The Results Are In

Interesting Civic Election - Bronconnier won the mayor's chair quite handily - albeit with a reduced percentage over the 2004 election.

Of the races last night, Ward 1 seems to have sounded a desire for change in that part of the city - with Jennifer Banks giving Dale Hodges a pretty good run for most of the night. Although Hodges won with a comfortable plurality, Banks has positioned herself as a likely replacement for Dale should he decide to retire after this term. (27 years in one career is a long time!)

Helene Larocque's collapse in Ward 3 is also significant. Larocque had alienated a lot of the community associations in her Ward, and people seem to have heard the message loud and clear. It's a good reminder that at the civic level, community associations are an important part of the political landscape, and even if you don't sit on city council, there is a voice that can be made heard from the community associations.

Ward 4 was won handily by Bob Hawkesworth. A perusal of other wards with one or two challengers suggests that the 20% of the vote that Richard Evans pulled down is about average - reflecting the reality that most of the time there's a percentage of people who are going to be unhappy with whoever is in office - and a campaign that even gets a name out there will garner some of that vote.

In Ward 6, Joe Connelly maintained his lead over incumbent Craig Burrows. I haven't heard much about Burrows that I like, and Connelly came across as basically decent and fairly reasonable in his thinking. (It probably helped Connelly that his competition were either positively loopy sounding like Kohut, or associated with politicians like Rob Anders (Istvanffy)).

Ward 8 went to John Mar, a candidate whose platform didn't sound that different from Steve Chapman's. I suspected that Madeleine King was weak in Ward 8, and her commentary on homeless and affordable housing probably didn't resonate well with voters. I'll reserve judgment where Mar is concerned - I think it's important to note that one of Chandler's allies did not win. We do not need civic politics overrun by the "pseudo-party politics" of ideology - much less the kind of ideology that hard-liners like Chandler tend to promote.

Ward 11 was won by Brian Pincott. I'm actually looking forward to seeing how he fares on council. Pincott has run in a lot of elections previously at different levels of government, and he has always struck me as fundamentally earnest and intelligent.

Here's hoping that this city council is effective and capable.

Early Election Results

A couple of interesting races are emerging (as of 9:25):

Ward 1:

Jennifer Banks is giving incumbent Dale Hodges a real run for his money:

(4364 - Hodges, 3109 - Banks)

Ward 3:

Larocque is trailing both of her opponents, but the difference is minimal, and only a handful of polls are in yet.

Ward 6:

Craig Burrows has a smaller than expected lead on challenger Joe Connelly. (150 to 103 votes). If one adds it all up, Burrows has barely got a plurality of the votes total in the ward - 51%.

Ward 8:

Although she started with an early lead, Madeleine King is having her lead eroded steadily by Steve Chapman as the evening progresses.

Ward 9:

Al Koenig has gained considerably on Joe Ceci, bringing in a much higher percentage of the vote than I had expected. (55% for Ceci, 41% for Koenig)

Ward 11:

This one's all over the map. The two strongest candidates appear to be Pincott and Whelan.

It's early going yet, and if I'm still awake, I may update this entry as the evening progresses.

[10:00PM Update]
Ward 1: The margin between Banks and Hodges appears to have stabilized at about 10% in favour of Hodges. This is good news for a long-time member of city council - and one of the generally sane voices there.

Ward 3: It would appear that Ms. Larocque is history.

Ward 6: Burrows is now trailing Connelly.

Ward 8: Could go any which way - Chapman, Mar and King are all within fairly close margin of each other. Mar is currently slightly ahead of King.

Ward 9: As with Ward 1, this appears to be settling in with a little over a 10% weighting favoring the incumbent, Joe Ceci. I've always liked Joe, and I appreciate his "treat the problem not the symptoms" approach to social issues. It's the harder path to tread, but in the long run it works better than the simplistic approach of treating the symptoms ... like say trying to run the prostitutes out of town.

Ward 11: Pincott's edging ahead on what I suspect is name recognition vote. He's run in a fair number of elections in the area and the name is fairly recognizable. If elected, he will have a tough job ahead of himself to establish himself as an effective representative for a ward that is quite economically diverse.

Ward 4: Since I spent some time discussing Mr. Evans' candidacy, I'm pleased to note that at this point he's scraped up 20% of the vote - compared to Hawkesworth's 72% take.

