Our Neighbours to the South

As I wake up I am watching a lovely serene scene from the window in my friend Barb's guest bedroom. The snow gently falls against a backdrop of trees, branches laden with snow, painting a pretty winter scene nicely framed by the pale yellow window frame set into the backdrop of the olive green wall. It is a picture of tranquility and peace. Many of the trees in view are sadly bent over because of the burden of snow weighing them down.

When we went snow showing yesterday, we saw that a lot of the pines were so weighed down with snow that the top most 6 or 8 feet of the tree was completely lying down, seemingly broken off and held aloft only by the tree top canopy. We guessed that these were casualties of heavy snow combined by the awful windstorm a few weeks ago. I hope that the warmth of spring and the flowing sap to come in a few months might breath new life into these trees. It would be a shame to see so many trees beheaded by mother nature.

Been watching and partaking in the contagious optimism that our southerly neighbours have been frolickng in this historic week. Not going to blog about Obama today, but will note that I feel swept up in the "love in". I am going to see a documentary about his life tonight at my Inpirational Documentary Meet Up group. Should be fodder for a future blog.

Instead I will blog on a bit about Bush, the man we are saying goodbye to. I was somewhat surprised to read one media report yesterday characterizing him as the worst US President in History - a pretty damning criticism.

My initial reaction was surprise. How could he have been that bad? My friend J thought that Tricky Dickie - a liar and a crook in almost everyone's books, should be the one to earn this distinction. But apparently not and I think I found a few reasons why (with just a few moments of thought) for those of you who might be interested.

In no particular order;

-- The US deficit went from 5 trillion to 11 trillion during his tenure
-- Government funding for scientific research was slashed (will add stats here later)
-- He said a lot of really stupid things (a new word "Bushism" has been coined and we chuckled over quite a few examples of these at dinner last night.
-- He didn't find Osama
-- He didn't find weapons of mass distruction, either
-- I think Canada - US relations were not so great. Don't remember too many chummy visits between Bush and our PM (I know this doesn't necessarily make him a bad President, but I think is noteworthy.)
-- more importantly, terrible things happened on his watch:
-> 911
-> US housing market meltdown with Lord knows how many people losing their homes
-> US Govt has to bail out financial institutions and car makers
-> the price of gas hits the roof
-> the US stock market is not considered a good place to be invested.

I am sure one could think of many more reasons but I think you get the drift.

Anyway, I smell coffee brewing out in the kitchen - I guess my hosts are up and at 'em. Time I got moving.

Mobile Blogging from here.

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