Three Alberta Stories

...in under 3 minutes..GO

1. Alberta Cabinet Minister Ted Morton had his brief case stolen from his car on Thursday night. The thief left the brief case outside an apartment building where a CBC employee lived, who found it and returned it. We Canadians are polite and very deferential to authority. If this had happened in the United States the documents would have been posted all over the internet and Mr. Stelmach would have to resort to a special Twitter transparency session. Its a weird story, and I take away two things, indirectly.



First Alberta seems to have no interest in whistle blowing and seem to be a-OK with their Government's absurdly high level of secrecy and non-openeness. Of course I don't suggest we steal politician's brief cases, but please tell me your at least somewhat curious as to what they're up to.

Secondly, Morton admitted that the reason he had his brief case stolen was because he left it in his car while having dinner, but not only that, that he left the car running during dinner. With the doors unlocked. It was a strange admission. What got me was the nonchalant nature, as if its normal to leave your car running for 1 or 2 hours when its not real cold out. Aside from the environmental issues I wonder who was paying for the Gasoline. This sense of disregard is more irritating to me than losing the brief case. I hope the meal was good. Mr. Morton is the minister of Sustainable Resources. I see their SUV's around Calgary from time to time.

2. Paul Stanway, Alberta's version of Ron Ziegler, will be leaving his post at the end of January. As a former publisher of the Edmonton Sun, Stanway was just what Mr. Stelmach needed - a propaganda specialist to crank out the fake realities of the Premier's world. The transition from an illiterate newspaper to the Premier's office must have been quite seamless. I wish they would stop using the word communication, or at least look up its meaning. I've never been much of a believer that this Government has any interest in dialoguing with Albertans. Mr. Stanway's job was very simple: to crudely hammer a one way message to Albertans and hope it sticks. In that respect it really doesn't matter who they replace him with. Too late to snag Duffy, but maybe Charles
Adler is available.

3. There have been two unverified sightings of Mariam Makhniashvili in Alberta. One in Okotoks, a small town about 45 minutes south of Calgary, and a more recent one in Grande Prairie, about 5 hours north of Edmonton. In both cases the RCMP have said they have no way of knowing about the reliability of the reports, but are following up the leads. People probably want to believe the story will end well. Hopefully it will. Canadians are good people and we feel each others pain. Please recommend this post