I'm somewhat relieved to note that Alnoor Kassam has reeled in only 17% of the mayoral vote. While I don't necessarily like Bronconnier, I remain unconvinced that I could trust Alnoor - there's just too many question marks.
[/Update]

Chandler Attempts to Influence Civic Election

Not satisfied with trying to run his own slate of candidates in the Civic Election, we find Chandler's PGIB group trying to "quiz" candidates on their policy platforms.

Two things strike me as demonstrating not only blatant bias, but the intellectual dishonesty of this little exercise. From the PGIB release posted on "Project Alberta":

The following candidates responded to the survey: Al Noor Kassam, Sandy Jenkins, Al Foster, Jonathan Sunstrum and Jeremy Zhao (Please note David Bronconnier was not sent the survey).

The following candidates ranked a perfect score to all our questions: Al Noor Kassam, Jeremy Zhao, Jonathan Sunstrum and Al Foster

Let's start at the top. The survey was not even sent to one of the candidates for Mayor. While I seriously doubt that Bronconnier's team would have graced Chandler's obviously biased quiz with a response, there is a fundamental dishonesty that comes with sending a "platform questionnaire" out and deliberately excluding one of the candidates.

Moving along, I find it striking that so many candidates "had a perfect score". This tells you a great deal. From looking at Chandler's questions, it's not difficult to guess what answers he was fishing for, but that is far from the point. In matters of public policy, there are few absolutes, and to be so naive as to believe that there are "right answers" to such questions as the revenues from taxation required to operate the city is really quite pathetic. (Remember George Bush Sr. say "read my lips, no new taxes"??)

Reality is that Calgary taxpayers are having to pick up the burden for a fifteen year long period when there was no funding for infrastructure from the provincial government, and the city is growing at rather a frightful pace - increasing the load placed upon civic services, and increasing the salaries that must be paid to our civil servants in order for them to be able to live in this city.

His list of endorsements for various Aldermanic races reads like a who's who of right wingnuttia in Calgary:

Alderman
Ward 3 - Jim Stevenson
Ward 4 - Richard Evans
Ward 6 - James Istvanffy
Ward 7 - Merle Terleski
Ward 8 - Steve Chapman
Ward 12 - Ric McIver

Offhand, two of those people (McIver and Chapman) I can tie back to Chandler directly; Evans and Chandler associate with each other to some degree on "Project Alberta". Istvanffy is a former advisor to Rob Anders (*shudder*). I'm not overly familiar with Merle Terlesky, but if he's the guy that shows up when I google the name as a "pro lifer" in Kamloops and a few other other places, that would fit (this is an unproven linkage - I'm guessing based on a few bits and pieces). Jim Stevenson is the only candidate in the list that I can't find much about that ties him to much of anything.

As for Chandler's endorsement of Alnoor, that pretty much seals where my vote isn't going.

Thoughts on the Alnoor Kassam Campaign

It's easy to say "I won't vote for this candidate" - in fact I think most voters do that on an almost instinctive basis. It's a bit more difficult to articulate why you make such a decision.

Looking around at the various candidates for Mayor, we have two that seem to be plausible contenders - Dave Bronconnier and Alnoor Kassam.

Bronconnier (aka "Bronco") is a polarizing man - you either love him or you hate him. (I'm a little odd about it - I'm rather indifferent to the man). He's either the mayor that stood up to Edmonton and won the confrontation, or he's the weaselly guy with a one track mind about roads.

Before this election, I had only heard of Alnoor Kassam a handful of times, and besides a rather greedy decision to raise rents on an apartment building he owns by a multiple of 4, he's been a cipher to me.

But something about the man makes me feel uneasy. I can't put a finger on it - he presents well in public, and is generally a good speaker. So, why don't I trust him?

It's a combination of factors when it comes down to it.

First, although Alnoor claims that he was "cleared" of wrongdoing by Canadian immigration with respect to his involvement in the collapse of Kenya's Trade Bank, there's a world of difference between the kind of investigation that immigration is going to do and what charges someone may face in another country. Yes, I realize that Kenya's legal system is somewhat checkered, but the fact remains that Alnoor Kassam faces legal sanction should he ever choose to return to Kenya.

There's a much longer history to Kassam, who fled Kenya in 1993 with the law at his heels for his involvement in the country's greatest banking scandal.

He was a principal of Trade Bank, as well as Diner's Club. A huge inquiry over government subsidy of exports focused on the fate of the bank.

Kenyan officials have said he's welcome to return, as long as he coughs up $23 million Cdn he's alleged to have taken with him.

