tory cabinet: alberta content.

We're sure that many bloggers have seen this ensemble, written up by the always awesome Rick Mercer, with his thoughts on a potential Conservative Government Cabinet.

Though his were obviously satirical in nature (Stockwell Day in a Federal cabinet? hahaha)

As much as we dread the thought of Stephen Harper as Prime Minister, if the Liberals national campaign bombs any further, it may be an inevitability.

This got us seriously thinking about which Alberta Conservative MP's would make it in a Stephen Harper-led Conservative cabinet. Though we're sure that every current Tory MP with Reform Party pedigree circa 1993 (ie: Diane Ablonczy, Art Hanger, Ken Epp, John Williams) believes he or she (singular) will make the cut, we would predict that there would only be three or four Alberta MP's that would make it to full Cabinet Minister positions (the rest being dealt out to other Western, Maritime, Ontario, and possibly Quebec MP's).

So, right or wrong... here's our predictions for Alberta Tory MP's who we believe would make the cut as full-Cabinet Ministers in a potential Stephen Harper-led government:

Rona Ambrose, MP Edmonton - Spruce Grove since 2004;
James Rajotte, MP for Edmonton - Leduc since 2000;
Lee Richardson, MP for Calgary Centre since 2004 (MP for Calgary Southeast from 1988 to 1993);
Monte Solberg, MP for Medicine Hat since 1993;
and duh... Stephen Harper, Calgary Southwest since 2002 (MP for Calgary West from 1993 to 1997).

This will no doubt meet the ire of many Alberta right-wingers, who will probably never be satisfied until the National Capital gets moved to Calgary. And even then, they will still be bitter about it ever being in Ontario in the first place.

If anything, a Tory government in Ottawa should be a major blow to the Alberta's Provincial Tories, who will no longer be able to use that fancy "it was the fault of those evil Liberals in Ottawa" card they love so much.

Thoughts?

five weird things...

Last week, Angry in T.O. tagged us in a game of "Five Weird Things..."

As the game-name suggests, we list off five weird things about ourselves and then tag a couple of non suspecting blogging folks... so... here... we... go...

1. We love Maynard's Wine Gums. In fact, we can eat an entire pack without even thinking about it (the 7 hour sugar rush is a bit of a kick though).

2. We've been to Ribstone, Alberta (how many other people can say they've done that...)

3. Everytime we see an NDP lawnsign, we think of orange popsicles (we live in the Garneau area, so we end up thinking about orange popsicles quite a bit).

4. We have an unhealthy obsession with public policy. We can't stop reading policy reports. Not just on the job, but at home, and at Tim Horton's, and at the Sugarbowl...

5. Our Cross-Country Skis were "Made in the USSR." And yes, they are wood. They are awesome.

So, in retaliation for Angry in T.O.'s tagging us, we shall tag Socialist Swine, Section 15, Zorph, Peter Rempel, and Taracool.

upcoming candidate forums!

Here are some upcoming Edmonton riding and City-Wide Election Forums we know of...

Wednesday, January 11th

Riding: Edmonton Strathcona
Horowitz Theatre
University of Alberta Students' Union Building
115th Street & 89th Avenue
5:30 PM

City-Wide Forum
Topic: Immigration
Norquest College Auditorium
10215 – 108th Street
7:30 – 9:00pm
Sponsored by Edmonton Mennonite Centre for New Comers and Norquest College
Moderated by: Portia Clark

......

Thursday, January 12th

City-Wide Forum
Royal Alberta Museum
12845 - 102nd Avenue
7:00 PM
Sponsered by Public Interest Alberta

......

Friday, January 13

Riding: Edmonton East
“Spotlight 2006 – The Candidates’ Forum”
On Shaw TV channel 10 and 630 CHED
7:00 PM

......

Monday, January 16

Riding: Edmonton Centre
10804 - 119 Street
7:30 pm
Sponsed by the Unitarian Church of Edmonton's Social Justice Committee

City-Wide Forum
Vote Alberta Young Candidates Forum
Red Star Pub
10534 Jasper Avenue.
8:00 - 9:00 PM
(Edmonton East candidate Nicole Martel will be representing the Liberals)

......

Thursday, January 19

Riding: Edmonton East
Eastglen High School
11430-68 Street
7:00-9:03 PM
Sponsored by the Newton Community League.
Moderated by Dave King, former Minister of Education for the Province of Alberta.

cold war 2006.

Do you think being indicted by a US Federal Grand Jury and being accused of being a spy could be bad for your career?

HUSBAND, WIFE INDICTED AS BEING CUBAN AGENTS

A husband and wife who work at Florida International University were indicted by a federal grand jury Monday on charges of being covert agents of Cuba.

Carlos and Elsa Alvarez are being held in jail, pending a bail hearing. They have not entered a plea, but their lawyer told local reporters that they were not guilty. Carlos Alvarez is an associate professor of educational leadership and policy studies. Elsa Alvarez is a social worker in the university’s counseling center.

A spokesman for Florida International said Monday night that they had been placed on paid leave, pending further developments.

We also thought this was interesting...

The charges are less severe than espionage. According to a press release issued by the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami, the charge of being a covert agent carries with a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Check out the rest here.

naked old white guys don't inspire people to vote.

