Klein's exit hands Libs rare opportunity

Alberta politics is a strange duck.

So is the game of politics in Alberta.

The opposition parties stand with that look of righteous indignation shaking their fingers at the Tories for their latest outrage.

The current band of merry men trying to get their hands on Ralph's throne are the very ones that could have put in place the very democratic reforms, or environmental protections that they are now speaking of in the thirst for power.

What the opposition provides is just the words. As was shown in the last election King Ralph won and they did not.

It seems that the people of Alberta are provided with no real alternative to King Ralph.

If they were, and it was one of the two traditional opposition parties, then they would be bigger and even stand a chance to challenge ralph Klein's lack of democracy and interest in anything other than touring the province and world on his 'farewell tour.'

It would be interesting to see how well Albertan's take to the Liberal's "Alberta Horizons" campaign, since they did not take to the Liberals in any large way during the last election or any of the previous elections since the one Ralph won as Premier.

What is lacking on both sides of the floor in the Legislature is vision.

The Conservatives have none, and the Liberals and NDP have a vision of the world by way of a rear view mirror that does not stray too far from the old idea of throwing more money at the problems.

Thank you

Norm Greenfield

This week's question

Considering you have your wife for life, it is in your best interest to do as she has asked, and to support her. You did take vows to be blissfully married to her, through thick and thin, and all that.

Your own history with the company will not compare to the future you have with your wife, if you do not support her in this endeavour.

I am sure if the spat you had with your boss was that big of a thing your spouse would have heard, and would have thought better of having you along with them at the company gala event. Obviously if they know of the spat, they don't see a problem, or the spat is a bigger thing in your mind than in reality.

Suck it up, button your mouth and go support your spouse.

You can assuage you ill feelings about my former employer, by eating expensive food, drinking fancy liquor, and enjoying yourself at their expense. It will be cheap therapy to help you get over it.

Thank youNorm Greenfield

Pte. Robert Costall

Saw this in the Globe and Mail's letters section today and just had to comment:

Can we please stop calling it "friendly fire", asks Lawrence Martin. What's so congenial about it? Killing one of your own is a lot of things. It is negligent, careless, reprehensible, reckless and quite likely idiotic. Since when is it friendly?
Although it is sad a Canadian soldier, Pte. Robert Costall, died in a battle we have to remember he was in a dangerous situation. We also have to remember that friendly fire deaths are not uncommon. War, peace making, and beating off a Taliban night attack does not go like they do in Hollywood. There are no second chances, and there are no directors to tell the soldiers what is going to happen in the next scene.

Death by friendly fire is not new, and will not stop until either we stop sending our soldiers to war, or start to fight war by way of video games.

Pte. Robert Costall was killed along with an American soldier and eight Afghan soldiers as coalition forces beat off a Taliban night attack at a forward operating base near Kandahar. It is more than likely the unit was ambushed on two sides, or moved in between two factions fighting each other and were caught in cross fire.

No, Pte. Robert Costall's death is not something we should be pleased with, but we should not spend hours of second guessing or LazyBoy quarterbacking about the situation.

It is not new, and Pte. Robert Costall will not be the last Canadian soldier to die from friendly fire.
Thank youNorm GreenfieldCalgary, Albertawww.provocostatusquo.com

Shut down of the Red Mile debate

The Red Mile should go ahead. In keeping with Bronco's user pay intitiative with the building industry, I am sure the bars and Flames owners will pony up the dough for the reported 300 police officers that are going to be put to work for the event.

If the various concerts and festivals must pay for police, a rate ($80 per hour per officer) and number determined by City Hall that is non-negotiable, I am sure this will not create a precedent.

300 officers for an eight hour shift at this rate would be $192,000 per day they are needed.

No one can tell me that the city brings in that much extra in taxes.

The city gets nothing of the sales tax on the booze, nor do they get any of the income tax paid by the bar owners either to either the provincial or federal government.

Ken King's Flames pay nothing to the city from the increase in ticket prices to the city. If he does not want to pay for the police, then maybe the taxpayers don't want to also pay for this new arena.

The taxpayer already paid for the first one.
Thank youNorm Greenfield

Calgary Soo - Beluga Whales

The story and quote attiributed to the head of the Clagary Zoo on the inclusion of Beluga whales in the new and extravagant addition to the Calgary Zoo is ludicrous.

Who would think that an animal that spends its life roaming the Arctic Ocean would consider living in a phone booth as living in the, 'most natural setting?'

