I believe objects, without people around to interpret them, cannot be inherently political.

Discuss.

Sounds good to me.

Dude, snow? It's still raining here. It's snowing everywhere in Ontario but Ottawa (Toronto, London, Geralton has a snow storm). And the food service manager said it doesn't snow well into December. Anyways, thanks for the Halloween input. How does this sound: eyeball and maggot stew/chili in a bread bowl (pearl onion and orzo inside chili or stew). For dessert: dirt cups with worms (chocolate pudding with chocolate chip dirt or cookie crumbs with a gummi worm).

My pet monkey doesn't like that.

In a non-political (Hey...start a discussion around this...can anything be non-political? Foucault would argue no, you cannot disengage from politics or discourse.) comment:

It's snowing! Yay!

i think it's a shameful piece of Alberta politics to be honest. We are, and have been, a single-party province for the last three decades. Seeing as I cannot see that changing any time soon (despite my serious hopes to the contrary), it does make sense to me to join the part to put my $5 in, *cough* sorry, vote in, and potentially actually have an impact on our province's political future.

but in no way do I even want to toy with the idea of becoming a PC member. and in no way do i feel that it's fair for us to have to do this... but given the incredibly right-slant of the rest of the province, the potential for our reigning overlords (and so very few laides) to be voted out is slim to none; i can't see much other potential for my vote to mean much of anything else in the near future.

sad, inn't it?

Oh and my pet monkey is typing this down for me.

Sounds shady paying 5 bucks to pick a candidate for a party I won't vote for. The guberment already takes a third of my paycheck for tax purposes, why should I give them more money?

I haven't really being paying much attention in so far as who I would vote for. I'm definitely not about to pay $5 to become a member of a political party for whom I wouldn't vote, just to cast my vote for the least shitty candidate. However the reality is that in Alberta the winning candidate is practically a shoo-in for the premiers position. I'll be shocked if it's even close regardless of who it is. It's win-win for them to be sure...

Incidental question for the floor: Given that (I assume) most of the readers/contributors here aren't the biggest provincial PC party flag-wavers, what are your thoughts on the calls by organizations (particularly, the ATA, provincial unions, and the AMA) for their members to cough up the $5 to become PC party members and vote in the leadership race?

Or, for that matter, thoughts on the leadership race, itself?

For myself, on the first question, I can't quite square it away. My neighbour a couple of houses down was door-knocking for Dave Hancock, and he prefaced his spiel by saying that it was the only way we could vote for the Premier of the province. I asked him if he thought that was something we should be concerned about. I mean, what does it say about our democracy, when you have to pay $5 to a political organization (let's not forget the Tories are going make a killing on this) to have a say?

On the second question, (given, of course, that I'm probably not going to buy a membership or vote, anyway) I can't say that I've read enough to decide among any of these people. I've read Dave Hancock's policy platform and, when he actually has some substance, it seems reasonable, for the most part. But, as I've said before, the candidates who were key members of cabinet and are now voicing concerns over decisions made when they themselves were in positions of influence really bother me. If you thought it was a bad idea then, why didn't you stop it then?