Seriously, folks...

leader's debate party- in edmonton...

... on the U of A Campus at RATT tonight starting at 6pm (yes, only one hour away, but hey!)

RATT's on the 7th floor of the Students' Union Building for those who are interested in joining the festivities!

And... unlike Mr. Jaffer, we're pretty sure Stephen Harper will show up to this debate...

edmonton strath-to-the-cona.

Last night, along with Mr. Robertson and Mr. Smith, we attended the Edmonton Strathcona candidate forum held at the Knox Metropolitan United Church. Though it wasn't the most exciting forum, we do have some thoughts...

1. Tory candidate Rahim Jaffer, the three-time incumbent for the riding was a no-show at the forum. Mr. Jaffer was joined in the no-show category by Marijuana Party candidate Dave Dowling... was Mr. Jaffer too busy campaigning for Tory candidates in Ontario to show up to a forum in his own riding?

2. Liberal candidate Andy Hladyshevsky was the most polished speaker. He was calm, cool, and humerous at times. For the most part, we would have a hard time disagreeing with many of the things he said.

3. Marxist-Leninist candidate, Kevan Hunter was great entertainment. His answer to nearly every question, ranging from Kyoto to committing 0.7% GDP to International Development Aid had something to do with Canada's "illegal occupation of Haiti..." crazy Marxist. :-P

4. Progressive Canadian candidate Mike Fedeyko was a pretty good speaker, though he slightly misjudged the crowd when he started quoting a Fraser Institute report...

5. Green Party candidate Cameron Wakefield was okay. Not the most polished speaker, he wasn't able to compensate oratorical for the Green Party's lack of solid policies...

6. NDP candidate Linda Duncan was a good speaker. Though we're most likely going to vote for her come January 23rd, we were not overly impressed with her performance at the forum. But it's nothing against her personally, none of the candidates really impressed us.

Overall, it was a pretty tame forum, we're looking forward to the next Edmonton Strathcona forum at the Myer Horowitz Theatre on the U of A Campus on January 11 at 5:30pm - tell your friends and show up!

So, ending it off, here are our current predictions in the Edmonton Strathcona race (rounded off, of course)...

Rahim Jaffer, CPC - 18,000
Linda Duncan, NDP - 13,000-14,000
Andy Hladyshevsky, Lib - 12,000-13,000
Cameron Wakefield, Grn - 3,000-4,000
Dave Dowling, MP -500
Mike Fedeyko, PC - 400
Kevan Hunter, ML - 100

jon stewart to host the oscars!

How sweet!

green university

As we continue our analysis of the federal parties Post-Secondary Education platforms, we would like to welcome everyone to the Faculty of Platitudes! (aka: the Green Party of Canada PSE policies...)

In their recently released main policy document, the Green Party has lived up to their name and proved that they are green in the PSE policy arena (nyuk nyuk nyuk...). Not a very good PSE policy package, it sits on the extremely vague side of the scale on just about every point.

In the document, they left us with six main PSE points... and not much to analyze...

Here it is...

"166. Work with provinces and higher learning institutions to reduce post-secondary tuitions."

Okay. This sounds fine and we're assuming it means giving the provinces more money for PSE. Dedicated transfer? Vague.

"167. Boost participation in cooperative education programs and apprenticeships."

Vague...

"168. Encourage more hands-on learning in our post-secondary education system."

Really vague... We would seriously like to know what "Hands-on learning" means... does this mean anything at all?

"169. Harmonize government programs such as the Millennium Scholarship Fund to provide a single need-based grant program to reduce student debt."

We agree that harmonization of programs is good for efficiency, but we have a suspicion that our definition of harmonization and their definition of harmonization may be different. Tones more needs-based grants are needed, but we need more details.

"170. Increase investments in post-secondary education and ensure that public funding plays a major role in research and development initiatives."

Sounds good. But vague.

Well, in our professional opinion, the Greens have definitely dropped the ball on this policy area...

As well, the Globe and Mail has released some of the details of the Liberal PSE policy, which is supposed to be released tomorrow. We're not going to comment on the details from the story; we'll wait until it's actually released before we do the critiquing.

(As well, be sure to check out our take on the Conservative PSE policy and an NDP PSE announcement.)

tagged by that crazy swine...

The always fun Socialist Swine has tagged us in another one of those blog meme's that float around... so, here you go....

Four jobs you've had in your life:
Pizza Chef, Fundrasing & Event Coordinator, Research Officer, Executive Policy & Information Officer

Four movies you could watch over and over:
Spiderman, Primary Colors, Shawn of the Dead, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Four places you've lived:
The Bayou & Edmonton, Alberta

Four TV shows you love to watch:
Family Guy, the Daily Show, The West Wing, The Sopranos

Four places you've been on vacation:
Halifax, Paris, Brussels, Nice

Four websites you visit daily:
CBC, Newsfutures, CalgaryGrit, Homestar Runner

Four of your favorite foods:
Maynards Wine Gums, Oranges, Frosted Mini-Wheats, Chicken

Four places you'd rather be:
Rather be? Why? Edmonton rocks!

