Stelmach and Hancock Disclose Leadership Campaign Contributions

I see from media reports that Stelmach and Hancock have both disclosed their campaign contributions and Dinning's is on the way. Some will suggest the word disclose might best be put in quotes given the anonymous donations are still there. I see a number of comments on this Blog and others are coming directly to me asking for my thoughts on the PC Leadership Campaign fund raising disclosure.

I have posted on this issue during the campaign and will do so again later today. First I want to review the disclosures and put some context around money and politics. Expect something to be posted tonight on this topic.

I have been out of town - visiting the good folks in Vulcan Alberta - yes those same folks who revere and celebrate Dr. Spock of Star Trek fame. In fact their town motto is "Science and Trek." I was talking to them about the impact of the Alberta SuperNet and how they perceive they can use it. Vulcan is a very interesting community in southern Alberta and I learned so much about them from this workshop I did but more on that in later postings.

For those outside of Alberta, the SuperNet is a provincial wide fibre optic network that has been installed in all our hospitals, schools, municipal offices and public libraries in every Alberta community. Everyone in Alberta is now potentially connected on this huge "data pipe" and we are now starting to design and discover how that will change the nature of our province and how we relate to each other and the world.

In the meantime a friend forwarded this email - which I presume is a spoof - but with Dubya...you never really know! In any event it is a perfect example of "framing and defining" a politician...and pretty funny at the same time.

A letter from a US colleague….

Dear Friends,
I have the distinguished honor of being on the committee to raise $5,000,000 for a monument to George W. Bush. We originally wanted to put him on Mount Rushmore until we discovered there was not enough room for two more faces. We then decided to erect a statue of George in the Washington, DC Hall Of Fame.

It was a quandary as to where the statue should be placed. It was not proper to place it beside the statue of George Washington, who never told a lie, nor beside Richard Nixon, who rarely told the truth, since George could never tell the difference.

We finally decided to place it beside Christopher Columbus, the greatest Republican of them all. He left not knowing where he was going, and when he got there he did not know where he was. He returned not knowing where he had been, and he decimated the health of the majority of the population while he was there, and did it all on someone else's money.

Thank you, George W. Bush Monument Committee P.S. We have raised $1.38 so far.