The other day I stared into the future and it stared back at me in a judgmental and disapproving way.

That’s when I considered starting the year with a resolution to stop procrastinating, which I am still considering.

It’s not that I don’t have lots of things to work on; it’s just that other people’s flaws are so much more annoying than mine. In fact, I think we can all agree that my shortcomings are not so much annoying flaws as they are endearing eccentricities.

Anyway, for that entirely terrific reason, I have decided to help others improve themselves by making resolutions for them.

My wish for certain climate scientists is that they resolve to admit into their theory even the tiniest speck of doubt. To make me happy, this skeptical speck need not be any bigger than a dust mote, but it does need to be big enough to give these scientists pause in the face of evidence that confounds their theory.

Besides, what a winsome social grace to be able to sincerely and humbly admit the possibility of being wrong on a subject so layered with complexity. Why on occasion I myself have been wrong, but why dwell on that.

It’s just that the acid test for scientific theories is that if they are true, then you should be able to use them to accurately make predictions. The fact that average temperatures peaked 10 years ago and have yet to reach that former record high is not only something that climate scientists didn’t predict, it’s something that at least some tried to cover up. Why not take a heroic stance and admit with a sheepish grin that their theory needs revising.

Recently, Europe has been a solid block of ice. The southern U.S. has been in the grip of record cold with horrifying reports of frozen iguanas falling dead from the trees and with who knows what implications for the iguana harvest.

To be sure, this does not disprove the theory that humankind is destroying the Earth because of our incessant emitting, though it does make a spirited argument against it.

The 2007 International Panel on Climate Change declared that our catastrophic future had now arrived.

Sure that doesn’t mean that we won’t get lots of bone-chilling cold even if the planet is warming. I also suspect that in no way did these same climate scientists anticipate cold that would shatter decades-old records across vast swaths of the northern hemisphere.

My resolution for certain environmental activists is that they tell the truth about the impact of the Alberta oil sands. Last Tuesday, the Conference Board of Canada released a report pointing out that Canadians' use of planes, trains and automobiles creates a carbon footprint that is three-and-a-half times bigger than that of the oil sands.

This is a horribly inconvenient fact for people who like to wag a righteous finger at Alberta. Now, so armed with the truth, they can direct their indignation at the car in their driveway and their lamentable habit of driving to work in the morning.

Like most Canadians, I was as happy as a clam to avoid political news over the holidays.

Apparently this was a big mistake because I missed hearing that Parliament would prorogue until after the Olympics, meaning the House and Senate wouldn't sit in February as scheduled. Apparently it's much worse than that. According to some media friends, it means that the prime minister has now established a dictatorship!

Sure the opposition parties can force an election as soon as the House returns, and yes the people of Canada can vote out the Conservatives if they choose, and no there aren't soldiers in the streets, and yes opposition MPs can still criticize the government, and yes the media can and do freely criticize the government, and yes the people still have free speech and all their rights, and yes all the rules of Parliament have been followed, so no it's not a dictatorship in the sense of usurping power and limiting freedom.

It's only a dictatorship in the sense that the democratically elected prime minister is operating within his constitutionally granted powers to take the country in a different direction than his unelected critics would like.

For instance, a big media priority is to get to the bottom of the allegations regarding Taliban prisoners. The government on the other hand believes it's a waste of time and money and a bizarre witch hunt of the very ministers and bureaucrats who, seeing deficiencies in the old prisoner transfer system, strengthened it. Whatever might have happened in an isolated case, the Conservatives argue that they dramatically improved the inadequate system inherited from the Liberals.

Senate is important

So we have a disagreement about how important this is and the government is content to let Canadians decide in the next election. In the meantime, the government's priorities include fighting a recession, prosecuting a war and setting sensible environmental policies, and that makes the Senate important.

In order for the soon to be new Conservative majority in the Senate to have control of the committees, the rules say Parliament must prorogue so that the committees can be reconstituted.

