This past weekend the members of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives elected a new leader. Since they're the party in power, Ed Stelmach will become premier. Of the three choices between Ted Morton, Jim Dinning and Ed Stelmach. Stelmach was probably the least offensive non-Calgary candidate. The fact that Stelmach wasn't from Calgary was probably a factor in the final ballot.

Some time ago I commented on the Tories attempt to enshrine bigotry in the guise of religious freedom. Recently an anonymous commenter to this blog added his/her thoughts on the matter (29 November 2006). The commenter states that I don't understand Christianity and that in the long run the non-Christians are doomed to failure.

Now a grain of salt is needed given the source, but if Garth Turner is to be believed, our suspicions about how Harper runs the government are indeed true. It would appear that the Tory caucus isn't allowed to discuss anything. Policy is presented to them as a fait-accompli and any discussion is quashed. So another nail is driven into Canada's New Government's promise to be more open and accountable. Harper doesn't even feel accountable to his own MP's, let alone party members or the people of Canada.

For those of you out there who live in caves, spam, or unsolicited email or comments of a commercial nature, is a huge problem on the internet. Here at castle evil alone I get an average of ten to twelve thousand spam attempts a month against my and my wife's blogs. Now given that this blog is basically a disused off-ramp on the information super-highway with only about 1800 actual visitors a month, most of which look at my model railroad site, a significant amount of traffic here is spam.

Between work and my cadet commitments, I've had little time to blog the past couple of weeks. So I've missed the federal Tories totally messing up our foreign affairs. This is, of course, what I've come to expect from conservatives when it comes to international relations. Tory black and white thinking doesn't work very well in the messy world of international diplomacy. For now I will leave the foundering federal Tories and look more at their Alberta Cousins. For those of you who live outside of Alberta, the Alberta Tories are in the middle of electing a new leader. A field of eight lackluster candidates have been stomping around the province trying to engage the enthusiasm of their party's members.

Every Halloween there are several Christian groups (generally the more nutty evangelical types) in response to the more mainstream haunted house set up "hell houses". Instead of the more traditional Halloween fare of ghosts and goblins they have displays of what that particular group sees as "moral evils". So they have things such as corpses with a sign that says "had pre-marital sex" or people representing homosexuals. The theme is that if you do what is in the house, you're going straight to hell. Now, the same people who create these houses are also the ones that tend to get their backs up if a person of another faith calls them on stuff. These same people in one of their hell houses had, as a display, a "Buddhist" meditating.

So with the Democrats sweeping into control of the House of Representatives, things are changing in the US. Donald Rumsfeld resigned as Secretary of Defense and George Bush's rhetoric has turned to conciliatory remarks. Will this mark more fundamental change in the US government? Or will there be deadlock?

It is often apparent that what a given word means varies from person to person. For example, what I define as fun may not be what you see as fun. Generally these variances in definition are in the application of the word (such as fun) than the literal meaning. So I see the word democracy as a government that is chosen by the people (all the people). This government governs through consultation with the people to ensure that what the government is doing is what the people want. Further, this government doesn't act in secret, for if it does, the people can't make a proper decision on if the government is doing what the people want. So basically, in my view, for democratic government to work, there must be openness on the part of the government so that the people can hold the government accountable for its actions. The people must also be free to express their views without fear of bullying from the government and its supporters. With this in place, democracy can work and work for the people. Unfortunately, the action of the current federal Conservatives seems to be contrary to this view of open and accountable democratic government.

Here at Castle Evil I maintain this blog on my own server. Call it a hobby. It also means that I get to peruse the logs here every now and then to see who's been by. Generally it's people visiting here, or my wife's blog or my model railroad site. For example, someone from a US military address (iraq.centcom.mil) came to look at my model railroad site. What has been interesting, is the visits from Government of Canada sites.

I've set up a new poll question about when you think the opposition should pull the plug on "Canada's New Government (TM Pat. Pend)". So click here to get to this site's main page and the poll is on the right hand side.