Wednesday, January 26, 2011

More Hoar Frost of The Vermilon River. A Post to Watery Wednesday

Hoar frost On The Hills


Frost on Pin Cherries


Close Up of Frost
 As I said in an earlier post hoar frost occurs when the air is supersaturated with water vapour and any object, the trees in this case, have been cooled by radiation. The vapor passes directly onto the trees in the form of frost.The vapor never becomes solid water, but goes directly to frost. If the vapor had become a solid or water and then had frozen it would be rhyme frost.

These photos were taken at the same time as the earlier ones that I posted.

I also wanted to take this time to speak to any Canadians who follow this blog, although my comments are equally germane to US readers. For non-Canadians I'll do a quick  poly-science course. We have a parliamentary system, meaning that the party that wins the most votes forms the government, and the leader of that party becomes the Prime Minister and that party then governs. Because we as voters have been really unhappy with our politicians, we have had a minority government. The party in power, the conservatives, are dependant on other parties in the house to maintain power. We have a bicameral legislature, although our senate is appointed by the PM. It can almost be dismissed as sinecure  for old politicos, party functionaries and some people who are appointed on merit.Any first year course would point out that it was set up to moderate the popularly elected House of Commons. Both at the time and now this is nonsense. There is a movement to reform the senate which I'm not going to talk about now, maybe later. We appoint our judges rather than elect them which is another area we need to look at. I don't want to get bogged down in this detail either.

An agreement was made when Jean Chretien was PM with the all the political parties ,including Harper's Alliance Party at that time, that the Government would fund elections according to a formula that provided money per vote. This meant that small parties if they received votes would get money. The real crux was that political parties could not accept donations from organizations such as corporations or unions for that matter. They could from individuals. The legislation ensures that the operative factor in Canadian politics
is the individual citizen ,not the corporation or organization. Think how much the tar sands oil companies would throw Harper's way. It is a very democratic piece of legislation, but it is not perfect. For instance it allows the Bloc Quebecois ,a regional and separatist party, to be active without depending on its voters for money. Similarly the Green Party receives money although they have never elected a member to  Parliament. Harper will attack it on the Bloc situation to appeal to "anglo-loyalist" element. He will also attack it on the basis of cut backs to balance the budget. Although the amount paid out is in the 30 Millions in an election year, it is nothing in the over all Canadian budget. If you ceased paying the hacks in the Senate, and closed it you would recoup much more every year, not just every election year(4+?).

This piece of legislation is the opposite of the US experience as my US friends tell me, because the US Supreme Court ruled that corporations can give money to political parties, thus enfranchising the corporation. This was one of the factors in the republican sweep because of the enormous funds they had to launch their attacks.

Harper has never really been a real PM i.e. a majority PM as Mulroney or Chretien or Diefenbaker was and needs this election to establish a historical reputation or legend as the pundits say. Would you want to be known as Canada's long term minority PM? He was again not the first choice as the leader of the Alliance, and  only prevailed by default. His recession budget was forced on him during the proroguing affair, and he can not claim any success there, although he'll try. He also needs a success to maintain his leadership of the party because he is starting to look like a loser.After all what do you call a permanent minority PM- the partial right honourable Stephen Harper?

He must not be allowed to blow smoke  or tamper with this issue which in a sense is fundamental to the Canadian way of government, in that it makes, "we the people", not the organization be it a corporation, or union or religious institution, the essence of government.Remember he tried  this same move with gun registration until  the people took a second look and realized with some changes it could ,and was protecting police, firefighters, and paramedics when they were called to an emergency to know that there were firearms in the house. Canadians agreed that those people are worth protecting, and said NO! Let's tell him NO again!

16 comments:

  1. Hm, We in Japan, have the same parliamentary system. Last year Japan Democrat party became the biggest party and formed the government. That was the first time that the conservative party had lost their power. It look us more than 60 years to make it happen. But still we are not happy with our PM... I understand that the level of the PM is reflected by that of citizen. So we must improve ourselves!!
    Have a wonderful day.
    Yoshi from Japan

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  2. Beautiful images ... lovely when trees are "dressed" in white!
    Thanks for visiting

    Irene

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  3. I also love hoar frosts and I've always wondered how they are formed. Thanks for this useful information and the nice pictures.

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  4. The white trees are amazing! Love the top shot.

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  5. Yoshi, You're a follower of Jefferson as he said the we get the government we deserve.

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  6. Hi Charlene. Interesting how they form and once the sun appears they're gone.

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  7. To JM. Perhaps you don't get them in Portugal;is that right?

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  8. We have seen lots of Rime ice here in the mountains of western Virginia, but as far as I know we have never experienced Hoar frost. They look similar in the photographs, but I am sure they are quite different. Your two shots are absolutely beautiful. Yesterday during our snow we went walking up on the hill high above our house with our cameras and hiked the property line. It was a gorgeous outing. I just uploaded a picture to my site. Thanks so much, Gary, for your visit to the blog and for your kind comment. Please come back. My husband and I are retired, too, but went back to work as so many others have done. Still our cameras go with us everywhere we go.

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  9. Hi Genie. Thanks for the visit. I'm not sure the word hoar frost is used much anymore here. Maybe that's the case there.

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  10. WATER

    Water in a drop of rain,
    Water swirling down the drain;
    Water clinging to the trees,
    Water filling up the seas;
    Water frozen, water free,
    Water is the stuff for me!


    © 2011 by Magical Mystical Teacher

    Wayside Puddle

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  11. Hi Genie for the visit and informative words. What you have is a hoar frost, but I think in common speech we no longer distinguish between the different types of frost.

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  12. Hi MMT. Thanks for the poem and visit.

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  13. Hoar frost is beautiful, though I must admit, down here in Arkansas, we don't get much of it.

    I hope y'all are successful in preventing corporate financed elections. Because of loopholes, US elections have long been heavily dependent on big money contributors. The Supreme Court decision you referred to removed all pretense of real citizen funding because the Court said corporations have the same rights to contribute as individual citizens. Disclosure isn't even required. It should be no surprise that corporate money isn't distributed evenly among our two major parties. The bulk of it goes to the party that least represents the individual citizens in my opinion.

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  14. All nice images Gary, but the first image is stunning. Everyone should get out with a camera when the weather is like this.... they really dont know what they are missing.

    Superb mate

    Dave

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  15. Hi Dave. Thanks for the compliments.

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