Kassam insists he didn't take a penny, noting that a Canadian immigration tribunal ruled in his favour.

Whether bribery and corruption are "part of the political culture" in Kenya is quite irrelevant to me as a Canadian voter. The impression I have is that Kassam "skipped town one step ahead of the law" - a worrisome and disturbing shadow cast over someone who wishes to lead a city the size and complexity of Calgary.

The second point is one of wondering about his motives. He is allegedly matching Bronconnier dollar for dollar on campaign spending - a number rumored to be in the vicinity of a million dollars or so. Considering the $160,000 annual salary that Calgary's mayor receives in remuneration, there's a few prickly questions that we have ask. While Bronconnier has had the last three years to fund raise for this campaign, Kassam can't - and doesn't - make the same claim - instead he is taking the money out of his own pocket. Fair enough, but what businessman spends $1,000,000 to recoup $480,000 over the course of the next 3 years? Even with my limited experience with high finance, that seems like a pretty odd investment. So, what is he seeking to gain? {especially in light of the unresolved questions surrounding the collapse of his ventures in Kenya, and some of the activities he freely admits to, one has to ask such a question}

The last point that makes me wonder about this candidate is the fact that he is seeking to lead this city after moving here relatively recently. His own bio shows that he has seldom stayed in any one place for very long - and has just moved to Calgary in the last four or five years. I hate to sound like a regionalist, but I have a hard time believing that he "gets Calgary" just yet. He may like the city, but does he really understand it and the complexities of it?

Like the guy who sold me my first house, Alnoor feels a little like he's out for his own interests - and is not above taking advantage of someone else to achieve his goals - whatever they may be.

You Reap What You Sow...

Apparently, Richard took his war with blogger "Canadian Cynic" to the press:

Richard Evans, who is running in Ward 4, said an anonymous blogger has been defaming him on his website and posting his address, phone number and the names of his wife and two children.

Now, I'll let Cynic's own commentary speak to the issues of the accusations being tossed about. Frankly, I tend to be of the opinion that both parties are acting childish.

BUT - CC is not putting himself forward to sit on Calgary's City Council, either. Richard Evans is.

Voters in Calgary's Ward 4 have a question to ask themselves when they put their "X" on a ballot in a little less than two weeks' time: "Will we be represented effectively by this man?". Will "effective" representation come from a man whose conduct is childish, immature or even in amazingly bad taste, such as taunting victims of sexual assault?

Whether Evans stands much of a chance against Bob Hawkesworth is open to debate. Frankly, I'll be looking for someone who has a little more maturity in their conduct - and a little less tendency to devolve into taunting when he disagrees with someone. Politics is the art of compromise, and the behaviour shown by Evans to date shows us someone who "wins" arguments by belittlement. Not exactly promising.

Campaigning by the Children

It seems that Richard Evans' idea of "campaigning" is to sit around trying to slag his opponent by making silly little videos of them.

Oh, how amusing - try to "humiliate" Bob Hawkesworth by casting him in the female role to Jack Layton - using a cheezy little framework put together by JibJab. Oh, the humiliation that Bob H. must be feeling right now.

Frankly, this kind of juvenile crap is about what I would have expected out of "student council" elections - when I was in grade 7.

But, coming from a small man who laughs at victims of rape, cybersquats on domains to make other bloggers "look bad", and doesn't actually respond to criticism of his notions, but instead descends into attacking the author, I don't suppose we should be overly surprised.

Let me give you a little hint, Richard - there's a little more to being a politician than simply trying to slag your opponents with childish ad-hominem attacks. You might actually want to put forward real ideas...that haven't already passed their "best before" date.

Another "Government == Business" Candidate

In Calgary's civic election this year, we have another nitwit seeking the Mayor's chair that blithely equates business and government:

“A city is no different than a business: it has an annual operating budget of $2 billion, 12 thousand employees and 1 million customers.” His vision is as unique as his approach: let Calgarians determine priorities by sharing their concerns, streamline processes, eliminate waste, and focus on the issues that are important to “customers” – the people of Calgary.

This is flawed on a dozen different levels, but it ultimately comes back to one fundamental point: Government does not have the same objectives as Business.

Businesses exist to make money - period. In truth, most businesses are run by people who try their best to do so "well" - with some sense of moral and ethical balance - but ultimately no business exists without making money from its customers. Although challenging, the single minded goal of making money is quite different from the role government must play.

