’ two philosophies, it has typically manifested itself in our respective parties’ priorities in legislation. The Republicans would always ignore the needs of the poor, the sick, the uninsured: the weak. The Democrats would insist on fighting for them, even if it meant a slightly higher tax burden, preferably on the wealthy. It worked this way for years—until Trump came to power.

Although the modern conservative has always courted the impoverished, bitter, uneducated populace with xenophobic and racist dog whistles, it was because their purposefulness lay in their numbers: they were useful idiots to the plutocracy. At some point, a populist politician was bound to come along who took that hatred to heart. Now, within Trump’s party, hatred is no longer the means to achieving its goal, but rather, it is the goal itself.

White supremacists Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon exiting Air Force One

For most Republicans, the intention was never to turn the Party over to the unabashed racists and Nazis, but rather to court them and use them. Trump has flipped this script on its head. The people in the White House who are closest to Trump—the ones manipulating him—are people like Stephen Miller, who is working for genocide to become a reality.

Miller is behind the worst of the worst impulses of the Trump administration, including abandoning the United States’ longstanding legal practice to not deport sick children. Trump ordered critically ill migrant children, such as kids with cancer, to be deported—even if it meant death. Immigrants who escaped here with their families to run from hit squads were ordered back without regard for their circumstances, only to be tortured and killed upon return to their home country. The Trump administration even ordered immigration courts to take down all CDC coronavirus posters to stop the spread of the virus—the only possible reason being to encourage the spread of the disease among those deemed a burden.

Letting immigrants die was beyond cruel, as was tearing babies from their mothers and putting them in cages indefinitely, yet half of America just shrugged as it happened. Trump is still seriously being considered as a presidential contender, and most Republicans still haven’t abandoned him. In fact, Trump has effectively taken the Party over. The worst people, now in high places within Trump’s new GOP, have pushed Republican ideology ever closer to Nazi ideals.

It’s no secret that the people most in danger of dying from COVID-19 are the sick, the elderly, and the infirm. Conservative pundits also gleefully point out, incorrectly, that the virus is primarily a problem in Democratic areas. Yet I cannot imagine any Republican choice for president in this century—Mitt, Dubya, or McCain—coming out in favor of letting the virus ”wash over the masses.” I can’t fathom any of them suggesting that the sick and elderly should die to save the stock market. A nation’s economy is supposed to serve the people, not the other way around, and no one should ever be asked to die for Wall Street.

It wasn’t so long ago that the party of George W. Bush was outraged over Terri Schiavo, a woman in a persistent vegetative state whose husband wanted to remove her from life support. It has only been a handful of years since the Republican rallying cry was “All Lives Matter.” It doesn’t surprise me how far Republicans have fallen, but it does amaze me how quickly Trump has turned them.

Yet that is exactly where we are now. Trump’s reelection and the GOP’s hold on power is so critical in their minds, they are demanding sacrifices be made.



Texas' Dan Patrick: 'There are more important things than living'

Of course, the sacrifice these Republican leaders always speak of is from the weak and the poor. It is never their families who are asked to give up their money, their resources, or their lives.

Last month, White House National Economic Council chairman Larry Kudlow claimed in an interview that “The cure can’t be worse than the disease, and we’re gonna have to make some difficult trade-offs.” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said on live television that “lots of grandparents” are willing to “take a chance” on their survival for the good of the economy. Brit Hume of Fox News said it’s “entirely reasonable” to let family members die for the stock market.

The nation’s billionaires, along with other members of our elite, who have the luxury of being able to socially distance while making money, are almost unanimously in favor of getting people back to work. After all, they are dependent on the workers making them money if they want to keep their lifestyle intact. Who cares if health officials say it’s unsafe? If workers die, they can be replaced.

I can’t believe they say things like this out loud:

“We’ll gradually bring those people back and see what happens. Some of them will get sick, some may even die, I don’t know. “—Dick Kovacevich, former CEO of Wells Fargo

“The damages of keeping the economy closed as it is could be worse than losing a few more people.” —Tom Golisano, the founder and chairman of payroll processor Paychex Inc.

Putting aside the immorality that making money for rich people should take precedence over a public health emergency, the very concept of allowing vast numbers of Americans to die to “save the economy” is completely illogical. By relaxing social restrictions too soon, the death rate will skyrocket. Our extremely fragile healthcare system will then collapse, and more businesses will crumble. Ironically, opening prematurely won't just kill more people, it will cause even more devastating economic harm.

At least one billionaire, Mark Cuban, was honest about billionaires’ intentions: "Ignore anything someone like me might say … lives are at stake.”