Four albums you can't live without:
- At Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash
- The Royal Tenenbaums Soundtrack
- The Get Shorty Soundtrack
- Riding with the King by B.B. King & Eric Clapton

Four vehicles I've owned:
- None. :-)

So, assuming this is how it works, I tag the following four people for this meme:
- c-lo, interluctor, lotusland, & senator catalyst

sit, chicken. sit.

And it will.

and they rejoiced at our triumphant return...

As the eve of 2005 has passed, we find our creative juices running fairly low. We had a very relaxing holiday, but after spending the past three days in party/celebratory-mode, we find our desire to even write this blog post on the low end of low.

But alas, we shall force ourselves to please the mighty blog gods with a post...

We have a couple things to mention...

Federal Leadership. We're still having a very hard time getting excited about this writ period. All the party leaders are boring and uninspiring. We don't particularity enjoy Paul Martin, but we enjoy Stephen Harper even less. We are also fairly disappointed with Jack Layton in this election (so far), he's just not very inspiring. Please, someone offer VISION. Please.

Income-Trusts. We don't really know much about them, but the entire thing seems slimy.

Edmonton Strathcona. We're still unsure of who to vote for. We think we like our local NDP candidate, Linda Duncan, but we haven't ruled out voting for Green candidate, Cameron Wakefield, as a protest vote.

For those of you interested, there are a couple of Edmonton Strathcona election forums coming up in the near future (at the University of Alberta and Knox-Metropolitan Church). We'll post more info when we confirm them.

As well, Edmonton Strathcona Progressive Canadian candidate, Mike Fedeyko has set up his website and has joined Linda Duncan in candidate sites linking to our blog. Props to both of them!

Warren Kinsella. We're a little disappointed we didn't make Mr. Kinsella's top 10 blogs list. What's up Warren baby!?! ;-)

Blogs/Webboards. Mike Klander. Gordon Stamp. Seriously folks. Did they think that people weren't reading their stuff?

As for Mr. Klander's Olivia Chow comparison, we can assure everyone that Oliva Chow (see right) is much much better looking than a Chow Chow dog (we met her last year).

Also, see Derek's take on Mr. Klander... hahaha. keep it up, Mr. Raymaker.

As for Mr. Stamp, well, we don't think very highly of Alberta separatists, so we'll leave it at that.

Movies. We've seen a couple of good movies over the holidays. We saw the Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Fun with Dick and Jane, and Walk the Line (for the third time...). They were all good. Fun with Dick and Jane was particularity funny.

haha. We're watching Office Space as we blog. This movie is too funny... har har har...

oh la la!

Yes, we have triumphantly returned to our lovely hovel just in time for that great annual event we all call "New Year's Eve."

We shall post more soon, but for now we leave you with this lovely doozy.

(props to c-lo for the linkage)

joyeux noël.

As we shall soon be heading out of town for a couple days, the blogging will be light (if non-existant) until our trimpant return... we really hope you can cope without us...

We here at daveberta would just like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday Season. Have fun, stay safe, and enjoy yourselves! Tis the Season! :-)

god bless milk and cookies.

Today, we found this lovely site with tonnes and tonnes of Family Guy video clips. Check it out, it's on the awesome side of radtacular.

michael ritter scandal - UPDATE!

Click here for the complete Michael Ritter Scandal Chronology.

Yes, that's right, just in time for Christmas, we bring you an update on our good friend, the former Chief Legal Consel to the Alberta Legislature, Mr. Michael Ritter and his adventures in international money laundering (for backstory see here, here, here, here, and here).

It just keeps getting juicier and juicier!

It seems that the U.S. Department of Justice has sentenced Mr. Larry Toshio Osaki to 20 years in prison for his involvment in the $250-Million Ponzi scheme...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 16, 2005
UPLAND MAN WHO RAN $250 MILLION PONZI SCHEME GETS 20 YEARS IN FEDERAL PRISON Los Angeles, CA - A man who ran a gigantic Ponzi scheme and continued to offer bogus investments in accounts receivable "factoring" after being ordered to stop by a federal judge was sentenced this morning to 240 months in federal prison. Larry Toshio Osaki, 57, of Upland, was sentenced at the end of a 3 1/2-day hearing by United States District Judge Stephen V. Wilson, who said the defendant "single-handedly caused huge loss and havoc." In addition to the prison term, Judge Wilson ordered Osaki to pay more than $145 million in restitution to victims. Osaki pleaded guilty on March 22, 2005 to conspiracy to commit securities fraud, two counts of securities fraud, obstruction of justice and one count of money laundering. Osaki’s scheme cumulatively collected a quarter billion dollars from nearly 7,000 investors and caused $145 million in losses. That scheme started at his Pasadena company, J.T. Wallenbrock & Associates, and was continued with a second firm based in Edmonton, Canada. Read the rest here.

well... you know what they say about small political parties...

Props to Mr. Smith for tipping us off about the rumoured Progressive Canadian candidate in Edmonton Strathcona, Mr. Mike Fedeyko.

We don't know too much about the Progressive Canucks (we're not sure there is much to know), but from what we can see, they seem like a group of mainly red Ontario Tories who don't want to be in a conservative party with people like Stockwell Day, Jason Kenney, and Myron Thompson while also not wanting to join Ms. Stronach or Mr. Brison in the Liberal Party.

