Holidays

Long time, no blog. The holiday season, a publisher's deadline, a sick parent in the hospital, and general laziness have pushed the blog project lower on the list of priorities. That, and nothing has pushed my button for awhile now.

Oh yes, the economy is in the tank. Corporate greed has come back to bite us, the Bush administration has been asleep at the watch post for eight years of regulatory failure, and the administration and Congress have generally screwed up the bailout. But what good will blogging do? The best we can hope for is a new President who will slowly nudge things in the right direction. I worry that the expectations will far surpass what can possibly be accomplished by a mere mortal, but hope for a positive outcome in the first 100 days, nevertheless.

My real rant, however, is the weather. Not that blogging will improve that either, but I really do miss global warming. The Upper Midwest has been hammered again for a second year. If the pattern continues to match 2008, and we are visited once again by 500 year-level spring floods, the impact will be severe. Actually, from what I read, ten years or so of mini-Ice Age is part of the predicted pattern of global climate change. After getting cold for a decade, things will get hot again... fast. So while my back aches from shoveling snow and chipping ice, I can take heart that in a few years, when the floods have become permanent, I may be lounging in my shorts on the shore of my newly lakefront property. Perhaps then General Motors will be willing to build an affordable electric car, or we'll seriously examine bringing back passenger rail in the U.S.

So at this end of the year I look forward to better days to come -- should I live long enough to see them.