Category: Barack Obama

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2009 Throne Speech Alberta Oil Sands Barack Obama Les Brost Michael Ignatieff Preston Manning Stephen Harper Twitter

show me a throne speech that isn’t long on promises and short on details.

– Alberta’s Throne Speech 2009. Long on promises, short on details, as Throne Speeches always are. Check out David Climenhaga‘s take.

– Preston Manning is in today’s Globe & Mail calling for a sustainable energy security strategy for North America.

– Obama2Canada.org has been launched to raise awareness of the environmentally damaging effects of the oil sands before President Barack Obama‘s 5 hour Ottawa visit with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on February 19.

– Edmonton’s Twestival hit the front page of the Edmonton Journal this morning.

– In a recent poll, new Federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff was viewed more positively than negatively in every province except Alberta across all age and gender groups.

– More evidence of the continued implosion of the CanWest media empire. I was sad to hear that the Calgary Herald will be letting go many of its freelance writers, including political writer Les Brost.

– There’s some interesting ongoing debate on the state of Liberal politics in Alberta in one of my previous posts.

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Barack Obama Dave Hancock Ed Stelmach Gary Mar Washington DC

mr. hancock goes to washington.

Besides that he’s a good buddy of Alberta’s U.S. Ambassador Gary Mar, can anyone give me a good reason why Albertans are paying $3,000 to send Education Minister Dave Hancock to Washington D.C. to watch the Obama Inauguration?

If Klein-era style cutbacks are on Premier Ed Stelmach‘s mind, I’d imagine these are the sorts of frivolities that would be on the chopping block.

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Alberta Oil Sands Barack Obama Richard Nixon

american energy independence, 37 years and waiting.

With American President-Elect Barack Obama‘s team preparing to move into the White House, they’ve made one of their goals to achieve self-sufficiency in energy by eliminating current oil imports from the Middle East and Venezuela within 10 years. With this in mind, ask yourself if this sounds familiar…

…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….

Source: Pratt, Larry, The Tar Sands: Syncrude and the Politics of Oil, Hurtig, Edmonton, Alberta. pp 49 – 50, 1976.

(h/t to Climateer Investing for the reminder)

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Barack Obama Change

obama’s word of the day: change.

I haven’t really focused too much blogging on the American Presidential nominations, but with the Iowa caucuses happening today, I thought I’d post this lovely video from the Washington Post…


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