Every city has its sacred cows, institutions that are so established and so revered, that they are beyond genuine criticism. Edmonton has more than its share. The folk fest is invariably praised to the skies, regardless of the quality of its lineup. The Heritage Festival is always lauded despite the
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Things Are Good: Edmonton Has a Massive Waste to Biofuel Facility
The province of Alberta is usually only mentioned on this site when people are campaigning against the tar sands and the destruction of the environment. Today though, the capital of Alberta, Edmonton, has done something rather great. Edmonton is home to a large industrial-scale waste processing plant that converts what
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Conservative former Edmonton mayor endorses conservative future Alberta premier: Yawn
Former Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel and PC leadership candidate Jim Prentice, obviously pleased to be in one another’s company, at a news conference yesterday in Edmonton at which Mr. Mandel endorsed Mr. Prentice. Below: The other Tory leadership candidates, Ric McIver and Thomas Lukaszuk, and New Democrat MLA Rachel Notley,
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics: Scrappy and strong-willed, Brian Mason punches above his weight
TweetBack in the mid-2000s, when I worked for the Alberta Liberals, Alberta NDP leader Brian Mason was a constant source of frustration for my colleagues and I. Each week, I was amazed at how the leader of the tiny perfect NDP could consistently earn so much press and scoop away the media attention deserved
Continue readingcalgaryliberal.com: Liberals triple support in Lethbridge: Liberals at 24%, NDP at 14%, Conservatives at 38%
Something is happening in Lethbridge. According to a group out of Lethbridge College the Liberals under Trudeau have jumped from 8.38% (2011) to 24% for the area of Lethbridge. Provincially, Raj Sherman’s Liberals have jumped from 14.7% (2012) to 18% in Lethbridge-East, a point ahead of the Wildrose and the
Continue readingAlberta Diary: More than 2,000 people make a point about the Redford Government in deeply chilled downtown Edmonton
Some of the more than 2,000 people who protested the policies of the Redford Conservative Government in Edmonton’s Sir Winston Churchill Square today. When I was a cub reporter at the still-unhyphenated Victoria Daily Times – always a better paper than the Colonist, let it be noted – I was
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Jesse Ventura Is On Our Side On Racist Team Names
More support for changing the name of the NFL team in Washington comes from Jesse “The Body” Ventura. Yesterday, I wrote about how incredibly easy it would be to change the racist name of any kind of team. It’s really not that hard. Imagine the reverse, though. Imagine changing the
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Happy New Year! Get ready for generational change in Canadian politics
Expect the new faces of Canadian politics to be young faces – like those of Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson, 34, shown above with some clapped-out old geezer, and Manitoba MP and former NDP leadership candidate Niki Ashton, 31, below. “Something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is,
Continue readingcalgaryliberal.com: The brutal lessons of 2013.
2013 has been a rather tough year for this blogger. I ran for the Vice Presidency of the Alberta Liberal Party and was unsuccessful. Quite quickly I found I had little support in Edmonton and that I had to work harder to earn the trust of people. It was truly a
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Edmonton Alternative Medicine – Quackery Descends in my Hometown
Why oh why do people still want to normalize the use of magic and illusion into the practice of medicine? We’ve spent decades codifying and rooting out the bullshit practices and have steeled ourselves against ‘good common sense’ notions and looked where the evidence points us. There is no
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Welcome to Winter – Edmonton Style
Ah, the first winter storm of the season. This is the view from the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Building at the University of Alberta. Filed under: Housekeeping Tagged: Brrrr, Edmonton, Snow, Winter Weather
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Congratulations Mayor Nenshi!
John Macfarlane, editor of The Walrus,* asks the question: When did society turn against its best and brightest and more importantly, why? He was bemoaning the fact that Torontonians had elected Rob Ford—a man he described as wearing “his ignorance like a badge of honour”—to be their mayor. Mayor Rob
Continue readingProgressive Alberta
Seemingly in defiance of Alberta’s reputation as a very conservative province, voters in Calgary and Edmonton both elected young, progressive mayors yesterday. Calgary elected the 41-year old Naheed Nenshi for a second term and Edmonton chose the 34-year old former city councillor Don Iveson. Nenshi supports a more compact city
Continue readingTerahertz: Albertans choose progressive mayors
After a surprise victory in the 2010 purple wave, Naheed Nenshi became one of Canada’s most popular mayors during his handling of severe floods in Calgary earlier this year. Few predicted any chance of him losing his position in yesterday’s election and perhaps the only shock was the size of
Continue readingIn This Corner: Iveson vs. Leibovici a generational battle.
Polls indicate that Don Iveson will be the next mayor of Edmonton. Of course, polling has been about as on-target lately as the Edmonton Eskimo offence. Polls also said Christie Clark would not be the premier of B.C. (she is), and that Danielle Smith could be the premier of Alberta
Continue readingTerahertz: “If you don’t feel comfortable with your children in that kind of milieu, don’t send your students here.”
Following up on the religious proselytization and abstinence-only sex education occurring in Edmonton Public Schools comes a quote from Orville Chubb, candidate for the Edmonton Public School Board, from his time as executive director of Meadowlark Christian School Foundation. Chubb was asked in 2011 about a proposed anti-homophobia policy at
Continue readingTerahertz: Anti-choice Christian front promotes abstinence-only sex ed in Edmonton Schools
Anti-abortion Christian groups are notorious in Canada for setting up “Crisis Pregnancy Centres” as fronts to proselytize to women facing a pregnancy scare and are unsure whether to exercise their legal right to terminate it or not. The Centres are often filled with deceptive anti-choice propaganda and mislead women. One
Continue readingIn This Corner: Memo to council candidates: here’s how to get my vote.
The civic election campaign is now officially underway, even though, judging from the thousands of signs that are now mostly knocked down along city boulevards, it has been on unofficially since Labour Day. This will certainly be the most interesting civic election campaign in many years, with an unbeatable mayor
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Quote of Day: On Edmonton Rape Apologists…Err…MRA’s
I love that this Anti-Feminist poster in Canada angers so many Feminists. I’m also happy that attention is being called to the increase of false rape allegations. Feminists want “equality”, but when a man is falsely accused of rape…they don’t care, and don’t do anything to help that man. They
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Edmonton Misogyny Movement Makes A Wave
It is embarrassing when your hometown makes news for on the Internets for having induhviduals who think that rape apologia is a-fucking-okay. These vats of douche have co-opted what was a successful campaign against sexual violence at the University of Alberta and other locations back in 2010. Here is the
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