We're So Very Special

Alberta Prime Minister Stephen Harper has a message for his fellow G8 leaders - "we're special". He has the same message for most of Canada - "we're special" only what he means is we in Alberta are special.

Now to understand this, you need to understand that Harpo has a fetish. His fetish is the prospect of Canada, that is to say Alberta, becoming a global energy superpower. He loves the sound of the word "superpower", it gives him a strange tingling down below and brings that serene glaze to his eyes.

Unfortunately for Harpo, the path to superpowerdom runs straight through the Athabasca tar sands, an enormous pit full of a gooey mixture of sand and dirt and bitumen tar that can be dug and crushed and melted and extracted and refined to produce a form of artificial oil that we can then sell to the Americans. Sure we have to exhaust our fixed stocks of natural gas to process the sludge and sure we cause a great amount of air and water pollution to boot but Dick Cheney wants that oil and plenty more. So don't be telling Harpo about "so-called greenhouse gases" or "global warming" or any of that nonsense. We don't need to worry about that because "we're special."

It's not like Alberta isn't suffering for this. Why just yesterday Calgary revealed that it's been hit really hard by prosperity. Not to worry, Harpo's Ottawa will come to the rescue with - what else, more money.

No, it's not Canada against the world, it's Alberta against the world, Canada included. Thar's gold in that thar sludge and Harpo's damned if he's going to let the deaths of a bunch of Africans get in his way. It's not Harpo's problem if they're not special.