Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • Bah, Humbug!
Lumps of imaginary coal for offending parties in 2008

We know the holiday season is supposed to be about love for our fellow human beings, good cheer and whatnot, but this year we are full of bah humbug.

Maybe it’s the packed malls, or the fact that we haven’t seen the sun for almost a week now, but we just can’t bring ourselves to offer anyone good cheer on this grey December morning.

Sure 2008 had it’s up sides, and we’ll get to those next week after we’re had a couple days of family and food to mellow out, but right now we’ve got a bucket of imaginary coal sitting in the SEE office that needs to be distributed to offending parities.

So, there’s a lump for all the institutions and people who’s serious and silly blunders disturbed us this year, in no particular order.

*China for producing the mountains of lead-laden junk for us to put under the Christmas tree each year.
*Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty for the “economic update” that could still result in yet another election.
*The United States for getting us into the current economic mess through unbridled greed and stupid leadership. (Let’s hope we see a change with Barack Obama.)
*The people who own Edmonton’s daily newspapers because even in boom times both were shadows of their former selves. Let’s also send a lump of coal to Conrad Black’s jail cell for his part in this debacle.
*Michael Ignatieff for accepting the leadership of the federal Liberal party, even though the members of his party didn’t democratically elect him.
*The pundits and pollsters who continually talked about low voter turn out before the provincial and federal elections, and then bemoaned the low voter turn out.
*Kevin Taft, former Alberta Liberal leader and MLA for Edmonton Riverview, for trying to make rodeo Alberta’s official sport.
*Elections Alberta for not placing a polling station on the Blood and Piikani reserves for the provincial election. And a big second helping from all the Albertans who had problems voting even when they had a local polling station.
*Albertans for not showing up to vote.
*An auto industry that sacrificed itself in the name of expensive, fragile, and inefficient vehicles, then expected taxpayers to bail them out.
*Stephen Harper, for breaking his own election law, appointing unelected senators, and failing to reach across partisan lines to work on the economy.
*Mayor Stephen Mandel. Despite the promises, traffic to the west end only gets worse.
*The pundits and pollsters who continually talked about how the opposition parties were staging a hostile takeover when they signed a coalition agreement, and then ran polls about people being afraid of a coalition government.