Ah, winter. I don’t know about you, but I feel most truly alive when I’m out shoveling snow for what seems like weeks at a time and the wind chill is turning my fingers and face into icicles.

(It’s quite the magical trick. I hear it will be an event in the next Winter Olympics, which will take place in Equatorial Africa because Sochi wasn’t quite warm enough.)

The thing about this weather is that these have been Canadian Arctic winds slipping (well, screaming) across the border illegally. I mean, do these wind clippers have passports? Of course not.

OK, it’s true that conservative Republicans also scream in our ears about abortion, because, of course, they should control all women’s wombs. And, yes, they scream in our ears about the impending gay takeover of everything American.

But what are the GOPers doing about these illegal immigrant winds?

Nada.

(To use a semi-loaded term. The conservatives would like to ban the speaking of Spanish, not to mention French, Finnish, German, Tagalog, and perhaps even British English, so that the sensitive ears of real Americans won’t be tarnished by foreign tongues. Which conjures a mental image I really don’t mean to conjure.

(And Finnish? Who speaks Finnish outside the borders of Finland? But I guess we should ban it just in case someone has the temerity to say “kiitos.”)

So, I figure that there’s only one thing we can do against this onslaught of Albertan chill — open our windows, stick our heads outside, brave the ludicrous, if not Republican (I’m sorry; I repeat myself), wind chill and holler, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.”

(Stealing a line from Paddy Chayefsky’s Network; the previous line was stolen from Mark Twain.)

Sure, in everyone shouting at the same time, even the most long-winded of us (long-windedness is human nature, as UI President Sally Mason notes, and she would know, says the editor of her Q&As), we’d only raise the temperature by possibly 1 degree Fahrenheit.

But every degree counts.

Clever Canadians, they know our gun-laden society’s bullets can do less than nothing against the Alberta wind clipper, despite what the NRA might contend (for an earlier version of this battle, see the Irish legend of Cuchulain fighting the tide with his magnificent sword — same result; great legend, though).

Persons of Albertan persuasion will no doubt complain: But we Albertans have it much worse from the Alberta winds than you wimps in Iowa (legendary Canadian politeness notwithstanding, or standing any other way).

To which we can only reply, At least we had the sense not to move to Alberta.

Which, in all fairness (or something), is beautiful in the spring and summer. But the other 50 weeks of the year …

Meanwhile, I have it from deeply embedded sources that spring is now stuck in Colombia, where it is happily snorting, um, sunshine.

(Remember when sunshine was warm? Me, neither.)

Of course, we could all worry about what’s going on in Ukraine instead of worrying about weather, where apparently, Ukrainians are getting a taste of Russian winter. But who knows, exactly, what’s going on in Ukraine, outside of the Russians soldiers in Crimea?

And Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia is apparently saying to the world, Crimea winter.

I wish I could say I’m Putin you on. But I wouldn’t stoop that low.

I only stoop to conquer snow.