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wtf alberta.

It seems that our illustrious and beloved leader, Premier Ralph Klein, has decided that he knows best when it comes to what Albertans want. Apparently, we would rather he cut us all a one-time $400 cheque instead of say…

…improving the quality of institutions that have starved for funding under his reign.
…doing something visionary.
…doing anything visionary.

Honestly, a one-time $400 cheque? How is that going to help make Alberta a better place? A $400 cheque isn’t going to change improve the quality of life in Alberta. It’s not going to build better roads, build better schools, or improve rapid transit. It’s more than definately not going to help that homeless guy that was sleeping on our front lawn last week.

What about the people who don’t need the cheque?

What about the people who need more than a one-time $400?

*cough*AISH recipients*cough*

And of course, in the true spirit of Alberta‘s democratic tradition, the decision to spend the $1.4 Billion on rebate cheques was made in a closed-door Tory caucus meeting in Lethbridge. Yes, that’s right, a party which in the last election received the votes of only 22% of eligible Alberta voters has decided that it has the authority to spend $1.4 Billion while behind closed doors.

Can we expect any public input into these decisions?

Can we expect any serious debate on the spending of Alberta‘s future revenues when the legislature is recalled next May?

*cough*probably not*cough*

Alberta: Looking for Vision since Peter Lougheed retired in 1984.

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the gods of patronage…

…have once again shone their rath on another Canadian, leaving a trail of patronagistic devastation in their tracks.

For what feels like the 35th time in the past year, the Prime Minister has appointed another lucky Canadian to the what could only be discribed as the tenuristic ivory tower of Canada’s upwardly mobile class (aka: the Senate). Ms. Sandra Lovelace Nicholas was appointed this afternoon by Prime Minister Paul Martin.

Ms. Nicholas, who will sit as a Liberal Senator from New Brunswick, actually has a fairly interesting background. According to her bio on the PMO release:

“Challenging discriminatory provisions of the Indian Act, which deprived Aboriginal women of their status when they married non-Aboriginals, she was instrumental in bringing the case before the United Nations Human Rights Commission and lobbying for the 1985 legislation which reinstated the rights of First Nation women and their children in Canada. In 1990, she was awarded the Order of Canada, and in 1992, she received the Governor General’s Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case.”

So, other than being appointed, she seems like she’d be a much needed fairly decent addition to the Upper Chamber of Parliament.

This appointment leaves the last vacancy in the upper house hailing from the potato-growing province of Prince Edward Island (Stompin’ Tom still has a chance!).

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stephen lewis on saturday

This past Saturday, we attended the Muttart Foundation‘s seminar with Mr. Stephen Lewis at the Citadel Theatre. It was a great lecture. Mr. Lewis, for those of you who aren’t familiar with him, is the United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and the former Canadian Ambassador to the U.N. (he was also an Ontario MPP and leader of the Ontario NDP from 1970-78).

Mr. Lewis is also part of what could only be called ‘Canada’s Social Democratic Dynasty’ (and that is what we are calling it), which boasts a fairly impressive pedigree of Canadian celebrity socialists. Mr. Lewis’ father was David Lewis, who led the federal NDP in a coalition with the Trudeau Liberals from 1972 to 1974, and Mr. (Stephen) Lewis’ son is Avi Lewis, who’s well known as the former host of CBC’s CounterSpin who is also married to anti-globalization activist and author, Ms. Naomi Klein.

We last saw Mr. Lewis speak in Ottawa two years ago and he was equally as amazing this time.

Along with some personal tidbits about one Mr. Brian Mulroney and a certain upcoming book, Lewis’ talk focused on the positive and not so positive elements of the United Nations in the wake of it’s 60th anniversary, and the work he does with the U.N. and various NGO’s in combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa. Lewis also had some fairly harsh words for the current Liberal government’s lack of real committment to reaching the 0.7% GDP level of foreign aid to developing countries, even though the Pearson Liberals were one of the first advocates of this goal.

We would be blowing smoke if we said his personal stories of his visits to Africa didn’t cause us to shed a tear or two during his lecture. What amazes us the most about Mr. Lewis is his persistence, strength, and passion for humanitarianism. After all the political junk and stonewalling he has put up with from various politicians, agencies, and governments, he remains an impassioned man. You could feel it. It’s inspirational.