Governments on the other hand are held to account for a much more complex set of obligations than any business. Not only must government (even civic) balance its books between revenues and expenditures, but it carries the burden of paying for a whole host of services that we depend upon - from police and fire to water and sewage treatment. Complicating the picture, the city also winds up having to deal with all of the problems that most of us don't know what to do with - the homeless, effects of poverty, insane growth and the stresses placed on infrastructure by that growth. Government is also obliged to balance the interests of citizens with the demands of business. (If one does not remember incidents such as The Love Canal in the states, or Lynnwood Ridge in Calgary, it is easy to lose track of the need for government to provide a regulatory environment for businesses as well to keep their activities balanced with the collective interests of the citizens...such as not having their homes built on toxic waste sites)

The "balance sheet" for government is complex and multi-faceted. The simplistic view that there is an equivalence with government demonstrates a lack of understanding of topics that cannot readily be understood in terms of finances, and people can seldom be understood in terms of money or numbers.

More Brilliant Logic ...

From Alderman wannabe Richard Evans...more compassionate conservatism.

Instead of actually postulating solutions to things, we find our erstwhile candidate for Alderman yapping in the classic language of "individual responsibility" - which so often translates into the basic mantra that poverty is the fault of the poor.

Why yes, people should live within their means, and earn as they are able to. In a perfect world, it would all balance out just fine. Sadly, our world is somewhat less than perfect.

Homeless people on our streets are there for a plethora of reasons, not all of them obvious or well managed. Our society does a poor job at best of dealing with people who suffer from mental illness (an all too common problem among the homeless), nor do we manage to examine and deal with the social cycles that perpetuate the grinding poverty of life on the streets.

Whether you are talking about drug addicts, schizophrenia or other issues that are often part and parcel of the "street scene", it is simplistic to claim that they are all the result of "poor choices" and shrug them off.

When we are talking about housing, it is foolish to assume in Calgary's marketplace that "the market will provide". It's rapidly reaching a point where the cost of housing is far beyond the means of many, (Try surviving in this city on less than $30K or so a year...) while wages in many jobs have remained at the levels they were at in the late '90s.

Poverty is a cycle, and part of a complex picture called society. It is facile and unrealistic to simply attribute the social problems that many experience to "poor choices" or "irresponsibility".

What is the price of not dealing effectively with the problems and causes of poverty? Increased crime and violence as those at the bottom of the economic ladder seek to find ways out of their situations. Remember, for many of those people, they have nothing more to lose. If they suffer additionally from mental illness of some sort, their reasoning may be severely impaired as well.

Personal responsibility is fine and dandy - a good place for most of us to start, but it does little to deal with those who have fallen through the cracks and now struggle to survive. We need people on Council who are willing and able to consider constructive approaches to these issues, not simply blaming the people who find themselves in dire straits for their situation.

Do We Need This On City Council?

Calgary has a sizable budget (a couple of billion or so in 2007). By any standards, this is hardly monopoly money or child's play to work with.

While some of the antics of city council in recent years have been disappointing to say the least, they have for the most part conducted themselves with some degree of respectability.

This fall, one of the candidates running against Bob Hawkesworth in Ward 4 is a piece of work that goes by the name of Richard Evans. I've commented on his candidacy before - here and here.

Today, we find a little more of Mr. Evans' oh-so-broadminded approach to those he finds disagreeable.

In this case, he goes out and purchases rights to a "soundalike" domain name - in this case "canadiancynic.net", and redirects it to something he thinks is outrageously funny. Today's "flavor du jour" is to redirect readers to the "NAMBLA" website (I won't link there - if you really want to find it, there's always google - I don't like pedophiles, and I won't link anywhere near them). The redirect page he's slapped up reads as follows: (at least as of August 25, 2007)

Raise the age of sexual consent in Canada!



The folks on the page you're about to be redirected to want to have sex with your children and it's people like "Canadian Cynic" that help to enabel them...

Okay, that's childish at best, crass and boorish at the very least. My personal thoughts on this are simple - does this kind of childish attempt at humour reflect the kind of attitude that we would trust to manage our civic budgets and affairs?

Do we want a man on council who sneers at rape victims, and plays childish little games with domain squatting tactics in his blogging? Just what kind of conduct do we think we would get from him if he were to sit on city council?

