News - Alberta Bound

If you don't live in Canada you probably haven't heard of Ralph Klein, and that's a shame. He in the Premier (ie Head Honcho) of the province of Alberta which, thanks to having some oil underground, is a lovely boomtown area that understandably resents having to share with some of the lesser provinces. Ralphie is known to be something of a right-winger trying to slide private health care past our constitution and so forth.

Well, as part of a celebration of Alberta's centennial, Mr. Klein has been voted the funniest Albertan ever.

Among the choice quotes contained herein...
Klein on Global Warming:
"dinosaur farts" are as likely an explation for the phenomenon as anything else.

Klein on Mad Cow disease:
"You would have to eat 10 billion meals of brains, spinal cords, ganglia, eyeballs and tonsils [to get it.]"

Sadly, most of the runners-up were also politicians and when kd lang is your competition....well, it was a lock for Ralph.

Amazingly, not mentioned in this article is the time when Klein (then an alcoholic) took his message to the streets, walking into a homeless shelter (his chauffeur dropped him off) and berated the residents and telling them to get jobs. This is now classic Canadian history - to have someone so live up to the stereotype you have of them is priceless

To give some perspective, it's a bit like if Donald Rumsfeld got drunk, walked into an Amnesty International office and started tearing the place apart; or if George Bush walked into an ACLU office, wired on coke, hosed them with oil and started telling them where they could stick their free speech (while showing them where the FBI has planted bugs all over their office). And so on.

So, congratulations, Mr. Klein.

ADDENDUM:

If you're into right-wing Canadian politics, you'll be happy to see that Jim Flaherty is likely to soon be in charge of finances for our country . How scary is this? Well, I don't want to say the guy is a facist or anything but he DID try to make homelessness illegal in Ontario. I'm sure he only had the best of intentions.


The good news is he'll be able to work off the debt he ran up while campaigning to lead the provincial conservative party.