Two of the many agencies he mentioned during his lecture, which we recommend you check out, are the Stephen Lewis Foundation and the Bill Clinton Foundation, both which conduct a large amount of work in HIV/AIDS stricken areas of the world.

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blog of the week: doucheblog

Though Rob tends to focuses on the ups and downs of American politics, we’ve enjoyed this blog for a some time.

Check out the doucheblog.

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we want to drink your…

vulcan blood.

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"Please Lord let me have another oil boom and I won’t piss it away"

This morning we were feeling particularily frustrated with the Alberta Government’s complete lack of vision when it comes to what to do with Alberta’s “new found” wealth.

So, we wrote a letter to the Edmonton Journal…

“Please Lord let me have another oil boom and I won’t piss it away”

Albertans are privileged to have the option of issuing $300 rebate cheques. But simply because we have the ability to do so, it does not mean we should. We could do many things with this money. We could build a giant statue of Ralph Klein in Churchill Square, but it doesn’t mean we should.

Let’s invest in our communities. Let’s invest in our education and advanced education systems. Let’s invest our wealth in the future of our province so that the generations of tomorrow can enjoy the economic wealth that the politicians of today take for granted.

ahhh. That feels a little better now.

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Michael Ritter Scandal

who let the ritter out? who? who? who? who?

Not Alberta’s Court of Queen’s Bench.

For anyone interested (following up from an earlier post), Edmonton’s own Mr. Michael Ritter, the former Chief Parliamentary Counsel to the Alberta Legislature, has been making headlines across the world! Well… Albertans do have that “entrepreneurial spirit…”

Edmonton Sun: Ritter fighting to stay at home.
Bloomberg: Canadian Charged with $43 Million Embezzlement of Merrill Lynch.

We’ll have more coverage as it comes…

Here’s an open ended question for all you loyal daveberta readers: How much legislation was passed in Alberta while this upstanding gentleman was our Counsel?

Click here for the complete Michael Ritter Scandal Chronology…

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Richard Nixon and Project Independence

We’re currently reading “The Tar Sands: Syncrude and the Politics of Oil” by Larry Pratt for our Canadian Public Policy class. It’s quite an interesting read. We never knew natural resource policy and the history of Alberta’s tarsands was so interesting.

As well, we thought this clip from pages 49 – 50 of said book was interesting and quite telling…

One month following the outbreak of the Yom Kippur Middle East war of October 1973, with the United States deep in the grip of Watergate fever compounded by the anxiety over the Arab oil boycott, former U.S. President Richard M. Nixon appeared on American television to prescribe strong medicine, his antidote for the energy crisis.

Nixon named it “Project Independence.” The challenge facing the United States, he declared, was to regain the strength of self-sufficiency in energy. This was a key to Americans predominance among the nations. “Our ability to meet our own energy needs is directly linked to our continued ability to act decisively and independently at home and abroad in the service of peace, not only for America, bur for all nations in the world.” Calling for “focused leadership” to achieve self-sufficiency by 1980, Nixon likened his challenge to earlier crash programs to develop the atomic bomb and to put a man on the moon. He went on to promise massive public funding for the exploration of American’s remaining energy resources-Alaskan oil and gas, offshore oil reserves, nuclear energy and synthetic fuels from coal and oil shale. A few days later, Nixon reiterated his challenge, linking it to rumour circulating Washington that the “blue-eyed Arabs” of Canada were taking advantage of America‘s energy plant. The United States, Nixon asserted, should be independent of all oil producing countries, “including our Canadian friends,” by 1976. Canadians “can be pretty tough on us sometimes when they are looking down our throats.” This did not mean that the U.S. would not continue to desire the oil of he Middle East of the gas of Siberia or that she would cease energy cooperation with Canada or Latin America. “But it does mean that the United States must be independent in this area, and we can be.”

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let the games begin.

It seems that the Alberta Liberals are getting their game face on for the next provincial election.

This evening, the Edmonton Castle Downs Constituency will nominate Chris Kibermanis as their Alberta Liberal Candidate for the next election. You may remember that Castle Downs produced the closest race in the last election, with Kibermanis, 29, originally defeating cocky Tory incumbent and playboy-wannabe, Thomas Lukaszuk, by 9 votes.