Oh yes, here is the whois domain registration for "canadiancynic.net":

Registration Service Provided By: SIBERNAME.COM
Contact: +1.8006138915

Domain Name: CANADIANCYNIC.NET

Registrant:
Let Freedom Reign
Richard Evans ()email address guarded from harvesters
275 Slater Street, Suite 900
Ottawa
ON,K1P 5H9
CA
Tel. +1.6134822085

Creation Date: 02-Jul-2007
Expiration Date: 02-Jul-2008

Domain servers in listed order:
ns6.ixwebhosting.com
ns5.ixwebhosting.com


Administrative Contact:
Let Freedom Reign
Richard Evans ()email address guarded from harvesters
275 Slater Street, Suite 900
Ottawa
ON,K1P 5H9
CA
Tel. +1.6134822085

Technical Contact:
Let Freedom Reign
Richard Evans ()email address guarded from harvesters
275 Slater Street, Suite 900
Ottawa
ON,K1P 5H9
CA
Tel. +1.6134822085

Billing Contact:
Let Freedom Reign
Richard Evans ()email address guarded from harvesters
275 Slater Street, Suite 900
Ottawa
ON,K1P 5H9
CA
Tel. +1.6134822085

Status:ACTIVE

Just to round it out, here's the domain registration for his campaign website:

Registration Service Provided By: SIBERNAME.COM
Contact: +1.8006138915

Domain Name: CALGARYWARD4.COM

Registrant:
Let Freedom Reign
Richard Evans ()email address guarded from harvesters
275 Slater Street, Suite 900
Ottawa
ON,K1P 5H9
CA
Tel. +1.6134822085

Creation Date: 06-Aug-2007
Expiration Date: 06-Aug-2008

Domain servers in listed order:
ns6.ixwebhosting.com
ns5.ixwebhosting.com


Administrative Contact:
Let Freedom Reign
Richard Evans ()email address guarded from harvesters
275 Slater Street, Suite 900
Ottawa
ON,K1P 5H9
CA
Tel. +1.6134822085

Technical Contact:
Let Freedom Reign
Richard Evans ()email address guarded from harvesters
275 Slater Street, Suite 900
Ottawa
ON,K1P 5H9
CA
Tel. +1.6134822085

Billing Contact:
Let Freedom Reign
Richard Evans ()email address guarded from harvesters
275 Slater Street, Suite 900
Ottawa
ON,K1P 5H9
CA
Tel. +1.6134822085

Status:ACTIVE

... and here's the domain registration for his blog's domain:

Get a .CA Domain Today! From $13.46 CAD per year free web page & forwarding http://www.sibername.com







Registration Service Provided By: SIBERNAME.COM
Contact: +1.8006138915

Domain Name: NO-LIBS.COM

Registrant:
Sibername.com
Privacy Service ()email address guarded from harvesters
275 Slater Street, Suite 900
Ottawa
ON,K1P 5H9
CA
Tel. +613.4822085
Fax. +866.6801880

Creation Date: 03-Mar-2006
Expiration Date: 03-Mar-2008

Domain servers in listed order:
ns18.commonservers.com
ns17.commonservers.com


Administrative Contact:
Sibername.com
Privacy Service ()email address guarded from harvesters
275 Slater Street, Suite 900
Ottawa
ON,K1P 5H9
CA
Tel. +613.4822085
Fax. +866.6801880

Technical Contact:
Sibername.com
Privacy Service ()email address guarded from harvesters
275 Slater Street, Suite 900
Ottawa
ON,K1P 5H9
CA
Tel. +613.4822085
Fax. +866.6801880

Billing Contact:
Sibername.com
Privacy Service ()email address guarded from harvesters
275 Slater Street, Suite 900
Ottawa
ON,K1P 5H9
CA
Tel. +613.4822085
Fax. +866.6801880

Status:ACTIVE

City Council and the "Yellow Ribbon" Campaigns

I've commented before on my objections to having City of Calgary vehicles festooned with "Support The Troops" decals.

I know that candidates like McIver are going to try and parlay this into something they can feed on for the coming civic elections, but that's another issue.

Today, The Globe and Mail commentary has it pretty much right:

But as he has identified, sporting the yellow ribbon is widely per-

ceived not just as an abstract form of well-wishing but as a highly charged political statement. That is not how it was originally intended, but in the United States, where it originated, it has since the Persian Gulf war of 1991 - and especially in the continuing war in Iraq - come to be seen as support for conflicts themselves. In this instance, to many Canadians that means a tacit endorsement of the decision to keep troops in Afghanistan.

