2008 - the year of irony

As we creep closer to the end of the year, newspapers and newsmagazines will begin to tell us what kind of year we just went through...and worst of all, they'll try to tell us what it all means.

Since I hold the same degree (a bachelor's in journalism) as these other scribes, I thought I would try to share my analysis a week or two earlier. Who knows maybe some of them may accidentally agree with me in their analysis as well.

First of all, I would sum up the year like this -- it was a year of irony. I mean where else can we go from $4 a gallon gas in July (which many of us thought might reach $5 a gallon) only to see the price of gas dip to below $2 for the first time in years. Currently, I'm paying about $1.70 a gallon, but I've paid as little as $1.46 a gallon in Fargo last week.

So what brought about this miraculous change? What is it the do-nothing Congress run by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi? No, it was simple market forces. The price of gas got too high and people quit driving, which led to a surplus. And even though the price has fallen, people still aren't driving because the economy has tanked. It also seems like a lot of people have given up on SUVs, as the prices are ridiculously low compared to even a year ago. But who has the money to buy one?

What else did we see this year that smacks of irony? Well, we elected a new president who promises lots of new government to fix our ills...but actually it was the government that caused a lot of the ills in the first place -- such as the subprime loan rate for people who really never should have been approved for a home loan in the first place.

It's also ironic that the new president who trumpeted "change" is willing to appoint so many former Clinton Administration leftovers to his cabinet. Maybe the 1990s is the new 2009 -- to paraphrase a tired and worn out cliche. Or as former New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra probably never said, "I think I've seen this movie before...and I didn't like the way it ended."

One of the "fixes" promised by the new president is a tax on carbon dioxide emissions (it's called cap and trade - but if it quacks like a duck, then its a tax) to reduce greenhouse gases by 80 percent by 2050. This is the new "let's give everybody a chance to buy a home" chant by the Washington elite.

While it sounds good, the pain will be unbearable. Carbon-based fossil fuels account for nearly 100 percent of transportation fleet (read: cars, trucks and airplanes) and about 50 percent of our electricity is from coal. These fuels are the cheapest to use and our country needs cheap energy. We know our salaries and benefit packages aren't competitive with people in India and China, so our ace in the hole has been cheap energy. Take that away and we'll really see the bottom fall out of the economy.

This, too, is ironic. Because it won't be bullets that destroyed our country like the people of my Dad's generation thought...it will simply be misguided but "sounds too good to be true" public policies by people we elected.

It's also ironic that my state is freezing, New Orleans and Las Vegas have both recently gotten snows, and still the environmental activists tell us that it is absolutely critical that we do something about global warming or else the world will go past the "tipping" point. We've now heard that cry for 30 years. If anything, the hollering is more shrill. But frankly, I don't buy it. The world is much the same as it's always been. There has always been droughts, famines and climate change. However, the world has more people now that it ever has and only through the use of fossil-fuels are we able to sustain this much population.

Sure, I'm all for finding ways of making energy that are more sustainable than coal and oil, but until we get there, we better use these fossil fuels as a bridge to the future. Otherwise, it will be a cold world....especially in North Dakota in the winter.

Oh, by the way, TIME magazine's man of the year will be B.O. And if he doesn't deliver the goods in about 90 days in office, he will likely be goat of the year in 2009. Remember, America has now raised an entire generation on Sesame Street so our attention span is now only about a minute long. Be assured we won't have much patience with someone who promised a lot and delivered so little. The clock is already ticking.

This is not to say that I don't wish him all the luck in the world. Believe me, I fully understand what a terrible mess we are in. And with Democrats controlling the White House, the Senate and the House...the table has been set. However, irony has a way of interrupting even the best laid plans. So grab a chair, pop some corn and watch the evening news -- it looks like it will be quite a show. And before you go to bed, pray for these leaders. Pray that they have some common sense and if they have some, that they use it. No use in saving their common sense for a rainy day because it looks like we're having a downpour as we transition from Bush II to Clinton III.

How ironic.