We've updated our Edmonton 2006 Federal Election Candidates list, but also click here for more info on Edmonton Strathcona.

wallpaper blues...

No Joe Volpe or Jean LaPierre desktop wallpaper...? darn.

pierretrudeau.ca

We thought this was a little funny... check out where this little link directs you: pierretrudeau.ca.

they had to hire researchers to discover this?

From the Globe & Mail...

Researchers found that, contrary to popular belief, success doesn't necessarily bring happiness but rather that happy people tend to be more successful.

“This may be because happy people frequently experience positive moods and these positive moods prompt them to be more likely to work actively toward new goals and build new resources,” said lead author Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California, Riverside.

If you like your job, you're probably going to do better at it... Duh!?!

...passing interest in falconry...

It's Sunday. It's winter. And we're slightly stressed out (as usual). Haven't bought any Christmas gifts yet... waiting until the 23rd... :-P

anyway... NEW STRONG BAD EMAIL!

hitch in y'r giddyup update!

As we first began here, we've decided to update the list of Edmonton Federal Election 2006 candidates...

As before, we'll keep updating the list as more candidates are declared, nominated, appointed, or turfed.

ELECTION 2006 MANIA!

EDMONTON CENTRE (2004 results & profile )
Laurie Hawn - Conservative
Donna Martyn - NDP
Anne McLellan - Liberal
Peggy Morton - Marxist-Lenninist
David Parker - Green
Chandra Segaran Swamy, Independent
(Marijuana Party candidate Lyle Kenny dropped out of the race)

EDMONTON EAST (2004 results & profile)
Trey Capernhurst - Green
Arlene Chapman - NDP
Peter Goldring - Conservative
Nicole Martel - Liberal
(Canadian Action Party candidate David Vanzella and Marijuana Party candidate Ken Kirk both dropped out of the race)

EDMONTON LEDUC (2004 results)
Jim Jacuta - Liberal
Ben Pettit - Green
James Rajotte - Conservative
Marty Rybiak - NDP

EDMONTON MILLWOODS BEAUMONT (2004 results & profile)
Kate Harrington - Green
Neal Gray - NDP
Amarjit Grewal - Liberal
Mike Lake - Conservative
Kyle McLeod - Independent (according to nodice.ca)
Naomi Rankin - Communist

EDMONTON SHERWOOD PARK (2004 results & profile)
Ken Epp - Conservative
Laurie Lang - NDP
Lynn Lau - Green
Ron Symic - Liberal

EDMONTON SPRUCE GROVE (2004 results & profile)
Rona Ambrose - Conservative
Brad Enge - Liberal
John Lackey - Green
Jason Rockwell - NDP

EDMONTON ST. ALBERT (2004 results & profile)
Stanley Haroun - Liberal
Peter Johnston - Green
Mike Melymick - NDP
John Williams - Conservative

EDMONTON STRATHCONA (2004 results & profile)
Linda Duncan - NDP
Dave Dowling - Marijuana Party
Mike Fedeyko - Progressive Canadian
Andy Hladyshevsky - Liberal
Kevan Hunter - Marxist-Lenninist
Rahim Jaffer - Conservative
Cameron Wakefield - Green
(Click here for more info on Edmonton Strathcona)

r.i.p. leo mcgarry.

USA Today is reporting that John Spencer, who played the character Leo McGarry on the awesome TV show, The West Wing, has died of a heart attack.

LOS ANGELES — John Spencer, an Emmy-winning original cast member of NBC's The West Wing, died suddenly Friday morning of a heart attack, according to a statement released by his publicist.

Spencer, four days short of his 59th birthday, is best known to viewers as Leo McGarry, the chief of staff to West Wing President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen). This season, McGarry was the vice presidential running mate for Democratic nominee Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits).

Spencer's portrayal of McGarry, a tough politico and recovering alcoholic, earned him an Emmy for supporting actor in a drama in 2002. The character actor, a veteran of theater and film work, also received four other Emmy nominations for the role and a Golden Globe nomination.

Spencer, who grew up in New Jersey, also played streetwise attorney Tommy Mullaney on NBC’s L.A. Law. His film roles include Presumed Innocent, Black Rain and Sea of Love.

Read the rest here...

che guevera to run for the ndp?

From Derek's recap of week 2 of the election...

"Now it’s rumoured that former vice-regal and Manitoba relic Ed Schreyer, 70, is lined up for the NDP in Selkirk-Interlake. Somebody, for the love of god, hide the corpse of Che Guevera before it’s drafted as an NDP candidate."

fun-eh.

Yesterday, we were catching up on the latest from Scotty F's blogboy site... man, this guy is funny... here's a post from December 13th...

Dear Blog Boy: After the Liberals win and the Prime Minister makes you a Senator, can I be your faithful hunchbacked manservant? I'll change my name to Igor and everything. - S.M.

Do I appreciate the offer? Yes. Of course I do. But I've been down this road before with hunchbacked manservants. And it's always the same story. They change their name to Igor and maybe develop a comic-tragic limp of some kind. I go to the trouble of getting their lab coat tailored to fit the precise contours of their hump. And then the problems begin. Igor gets a little sloppy pulling the levers that deliver life-inducing energy to my unholy corporeal abominations that are an affront to nature. Igor starts to ignore the knocks at the door from attractive, underclothed stewardesses whose cars have broken down on foggy nights. Then Igor unionizes my laboratory and joins the Brotherhood of Hunchbacked Manservants, Midget Sidekicks and Steelworkers. And all of a sudden the Invisible Man and Dracula are totally razzing me about it on bowling night. Been there, done that.

chuck norris: nerves of steel.

