The U.S. is on the edge of madness. Can it happen here?

As a political junkie, I find elections fascinating. Unfortunately, we tend to have them only once every four years or so here (depending on the state of the bromance of Justin and Jagmeet), so if you want your fix of politics and elections, we must look to the Formerly-Good Ol’ U.S. of A. And we…

Advertisement

The Return of Stuff Happens, week 27: The right moves; Spicer quits, comics cry.

Well, that was decisive. The Wildrose and the Progressive Conservatives — the Hatfields and the McCoys of Alberta politics — agreed to a merger on Saturday. And it wasn’t even close. Rank-and-file members of both parties voted in shocking numbers in favour of the merger of the two conservative parties. Remarkably (or suspiciously, if you’re…

Stuff Still Happens, week 52: Let’s recap 2016 … sorry, it’s the law.

Yeah, yeah,  I know. It was a terrible year. One of the worst in recent memory. But the rule for anyone who writes a weekly blog or column is that you must write some sort of year-end recap. So, with apologies, here we go. Newsmaker of the Year Is there any doubt about this? Donald Trump,…

Stuff Still Happens, week 34: More Donald Trump (sigh)

Sigh. I really didn’t want to write one more word about Donald Trump, but the guy just continues to astound. Consider the past week. He told African-Americans – or “the blacks” as he once called them – that they live in poverty with horrible education and no home ownership. He told African American and Hispanics,…

Stuff Still Happens, week 8: Deficits, drugs and death

The big issue of the week in Canada, where we worry about these things for some reason, was deficits. The new Liberal government, which promised to run a $10 billion deficit to boost the economy, is instead going to be about $30 billion in the hole. Here in the People’s Republic of Alberta, the provincial…

Stuff Still Happens, week 7: Horse racing put down; The Rebel yells

Edmonton Northlands, the so-called ‘agricultural society’ that has been a force in Edmonton since Edmonton was in diapers, announced a sweeping plan to rebuilt the soon-to-be-vacant arena and the area surrounding it. It’s partly a great idea, and partly nutty. The great idea, if they can find $85 million between the government’s couch cushions, is…

Stuff Still Happens, week 5: The trial of Jian Who, and Trump is trumped

The Iowa caucuses were held on Monday, and the picture for both parties is now crystal clear — I can say without fear of contradiction that Martin O’Malley will NOT win the Democratic nomination. O’Malley was running for the Democratic nomination, apparently. When the votes were tallied, the former governor of some state — no…

Stuff Still Happens, week 4: The Iowa caucuses explained … sort of

After 15,723 polls, 787,252 hours of TV time, and 254 billion words written (all numbers estimates), the election process to choose the next President of the United States begins in earnest on Monday. If you’ve only been paying fleeting attention, you may well be saying, “What, Donald Trump isn’t president yet?” Well, no, he’s not,…

Stuff Happens, week 51: It was a very bad year

Well, I did it. And I’m sure you’re thrilled. When I started writing this blog, I vowed to write a weekly review of events as I saw them. I did it mostly as a personal challenge, a way to instil a little discipline in my undisciplined life, and to boost my memory of the events…

Stuff Happens, week 32: Markets dive; Calgary has arena envy

OK, now I don’t want to panic anyone, but if you’re in the stock market, I have a few words of advice. GET OUT NOW!! IT’S A BLOODBATH, PEOPLE!! Just a suggestion. On Friday, markets around the world went in the crapper. the reason being, apparently, China. Seem the world’s no. 2 economy is loosing…