For all of the screaming about individual freedom that the right does, including attacks on our party for being “socialist,” I find it ironic that the Trumpian right-wing is now demanding that people submit to death for the state: the expendable workers, the sick, the grandparents and great-grandparents who have already lived their lives. All should sacrifice to serve for Trump’s reelection bid.

That’s the Republican plan, anyway. This is a serious discussion that’s worth having, we are being told. Many state and local leaders have fought strongly against opening too soon, but others are caving to the pressure to open up immediately. Although many will die, the Republicans will believe they have protected the business class elite—our “superiors.” The Nazification of the GOP will be complete.

Republican governors are caving to their party’s demand to reopen, the consequences for their vulnerable constituents be damned. If that’s not an indication of how far our country has fallen since Trump, nothing is. It turns out that Trump openly mocking the disabled wasn’t the basement low of his party, but the ceiling. The trajectory of where the Republican Party is headed is far, far worse.

I didn’t think we’d fall this far this fast. I can’t believe I’m literally debating—with Trump supporters in my neighborhood—the value of letting people live during this outbreak. How the fuck are we still having serious discussions about Trump’s electability?

Serious discussions of sacrificing the weak weren’t acceptable too long ago; I don’t even want to think what might be considered acceptable four years from now, if the right-wing is still clinging to power.

This terrifying stance should scare you to do everything you can to make sure this Nazified version of the GOP is thrown out of power this year. Otherwise, you or your family might be subjected to the "next stage." Right now, the right is asking for voluntary sacrifices of the old and weak, but history shows it's just a few atrocities away from being made mandatory.

We Moved Back Into The House

The day ran up with lots of sunshine, but it wasn't what we could call a warm spring morning. Temps were barely above the freezing mark - at least if one stepped out into the wind. Oh sorry, I said wind, but I mean storm. Dressed with Long Johns and the warm winter jacket Dixie and I ventured out onto a coastal trail on the east side, away from the strong westerly wind casts.

Rugged coast towards Grand Manan

The trail gives general good protection against westerly winds and even offers 2 nice benches to enjoy the far view across the Bay of Fundy, with the island of Grand Manan stretching out on the horizon.

So yes, I sat down on a Bench just enjoying the tranquility. Meanwhile, Dixie was exploring the surrounding area. The good thing with Dixie is that she will never run away. She always stays around me when I am sitting down. As soon as she doesn't hear my steps behind her she stops, turns and looks, waiting for me to continue walking.

She certainly is a wonderful dog. But she still is very hesitant to enter our trailer. More work to do there with her.

Back from the morning walk, we decided to continue with the greenhouse project.

First task was spreading out the old straw, then covering it with black dirt, mixed with peatmoss.

That kept us busy until it was time for lunch. After the break I started mixing more concrete for building a backwall behind the spot where the stove would be placed. A short stub of stove pipe was cemented in.

The square plates in this picture is the form for the concrete.

While I had been working with the concrete and masonry, Bea had set up our beds in the renovated bedroom and moved our bedding back into the house. So we are out of the trailer again for now.

I also ordered the lumber necessary for further construction. It'll be coming over from the mainland by truck on Tuesday.

The afternoon coffee break was followed by another doggy walk. Again we stayed out of the wind heading down another nice forest trail in the Roosevelt Park.

After supper we all piled into the van again and went to check on some summer homes. Does the lawns need a cut and what about that laundry spindel which had fallen over behind the house? Always something to do.

Overall, it was a great sunny day, except for the steady storm casts hitting us. At least the temps got up into the mid fifties by afternoon, which tempted me to take a short fun ride in our oldtimer car.

Hope you are still staying out of harms way.

Hello We Are Trendy!

Though we are not quarantined and can actually cross borders for essential errands, we have mostly been confining ourselves to our home and our island. Since business is not gonna happen, we are using our time on home projects. I have mentioned our greenhouse project earlier and with a sunny day today, we rolled up shirt sleeves and dug in. Previously I had completed the concrete and cinder block foundation.

Taking shape

The sifted dirt

But a huge pile of dirt with a lot of stones in it was now heaped within the foundation. We had set up a sifting frame and siftet most of the dirt, which was then moved to a spread out tarp. After leveling off the remaining dirt in the greenhouse, it was time to lay out the center walkway. For that I had a stack of pink concrete tiles which I got last year from a neighbour. Left and right of the walkway I placed a row of cinder blocks. They are gonna be filled with dirt and used as a row of small planters, while they also serve as retainer for the soil we are gonna use in the plant beds. Before the siftet dirt is moved back into the greenhouse we will have a layer of old used straw spread out underneath. This straw was used in the community garden last year and has been saturated with nutrients. Our siftet dirt will be mixed with sheep manure and compost.

