daveberta.ca - Alberta Politics and Elections

According to the CBC reporter who only interviewed one angry Albertan… that’s totally proportional, one angry Calgarian equals 3 million angry Albertans… sure…

ATTENTION POLITICAL NERDS: the Prime Minister Forever 2006 simulation computer game is now available for FREE via the wonderful Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Now you can get your nerd-on for free!

We’re trying out something a little different and have added a little poll on the sidebar – check it out, vote, and let us know if you like it. The jury is still out if we’re going to keep it around.

Well, the results of the Canadian Blog Awards were released last night and we didn’t fair too badly.

When the final ballots were counted, we ended up in a strong second place behind Ms. Samantha Burns. Not too bad considering we only made it past the first round of voting in 5th place by 1 vote (54-53 votes against the Cassandra Pages).

Here are the results from the BEST PERSONAL BLOG category…

1. The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns – 248 Votes (24%)
2. Daveberta – 245 Votes (24%)
3. Jenandtonic – 196 Votes (19%)
4. Postmodernes Sprachspienlen – 192 Votes (19%)
5. Postcards from the Mothership – 148 Votes (14%)

Though we didn’t think we stood much of a chance in the beginning, an agressive campaign, followed by endorsements by Buckets and CalgaryGrit almost pushed us over the top!

So, props to all our lovely competitors and make sure to check out their blogs!

Props to Sam Burns for her first place finish – by 3 votes! (now we know how Laurie Hawn will feel on election night when Anne McLellan once against sqweeks through in Edmonton Centre… BA-ZING! )

And of course, %100 props to all those who voted for us! May all your Christmas wishes come true.

Props to Socialist Swine for the quiz linkage…

Downtown Loft You scored 29 out of 40 on urban-rural and 35 out of 40 land intensity.

People know you as: The Yuppie Quote: “Sushi is so 1990s. How about Lebanese?” Congratulations. You are the coolest type of person. Or you like to think you are, anyway. Your score indicates you are a through and through urbanite who likes to live in the densest, most central part of town. Realistically, though, you’re probably a “new money” type who, although you claim to hate chains, still occasionally sneaks a Big Mac and always, always gets your coffee from Starbucks. The main difference between you and The Bohemian Gentrifier is that you have a better job. Examples of places you should live: Manhattan, Chicago’s Loop All Categories Secluded Hideaway / Farm or Ranch / Small Town / Little City / Suburb / Streetcar Suburb / Rowhouse ‘Hood / Downtown Loft

Friday, while downtown on business, we headed down to the HMV to check if they had a copy of the Muppet Christmas Carol Soundtrack on CD. Unfortunately, they did not. That leaves us dumbfounded at where to get a copy! Seriously folks! What kind of world do we live in when in EDMONTON – a city of nearly a MILLION people – you CANNOT find a physical copy of a Muppets Christmas Carol soundtrack!

1000% props for ANYONE out there in blog-o-land who can tell us where we can track down a copy in Edmonton. We pondered ordering a copy over Amazon.ca or ebay, but it most likely wouldn’t get here before Christmas….

Here are the places we’ve checked out so far…

1. a&b sound – downtown
2. Blackbird Music – Whyte Ave
3. Megatunes – Whyte Ave
4. HMV – Edmonton City Centre

So… back to the title of the story… while at HMV, we made a purchase or two, one being a pair of headphones. In the past, we have opted to buy the $6.99 headphones (which tend to break after a month or so), so this time we decided to be economically smart and buy the $11.99 pair (in hopes of saving money over the long run). So, very pleased with our purchase, we made our way back to our hovel in Garneau only to discover that the said $11.99 headphones were DEFECTIVE! ARRRR! Imagine our reaction. It twas not pleasant.

So, as time would have it, we broke out of the womb of academic submergence for 1 hour this afternoon to travel back to HMV downtown to exchange our headphones for an undefective set. So, the conclusion of our story is, HMV has nearly no problem exchanging stuff. They didn’t even ask us for a receipt! (we also stopped at Staples downtown to pick up some cheap printer paper).

And finally, Edmonton people: Isn’t it insanely beautiful outside? It must have been +10C today! Big blue sky! Spring jacket time! Very sweet!

mwahahahahahaha!

This week’s Blog of the Week goes to taracool.

Taracool is a fun blog we found a while ago. It’s writen by Tara, a fellow political science geek (except in Ontario). Check it out!

Also – 16 days ’till Christmas!!!!!!!

It’s officially the last day you and your’s can vote for this wonderful blog in the Canadian Blog Awards! So GO VOTE NOW!

The Federal Tories announced their Post-Secondary Education policy yesterday…

Here it is from Conservative.ca:

• “Providing students or their parents with a tax credit of up to $500 to help cover the costs of textbooks;
• Working with the provinces to increase family income thresholds for student loan eligibility;
• Exempting the first $10,000 of student scholarship or bursary income from taxation; and
• Ensure dedicated funding for education by removing postsecondary education funding from the Canada Social Transfer and placing it in an independent Canada Education and Training Transfer.”

okie dokie, here’s our take…

a) What’s up with using the tax system to fix everything? Seriously, we’re glad that the Tories are thinking about the textbook problem, but textbooks are expensive in September and January. Not May. How is a tax credit going to help someone when they need the money? Let’s segway into point b…

b) “Working with the provinces to increase family income thresholds for student loan eligibility” … okay, let’s make sure we got this one right… a Conservative government would make it easier for students to get into debt? sure…

c) The last two points are fairly straight forward. We would definitely support a dedicated Federal-Provincial PSE transfer and agree that scholarship and bursary money should be tax-free.

d) We were slightly surprised that some of the more controversial policies included in the Conservative Party’s Policy Declaration didn’t make the cut… including the dissolution of the Millennium Scholarship Foundation and implementation of an Income-Contingent Student Loan Repayment scheme…

Are these policies “hidden” somewhere? Perhaps in an “agenda?”

Here’s our suggestion to Misters Martin, Harper, and Layton on how to spice up the election a bit.

Shake your groove thing. Shake your groove thing…

GOOD MORNING!

Partially because we’re nerds, and partially because we needed a break from studying environmental assessment policy, we’ve compiled a spreadsheet of the results of Edmontonians votes in the 2004 federal election for your reading pleasure.

Here are the total Edmonton-wide results…

…and here are the results broken down by the eight Edmonton ridings.

We don’t really have a point to prove, this is more for informational purposes.

Someone found our blog tonight by googling: balding actors/ joaquin phoenix.

Awesome.

Not that we pretend to actually know anything about childcare policy, but take a look at this baby picture for the Conservative Party website!

(Well, Mr. McBeath, is it cute or possessed? or both!?! Is it a TWO-tier baby!?!)
(SECRET AGENDA! SECRET AGENDA! SECRET AGENDA!)