Which is precisely my objection to splattering it all over city vehicles in the first place. As the Globe and Mail points out, civic governments have no say in the matter, and the image itself has been abused and misconstrued by those who would equate support for the troops with support for the mission they are carrying out.

Few and far between are the Canadians who don't support our troops, insofar as they wish them to return home safely. While roughly half the country opposes the mission in Afghanistan, only those on the furthest fringes fail to recognize the sacrifice our men and women make by serving there. And Mr. Bronconnier, who initiated a project to sell stickers to the public to raise funds for military families, can hardly be accused of indifference toward Canada's soldiers.

In short, there are those whose support for the troops does not extend to supporting the mission ... and thick-headed verbal bullies like Richard Evans keep claiming you must. (and he's of the "left wingers want to control your thinking crowd" ... oh the irony)

So This Would Be "Compassionate Conservatism"?

Over at Richard Evans' blog, we find him posting as follows about an alleged sexual assault in Ottawa:

What kind of man allows himself to be sexually assaulted by another man? In public, with no weapons involved? Are we really turning into a nation of wimps where no one fights back anymore?

Waitasec, here. First of all, I can imagine a dozen different situations where you can be overpowered - no matter how muscle-bound you are. Second, just because someone is assaulted doesn't make them - as Richard puts it - a "Girly-Man".

In fact, Richard's use of that epithet is an example of precisely why so few sexual assaults against men are actually reported. Our society still has such a hang-up about the very possibility that a male might be sexually assaulted that people like Richard seem to think that reporting the assault is a sign of weakness on the part of the victim.

The real fact here is that aside from the victim and the assailant, the only other people who have a clue what happened are the police (and only by the statement of the victim at this point) Also, the victim's actions - or lack of them - are utterly irrelevant here. A crime has been committed, and to the credit of the victim, they had the personal fortitude to report it - in spite of the ignorant denouncements of people like Mr. Evans.

Frankly, the assumption that the victim "didn't do anything" (or "enough") to defend themselves in this case is as vile and repugnant to me as the classic "she was dressed provocatively" defense you used to hear in rape cases.

Rape is rape. I don't give a damn about the gender of the victim (or the perpetrator for that matter) - it's a crime and deserves to be punished. We should be focusing on the rapist, not persecuting the victim.

City Council Elections 2007

Calgary, along with other Alberta municipalities has council elections this fall.

While I'm far from a fan of this past city council, there are things shaping up on the electoral front that are a whole lot worrisome.

A few years ago, Ric McIver was elected as Alderman. I don't like McIver - I didn't like him when he ran against Sue Higgins in 1998, and his performance on council has not improved my opinion of him. He's a pugilistic sort who tries to cast himself as "David fighting Goliath" every time there is a disagreement between him and the rest of council.

He's one of Chandler's creatures as well, which doesn't exactly fill me with enthusiasm.

More recently, I learned that another of Chandler's friends, Steve Chapman is running for Alderman in Ward 8. As usual, we find Chapman getting all sorts of backing from Paul Jackson, and making such wonderfully absolutist statements as this:

One would figure fighting crime would have been the ward's alderman's top priority.

Obviously, what we need is a tough law-and-order representative on council from that ward.

"I spent three years on police patrol in the inner city, so I know what the problems are, and I know how to solve them," says Chapman, now a very successful entrepreneur.

Steve, I'll bet you do.

Typical of Alberta's extreme right wing - not only do they think they know all the answers (like teenagers seem to), they are also amazingly arrogant about it. Lovely, just the kind of partisan crap that we don't need on city council.

Third on the list, we come to Richard Evans throwing his hat in the ring. Although Evans is not one of Chandler's creatures (yet), I see Chandler is offering "support" to him. Evans is probably better known in the blogosphere than in the general population. He's generally obnoxious when he does pop up, and his own blog pretty much sets the tone with broad sweeping generalizations like Leftists Hate Talk Radio, or referring to bloggers he disagrees with as "The Looney Bin".

Meanwhile, he links to a variety of neo-American, hard-right wing blogs/sites. I'll let you figure out what that means. (Hint: he calls his blog domain "no-libs.com")

Calgary's civic elections this year deserve a much higher degree of scrutiny than normal. Not only do we have some hardline ideological candidates coming forward, and if McIver is any indication, these people will result in a city council divided along ideological lines, and unable to function without every issue turning into a battle over ideology.