Okay... last Chuck Norris reference of the week... but seriously folks, did anyone know about Chuck Norris' kid cartoon series from back in the 1980's? Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos.

Not only is this great because we found this action figure pic, but we've also tracked down a clip from the actual show!

You can check out a clip from the "Deadly Dolphins" episode here.

rahim! where's the beef!?!

It appears that Tory Rahim Jaffer is the first local candidate to come out in support of Edmonton Strathcona's bustling rural community!

This would be fine and dandy... but last we checked, there weren't very many farmers in this constituency (which is probably near 100% urban).

No word yet whether Mr. Jaffer is going to take some time off from supporting local cattle ranchers to support post-secondary students (the University of Alberta just happens to be in his riding...)

(To be fair, Liberal candidate Andy Hladyshevsky doesn't have anything about PSE on his website either, but at least he's not out campaiging for local farmers... but, NDP Candidate Linda Duncan does! - PSE that is... not cattle ranchers...)

2 a.m. funnies.

For those of you who don't know, we've become slightly addicted to "you're the man now, dog!" aka ytmnd.com. The quality of most of the clips on ytmnd aren't great, but it's just really funny.

Here are some of our favorites... here, here, here, here, and what has to be one of the nerdiest ones: here.

In addition... this Walker: Texas Ranger clip from Conan O'Brien is ridiculous (apologies for our sick sense of humour)

bold predictions.

Interlocutor, over at Civilization As We Knew It, has made four fairly bold predictions about the state of Canadian politics in the upcoming year...

It's an interesting post. You can check it out here.

bill clinton coming to alberta!

Former US President Bill Clinton will be coming to Edmonton in March of 2006!

Check out more info here!

prez zilla

We're hoping we're not the only one's who find this ridiculously funny...

(props to the radtacular mr. face for the linkage)

alberta tory watch update!

A couple of Alberta political updates...

- It appears that former Tory Cabinet Minister Mark Norris' campaign for the Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership is being backed up by some pretty influential corporate heavy hitters. The list includes Murray Edwards, vice-chairman of Canadian Natural Resources and one of Canada's wealthiest people; Barry Heck, President and CEO of Westaim Corp; Guy Turcotte, chairman of Western Oilsands; and Edmonton Oilers part-owner Cal Nichols.

We find it very interesting that heavy hitters like those mentioned would come out and support Mr. Norris' after he lost his seat of Edmonton McClung to Liberal Mo Elsalhy last November...

We also wonder how long it will take before they jump ship to Team Dinning...

- It's been reported by The Armet Report that former St. Albert Tory MLA Mary O'Neill has been appointed Executive Director of the Edmonton-based Glenrose Foundation. Ms. O'Neill, who served as MLA for St. Albert from 1997 to 2004, was defeated last November by Liberal Jack Flaherty. Our sources in St. Albert tell us that Ms. O'Neill is hinting a run in the next provincial election.

Interestingly, one of Ms. O'Neill's former colleagues, Drew Hutton (Tory MLA Edmonton Glenora 2001-2004) served as Executive Director of the same organization before becoming an MLA. Glenrose Foundation Trustees include former Liberal MLA Sine Chadi (MLA Edmonton Roper 1993-1997) and former Director of the Edmonton Glenora Progressive Conservatives, Ms. Nancy Cumming.

- We find it quite silly that former Calgary Currie Tory MLA Jon Lord still has his MLA website up and running after being defeated by Liberal Dave Taylor over a year ago... (did someone forget to tell him that he's no longer the MLA?)

sir, no sir, sergeant goldring!

Are you quitting on me? Well, are you? Then quit, you slimy f**king walrus-looking piece of s**t. Get the f**k off of my obstacle. Get the f**k down off of my obstacle. Now. Move it. I'm going to rip your balls off, so you cannot contaminate the rest of the world. I will motivate you, Private Pyle, if it short-dicks every cannibal on the Congo.

Could these be the words of a future Canadian Boot Camp Drill Sergeant, Peter Goldring?

Does this have anything to do with THIS?

UPDATE: sure, okay, perhaps this may be a little harsh, but we just think the whole boot-camp thing is slightly looney.

albertans are angry!

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

nerd factor eleven

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!

poll a little harder.

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.

hoisted by our own petard!

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! :-P )

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

we're downtown.

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

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 75% on urban-rural You scored higher than 97% on land intensity

Link: The Where Should You Live Test written by TwelveFloorsUp on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

dumb headphones...

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!

the hancock, unleashed...

Watch out ladies, Alberta PC leadership candidate Dave Hancock is stylin' a fancy new website.

He's hip, he's cool, his website has a picture of old people kisssing, and he's got a Crew.

happy weekend.

mwahahahahahaha!

blog of the week: taracool

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!!!!!!! :-)

vote vote vote!

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!

VOTE DAVEBERTA FOR BEST PERSONAL BLOG!

tory university.

