Too much fighting on the dance floor
Too much fighting on the dance floor
We here at Alberta Advantage thank you all for your patronage during 2020, the normalest year on record. Enjoy whatever holidays you get this month and accept good vibes from us to you.
Christmas is a time to heal, a time to eat and drink, a time to make merry. It’s a time to give gifts, and a time to deliver passive aggression so strong it will bring family members to their mental knees, coughing and spluttering in the shadow of unspoken disdain. It’s in this spirit that we present the first annual Alberta Advantage Anti-Stockings, a rundown of gifts we would give our provincial luminaries were we to stoop to sharing a room with them.
Ryan Jesperson - we welcome everyone to the podcasting sphere with open arms, but if you’re going to be more popular than us could you have some politics? Radical centrism on the radio is like chewing sheetrock like bubblegum, so we gift Ryan some sheetrock to chew like bubblegum.
Dr. Deena Hinshaw - when you’re a nominally independent body but you choose to bow to a political boss you take responsibility for the decisions of that porcine boss. For the crime of watching people die in piles and thinking she can do more good by staying silent and “changing things from inside” she gets her MD revoked and is forced to work in a mortuary for five years.
Cargill Meats and Dreeshen - Cargill meat processing blocked their union from taking part in COVID safety meetings, got a shop steward and countless others killed for no reason other than shareholder value, and their shithead patron in government Devin Dreeshen simped for them in Edmonton the whole time. Their Christmas treat is eating an entire raw turkey with COVID, and if they cough they have to start a new turkey.
Matt Wolf and his Issues Management Fuckboy Band - they probably snicker behind their hands at liberals with soft jobs while sitting on the plushest sack of bullshit in the country. Official Twitter slapfighters for the government, this group of shitheels soaks the province for millions to hop into your menchies to inform you that South Asians in church are, um, actually the reason why Glorious Leader isn’t responsible for his army of Albertan plague dead. Their gift is doing manual labour at a Cargill meat plant with no masks.
Rachel Notley - for steadfast refusal to do politics, limp support of labour action, and dedication to never making any ripples in the pond, the NDP leader gets a large-format copy of What Is To Be Done, and a one-hour Zoom meeting with Evo Morales where he laughs at her strategy the whole time.
Jeremy Farkas - a politician so inept he makes Sean Chu lean back and go “oh my god dude get good already”, Jeremy thinks that perpetuating fact-free politics and playing on the dumbest fears of his impotently angry constituency will vault him to the mayor’s office. He’s probably right! His stocking is filled with a biopic of his life focused on when he tried to big time Diane Colley-Urquhart and fell flat on his square face.
Calgary Police Service - the small city police service with big city abuse ambition, the Calgary Police Service shoots first and resigns before their disciplinary hearings. Whether they’re suplexing tiny women into cement floors or probably fabricating massive busts on super-criminal conspiracies, the Calgary Police Service reminds us every day that any speeding ticket pull-over could be our last. Their gift is a week in a prison guarded by everyone they’ve incarcerated on bullshit charges. If that’s nobody, well, I guess they’ll be fine ;)
Rajan Sawhney - the hatchetwoman for further immiserating the most vulnerable people in our province, Rajan’s barely concealed glee at cutting AISH for rounding-error savings was a gift to every mouth-breathing knuckle-dragger who’s ever claimed that “um, AISH is actually rife with fraud”. Her stocking is filled with a new job as personal accountant to every person with a disability in the province. When AISH payments don’t cover their expenses the difference is taken from her children’s RESPs.
Anti-Mask Protesters - look, I have nowhere to wear my red pumps these days either but just because you want more mileage out of your TRUMP 2020 banner doesn’t mean you should fill hospitals with your decaying lungs for the pleasure. We get that you have to blink manually and that your fear of China outpaces your fear of mortality, but if you could move your goutish figures six feet apart for the duration of your intelligence parade that would be swell. Your gift is an adult book you are required to read front to back for the first time since junior high.
“Wilson” Brett Wilson - potentially the most useless billionaire on the planet, Warble Brum Wimble is a knight on the field of shitposting, providing neither expertise nor amusement on Twitter every day of his life. That sounds like a sufficiently punishing life, but for Christmas we got him the entire inventory of a Brooks Brothers, including furniture and fixtures, and have piled it on his body all at once.
Jason Nixon - Jason knows there is no future for the planet (if he and his ilk have anything to say about it) so he feels no compunction about selling parks to build coal mines. Like a horse dying in his sight, the other shitty Jason is putting the barrel against the temple of future generations’ enjoyment of natural beauty and putting it out of its misery for paltry sums. His Christmas surprise is a saddle and bridle he has to wear so the premier can ride him like a pony.
Wildcat strike killers - if you look at the current political landscape and decide to STRIKE A COMMITTEE to create some REALISTIC, ACHIEVEABLE DEMANDS that you can DELIVER IN A LETTER then WAIT FOR RESULTS and then MAYBE DO SOME LABOUR ACTION AT SOME POINT, maybe you should step your anemic ass down and make way for someone with some sand to take your place. Even a houseplant or cactus would be a lateral move. They know who they are and their gift is nothing, a reminder of what their current mewling course gets them.