Without prorogation, the Liberals would still have a majority of committee seats in the Senate even though they would have fewer seats overall. That would be a terribly anti-democratic situation on at least two levels and should be an outrage to the media if saving democracy was their real concern. That's a big if, however.

Remember that this is the PM who has given up power to Parliament on vetting Supreme Court nominees and going to war. He has tried mightily to elect the Senate. Calling him a dictator is so embarrassingly over the top that it says more about his critics than it does him.

We get it, you don't like him, but that doesn't grant you licence to lump him together with Stalin in the dictator's club. Most likely this means the PM has committed the unpardonable sin of ignoring his press gallery critics except to wink at them as he speaks over their heads directly to Canadians while pulling Canada back to its conservative roots.

It's time minister's private comments were left behind

"Oh my God, did you hear what Lisa Raitt said?"

This is said in a breathless, wide-eyed way followed by tittering that you might hear in a junior high washroom, or in a few sad corners of the Ottawa press gallery.

Yes the minister said that isotopes are a politically sexy issue because they involve radioactive leaks and cancer.

Beat me with a stick if you want, but yes when it comes to politics and the media Raitt is right.

Health issues are always sexy to the media, which is why a study about the health benefits of oatmeal will lead the news ahead of the latest Third World natural disaster as long as casualties are under, say, 300 people and there is no dramatic footage to show on TV.

But if there is good footage, look out. As many of my journalist friends would say, if it bleeds it leads. Lucky for them they just haven't had the bad fortune of being accidentally recorded when they say these things.

All I know is that if I was secretly tape recorded in a bad moment, and it was subsequently reported without any context, I may very well have to go live in a cave for 20 or 30 years.

In the case of minister Raitt the context is that she is a nice, decent and smart person who was having a private chat with an aide about the media interest in this kind of story, and how she was looking forward to tackling the issue.

Compassion

Based on this single comment, and against the evidence of her entire life, the suggestion is that she somehow lacks compassion for people who are battling cancer. Yeesh, if only we held ourselves to the same standards that we hold everyone else to.

Ordinary hypocrisy is one thing. Then there is that whole class of people who constantly scan the horizon for some issue to be outraged by.

We all know these gloomy thin-lipped people. Every verbal misstep, no matter how well intended, is interpreted to mean the worst that it could mean. Every joke is an outrage.

These joyless people are the black holes of humanity. No warmth or light escapes their dark centre.

Mostly they hang out around human rights commissions, go into politics, head off to journalism school or, I am sad to say, are regular but not popular members of their church. They are the perpetually incensed. Thank goodness this bitter remnant makes up a very small but inordinately depressing part of the population.

There is a bright side to all of this. I have discovered that I am not alone in saying things privately that I wouldn't say publicly. In fact I am told by a leading science guy that just over 33 million Canadians are guilty of the same horrid behaviour.

That said it's still fun to pretend that we never admit things to a friend behind closed doors that we would never say to the media. Goodness knows that we never crab about our friends the way our stupid friends crab about us!

Seriously though, if you disagree with the essence of this extraordinarily sexy column please know that I will think bad thoughts about you. But that's just the way I am.

In some ways I'm relieved. Earth Day has once again come and gone, the Global Warming Tree has been put back in its box, and the carbon dioxide has been safely sequestered until next year.

After spending all that time composting with family and friends, a little peace and quiet is just what the doctor ordered.

As we all know, the Earth Day season begins with Earth Hour, that magical hour when everyone turns on their televisions to watch live CBC coverage of some people turning off their lights.

It's the time of year when we gather together to remember the true meaning of Earth. It's a time to recognize that without Earth we would just be floating around in space. In fact without Earth we wouldn't have anywhere to bury our garbage.

My mind recycles back through the years, and memories of Earth Days past flood my mind.

There are the childhood memories of running down the stairs on Earth Day morning and being overjoyed at the sight of nothing under the tree except a pine cone, which I was darn happy to have.

Anyway, for me every day is Earth Day. I happen to like the Earth so much that I'm capitalizing the word Earth in this column. The Earth is where it's all happening. It's where I have chosen to live.

