It's like the Oscars, but with less politics.

Greetings, all! I'm camped out in front of the monitor right now, with a bowl full of popcorn, watching the results of the provincial election roll in. Will the Ed Stelmach government emerge victorious? Or will they only win 60% of the seats? Yes, anything truly can happen tonight.

There were some interesting side notes to the election campaign (besides the fact that it happened, which I found very surprising when I heard about it yesterday). For instance, I direct you to the Green Party candidate for Edmonton-Whitemud. She sums up her biography as follows: "The following terms represent who and what moved her to do so: tears and hope, community building, polar bears, connectedness, learning, commitment and responsibility, service, God."

One of those things is not like the other.

On the other side of the spectrum, we have the Wild Rose Alliance Party... whose website has been unavailable for the entire day. Whoops. Regardless, they're the amalgation of two parties which thought the Alberta Tories weren't right-wing enough. Well, it's one thing to accuse the Conservatives of overtaxation, but how else does that get reflected in their policies? Contrary to what you might expect, dealing with the downtrodden is a big point in their agenda. In fact, they've got a plan for eliminating the homeless problem in Alberta within four years.

...hm. Four years. That doesn't seem like a long time to build the social support network, does it?

They don't go into further details, but I suspect that their intended methods haven't been used in a long time. In fact, I suspect that they consider that to be one of their best features. In all honesty, the sociologist in me is kind of curious to see what would happen if they won... but I'm reasonably certain their methods will remain hypothetical for a few more years.

Ah, well. Regardless of the outcome, I'll still go to work tomorrow, and...

What the?

Well, what do you know. In the time it took be to write the last two paragraphs, the Conservatives went ahead and won the whole thing.

The polls closed forty-three minutes ago.

Come on, Albertans. I don't mind if you elect yet another PC government... but could you at least try to put on a little show for the crowd once in a while?