I'm Told It's Not This Cold in Montreal

If Hoth had apartment buildings, a post-industrial system of highways and the odd conifer, it would look like this.

You'll notice that in the picture, there is little actual snow. That's because it's currently -22º right now in Edmonton, and it's too cold for snow. Whatever ambient moisture that exists in the atmosphere has touched the ground, frozen into ice, and now lays buried beneath a thin veneer of white powder.

I think scientists call the ground in Edmonton "permafrost".

If understand the process correctly--and I like to think that I do--the ice, dirt and hares that have been flash-frozen overnight will turn into oil. That oil will then be converted via an enormous device of Rube-Goldbergian proportions into "Prosperity Cheques" that the Government of Alberta will send to me just for living here.

Apparently in Montreal it's going to dip down to just below zero as we approach the Leadership Convention. And I will take solace in the fact that no matter how snowy, drizzly or cold it gets in the land of smoked meat and gendered nouns, it will still be about twenty degrees warmer than it is in Edmonton.

Unless, that is, it gets unseasonably warm in Alberta and climbs above zero.

Which I'm pretty sure is exactly what will happen. And then the Snow Troopers will just look stupid.