Jason Luan - if you look at safe injection sites and say “fuck that, let them die”, maybe you shouldn’t be in charge of addictions treatment or administration at any level? I know you need to find a way to funnel money through shell corporations to the Kenney family gay-conversion concerns, but maybe look a touch contrite while you do it. The Other Other Jason gets his daily coke bump laced with fent and the only person who can save him is a Deloitte auditor who was never provided with a naloxone shot.
Kaycee Madu - the guardian angel of shitty police departments everywhere, the man with the pageant circuit first name is forced to smile and say “bad apples” every day of his life while wagging a finger at people who think “maybe an armed C-student shouldn’t fix problems we created by having no social safety net”. For his performance this year Kaycee has earned a carding by Edmonton police constables who don’t know who he is and he has no ID on his person. It’s a gamble but I’m sure his trust isn’t misplaced.
For-profit retirement home providers - I don’t have any jokes for those who will reap record profits for being ground-zero for death and pestilence. Every level of government will pass legislation absolving them of liability and their vacancies will be filled immediately because other options are non-existent or full. Their stocking is filled with a single doorknob and it’s being swung at their collective heads like a morning star.
Tom Olsen - the doddering grandpa propagandist can’t figure out where the Google is on the desktop but has a whole office of teen functionaries installing his printer for him. What work they do in public can’t get any clicks and the stuff they do in private is hidden from scrutiny, so Tom gets a cosmic FOIP request under the tree. It requires him to prove anyone has ever truly loved him, with documentation.
Danielle Smith - sure, she has no problem having white supremacists on her show, but you have to admire someone who would execute a kitten if it got her a single hit on Fox & Friends. Her gift is an hourly paddling with a lawn sign that says “Sinophobia” until she develops signophobia.
Stephen Carter - smooth of pate and smooth of grey matter, Stephen runs political campaigns (in his mind) and is an expert in Alberta politics (he imagines). This fragile snowflake blocks people on Twitter for a living, so his gift is getting blocked from his office after full ownership of his Decide Campaigns is transferred to ME, baby.
Jason Kenney - the big palooka, our duly elected Babybel wheel at the wheel. A man so charisma-free he could dry a chicken breast into jerky with a glare. The Rick Ross of macroeconomic failure and someone Maggie Thatcher would describe as “a little much”. One thing we can’t deny, however, is the insane bodycount he has accrued per capita despite never directly commanding a military. His gift this year is an all-expenses paid “trade encouragement trip” to Argentina where Ricardo Gurndorf and his grandfather, Hans, will praise him for his creativity in population control.
Clinton Hallahan - edits a shitty newsletter, gets pneumonia after “having kind of a long day”, and a man who makes love like the 1972 Philadelphia Flyers, Clinton taps away on his stupid little keyboard and thinks he’s so much better than everyone else. The only problem? He’s fucking correct. His gift is continued supremacy, a new friendship with Beyonce, and a brand new sensible pickup truck so he can help his friends move. What a good dude, damn. Merry Christmas.
-Clinton Hallahan
🎱White supremacists, including Albertans, are very bad at op-sec.
😗JayKen only likes protests where people can get sick and die quickly.
👾The RCMP has files on you and Justin Trudeau won’t do shit about it, I bet.
🧸The CRA hold music to collect CERB is the site of some drama and non-payment of artists.
🧉The new US Secretary of State is already a war criminal for writing shit like this.
🕹Absolute shithead probably going to jail but not for nearly long enough.
🧲Robbing the doomsday ark of the elite is praxis.
🦿Ontario pensions are funding high-carbon projects in Alberta.
🦻The Canadian government will absolutely give you cash then ask you to pay it back because they fucked up.
🌀All exceptionalism gets people killed.
👨Global capitalism get some of your family killed? Hunt down their killers like a fucking badass!
🃏What’s the point of solidarity?
🎩If you are an industry unto yourself you should absolutely use your leverage to pressure your employer to give you exactly what you want.
🖌COVID parties are stupid as hell but just not answering the door and barely pretending to not be home when the cops come calling is pretty inspired.
📉AA’s Karen went on Kino Lefter to talk more Bond!
🎧This week Alberta Advantage talked about times when labour action went pretty good and one that went pretty bad.
🔇Big Shiny Takes went in on Ivison. We honour their sacrifice.
🎚️The Progress Report talks about how we all watch super-spreader events every week and do nothing because life is a pit.
🥽AMexCal and Migrante Alberta are doing a winter clothing drive for migrant workers coming to Alberta this winter. Find out more here.
A Quick Note: if you want us to include an article, petition, link to an event, or just want to drop us a quick line, reply to this newsletter or reach us at albertaadvantagenewsletter [at] gmail [dot] com. We’d love to hear from you! If you want to send some old timey mail, grab those stamps and send tributes/cake/not anthrax to Alberta Advantage Podcast, PO Box 52167 Edmonton Trail, Calgary, AB, T2E 8K9.
Our editor is Clinton Hallahan. Newsletter subject lines are stolen from these songs.
