Ralph Klein News

It's unlikely that Ralph Klein's foray into the world of game shows will make Alex Trebek look over his shoulder.

Tim Cook Edmonton - Published on Friday, Mar. 19, 2010 6:05PM EDT Last updated on Friday, Mar.

After months of dithering, Premier Ed Stelmach caved in to its demand for lower royalties a ' the rental rate for the publicly owned oil and natural gas that is extracted from the ground and eventually sold at market prices.

Angus Reid has updated their Premier approval numbers from November and it's not rosy - only 2 of the 10 Premiers crack the 30% approval barrier.

Nobody should be surprised by the Alberta government's U-turn on energy royalties.

Alberta's government has long had an unusual relationship with high finance. In the '30s, premier William Aberhart's Social Credit party swept to power promising its own form of currency and to put banks under provincial control.

When the billions flowed as a hefty budget surplus, Albertans didn't mind subsidizing a better life for poorer provinces.

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach and energy minister Ron Liepert announce the province's competitiveness review during a news conference at the McDougall Centre in Calgary on Thursday March 11, 2010.

Cancer survivor Wolfgang Becker, 68 pictured in his home in Calgary, Alberta on March 10, 2010.

Photo by Murray CrawfordThe keynote speaker of the first Vermilion-Lloydminster Wildrose Alliance party constituency meeting was the party s leader Danielle Smith, pictured above.

Sarah Palin was in Calgary to give a speech on March 6, 2010. Calgary, as Republican as many red states, seems to attract the right wing speakers as places like Toronto do not.

Ninety minutes before Sarah Palin took the stage, a girl with facial piercings bounded into the lobby of the BMO Centre at Calgary's Stampede Park.

It's more rehash than recalibration -- a prorogation credibility gap filled with many words and a few shiny low-cost baubles to distract from an eloquent three-months-in-the-making rewrite of the old government agenda.

On Oct. 7, 1992, Dave Bronconnier stood before 170 voters in the gymnasium of A.E. Cross Junior High.

The U.S. Capitol dome looms behind Gary Mar, the government of Alberta's representative in Washington May 21, 2009.

For a government that rode into office two years ago on a platform of "accountability" and "transparency", Premier Brad Wall's administration has sometimes struggled to prove its commitment to principles.

Today's editorial in The Telegram is a bit of a disappointment, I must say. The paper seems to have capitulated to the tyranny of the mob.

Maybe the Burrowing Owl deserves credit. In 1998, a fledgling National Post reported that the population of that bird, endangered on the Western grasslands, was "bouncing back," its number doubling in southeast Alberta from a few years earlier.

Instead of drastic cuts to health care, as many observers had predicted, the government decided to pay off Alberta Health Services' accumulated $1.3 billion deficit as well as boost its annual budget.

Bill Clinton had two stents surgically implanted in an artery on Thursday after complaining of chest pains two days ago.