sorry, mr. speaker. the premier's on vacation.

Just in case any of you missed the news from last week, it turns out that Alberta's glorious and beloved leader, Premier Ralph Klein, is planning on missing most of the upcoming session of the Alberta Legislature to continue his 2005 Lame-Duck Farwell Tour.

While Klein spent quite a bit of time traveling through the US, Europe, and Africa this summer, he'll be continuing his tour in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and British Columbia when the Legislature is expected to resume for a 2-3 week fall session in November. Though we're not quite sure what exactly the purpose of Glorious Leader's trip is, we can bet that it'll have something to do with the reason the Harper Conservative's will lose the next election.

Though it's no secret that our dearest Premier holds not much more than arrogant contempt for the role of the elected assembly, he must think that by divvying up $400 rebate cheques to every Albertan, he somehow doesn't have to show up. Wow.

From drunkenly kicking homeless people to verbally attacking women MLA's, to now skipping out on session, this Premier continues to give Albertans no shortage of reasons to be embarrassed about him.

But, if anything, it should be entertaining to watch the candidates for the 2006 Tory Leadership Race kick the bejesus out of each other in their scramble for the spotlight when Klein's skip's town this fall.