If the zoo boss, council members, MLA's, and corporate sponsors who will be asked to support this idea all think it is a good idea, then they should be made to live in a telephone booth for a year. That means eating, sleeping, urinating, deficating, breathing, and procreating in that confined space.

I would like to know how anyone would consider this humane, good research, and something they would do to themselves or their own pets.

We as a province and city have laws on the methods people can keep and treat their animals, either in their conditions or confinement, which we have enforced against citizens in the past.

Why do we think that some whale should be exempt, purely to feed the ego of a misdirected bureaucrat?

If in fact this addition of a whale to the zoo is for public information and education, then why doesn't the zoo take people to the Arctic and study the whale in their natural habitat.

Researchers would not study humans kept confined in a phone boots and consider the data useful for anything more than the lining of a birdcage.

We have better things to spend our money on.
Thank youNorm Greenfield

How to Stop Your Woman from Bitching

As you probably know, communication failure is one of the leading factors contributing to relationship destruction, in our society.

There’s only one way to avoid ending up a statistic.

Have you ever tried speaking a language that you never knew existed? If you’re a man, and you’re in a relationship, you’ve already been doing it. Well, at least, you’ve been ‘attempting’ to make heads or tails of this curious lingo. According to many of the experts, women speak in a different format than men. Some studies suggest that females use something called ‘cryptic talk’ instead of ‘direct’ communications, once they're in a relationship. The unfortunate part about this, is most men can't decipher this language. So, how are men supposed to know what their mates are trying to say, if women don’t speak direct? Do we really need a communication translator in order for both genders to comprehend each other? If so, one doesn’t exist, yet…well, at least, not one that plugs into a wall, or uses batteries.

So, how can men and women cohabitate together, peaceably, if they can’t even understand what each other is saying? There's only one way to avoid becoming a statistic. Learn each other's language! Enter the new translator, ‘How to Stop Your Woman from Bitching -- A Man’s Complete Guide to Understanding Women,’ available on http://www.cyberread.comFortunately, thanks to thousands of women who were anxious to enlighten the opposite sex about the inner workings of the female brain, men can finally understand the mysterious language women use. Even better, the male population no longer has to guess how to respond appropriately to the plethora of comments, tests and questions, women tend to toss their way. The book demystifies the cryptic language, for the male population.

According to the author, Rana Adamchick, and founder of www.getogethersafe.com -- a premier online dating site, “Most men usually end up feeling stumped, shortly after a relationship gets past the infatuation stage. This is due to the variance in the way the two genders speak. In other words, men simply can’t figure out what their female counterparts are trying to say. It’s no wonder, many relationships are doomed before they even get off the ground, and why the divorce ratio is so high." Ms. Adamchick explained that "Women tend to speak in this ‘cryptic’ language, to avoid arguments with their significant other. However, it seems the language is an inaudible format to the male species. For some reason, the way a woman puts her words together, just doesn’t register inside a man's brain. That could very well be, the main reason, a breakdown of communication occurs and the relationship comes to a screeching halt.

After all, who wants to listen to something they can’t understand?” In addition, participants of the author’s dating site tested out the translations in the book, in order to find out if they actually worked, in real life situations. Repeatedly, test subjects returned with excellent results. Look

Ma, no more arguing! To make life even easier, the author created the book using a dictionary type of format. Thus, men can reference the material, when a particular dilemma presents itself. So, now, if you’re a man (or a woman who wants her mate to understand what she’s saying,) there is help. Yes, you can finally avoid the pitfalls that could lead to relationship stress, a night on the couch, or even a divorce!

Fair Vote Forum

First of all, I have not said anywhere I don't think or never thought the Green Party can't become a force in the House of Commons with MP's sitting there. If it were the contrary I would not have put so much effort into the last two leadership tours of Alberta. Nor helped Mark to make sure there was a full slate of candidates in Southern Alberta.

I am not disputing the fact anything is possible, and I am also not disputing the fact that these changes will happen. In fact I worked with Joe Clark on several projects and speachs outlining his visions and views on changing the way things need to be done in Ottawa. This is something he saw in 1975 when I first met him and started to work with him on.

If you talk to anyone in Alberta that I have spoken to or helped organize in the Green Party, you will find I had an expectation we would have the first Green Party MP elected here in Alberta. With the right choice of a new leader, the Green Party could very well make a difference in the next election to the point of electing three or four MP's who might well hold the balance of power in a pizza parliament.

The key to it will be to motivate and mobilize the voters that are not voting, and the 18 to 35 year old voters. Whether or not the political system is changed or not. The only way to make concrete change in the system is to get people on the inside with the vision and stamina to get the changes put through and adopted by law.

