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First off, WE DID IT!!!! The Notley Crew crashed a tidal wave of orange crush all across this province. They have secured a majority government and did the unthinkable – won as a progressive party in Alberta! While Arb has already posted about the victory, I want to post about the defeat. The defeat of this political dynasty that has reigned for 44 years is monumental and was largely engineered by themselves. And while power has been what has held this unholy alliance of fiscal conservatives, social conservatives and progressives together, it is the loss of this power that will destroy them.
To understand the defeat of the PCAA one should understand that they have been a big tent party from the beginning. Peter Lougheed came to power by creating the recipe for a modern petro-state. His plan to drive business and bring investment into the province brought the fiscal conservatives in droves while his plan to build hospitals, schools and infrastructure with the resulting inflow of cash, brought the progressives along. The social conservatives held strong to the Social Credit party for a time but eventually they realized they were better served by having a seat at the government’s table rather than sitting on the sidelines.
And that is the crux of what kept this party together decades upon decades. Power. And lots of it. Massive amounts. In fact, in the entire history of this dynasty they have only elected less than 50 candidates twice. In their twelve straight election victories, seven have been with a popular vote greater than 50 percent and three greater than 60 percent! Numbers like those are rare in democracies where the head of state is not called Dear Leader. While it is indeed true that this power kept the party together, it is also what tore it apart.
The thing with that much power is that it always breeds conflict on who should be controlling it. Just ask Caesar. And much like Rome, Alberta was strongest when it was held together by strong leaders, namely Lougheed and Klein. And while Lougheed managed to retire on his own terms (or at least from what I can tell), Klein most certainly did not. Once Klein announced his intent to retire before the next election in March 2006, he was already dead in the eyes of his party. He ultimately suffered a humiliating 55% on his leadership review as the sheep that were his flock revealed themselves as the wolves they really were. Klein would resign and the wolves were already fighting to see who would be the new Dear Leader.
Therein lay the problem problem that would haunt the PCAA until 2015 where their hubris would be the end of them. First came Stelmach, everyone’s second choice who made the mistake of challenging the true masters of the PCAA by trying to raise royalties on the bitumen leaving Alberta. He received his just deserts and ended up on the floor next to Klein. Next came Redford who was the choice of the progressives that didn’t stick around to prop her up. She was the personification of the corruption and arrogance the PCAA had gained after being a multi-generational government. Watching her go down brought to mind the image of Nero playing the lyre as Rome burned.
Then finally came the nail in the coffin, Diamond Jim Prentice. Not because he was impotent like Stelmach nor an avatar of corruption like Redford, but instead because he was so effective. Winning by-elections that nobody thought he could brought him the credibility and the strong leadership the PCAA needed to finally coalesce around. It was this strong leadership that lead the PCAA down the rabbit hole that was their end. To highlight their strategy going before calling an election:
1.Blame Albertans for their mismanagement of our resources that caused us to be in a debt situation again. The fact that he also infuriated ordinary Albertans by telling them to look into the mirror and then refusing to apologize for it didn’t help facts either.
2. Infuriate the progressives by running an austerity budget that literally destroyed all the progress they made side the days of Klien.
3. Infuriate the conservatives by raising taxes everywhere.
Calling an election not only after pissing of the entirety of the Alberta populace is one thing, but waiting a few weeks to confirm that they are still pissed off and still calling the election anyway is another thing. The only people they still had rooting for them were those still feeding at the trough. Not until the polls started showing a NDP victory did the swine take a moment to raise their snouts from the slop bucket and proceeded to threaten sick children if we as Albertans dared to elect the NDP.
Well, we as Albertans elected the NDP anyway and now the covenant of power that was the PCAA is over. That which bound the disparate factions of Alberta together in darkness has been thrown into Mount Doom and cannot be reforged. There is no longer any need for the progressives to flock to the PCAA as the NDP is in power. There is no longer any need for the conservatives to rally for the PCAA as the Wildrose is the opposition. The provincial Tories are currently stuck in the middle without anyone at their side. Unless they manage to pull off what will be a literal miracle (or at least the Jesus on toast kind of miracle) and convince the Alberta electorate that they have changed for real this time and to give them one last final chance, I expect their future to reflect that of what happened to the Social Credit party way back when that political dynasty died off.
The dynasty is dead. May we never have another one.