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?" ;-)

party leaders need to groove it up...

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...

edmondo-towne votes

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.

best google hit EVER!

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

Awesome.

this tory baby scare us.

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

We can't decide whether it's cute or whether it's possessed!

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

daily props.

Daily props go to...

1. ... Edmonton Strathcona NDP Candidate Linda Duncan - who has linked to us from her campaign website!

2. ... Scott Feschuk's campaign blog. Not because it's particularily good, but because it's damn funny. Additional props go to whoever hired the guy? :-P

3. ... Mr. Steve Smith, who has set up an Edmonton Strathcona election info blog. Not as cool as this blog, but good showing, Mr. Smith.

4. ... Roboraptor and Robosapien! How cool.

5. ... the Revmod Gaffe-o-Meter.

6. ... Mr. Bart Ramson, who has endorsed us as the BEST PERSONAL BLOG in the Canadian Blog Awards! Go. Vote. Now.

*PROPS UPDATE!!* Additional props #7 to Spencer Keys via Steve Smith for this wonderful Labour party TV ad from their last election.

gonzo christmas cheer.

Last night, we made an exciting purchase. We bought the most exciting Christmas movie on earth: The Muppet Christmas Carol. If you haven't figured it out yet, this film just happens to be our favorite Christmas movie. This ends up being so for a number of very solid reasons...

1. It's the Muppets. Nuh said.
2. A Christmas Carol is a SOLID Christmas story. And it has such a good ending!
3. Michael Caine is in it! Michael Caine is in a MUPPET MOVIE!
4. The Great Gonzo rules.

Anyway, for us, this means it is now OFFICIALLY the Christmas season.

Merry Christmas. :-)

up up up updates...

More updates for our 2006 Edmonton election candidates list...

- The Federal Liberals nominated their final candidate in Edmonton last night. Andy Hladyshevsky won the nomination against fellow Liberal nominee, Ellen Schoeck.

This leaves us with even less of an idea of who we're going to vote for on January 23. Had Ms. Schoeck been nominated, we most likely would have supported her (her being the former Director of the University of Alberta Secretariat). So... we remain an undecided Edmonton-Strathcona voter... hmmmm....

- The NDP have filled their candidate spot in Edmonton-Sherwood Park by nominating Laurie Lang. Lang ran in Edmonton North against Alliance MP Deb Grey in 2000, and against Edmonton Manning Liberal MLA Dan Backs in the 2004 Provincial election.

- The Greens have nominated Trey Capnerhurst to carry their banner in Edmonton East.

a test of the emergency...

This found its way into our email inbox the other day...

"Attention Daveberta!

This has been a test of the Jason Kenney early warning system. The system is designed to alert citizens to possibility of a Jason Kenney "supernova."

World-wide, several detectors currently running are sensitive to a core collapse political supernova neutrino signal in the Galaxy. The neutrino signal emerges promptly from Jason Kenney's core, whereas it may take hours for the first photons to be visible. Therefore, the detection of the neutrino burst from the next Jason Kenney supernova can provide an early warning for citizens, and, strangely, astronomers.

In the event of a real Jason Kenney "supernova," please take cover under an umbrella. If a sense of irony overwhelms you, lie on the floor until the feeling passes.

:P

Please contact the Holtopian Ministry of Galactic Phenomena for further information."

we love our chauffage oleostatique.

Due to our house being old, ancient, drafty, and cold in the minus 27C winter as of late (the house was built in 1921, and might be haunted), we've recently aquired a "Chauffage Oleostatique" (for you anglotypes, that's a "Radiator Heater").

Here's how the warning tag read:

WARNING - TO REDUCE THE RISK OF FIRE
1. Do not place any objects such as furniture, papers, clothes, and curtains closer than 3 feet to the front of the heater and keep them away from the sides and rear when the heater is plugged in.
2. Do not place the heater near a bed beacuase objects such as pillows or blankets can fall off the bed and be ignited by the heater.
3. Always unplug the heater if it is not being used.
4. Avoid the use of an extension cord because the extension cord may overheat and cause a risk of fire. However, if you have to use ann extension cord, the cord shall be NO. 14AWG minimum and rated not less than 1875 Watts.

Now, perhaps it has something with us spending the past two hours reading over critiques of the lamer-than-lame, Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, but we found the warnings to be kind of funny.

When we get the energy (most likely tomorrow, or Tuesday, we'll update you on some exciting information! oohhhh, it's exicting!)

grewal nominated in emwb.

no, not this Grewal...

Amarjit Grewal has been nominated as the Federal Liberal candidate in the Edmonton Mill Woods-Beaumont riding. Grewal beat out fellow nominee candidates Indira Saroya, Bruce King, and Charan Saggu.

According to Liberal Campaign Director Jarrett Lalonde, Grewal won on the second ballot with 1,158 votes out of 2,305.

nyuk nyuk nyuk

This one goes out to Jason Kenney and all the Omni-nerds out there!

(lol. "out there")

candidate updates...

A couple of candidate updates for our 2006 Edmonton Election Candidates list.