The fall of the Berlin wall was predictable.

Check out the governments that have adopted PR in Europe where the Green Party is sitting as members of a parliament. You can do a google search on the subject. All of the provincial democratic reform commissions currently running in Canada, have identified this issue as one that needs to be looked at and whether lowering the threshold from 5% to 4% will help or hinder the democratic process. There is an interesting book on the subject called 'Strengthing Canadian Democracy,' published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy.

What must be a part of this whole situation is to promote the need for people to get out to vote instead of sitting at home, despite the fact the system is wieghted against their votes. The only way to get the changes we want to the system to show the politicians that there is a ground swell of voters that want real change and those same votes do show up at the polls. There is a need to motivate the young voters that this process of changing the way politics is being done is one that needs work on several fronts and it is not just one thing that needs to be changed.

None of the steps are hard to do, but they do need to be taken.

Sense of Humour

I have read and reread the messages I have sent you and cannot find anything in them, except for my eclectic and unique sense of humour, as to why you have anything to fear. The inference or words you might have thought you read or heard in them might be over-reacting in my opinion.

In respect to the comments you made to me while leaving our brunch a couple of weeks ago, I don't see the reason for the fear they seem to have grown in you. It is much like sitting at brunch or on the phone listening to a particular female comment on the men walking around her. It is just something that is part of the make up of the person and is either accepted or ignored. At some point it will lead to not being around that person if it becomes something that is unacceptable. I won't try to change them as that is them.

My sense of humour is me, and mine alone. It is something that has been honed, formed, and shaped over the past 48 years and is unlikely to change much. It is something that contributes to my work and allows me to protect myself and remain sane from the world around me.

If one wanted to they can read worries and concerns about anything into everything. It takes up a lot of needless energy but it can be done.

So to what I believe are your unfounded concerns, I say stop.

They are just that, and my sense of humour is just that.

The remarks on your red skirt (dress) or not, was in reaction or a remark based on something you had said a while back and had no hidden meaning to it. It was a complement, maybe in a backhanded way, that you look good in that skirt. Whether you in that skirt, would incite me to rape or assault you, or to look upon you in some demeaning way, or in someway other than being an intelligent and intriguing female, may be a figment of your fertile imagination.

I have managed to contain my animal lust for 48 years without having to resort to rape or assault.

Do I find you an attractive female? Yes.

Do I find your mind and its various levels attractive? Yes.

Other than that, there is not much more.

Yes, there is a physical attraction to you, because you are a physically attractive female. There is, though, nothing to worry about.

I have many females friends and acquaintances I work and play with, that I am attracted to in a mental and or physical way. They on the other hand have no fears of me to the point where they trust me explicitly. Despite my sense of humour.

That being said, some are friends of mine and we are both suppliers of the benefits each of us desire without the ties or strings attached. Nothing is taken all is given freely.

I have had females over for dinner parties who have gotten too drunk to drive home who have spent the night in the second bedroom with no fears.

So I guess we are at a cross roads here, and it will mean whatever I write is going to be under a magnifying glass.

It makes it kind of difficult to figure out what I can say, when people see what is not in something I write and allow fear to creep in between myself and them.

Norm

Letters To The Editor - Press Gallery Hissy Fit

Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 2:46 PMSubject: Letters To The Editor - Press Gallery Hissy Fit
What is a fact, is that most Canadians could not care less what in the current Ottawa Press Gallery's Hissy and Whining Fit is about, and are showing this by not reading, listening to, or watching 90% of what comes from their lips, typewriters and vocal chords.

It is rather amusing that at the same time the Press Gallery is having its hissy fit about having their lazy 'pack journalism,' access to the cabinet members as they walk out of the cabinet, there has been a decade long drop in voter interest and turnout, and a growing lack of interest in the, 'old grey mass media outlets,' as a source for Canadians political information or news of any kind for that matter.

Maybe it is time for the Press Gallery members to actually go out and dig up real news, and to dig up sources that can help the journalists to explain to us the Canadian voting public the background to what is going on in Ottawa, and how it affects me here in my home and at work.

All those that can say that a reporter like Mike Duffy can't use the exercise raise their hands.

It might be an idea to move the Press Gallery offices to the basement of the Parliament Building. Then they could sell tickets to the Parliament's New Wine Cellar.

Thank you
Norman Greenfield

Kill Bill 208

Bill 208 is nothing more than Ted Morton appealing to the intolerant right wing of the Alberta supposedly Progressive Conservative Party for his leadership bid. It is settling to the lowest point of politics, and not trying to raise the bar of politics and democracy in this province.

