So, me and my wife were outside our place of business pickin’ some weeds (that time of year again), when Stu Whatshisname drove up in his CBC van. He jumped out, said ‘Hi’ and answered a cell phonecall (what are we, chopped liver?). After he hung up, he explained to us that he was doing a feature on the new Garbage Gasification plant near our business. He had just interviewed Rod Bryden and was now cruisin’ the neighbourhood for some local peasants’ perspectives on the whole operation. Since I had done some research on my own, and I follow Lowell Green’s 24 hour rant on the Carp Mountain, I threw in some comments regarding Plasmafication, Gasification and the whole garbage burning thing. He asked me if he could interview me on camera and I said ‘sure’. After an awkward ‘interview’ wherein I could have said much, much more than I actually did (it was more like: how short can you make your answers?), he asked me if he could film me pulling weeds. ‘Sure’, I said again (man of many words), and pulled some weeds. Great action shots. After this pathetic display, he packed up his camera and made his way to his van. ‘Hopefully, this will be on the news tonight’, he said.

Six o’clock comes around, we’re all ready to laugh our heads off at my tongue-tied, uncomfortable presentation, and what do we see? An awkward interview with Rod Bryden (I was almost better!) and then a quick ‘back to the studio’. No little old me on this national channel, which is watched by literally tens of people. My almost 5 minutes of fame ended up on the cutting room floor.

Given my performance, I think it was for the better.

I was eagerly awaiting the 6 o’clock news yesterday. I was waiting for Jack Layton to come on again. I saw him on that very same news show on January 12ish, when it was a nice and balmy 10 degrees out. He was sitting on his Toronto rooftop patio in his summer jacket, and he said “I am here outside, in the middle of January, with my summer jacket on. Clearly, there’s something wrong here. This is a global catastrophe!”. So, since yesterday was the coldest March 6th EVER in eastern Ontario, with Pembroke going down to -32 overnight, I thought I’d see Jacky on his Toronto rooftop again, with sixteen winter coats on, freezing his ass off, saying “It’s March 6th! I’m freezing my ass off! Clearly there’s something wrong here!” But alas, Jacky did not show. There was no segment on the cold weather. Jacky had gone into hiding. He will emerge, no doubt, when the next global catastrophe occurs. To fight it… for the people.

March 6th, Ottawa, ON. 11 am. The mercury is stuck at -26 C, overnight it was -27. This is the coldest recorded temperature on March 6th EVER. We have just finished the coldest February in the last 10 years. Where are the reports of ‘Global Cooling’? One abnormally hot day in June will get the Global Warming nuts have their say. Where are they now? I know where they are. They are hiding, hiding in their caves, until the first hot day of spring comes around, and then they’ll emerge. Sweatting and triumphant, shouting ‘Global Warming is here again!’