- Jim Jacuta has been nominated/appointed as the Liberal candidate in Edmonton-Leduc. In 2000, Mr. Jacuta was the Federal Liberal candidate in Edmonton North (against Alliance MP Deb Grey) and the 2001 Provincial Liberal candidate in Edmonton Stathcona (against Alberta NDP MLA Raj Pannu).

- The Marijuana Party has nominated Ken Kirk in Edmonton East.

- Both Edmonton Centre Liberal candidate Anne McLellan and Tory candidate Laurie Hawn kicked-off their campaigns yesterday evening. Look for this to be a battle royale between what probably are the two most organized campaigns in the country.

- Props to Shannon (our "highly placed source in the NDP") for pointing out that the NDP are in the process of renominating candidates in ridings like Westlock-St. Paul and Edmonton-Sherwood Park. They originally had candidates nominated in all of Alberta's ridings back when everyone was expecting a spring election, but they've had to renominate in some ridings since.

- The Green Party has released a document detailing why they think they should be included in the 4 national Leader's debates. We tend to agree. It would be nice to see another party have the chance to take on the 4 traditional party leaders.

- The Greens have nominated Kate Harrington to run in Edmonton - Mill Woods - Beaumont.

- Also, after checking out the Marxist-Leninist Party website, our slightly twisted sense of humour was pleased to find this gem. Can you imagine the Liberals or Tories doing something like this? (A memorial to the 9 Liberal party members banned after Gomery....) No word as of yet if the ML's or the Commie's will be running candidates in Edmonton.

- Also, CBC has set up a "blog report" blog covering the blog coverage of the election. Check it out. It's fun.

not implicated by gomery (yet).

Vote early. Vote often. Vote daveberta for best personal blog.

nerd factor ten.

Nope, this isn't a post about Omni magazine (nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. oh, Mr. Feschuk you're silly), but about the wonderful Canadian Blog Awards!

It seems through the stroke of luck that daveberta has made it to the second round in the BEST PERSONAL BLOG category of said awards! We also placed 21st in the BEST BLOG category with 29 votes! (beating out celebloggers like Warren Kinsella and grandinite.

You can see the results of the first round here. We moved on to the second round with 54 votes (compared to 112 for Jenandtonic, 96 for The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, 86 for Postmodernes Sprachspielen, and 57 votes for Postcards From The Mothership. We would also like to send a hello out to the Cassandra Pages, who got 53 votes and nearly knocked us out of the second round. Good showing, Cassie!

We would like to thank all those who got out and voted for us! We hope that all of you who voted for us in the first round will continue to show their support of this great Canadian blog in the Second Round (which will take place from December 3rd to 9th).

This of course, means that we need to step up our campaigning. So, here we go...

If davberta is elected BEST PERSONAL BLOG, we will reduce the GST by 3%.

AND

we will cut income tax by $40-BILLION over 3-YEARS.

(and WE LOVE CANADA)

i'm going to jackson...

ahhh. the joys of the near end of the week....

Since the fall of the government this week, we've saturated this blog with nothing much more than election related posts. Now, we will continue with all the good Edmonton-related campaign gossip, we have some very very important updates to post.

a. We've now seen the movie Walk the Line twice. For those of you who don't know, Walk the Line is an epic story of the life of the great Johnny Cash. Us, being HUGE JC fans, loved the movie. The movie covered the life of Johnny from the time as a young boy in Dyess, Arkansas though to his first marriage to his eventual engagement with June Carter. It was entertaining, the music was awesome, and it only enhanced our desire to listen to more Johnny Cash music.

Here is a list of the Johnny Cash CD's we own:

1. At San Quentin
2. America IV: The Man Comes Around
3. At Folsom Prison
4. The Essential Johnny Cash
5. 16 Biggest Hits

We also have the movie posters on the wall in our office. :-P GO SEE THE MOVIE!

b. It's almost Christmas! Crazy! We took our Christmas Tree out of the basement last night (it looks like this).

c. We've finally started to return to our normal sleeping patterns after 2 extremely stressful weeks of 2-3 hour nightly sleeps.... sleeping is so nice.

d. Okay, maybe this IS an election related point (or letter...), but we're seriously not sure who we're going to vote for in this election. In the last election, we voted Liberal (we were in Edmonton Centre - Anne McLellan's riding - we're now in Edmonton Strathcona), but this time around we're really not sure. The more and more time we spend reading and writing reports on policy issues ranging from environmental assessment to pipelines to post-secondary education, we have really come to the realization that we are not very happy with the way things are going in these areas.

Now, perhaps some people may shake their heads for hearing this and say "duh, daveberta," but it's not like this is a sudden revelation to us, it's something that's been troubling us for quite some time. So, like responsible citizens, we will take a good hard look at the party policies, local candidates, party leaders and their performances, and come January 23, we'll show up and fulfill our civic responsibility.

ndp university

Come the end of December/beginning of January (when we have time), we plan to put on our policy analysis hats and dissect some of the federal election promises.One policy area close to our hearts (and résumé), post-secondary education policy, was the highlight of today's NDP campaign.

Jack Layton announced today that his party plans to "restore what he estimates was $4-billion in cuts to post-secondary education made by the Liberals in the 1990s" by "scrapping the corporate tax cuts the Liberals announced in this fall's fiscal update."

This call by Mr. Layton, not surprisingly, jives with the Canadian Federation of Students' "Restore the Four" campaign... imagine that... what a coincidence...

