Look Outside

clipped from news.yahoo.com Paris – After three years sans snow, Paris got hit twice this week. The city doesn’t do snow plows, and the novelty of icicles on the Eiffel is wearing off. Even city birds seem to be shivering. “Global warming I care about, but look outside,” offered a denizen of the 8th District. “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow,” is fine at Christmas. But in post-holiday Europe, bus engine oil is freezing in Norway. Ireland reports the lowest temperature in 50 years. In Britain, the Army got called out to tow drivers caught in snow drifts, amid possible government gas rationing and fireside chats by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is turning into the nation’s weather comforter-in-chief. Satellite imagery shows the UK swathed entirely in snow, looking like a baby Greenland. “Snowfall is expected to be heavy,” warned the French meterological service today, “even exceptional” -- as 600 trucks waited for a major artery to be cleared.