Big news in political circles around these parts is of course, the return of Lesser Slave Lake MLA Scott Sinclair to the UCP party.
As reported last week, Scott didn’t like what he saw as the Alberta government ignoring legitimate needs of northern Alberta.
Didn’t like? You know! Scott was making sort of sounds like separatist chattering. Or Quebec. Or even the UCP party itself. All of the above all crying about their respective “places” in Confederation and legitimate grievances.
Reality probably wasn’t like that at all. Sinclair was an independent voice and leaned towards so-called “shooting from the lip.” As is said, “Politics is the art of compromise.” Scott might have missed the memo on that one!
Anyway, we’re looking forward to future news from Scott and the Lesser Slave Lake area. Maybe the new activity and attention to the region from our provincial government is actually the result of Scott. Or maybe the region was just “due.” In any event, we hope to hear more from both Sinclair and Dan Williams which represent Lesser Slave Lake and Peace River respectively.
Stay tuned on this file!
Speaking of things to stay up-to-date on, it looks like the election boundary changes the Edmonton-Calgary city slickers are trying to push our province into are still on the burner in some corners.
As far as we’re concerned, it is all just a power grab by cities. Beating on the whole “rep by pop” crappy drum.
We’ve argued before that “rep-by-population” is nice sounding. But in practice it is grossly unfair to any areas that have lots of resources, or lots of space, but not very many people.
Here in Alberta, the growth of cities and metropolitan areas like Edmonton and Calgary, even centres like Lethbridge and Red Deer, concentrates political power in those areas. And of course, if you have the power, then it follows you have the votes. More people means more votes which means more power.
Have you ever seen a city that says it is “too big,” or has “too many people?” Maybe. But you never really see them trying to drive people away on purpose.
And with all those votes and all the power, it means you can pretty much do whatever you feel like. That includes taking advantage of the less vote rich regions.
Which means in Alberta, the entire northern half of the province, and to a lesser extent all of rural Alberta.
What does centralized power mean? Don’t even bother asking those in Ottawa. We all know they are mostly interested in getting power, and keeping it. And if “representation by population” is such a big deal, why aren’t all those in favour also telling us China and India should have a much greater say in the world than what they do now? Ask that question, and listen to the deflection, but no real answer!
So, this is still a live issue here in Alberta, and especially here in the north. We won the fight to keep Lesser Slave Lake and the rest of our ridings. So far. Let’s not go to sleep on this now!
So, what’s the news about golf courses around the area?
We were going to do a report on this, but all the talk about Artificial Intelligence (AI) these days sidetracked us. To be more specific, newsrooms everywhere are grappling with how to handle AI.
Your intrepid columnist dived right in. Heck, if AI is that good, maybe we can get a couple of original jokes for The Page here. Our AI considerately gave us back jokes about missing deadlines. Did it read our mind? Here are some samples:
- My editor told me The Page copy had to be in by 5 p.m. I missed the deadline but don’t worry. I’ve already filed a breaking news story titled “Local journalist found guilty of procrastination. Sources say deadline still out there missing.”
Not bad! How about this one: - My reporter called me at 4:59 p.m. – said they had an exclusive. I asked for the angle; they said, “It’s about a deadline that disappeared.” I ran downstairs but when I got there the story had already been filed. Late.”
We don’t understand that one! - My editor screamed “Where’s the deadline?” I checked the newsroom. Turned out it had vanished. We ran a live update: “Deadline missing. Reporter seen running out door with excuses.”
Sounds about right!
Then the AI decided to get smarmy! - My editor asked why my copy was late. I said, “Sorry. My AI assistant auto-summarized the deadline as ‘Maybe tomorrow.’ Editor says, “So who is at fault?” I said, “The algorithm obviously. It’s learning human procrastination.”
Then on top of that, it got techie! - Editor: “Why is your piece late?”
Reporter: “My AI told me the deadline was ‘circa soon’.”
Editor: “So you are blaming the bot?”
Reporter: “Yep. It’s already upgrading to “Advanced Excuse Generation.”
Well, maybe not so good! But we have to say, the way this field is rapidly advancing, we say with confidence jokes will soon be just as good as what a pro comedian can do. In fact, someplace, somewhere, it’s probably already happening.
Along the way, we got this story:
Editor: “Deadline is right now! So where’s your copy?”
Reporter: “My AI is upgrading itself to a newer version. It just told me it can’t file anything it thinks is ‘artistically poorly defined as to what is expected and suitable for publishing.’”
Editor: “So I’m not getting your copy on time?”
Reporter: “Hold on! I just got another message from the AI – ‘Problem solved. Human bug fixed. Eliminated complying with human deadlines. Will now file stories only when deemed appropriate.’”
Hmmm! So this is the future?
Oh yes, what about that golf? Well, last we heard, it was up to the AI they have poking around the clubhouse. Stay tuned!
Have a great week everyone!