There is a gravity about the Earth that draws me to it.

But make no mistake, we are not alone on Earth, and I'm not just talking about the intergalactic little green men that Justin Trudeau speculated have visited Earth before. I'm talking about Earth's seductively pretty friend: Nature.

According to my research team at Wikipedia, Earth Day is a lot about celebrating the gift of nature, and that of course is natural. So, if you want to honour nature and the spirit of the Earth Day season what do you do? As one of Canada's leading environmentalists, here is my practical guide.

First, take the environment seriously but take yourself lightly. Nothing turns people off the issue of the environment more quickly than some of the dour and angry people associated with it. But enough about the NDP.

Second, cooperate with business. Like the public in general, as businesspeople become more aware of the issues they have cleaned up their act a lot and actually want to do more. Often they develop and then sell new technologies to do the cleaning up. But business wants to work with reasonable people who understand things like the need for companies to make money so people can have jobs.

Third, do the stuff you understand and like. If you are tired of moralizing do-gooders harassing you about the size of your carbon footprint, then go build a bluebird house and then take the scrap lumber and threaten to burn it in your backyard unless they leave you alone.

Finally join cool and practical groups like the Nature Conservancy of Canada and Ducks Unlimited who educate the public, and preserve and enhance habitat.

If you follow this practical guide you will be a friend to nature and the Earth, with the side benefit that your friends won't hide from you when you come to the door.

Happy Earth Day to you!

Like you, I was saddened to hear of the sudden though not entirely unexpected passing of three Somali pirates recently.

There is no word yet on whether any parrots were injured when U.S. Navy Seal snipers sent the pirates on a one-way trip to Davy Jones' Locker.

Recent research has revealed pirates are just not very nice people. To give Canadians some context, these pirates are exactly the type of pirates whom if they were marauding the cottagers of Lake Winnipeg, or Lake Simcoe would be so brazen as to actually ignore the law that says they should register their rocket propelled grenade launchers.

I am also told they may not always carry the required number of life-jackets and I am willing to bet they are pretty careless with environmental laws regarding the proper disposal of their onboard waste. Clearly our foreign aid is really not having the desired effect within the world's pirate communities.

Like me, you are probably wondering where this important analysis of pirate behaviour is heading.

My point is this past week in Cambridge, Ont., Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said if the Liberals were in charge they would raise taxes, which is exactly what pirates would do. Liberals and pirates love to shakedown defenceless regular people, though not even a pirate would propose this during a recession.

THE SECRET'S OUT

Anyway, now we know why Michael Ignatieff is not allowed to talk about ideas. He is not allowed to talk about ideas because his ideas are really quite awful.

Raising taxes is never a good idea, but raising taxes during a recession would be like taking a ball peen hammer to the knees of the economy. Michael, if this is your best thinking on the economy, I for one yearn for the old days when you spoke in platitudes, supported by cliches, all laid down on a foundation of empty rhetoric.

I note that while the Liberals are a tad short on solid policy ideas they do have strategies. For instance the Liberals have publicly announced they have a strategy to win the support of women by acting nicer during question period. Pirates also have a superficial strategy to try to attract the support of women, but they aren't so naive as to tell everyone about it.

So my point is Canada is not immune to a pirate infestation. For instance, has anyone seen Jack Layton lately? I haven't seen him for days. Could it be that Jack was captured by pirates?

Actually in this case the answer is no. After a couple of days of being cooped up with Jack on a ship listening to him go on about the UN, the '70s and how the crew should form a union, he'd be tossed back ashore and the pirates would need many new barrels of rum to help them get over their brush with the NDP.

Canadians can therefore breathe a huge sigh of relief knowing Jack Layton is not wearing daringly short cut-off blue jeans while serving as a captive cabin boy to homesick Somali pirates.

Clearly pirates are not, in this case at least, responsible for Jack's mysterious disappearance, and I join with you in praying for his safe return.