But it was not to be. In the days following Kibermanis’ election, Lukaszuk and his O.J. style Tory Legal team descended on the Castle Downs results in an orgy of legal attacks which ended in the usurping of the original results which had been approved by Elections Officials. In the end, a 9 vote deficit turned out to be a 6 vote surplus… suspicious indeed.

This time, the rematch looks to be hot as Kibermanis has at least a year to campaign as the Alberta Liberal candidate. It is not known whether Lukaszuk, who as much as we can tell, doesn’t do more than sit pretty in the backbenches and jump when ordered, will seek re-election.

Tonight’s nomination meeting is the first of what will be a string of candidate nominations in the coming months and also comes on the heels of the Connections 2005 Pasta Supper which drew over 500 Alberta Liberals last Friday in Edmonton.

With the race to replace aging Premier Ralph Klein in full swing and looking to be nasty (our “Deep Throats” in Calgary are witnessing the emergence of a “Ted Morton insugency” in many supposedly Paul Mar… er… “Jim Dinning friendly” ridings), Kevin Taft and the Alberta Liberals are more than definitely in a position to make major gains in soft-Tory ridings like Castle Downs.

Let the games begin!

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Michael Ritter Scandal

when visa isn’t enough: the michael ritter story.

Money stolen from Merrill Lynch: $43 Million.

Money stolen or unlawfully possed and hidden in offshore bank accounts: $10.3 Million.

Money stolen through fraud in a US pyramid scheme: $230 Million.

Being denied bail AND facing extradition charges to the United States: Priceless.

Because, when Visa isn’t enough, there’s always theft, fraud, and money laundering.

Click here for the complete Michael Ritter Scandal Chronology…

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privacy is "the cornerstone of a liberal democracy"

Oui, c’est un press release

Prof probes impact of post 9/11 surveillance

Immediately after the 9/11 Al-Qeada terrorist attacks, government officials in both the U.S. and Canada were quick to pass legislation to increase surveillance of their citizens. But now, four years later, as fear of further terrorist attacks has become less acute and suspicion of government leaders’ motives has heightened, more and more people are starting question the increased invasion of their privacy, says Dr. Kevin Haggerty, director of the criminology program in the University of Alberta Department of Sociology.

“Right after 9/11 it was impossible for anyone to say no to anything that would purportedly increase security,” said Haggerty, who recently co-authored a paper on the use of surveillance as response to terrorist threats, which was published in the Canadian Journal of Sociology.

Increasing the ability of lawmakers to monitor our Internet use, financial transactions, personal movements and cell phone use were just a few of the measures in the U.S. Patriot Act and the Canadian Public Safety Act that became law shortly after 9/11. But many of these measures had been proposed and rejected as unwarranted privacy invasions in previous years, Haggerty said.

The steep increase in surveillance infrastructure after 9/11 has been “intensive” and has “proceeded with little public debate or protest,” he added. “But polling and censor numbers are showing us that people have lost some of their trust in authorities, and we are now looking more critically at the restrictions being placed on our civil liberties.”

Read the rest here.

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5-6-7 billion!

We thought this was interesting.

Check out the US National Debt Clock and the US Federal Government Budget Spending.

The United States Bureau of Public Debt has some pretty skyrocketing debt numbers as well.

In 2000, the US National Public Debt was $5,674,178,209,886.86.

As of yesterday, the US National Public Debt was sitting at $7,950,034,655,748.03.

holy shite.

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oggle the bazoogle.

According to the “Which Big Lebowski character are you?” quiz:

Why don’t you check it out? Or we cut off your Johnson!


The funny thing is, we’ve never seen the movie and have no idea what it means.

Can anyone enlighten us?

(props to funcentral for the link to this quiz)

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the oberg effect.

August 30-31: Alberta Infrastructure and Transportation Minister and Tory Leadership Candidate, Lyle Oberg visits the Ukraine and meets with Ukraine’s Minister of Transportation and other government and business officials.

Sept 9: Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko fires his cabinet.

Mere coincidence? Decide for yourself.

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top scientific discovery.

Top American researchers and analysts have disected the reason for United States President George W. Bush’s unique grasp of the English Language.

Brilliant. Freaking brilliant.

(Props to Expat for the link)