In the first week of 2010, President Barack Obama, desperate to get people's attention off terrorism and health care reform, held a press conference to talk about the economy.

Most people welcomed the economic emphasis. Mostly because most people currently place health care reform near the bottom of their personal priority list.

Everyone wants to hear encouraging news about jobs. And the president delivered. Sort of. But instead of talking about creating or recovering "normal" jobs, Obama promoted a new government program designed to create "green jobs."

Obama promised his $2.3 billion green jobs program would result in — hold your applause — 17,000 new jobs. Which is swell unless you do the math and realize that translates to $135,000 spent to create each job. Imagine — $135 K to create a single job. In only one universe does that make sense... the Land of Big Government.

And talk about bad timing. Obama decides to talk "green" when most of the country's citizens are turning blue from the cold. What folks will be screaming for a month from now isn't a green job but a new stimulus plan to pay for skyhigh heating bills.

It's that cold. How cold, you ask? A few January headlines from around the globe answer the question nicely:

In Ocean Springs, Mississippi, a reporter doing a story about the local harbor was shocked when she saw the harbor choked with over 1,000 dead mullet. They had frozen to death.

Even a mullet deserves better.

William Walker, director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, wasn't surprised. He said in extremely cold temperatures fish get trapped in shallow water and die of hypothermia.

Walker said the state will not bother to clean up the frozen fish because locals are expected to snap them up and either cook them or keep them frozen until the annual mullet toss is held at the FloraBama Lounge in Perdido Key, Fla.

By the way, while fish were freezing in Mississippi, neighboring Alabama was reporting the lowest early January temperatures since World War II. Ouch.

Things were even worse across the Atlantic, where parts of Europe are suffering the worst cold spell in memory. Ireland reported the coldest temps in 50 years, the Army was called to do wrecker service on icy British roads, and things are so bad in Norway, engine oil is freezing over in the local buses.

The horror even spread to sunny south Florida, where citrus crops aren't the only things endangered by cold weather. Floridians are also dealing with a new cold-weather danger — frozen iguanas falling from trees.

Even though they appear dead, many are still alive. And when the iguanas wake up, it's not pretty, according to one lizard-sicle expert.

"It's almost like they go totally to sleep," said Ron Magill of Miami Metrozoo. "Generally speaking, if it warms up afterwards, they can recover."

Magill advised against giving too much assistance to a thawing iguana.

"I knew of a gentleman who was collecting them off the street and throwing them in the back of his station wagon," Magill said, "and all of a sudden these things are coming alive, crawling on his back and almost caused a wreck."

Cold weather is causing the blues across the world. That's never good. But on the bright side, as long as it continues to rain frozen lizards in Florida, you won't hear the Global Warmers in Congress talking about spending money we don't have to fight a problem that doesn't exist.

If that's not a ray of sunshine, nothing is.

(Send your e-mail comments to: alex@ newnan.com)