H.N.Y.

Cinco del Ienero, who'd a thunk it. The new year's five days along and I haven't noticed much different than the old year.

The weather certainly isn't. We had a green Christmas here, where I live. That's fairly remarkable, ours are traditionally at least 2 feet white. If you've ever experienced one of the brown Florida Christmases with the spray-on green stuff to make it look nicer you'll know how 'cheery' green can be. No matter how much green spray they use it still looks likle a bad 'colorization' job on a vintage b&w movie - the kind where the actors are 'colorized' but the background has been left alone. Or if you've seen a dismal, frozen, grey Toronto Christmas that seems like Steven King's 'Dead Zone', green can only be good. It was really 'green' here - north of T.O.! With the exception that the deciduous trees had all deciduated and were their winter shade, and the ground that russet-brown of fallen leaves. The grass was positively Irish.

And thus it has continued. Aside from a couple of heavy frosts - incuding a spectacular Christmas Eve event that gave a 'lustre of mid-day' and a semi-white Christmas morning - the temp has been balmy. Yesterday had to be a record high for January 4th. It's interesting to see all the chalky arms and 'ligs' sticking out of shorts and T-shirts. But the touques and winter caps are still de rigeur.

The daily rag to-day posits, under a snappy photo of somebody teeing-off, that '07 will the "warmest year ever". It also claims a link, citing some Brit scientists, to Al Gore's pet concern 'global warming'. Our dear chums to the south would pooh-pooh and naysay this malarkey, if it wasn't for the fact that there's some pretty weird stuff happening down there as well. Massive blizzards out west and Christmas tornadoes out east. Funny 'freezes' in some places and it just has to be hot down south, ain't it? Where does the Great White - or this warm part of the Great White - get all its warmth, if not from 'down south'? A snowy Christmas this year in Australia. The washed-out and tree-trashed west coast. It seems that falling lumber is becoming a more prevalent problem. I can never remember a lot of that when I was growing up in the ice age, but I'll bet there's a buck to be made investing in chain saws.

There is something different going on with the Guvmint. Late last fall our PM Harper, proposed a 40 year plan to tackle Canada's production of greenhouse gases. By 2050, he assured us, we'd have a plan to plan to bring this problem under control sometime in the future. Well I guess a lot of Canadians who been noticing the increasing odour of Acapulco in the Canadian atmosphere, the proliferation of wild pineapples, and having caught a dekko at Al Gore on TV, said "Whoa! What's that?", and made the PM reconsider. Anyhoo, he has replaced the only sitting member in parliament who could be described as a 'rare exotic beauty', with the poster boy for hair gel and bad dentures as Minister (Ministress) of the Environment. It's a good choice because the former minister realized how boneheaded the policy was and found herself unable to defend it. No prob with the new guy, he could defend buggery as a popular sport! Like many neo-cons, he's master of 'non-answer' positive statement creativity - whatever that is. Looks like we won't be getting the old California standards back on vehicles for another decade, at least.

I smell election in the air! The war chest is full. Afghanistan is in the middle of the papers. The economy hasn't hit any real bumps. The minimum wage is going up two-bits. Income tax changes to 'moolahfy' the geezers, capital gainers and thirty-somethings. The Libs are still trying to figure out what they can come up with that's innovative - without being totally ridiculous. And the new 'Greens' are having their planks pilfered. God's in His heaven and our resident jihadis are being still. The gay nation is pleased. The Quebec 'nation' is pleased. The 'first nations' can be safely ignored. It's not like winter weather would slow campaigning. Go for it - strike while the iron is hot, and receive a mandate to effect some serious change for your big business buddies. But there's nothing really new about that either.

Lotteries remain BIG with Canadians. A pre-Christmas rash of 'winners' and a couple of big pots over the holidays, has us out getting our 6-49's and Lucky 7's. Hope springs eternal, and most of us 'spring' for tickets anyway. A related story this week tells of group of retired Canadian high school teachers who hit the jackpot when their Florida trailer park was valued at 1/2 BILLION dollars by some condo developer. If they sell out, they could almost afford to buy one of the new condo units. I can't figure why a bunch of retired teachers would want to spend a lot of time together, anyway. Their staffroom must have been a 'barrel of fun' - most aren't. Or perhaps they're into reminiscing about great lesson plans of yesteryear. Or, more likely, they're 'swingers'. At any rate, if the deal goes through as planned, they will be rich. Happy New Year.

As one New Year's prognosticator put it, "Whatever happens in 2007, it probably could have been worse." I hope it's better than 2006.