Mr. Layton wasn't clear on where in the system the $4 billion investment would be directed: Federal-Provincial Transfer, student debt relief, scholarships, grants, research, etc?

Though it's not as nice as the $7 to $8 Billion PSE transfer promised by Prime Minister Paul Martin during the 2004 Great Canadian Job Interview in St. John's, it seems a positive commitment to post-secondary education in Canada.

Thoughts? Opinions?

goldie vs. iggy

Tory MP Peter Goldring and friend.

Edmonton East Tory MP Peter Goldring, above (with the gun), launched an attack yesterday against Etobicoke-Lakeshore Liberal candidate Michael Ignatieff. Mr. Goldring accused Ignatieff of being “arrogant and ill-informed” for comments he wrote in his book Blood and Belonging. The comments were regarding the Ukraine.

Mr. Goldring was quoted as saying "I know how sensitive Ukrainians are to those who would support in any way the behaviours and attitudes of their former Russian oppressors."

According to the Toronto Star, Dr. Ignatieff believes he has been wrongly maligned by a group of Ukrainian-Canadians seeking to derail his federal election campaign in a west Toronto riding.

Now, we haven’t read the book, so we really can’t defend or denounce Dr. Ignatieff either way, but we remain quite skeptical. Perhaps if the attack had been launched by another Tory, say… James Rajotte, Rona Ambrose, Jim Prentice, or just about any other Tory MP maybe we wouldn’t roll our eyes. But for those of you don’t know, Mr. Goldring, an ardent advocate of Canadian expansion in the Caribbean, has been known to sit on the silly side of the Conservative caucus (here's our favorite).

Mr. Goldring forgot to mention that Edmonton East Liberal candidate, Nicole Martel, is from a Ukrainian family. How long will it be before Mr. Goldring accuses Ms. Martel of collaborating with the Russians? :-P

paul martin's emo.

100% props to Ainge from Lotusland for this.

day 1: the wrath of mother nature.

Well, it's snowing in Calgary, Vancouver, and Edmonton - that must mean that Paul Martin wasn't the only one who didn't want an election. Looks like God and Mother Nature didn't want an election either. ;-)

Anyway... back to more serious business... it was announced this morning that the election has been set for January 23, 2006.

- Anne McLellan has her campaign office up and running today in the Edmonton Centre riding. It's located downtown in the old McDonald's building on 117th Street and Jasper Avenue. Anne's in for a tough fight with Tory challenger Laurie Hawn, but her campaign team is more than definately up for the challenge.

- It looks like the Federal Liberals are having some difficulty finding candidates to nominate in Alberta. Last we heard, among others, they still hadn't nominated a candidate in the Edmonton Leduc riding. It wouldn't surprise us if the NDP placed second to the Tories in some of the ridings the Liberals have yet to nominate candidates in. Also, the NDP and Green parties seems to be in a bit of a scramble to nominate or appoint candidates in some Alberta ridings. If one is to believe the party website, one would think that the NDP has actually lost candidates in some rural ridings (ie: Westlock-St. Paul).

- The CBC has their CanadaVotes2006 site up and the Globe & Mail also has their Decision 2006 election site up.

*UPDATE*: More candidate updates for our 2006 Edmonton candidates list.

- George Hodgson has withdrawn from the Liberal nomination race in Edmonton Strathcona. This leaves Ellen Schoeck and Andy Hladyshevsky to duke it out in the Dec 5 nomination meeting.

- It seems that Paul Wallace is no longer the Green candidate in Edmonton East.

"okay shredder! prepare to be turtle-ized! hehe!"

A little bit of pre-writ day fun.

Enjoy.

Take the quiz: "Which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle are You?"

Donatello
You've been described as 'the brains' of your family or group of friends. You're the natural born, 'Mr. Fixit'. You're also considered the most reserved, preoccupied with your own little thoughts and ideas. But that doesn't mean you don't hang with your family and friends! But, you still find it easy to get lost in your own thoughts...daydreaming often. You'd rather talk things out than fight. You long for a day when there's nothing but peace in the world, and when you can finally rest with your own thoughts. Violence is something the world could completely live without. One of your labels may be, 'true to blue friend'. You're strong at heart and powerful at mind.

iggy on war.

For those of you interested, here's a video lecture of Etobicoke-Lakeshore Liberal candidate Michael Ignatieff.

Only 35 minutes left for Jack Layton to try to make another deal with the Liberals. ;-)

the sound a falling government makes is "thump"

Tune in! 3 pm Edmonton time is when live coverage of "non-confidence vote: part 2" is to take place. It should be a fun showdown! We've never seen a federal government fall! (THUMP!)

Good luck to all those involved in campaigns across the country. Play nice and have fun! :-)

We plan to have mostly Edmonton related campaign updates/gossip (for national coverage, we're sure CG will have his share of insight).

btw, we were in a cab last night with a driver who couldn't stop telling us some of the more offensive racist jokes we've heard in a long time. Slightly more disturbing that he was telling us them in the first place...

And finally, thanks to the half-dozen daveberta readers who emailed us commenting on the new template! We're glad you like it (and we love fan mail! [insert inflated ego here]) :-P