A resounding hell no from me, but that was never in question. Let’s investigate what a religious government might look like if it happened to follow biblical rules and regulations.
Exhibit 1 – Cat Form
Did you just eat my parrot?
Exhibit 2 – Human Form
Have you been fooling with the tesseract?
Conclusion: This is the grin of someone who knows *exactly* what naughtiness they’ve done :)
Instrumentation
The instrumentation is: two piccolos (2nd ad lib.), two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets in A, bass clarinet in A, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns in F, two trumpets in F, two cornets in A, three trombones, tuba, three timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, triangle, side drum, jingles, and tambourine ad lib.), two harps, organ, and strings.
History
The best known of the set, it had its premiere, along with the more reserved second March, in Liverpool on 19 October 1901, with Elgar conducting the Liverpool Orchestral Society.[4] Both marches were played two days later at a London Promenade Concert in the Queen’s Hall London, conducted by Henry Wood, with March No. 1 played second, and the audience “…rose and yelled… the one and only time in the history of the Promenade concerts that an orchestral item was accorded a double encore.”[5]
The Trio contains the tune known as “Land of Hope and Glory”. In 1902 the tune was re-used, in modified form, for the Land of hope and glory section of his Coronation Ode for King Edward VII. The words were further modified to fit the original tune, and the result has since become a fixture at the Last Night of the Proms, and an English sporting anthem.
In the United States, the Trio section “Land of Hope and Glory” of March No. 1 is often known simply as “Pomp and Circumstance” or as “The Graduation March” and is played as the processional tune at virtually all high school and some college graduation ceremonies.[6] It was first played at such a ceremony on 28 June 1905, at Yale University, where the Professor of Music Samuel Sanford had invited his friend Elgar to attend commencement and receive an honorary doctorate of music. Elgar accepted, and Sanford made certain he was the star of the proceedings, engaging the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the College Choir, the Glee Club, the music faculty members, and New York musicians to perform two parts from Elgar’s oratorio The Light of Life and, as the graduates and officials marched out, “Pomp and Circumstance” March No. 1. Elgar repaid the compliment by dedicating his Introduction and Allegro to Sanford later that year.[7] The tune soon became de rigueur at American graduations, used primarily as a processional at the opening of the ceremony.[8]
or if you like a more formal setting…
March No. 1 opens with an introduction marked Allegro, con molto fuoco.[9][10] The introduction leads to a new theme: strong pairs of beats alternating with short notes, and a bass which persistently clashes with the tune. The bass tuba and full brass is held back until the section is repeated by the full orchestra. A little rhythmic pattern is played by the strings, then repeated high and low in the orchestra before the section is concluded by a chromatic upward scale from the woodwind. The whole of this lively march section is repeated. The bridging section between this and the well-known Trio has rhythmic chords from the brass punctuating high held notes from the wind and strings, before a fanfare from trumpets and trombones leads into the theme with which the march started. There are a few single notes that quieten, ending with a single quiet tap from side drum and cymbal accompanied by all the bassoons.[11] The famous, lyrical “Land of Hope and Glory” trio follows (in the subdominant key of G), played softly (by the first violins, four horns and two clarinets) and repeated by the full orchestra including two harps. What follows is a repetition of what has been heard before, including a fuller statement of the Trio (this time in the ‘home’ key of D) in which the orchestra is joined by organ as well as the two harps. The march ends, not with the big tune, but with a short section containing a brief reminder of the brisk opening march.
Know your troll, an informative look at the variety of Canadian dudes who still don’t get it. :/
Canada’s first notable instance of a ”FHRTIP” episode has become an incendiary topic on social media and comments sections after one of the participants in the incident, Shawn Simoe, was fired from his job at Hydro One, Ontario’s primary energy supplier. Significantly, Hydro One is currently a public enterprise, which probably has a lot to do with the specific clauses or codes of conduct in Simoe’s contract that made his dismissal both legal and justifiable (and is the same reason why his salary was a matter of public record).
BUT, as we all know, reason has very little place on the internet, and especially in the ongoing battle against persecution that straight white men face everyday from Feminists/Women/Mass Media/The World At Large. So they’ve taken to comments sections and social media to express their displeasure in this flagrant abuse of their right to free speech. No matter how trivial the…
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You would think that this would be fairly high up on the time management scale of useful ideas. Some common sense about our over-busy life.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…