Happy new year 2008

"I wish you a happy new year 2008, may this year bring you joy, happiness and fortune"...would be what I wanted to say to everyone, had I been enthousiastic about it.

Actually I would really like to welcome the new year with open arms but bad things seem only to get worse and good things seem to get rarer by the day...check for yourself :

Climate
 The ice at the North Pole has never been accounted on such a shortage
 The temperatures are reaching new extremes and variations
 The seasons’ schedule is off
 Natural disasters like earthquakes, floods and hurricanes are more frequent than ever

And ex-candidate for the US presidency Al Gore gets awarded the Nobel of Peace for making a movie about it ? Scientists have been warning the global opinion for decades now !

I’m not even talking about the increasing number of species added to the endangered species list. WWF has been active for nearly half a century, yet nobody is ever concerned about the quick growth of that list...

Humans
 The world’s production could allow us to feed 12 billions of humans which is twice the actual world population, and yet, more than one fourth (2 billions) of us are still suffering from hunger
 Conflicts and wars outbreak by the week but noone feels ever concerned because media are focusing on the Super Bowl...
 You can now sell in the open weapons and what not to dictators but you’ll have to let some insult harm your dignity, as Lybia’s ruler demonstrated.

"Human is to live in bands" says the citation. Are we this unable to refrain from killing each other to survive ? When will we touch the "greater good" ideal and evolve as a species ?

Economy
 Oil is getting more expensive by the minute but we keep paying for it. We have the technology to stop depending on this resource (and I’m not thinking of nuclear tech) but it has a hard time sinking in our heads. Russians even "claimed" whatever amount of oil is under the North Pole as their own. They can get all the oil in the world IMO because in 50 or so years, you won’t find any oil anymore !
 The leading companies of the French indice CAC40 made a stunning 1500% profits while not hiring a single person. Profits, profits, profits...
 2/3 of French workers now fall into the 1x-2x SMIC revenue cathegory. And who’s gonna pay the most taxes (proportionally to their income) ? I’ll let you have a guess...

The world’s economical balance isn’t at risk, especially with the emerging countries. But we’re still not able to provided enough income to have a worker live a decent life...

Reasons to rejoy
Let’s cut the alarmist speech for a while :

 You might stay healthy
 You might win at lottery
 You might find a companion/get engaged/get married
 You might get professionnally promoted enough to make a decent living
 Heroes (the TV series) might get continued with less disturbing plot twists
 And finally the Chicago Bulls might win the NBA play-offs for the first time since Mickael Jordan retired

Yeah obviously, you have good reasons to wish everyone in your entourage the best of it for the new year. I guess it’s a convenient way to conjure the bad omens coming from all around the world. Maybe it’s a good way to help us forget the harshness of life in other countries. One thing I’m sure off, and I mean it : there’s only 362 days to wait before going into some selective amnesia therapy, again.

Thus, from the bottom of my heart, I give you my best wishes for this new year.