It is crass.

It is small minded.

It is also something that if the Premier wants to leave a lasting positive legacy, will, can and should be killed in the caucus room.

Ted Morton would be better off to ask all of the religious leaders in the province to stop issuing marriage licenses and keep to their own religious marriage rites and ceremonies. That way they need not deal in the area's of the law they do not agree with in regards to same sex marriage.

It also makes one wonder while Ted Morton is working as an MLA, runing in the leadership race, and coming up with this sort of tripe in Kill Bill 208, if he is also still pulling in his salary from the University of Calgary.


Thank you
Norman Greenfield

The Family Guy

Subject: The Family Guy
Paul Brent does a good job in his article titled, ' The Family Guy,' outlining the obivous dumbing down of the male in advertising and marekting.

He does not point out some obvious other truths to the equasion. Or maybe he does not want to face reality. Or maybe he is afraid to.

The fact of the matter it is the, 'white' dumb Dad that has become the foil in either sitcoms or advertising.

The advertising industry would be falling all over itself to fix commercials, promotions, or marketing material if they portrayed any other identifiable group in Canada, even before the rath of the avenged minority group began.

They will not do the same for the white male.

Keeping in mind that the white male represents less than 50% of the voters showing up to vote, and to buy.

The worst it seems today is either the idiot they have on the new Canadian Tire commercials or the idiots they have in the advertising for erectile dysfunction drugs.

All you have to do is weigh the volume of money that is raised and spent for breast cancer research and prevention against the amount of money raised and spent in the area of Prostate Cancer to find out that Adult men, and in particular fathers, really have gone, have gone from ' hero to zero .'

Maybe men should take this upcoming fathers' day and stop shopping or doing business with those companies that are the offenders.
Thank you

Norman Greenfield

Election After Math

The election polling industry in this country is nothing more than cheap fodder for the news sections of the country's newspapers, radio and television news departments.
Instead of examining the issues, talking to the people on the street, or grilling the favourite candidates of the news organizations in question, you get cut and paste journalism.
The election coverage should really be put in the sports section as it is now just the reporting of a horse race.

Polling now, is not representative of much more than the people who were either unfortunate enough to pick up the phone when a telephone solicitor calls, or are lonely and speak english. Having a heart beat is an option.

Think about it.

The pollster asks a simple question or set of questions to an issue as important and difficult to answer or figure out as solutions to our health care system, our national unity, education, or the environment. These are questions that our elected leaders down the ages have not been able to easily solve.

It leaves out those that have only a wireless cell phone, aren't home because they are out working, going to school or clubbing, and those that don't speak english.

If the phone call comes during the day, it leaves out those that work during the day. If it comes at supper-time, you get people giving answers quick and not thought out, so they can get back to their Kraft Dinner while it is still hot.

How can a poll of 1,500 randomly selected people, give any sort of snap shot of opinion of a country of 35,000,000, stretching from sea to sea, to sea? It can't. The polling company does not spend anytime doing any sort of demographic clustering so they get a sampling of the proper make up of Canada.

How can polling be accurate when it does not call back the same people from week to week, to track their opinions and how they might have changed? What issues made them change their minds, or solidify their choices?

How can a poll be reported on without reporting the number of undecided, or the number of people who just aren't going to vote, or their reasons for not voting or for being undecided?

Would it not be interesting to find out what it would take to get those people who aren't going to vote, back into the voting booth?

Keep in mind that the people doing the telephoning get paid for the most part by the number of completed surveys. Not by the quality nor the following of good statistical best practices.

The polling industry has only been masterfull in dousing any sort of vision our politicians may have for Canada in the future, because of the addiction they have built in their users for the false sense of security put in the polling results.

Thank you Norm Greenfield

Liberal Leadership Race

Sent: Monday, May 01, 2006
To: Ottawa Citizen
Subject: Liberal Leadership Race

Since it looks like the Liberal Party has not learned much from its most recent past and is content to have nothing but white middle aged men from Toronto running for the leadership, by and large, what will make the other stand out from the crowd?

Could it be the first to offer an apology to the Canadian people for the recent scandal, bad government, disrespect for the Canadian voter and tax payer, the inertia of 12 years of Liberal Government, combined with the brilliant plan of trying to buy the votes of Quebec residents through organized crime?

A party that insists on looking inside the GTA for its next leader, and not look across Canada for fresh blood from the outside will be mean a continued future in the hinterland of Canadian politics. It will be much like, 'death by incest.'

Thank you

Norman Greenfield