I had not heard of Charlie Kirk before his senseless and tragic murder.  Maybe that's because I do not live in the United States, or maybe it's because I do not pay much attention to conservative spokespeople.  But based on what I have heard about him since his death, he seems like the kind of guy I would like to sit down and have a beer with.  Maybe I'd be the only one with a beer, but no matter. What have I heard about him?

1. listen back;
2. respect the scientific method;
3. respect the US Constitution.

The Nixon Administration set up the Environmental Protection Agency for an eponymous reason. Defining "pollutant" based solely on what’s in a substance without considering quantity or its effect is a thinly veiled attempt to skirt the agency's single objective. Just because carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring compound does not mean that releasing too much of it into the atmosphere is not a bad thing. Uranium is naturally occurring.  Should we let businesses be free to responsibly manage this too? Precedent matters.

The rest of the free world has collectively come to its senses on the need to responsibly manage our emissions, and now the United States insists on pouring as much as we possibly can into the atmosphere to the seriously toxic detriment of people everywhere, especially those least-equipped to guard against it. Think I'm being alarmist? Have you looked at the rise in heat-related deaths? Do you think the increase in natural disasters, and fatalities along with them, is just happenstance? Exactly what was predicted to play out is currently playing out: severe weather, drought, and disease (from Lyme Disease to Dutch Elm disease). Opponents of any attempt to regulate emissions complain that the cost on business is too high, but what about the costs on every single individual - from when they go to pay their insurance premiums to when they go to park at the beach (towns have to pay to rebuild after a hurricane)? To so patently ignore the true cost of doing business and reject good policy for the sake of profits borders on pathological.

What all did you forget?

Did you forget…

• that Trump was handed a perfectly good crisis to lead us through and screwed it up royally. (“I don’t take any responsibility at all.” March 13, 2020)
• or how, when standing next to Putin, he sided with Russia over the US (believed Putin over the entire US intelligence community:  “I see no reason why Russia would meddle in our elections.” Putin said he didn’t do it so that’s that.)
• or how much hate he stirs up (“very good people on both sides” when one of the sides is white supremacists)
• or that he ignores all evidence (https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/weekly.html) and scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to climate change, weakened limits on emissions, and supports drilling in our national forests and nearly all US waters.
• or how he told people on January 6, 2021, after droning on and on and on with lie after lie after lie, to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and “take back our country” and that people were killed, including a police officer? https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/trump-told-supporters-stormed-capitol-hill/story?id=75110558

You are free to vote to elect a hateful and delusional narcissist and traitor to democracy to lead our great nation, close your eyes, cross your fingers and hope he does better second time round.  At least you’ll make the billionaires happy.

If you are considering voting for Trump, read this first:

1. Trump led an insurrection against the United States government.
2. Trump claims to be a “law and order” president — but he sat on his hands and did nothing while the mob that he incited called for his vice president to be hanged.
3. Trump throws his own country under the bus on the international stage time and again.  Do you remember when he stood next to Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, and said, in complete contradiction to his own team of US intelligence agents, that he sees no reason why Russia would have interfered with our election? And Trump wrote in September 2023 that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s phone call to reassure China in the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.”
4. Trump doesn’t seem to know what’s going on in his administration.  The Chairman’s phone call referenced above was, in fact, explicitly authorized by his administration officials.
5. Trump believes the election results are what he says they are, and tried to fabricate votes (“find me 11,780 votes“) to create the illusion of a win in Georgia.  If you think this is OK, then you do not really believe in democracy.
6. Trump’s track record is unimpressive.  Trump did some good things while in office, e.g., he established the US Space Force (a military branch dedicated to protecting US military assets in space), took out terrorists (ISIS), and compensated a Native American tribe that lost its lands to intentional flooding to build a federal dam (over 100 years ago).  But he handled Covid abysmally poorly, and the border policy of taking kids from their parents without tracking for later reunification is horrific on several levels.
7. it is difficult to have confidence in his character because his track record does not inspire confidence in good or patriotic decision-making: draft dodging, barring blacks from renting in  his buildings, serially sexually assaulting women, bragging that he grabs women by *****, and multiple bankruptcy filings where workers went unpaid.
8. Trump has no plan for dealing with climate change.  The modern GOP may not care that we are leaving sullied and damaged ecosystems for our children and grandchildren to inherit (sad, given that the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency was a GOP-led initiative), but you would think the GOP would care that the effects of climate change are incredibly expensive.  It is difficult-to-impossible to buy insurance in parts of California and Florida now as a result of the effects of climate change.
9. Trump does not seem to support the idea of multiple parties, promoting the idea that “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat”.  This forcible suppression of opposition is one of the hallmarks of fascism. A dictatorial leader is another. Ultranationalism is another. Belief in a natural social hierarchy is another (remember when white supremacists marched in Charlottesville and Trump said there were “very good people on both sides”?  This is why Biden ran for office.)
10. Trump has little respect for the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.   His picks for Supreme Court Justice seem to think that everyone should practice Catholicism.  If they want women to “choose life”, they need to let them choose.

This is a simple tried and true recipe, and the pancakes are delicious.

1 1/2 c flour

3 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/4 c milk

3 tbsp melted butter

1 egg

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.  
Put a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the milk, melted butter and egg.

Mix until combined.

Makes 6 pancakes.

230 calories each.

Credit to allrecipes.com.

Notes:  I mix wet ingredients together first to leave a few lumps for fluffiness. You might want to add a little bit more milk if the batter is too thick.  Even at medium heat, beware you don’t let your griddle get too hot. I have to pull mine off the heat periodically for a minute to cool it down slightly so the pancakes come out golden.

The great outdoors in Mille-Isles, Quebec is… following a dirt road twisting upward into fresh mountain air, quiet and sweet with pine; witnessing a star-spangled night sky so reflected in the still lake that you can’t sort out the fireflies from the cosmic twinkles; losing yourself in leafy woods all busy with birds; breathing in deep the scents of dirt and mushrooms and wood returning to the earth, comforting the ancient primal core of your innermost self; hearing a lone loon call early in the morning, and at twilight, the sounds of bullfrogs and the snap and crackle of a campfire.  That it’s far away from anywhere else makes it hard to get to, which is the whole point.  The earthy abode that awaits you can be viewed at Cottage in Quebec on this site.