Two elections, one obviously far more important than the other. Our town’s municipal elections are over and we have had a change of mayor and the US elections are over and the incumbent remains....or is it? I see from CNN that as of Friday, days after the election, Florida is still trying to figure out what their count was. Holy crap, Batman, what is their problem? I’m not alone in my perplexity as I can see from the opinion articles on CNN that there are a lot of Americans who are wondering the same thing. As a Canadian I have no right to voice who should or should not be elected but I certain can comment on the process. Here we have one of the most powerful democracies in the world; one who is capable and willing to wage wars or conflicts on several fronts; one that can land men on the moon and send probes outside of our solar system and one of the most populous of its states cannot count ballots?! Or is it rather that the election officials are desperately trying to find some way of twisting the numbers or by recounting them time and time again perhaps they will hit on a formula that will change the winner? I mean, first there were “hanging chads” and now there is what? Hanging electrons?

What a remarkable system! Now that it’s over the losers are trying to point fingers.

Oh dear.

And of course there are those people who are blustering and saying that they are going to move to Canada?! Excuse me!? It ain’t that easy you know. I have loads of American friends who would love to move to Canada and are finding that they can only stay here for six months before having to return home, pretty much the same as the US immigration laws. In fact, it is probably easier for folks from third world countries to find an immigration loophole to crawl through that for our friends from the USA. Oh, and let’s not forget dear old Donald Frump. Really?! Calling for a revolution!? I guess having loads of money doesn’t stop you from being a nut job. Perhaps it would have been the same if the positions were reversed. I know that the former mayor here that lost the election is taking quite a while to get comfortable with the loss. I guess that is one of the reasons that I really am not keen on politics – can’t handle rejection. My hat is off to all politicos regardless of their stripe who are prepared to enter the battle and expose themselves to public scrutiny and rejection. I know that they feel that they are going to win but still it would be completely unrealistic to not realize that someone has to lose.

Oh well. Enough of that rant. There will be plenty of time for comparable recriminations at our next federal election in a couple of years.

We are having a significant amount of rain up here, just to change the subject. Coupled with the fall leaf falling we have a lot of issues with keeping the storm drains cleared so the water can run off. Such fun!

I am also starting on a project to install a 50kW wind generator to help to offset the power costs for the town’s water and waste plants. There is a great program here that encourages municipalities and non profit groups to put up wind generators to help cut back on fossil fuel consumption and we should jump aboard it. The generators aren’t cheap, something in the order of $270,000 but the power company is mandated by the provincial government to buy the power from us at a very attractive price which will offset the bill for our plants. In fact they have taken all the risk out of the deal just to encourage us. Hurray. Plus it gives me something near and dear to my heart as a project to work on.