Next step in this building project will be the wooden frame.

When I sent the picture to a friend she wrote, you are right in the trend. Good now that we are trendy, for once!

Quite a different home project was the renovation of a bedroom upstairs.

The old bedroom 

With wallpaper stripped

New Insulation coming in

All done

While doing the walls and removing old plaster, insulating and dry-walling was a big job which actually took weeks to finish, the last job was the sanding down of the old hardwood floor. I borrowed a belt sander from a friend and worked my way from one end to the other. I hate to be on my knees for hours on end, but finally I was done. 2 coats with a clear high-gloss polyurethane finished the job. While I got the floor ready we moved out of the house and slept in our trailer. While modern day floor varnish does not contain solvents, it does produce a special odour which certainly feels uncomfortable, thus the move into the trailer. Looking back at the reno process I feel good that I finally did it. It shoulda been done years ago. The actual reason for starting this project was not the Covid situation, but the fact that we expected visitors from Germany this summer and this would have been our guestroom. Unfortunately, they recently canceled their Canada vacation due to travel restrictions imposed because of the pandemic. We hope they will make it next year.

So far we have not been bored and I have a hunch we will stay busy with the completion of the greenhouse.

Thanks To Our Great Neighbours To The South Our Border Will Stay Closed

When I was 15 and fell in love with Canada I didn't really know what great country Canada was.

Over the years (it's been 18 now) I have learned a lot about this land.

F.ex. I learned that every Canadian or permanent resident gets a base pension after filling 65yrs. It's calculated over the number of years of residency. I am not saying you can really live of it, but it pays some bills. For those who just have the base pension (also called "Old Age Pension") Canada pays a "supplemental income" every month. If you have paid into the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) you get another pension from CPP. And nobody will start taking that away or reducing it. It's not an "entitlement" but an insurance you have paid into.

Most recently, I learned another thing. And it was new to all Canadians. Under a National Emergency like we have now with the Covid-19 pandemic, Canada takes care of its citizens like I haven't heard any other country is doing it. Until October the Federal Government is paying $2000/month to every qualifying Canadian citizen and permanent resident. The application is online, and if the applicant has a direct deposit agreement with the government the money is in his bank account within 3 days.

Other helping financial measures include the Agricultural Industry and some other industries.


Another, non-financial, measure is keeping the border to the U.S. closed. And that is mainly due to the irresponsible way (Trump: I take no responsibility) the US government has handled the pandemic. Of course, there is also a good portion of everyday Americans who value what they call "their personal freedom" higher than people's lives and well-being. Those "fine people" are to blame when infection rates are going up in their state.

Consequently, Covid-19 infections are still going up in every continental state of the U.S. and as long as we don't see a sharp decline of both new Covid cases and ditto Covid deaths, the border to Canada stays closed.

We feel sorry that so many Americans will not be able to visit Canada this summer, many of them owning vacation homes in our country, but I am sure those Americans who have obeyed stay-at-home orders and the social distancing rules, understand the necessity of these measures. Meanwhile, Canada will slowly start the economy again, bit by bit and province by province. But it will happen behind a closed border. The only exemptions are essential workers and essential cargo transports.

Here, in our home province, we are the "best students in class" as we still have no Covid deaths and our active infections have zeroed out.

Thanks for being here, stay-at-home and keep your social distance.

The End Of WWII

May 8th 1945 marks the end of WWII. Europe's  population could finally breathe freely again. The persecuted could come out of their hiding places, Nations could start looking into the future again rebuilding their governments.The German military had capitulated. The devastation around people in Germany was unspeakable. 

Over the course of just a few years 6 Million Jews had been killed in a system the world had never seen before, Additionally, millions of citizens from countries all over Europe including Russia had died.

World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. An estimated total of 70–85 million people perished, which was about 3% of the 1940 world population (est. 2.3 billion).
Deaths directly caused by the war (including military and civilians killed) are estimated at 50–56 million people, while there were an additional estimated 19 to 28 million deaths from war-related disease and famine.

Today, on May 8th, we think of the victims of WWII. And we must be resolute and make sure there will be no WWIII. Our democracies must remain strong. We must guard against dictatorship and abuse of power. We must exercise tolerance towards people of all skin colors and foreign cultures. We must learn the best way how to live with each other, not against each other, or else this world will end in chaos and total destruction. We must take care of our elders, the weak and the sick. There is no higher value to gain than life itself.

