How We Elect Our Leader in Alberta

As you may be aware by the headlines, our province, the Province of Alberta, is in the throws of electing a new leader for the reigning PC Party. But this isn't just any ordinary let's-elect-a-leader-for-our-party convention, the leader-elect is assured to be leader of the Government of Alberta.

Please read the below carefully.

Here's a few snippets from Wikipedia:

• Candidates are approved by public referendum


• Citizens over sixteen years of age who have not been found guilty of a criminal offense can vote


• Individual vote totals, which are invariably high, are not verified by non-partisan, independent, or non-state organs and observers


• The elected leader of the party is automatically considered leader of the government, opposition, though constitutionally recognized, is largely inconsequential


• Members of the Party elect the leader through popular vote, not ordinary citizens


• The government has full fiscal and administrative responsibility for the health care of its citizens


• Government has had one-party rule for decades

To be honest, I couldn't find a PC Party Wikipedia entry, so the above comes from the Wikipedia article on the Cuban Government.

There is one main difference, however. Our current, and our next leader, will not have a beard.

Our Home: Now 99.999% Telus free

Telus never ceases to amaze me. Having worked for a competitor, we had a laugh at Telus's expense when the CRTC took the very rare step of publicly reprimanding their customer service practices. My Mom owns a small florist shop in a fairly newer strip mall, and called Telus to have internet installed. The guy came in and explained that he had to temporarily sever her credit card machine line so he could do some rewiring. About 30 minutes later, he looked at his watch and proclaimed, "Well, shifts over. I gotta be some place. I'll book you in again sometime." Still the wires were dangling from the ceiling, no internet, no credit card machine. When she called customer service, they said that my Mom should've quized the technician on precisely what he was going to do, clearly everyone is an expert on telecommunication network topology.

Then I get my telephone bill last month. Guess what? There is a $5 charge for "Long Distance Maintenance". A what? We never use long distance with our land line, we only only only use our cell for that. So they screw us with a charge for a service we never use.

Alas, I found a refuge. Having been pounded with these Vonage commercials, I did some investigation on this service and after much soul-searching, we took the plunge.

Phone bill with Telus: $41

Phone bill with Vonage: $20

Its really as simple as that.

In case you're wondering about the quality of the connection, it surprised me quite a bit! I was expecting a walkie-talkie type garbled connection that we would have to live with. But, alas, this was not the case. You get the odd tap-sound, or slight echo, but nothing that would come close to making your phone conversation suffer to the point where someone would comment on the connection.

I remember working retail while in University. They said the most dangerous customer complaint is the one that the company does not hear about. Assumably, this is because they'll beak off to their friends rather than the company itself.

So here's my Telus story, folks. Read it, tell two friends, and so on... and so on.... and so on....

Remembrance Day Poppies

Remembrance Day was last week, but I'm still thinking about a trend that was introduced for this year's batch of poppies: the White Poppy. Apparently, the movement started in the UK by some Christian groups for reasons not even they agree upon. Nevertheless, these poppies became all the rage in Alberta. Stores were selling out of them, there was one stand in the Calgary Core which sold out, they seemed to be in demand.

Since this group is piggy-backing on the icon-status of the Remembrance Day Poppy, what's to stop other groups? Will the environmentalists claim the green poppy? Will the Feminists lay claim to the pink poppy? Sure, why not? These groups care less about what the original poppy stands for than pushing forward their own cause. I heard one veteran say that that was their right, that was part of the reason he fought and saw many friends die.

So, looking into my crystal ball, here's Prime Minister Stephen Harper giving a speech just prior to Remembrance Day 2008:

A Travesty of Epic Proportions

As reported by CTV Sportsnet, a blown call of "epic proportions" took place Friday night in a game where the Dallas Stars beat the Edmonton Oilers by a goal. Referee Mick McGeough made an error in officiating errantly disallowing a goal that would have tied the game. After the game, the seething hatred from Edmontonians was palpable. Many were calling for McGeogh's job, a heavy fine, there were even threats.

To put things in perspective, I launched good old MS Notepad and copied the first few paragraphs of the CNN story reporting the Saddam Hussein death sentence verdict. I then did a Find/Replace on the following words:

Saddam Hussein = Mick McGeogh
Iraq = NHL
Nouri Maliki = Oiler Fans


Here's the Blown Call Story as reported by CNN:

Mick McGeogh has been convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging.

Mick McGeogh and his co-defendants will be given the right to appeal, but that is expected to take only a few weeks and to end in failure for the defendants.

Long live the NHL! Long live the the NHL people! Down with the traitors!

Oiler Fans hailed the conviction in a televised address, saying that the sentence was "not a sentence on one man, but a sentence against all the dark period of his rule".

"Maybe this will help alleviate the pain of the widows and the orphans, and those who have been ordered to bury their loved ones in secrecy, and those who have been forced to suppress their feelings and suffering, and those who have paid at the hands of torturers," Oiler Fans said.

US President George W Bush welcomed the verdict as a "milestone" in the efforts of the the NHL "to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law".

But the European Union urged the NHL not to carry out the death sentence.

When called to court, Mick McGeogh, dressed in his usual dark suit and white shirt and carrying a Koran, walked to his seat and sat down.

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I should remind you that Edmonton is the current murder capital of Canada.
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