Whaddi Miss?

It's been some time since last I blogged and some aquavit has flown under the bridge.

Life took a little diversion after a toothache this summer. The tooth resulted in a sinus problem, which resulted in an ultrasound examination (go figure), the discovery an abdominal aneurysm and the consequent 'zipper job' which is keeping me under the radar at present. The last time I blogged was in September, the operation was at the end of November and there's a lot of stuff that has happened.

In 4 months the world isn't much changed, unless you're a Greek or other south European. The northern Europeans are seeing changes too, but more slowly and more civilized. The Euro zone remains on tenterhooks, and, with it, a significant chunk of the NA bond market, too. Things don't look much better in the future.

The autumn brought its annual round of natural disasters. The central US had a nasty tornado season. Hurricane season this year was largely a bust. There were, and still are, notable floods in parts of Asia and bonnie Scotland got two weeks of an Atlantic storm of the century. Not to worry though, the countries that count don't think this has anything to do with CO2 pollution.

Kyoto saved itself by the skin of its second and third world teeth after the Chinese said they would look into it. Canada was represented by our environmental point-person, the former talking head Peter 'the newsman' Kent. He dummied-up for the conference, but his master had him announce the official divorce between Canada and Kyoto when he got back to Ottawa. Kyoto has just been an idea in Canada since Maurice Strong, the chairman of Ontario Hydro started buying up rainforest an eon ago. That's all we've ever really done. And now, with the yankees extracting their oil from our Tar Sands, we can hardly afford to do anything else.

My other big favourite, the annual AIDs  conference passed uncommented. President Obama made noises like America was 'getting serious' about AIDs ( $11 million over 6 years - they're busted ya know?), but it ain't up to 'war on' status yet. As for the rest, the standard reports of  'promising' vaccines, the dearth of life-saving treatment in third world countries and the regular report of  'only' another 15 percent increased transmissions. The pandemic continues.

The gallant little war in Libya was concluded. Ghaddfi got a lethal gunshot, or three (we're not sure) from his disgruntled countrymen. Shortly after that, the ragtag national militia took the last strong points and the war was declared 'over'. Now the 'national government' is trying to figure out what to do with the ragtag militia, and the eastern part of the country (Cyrenaica) has already threatened to revolt and seperate. No doubt there's lots of work for 'mercs' and free agents, training-up a government army and police force to restore order. And to get the remaining Ghaddafis to safety. Some Canucks - Garda International? (not bad for a couple of TO flatfeet) - surprisingly 'large on the ground', supporting Ghaddafi (and our oil interests?) were involved trying to get one of the Ghaddafi boys to a little hacienda in Mexico, without benefit of proper immigration clearance. The same lad, Saaf al Islam is reputed to be the proud owner of a rooftop condo in sparkling  'Tronna'. Our PM says we should confiscate that.

Things are looking interesting as 'Old Man 2011' lumbers off into the sunset and  baby Dick Clark cleans his dentures for the New Year. There's a election coming up and America's got primaries! Canada's Libs are due to 'rehead' themselves so we'll have to see how that goes. If little Mr. Achmedinejad doesn't upset the world applecart fiirst - there's peril in the Gulf. dontcha no?  Maybe it's all related to that Mayan profitsy, eh?

More on those topics in the near future.