This is what we have to think of on this day, May 8th. Today, 75 years earlier the world made a restart into what everybody believed would be a better life.

Has the world become a better place? Do we have a better life now than people had in 1945 or before the war? Probably. But the world as a whole is still full of wars and military stand-offs. We still have starvation, we still have dictatorships around the world and exploitation of the working class and we have massive migrations from poor countries. New threats are global warming, floods and frightening storms, some of which are caused by massive deforestation, pushed for by multi-national companies. We even got a pandemic again, like the Spanish Flu 100 years ago, and like then, we have no vaccine against it.

By now we should be smarter, more educated and pursuing happiness instead of conflict. Maybe we humans are haunted by our own selfishness, our greed and never ending desire of power over others. It's hard to find a different explanation.

Take care, stay safe and healthy.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Spring Time

And I know spring has sprung many places weeks ago, but first now it's happening on our home turf. 

Forsythia have just started blooming and lilac bushes are showing thick buds, ready to open in another warm day or two. "Warm" doesn't mean 70F or anything close to that. Nope, warm means around the low sixties, and that it during the afternoon only.
This morning the world outside was in thick fog, but being a dog owner, we ventured out into the woods, and it wasn't so bad there, a little high humidity but no wind between the trees. And then later, the fog lifted and the sun broke through, making me breaking out a sweat as I was dressed too warm. But hey, it was wonderful to feel a nice breeze during our sunny afternoon Dixie-walk along the beach.  The government had lifted the restrictions for the use of the provincial park, so we met a few other beach walkers. And with social distancing we could enjoy a chitchat over latest developments. 

While most people understand and respekt government restrictions on public life, there are always the few which don't have enough capacity in their upper storage to understand what's going on. The fact that "only" 3.5mill people of a world population of 7billion have been infected with Covid 19 makes them think that officials overreact with imposed restrictions, but forgetting that it is because of counteracting the virus spread, that it is "only" 3.5mill people. Same goes for the number of deaths. They also forget that the numbers for NEW infections and NEW deaths are counted DAILY and are accumulating to horrendous figures over the course of a couple of months and that it will continue for several more months before it's slowing down.

But you tell them the facts and yet you fail to make them understand. As mentioned above, it has to do with their overall capacity limit in their thinking department. Too bad for them.
Nobody likes the current situation but we have to get through, even if it hurts.

Forgetting about Covid for a while, I use the time available to continue working on our future greenhouse. The last 2 days I have mixed and filled concrete into the cinder blocks. The first row I have to watch out for getting it as level as possible. 2. row will move along faster.

The realization that we will have tons and tons of time this summer hasn't quite sunk in yet. It will be the summer of projects and by the end of summer we will lean back and wonder what we will do all winter.

A New Page

If you move your eyes to the cross column above this posting, you will see a new page has appeared there. I named it Holocaust and Genocide. I have to warn you though, it is not pleasant viewing. So why did I put it there?

Reason #1: The massive death of people reminded me a lot of the terrible situation with the thousands of COVID 19 deaths, where f.ex. New York has run out of capacity to dispose of the bodies, not to mention providing a decent burial. Semi trucks are currently used to store bodies until burial or cremation is available. Some of these trucks have no refrigeration! The US tops the world in overall cases and deaths. Reason for that was Trump's delayed action against the pandemic and some state politicians being more interested in preserving the economy than people's lives. Today the number of new cases in the US was a staggering 49,000 bringing the total number up to 1.1mill. In recent days that number would be hovering around 25,000. The world as a whole had 65,000 new cases. Over 65,000 Americans have DIED of COVID 19 since the first recorded deaths in February. But relaxing social distancing rules has its price.

Reason #2: The first film, which has no sound, gives us a picture about the results of what happens if NAZIS and WHITE SUPREMACISTS are taking over government and the country. The 2. film shows us the path to the genocide. The horrible results of which are so gruesome that we want to close our eyes and turn away from reality.

The Allied Forces prosecuted war crminals to the fullest extend in the Nuremberg trials. And even today, the Federal Republic of Germany is still dealing with a few cases from 75yrs. ago.

The parallels to the USA of today are striking. Hitler sure knew how to rile up the hordes and so does Trump. When he calls armed bandits invading a state capitol "very fine people" it sends chills down my spine. I have a distinct feeling that history classes in the US never educated about what happened in Europe between 1933 and 1945. 
So many of these "very fine people" will probably say "the holocaust never happened". But wasn't your father or even grandfather part of the troops freeing Germany and its concentration camps?

If they are still alive you should go ask them, otherwise there is an overwhelming amount of authentic film and photo footage available. 

Take a look.