Oil, Alberta, and events in Venezuela and Iran

Many people, assuming events in Venezuela and Iran end well for the people there, think that the presence of enormous and easily accessible oil reserves in those two countries bodes ill for Alberta's ability to sell its hydrocarbons on world markets. They're wrong - badly wrong.

First, it will take over a year before governments in those two countries achieve the stability needed before the risk associated with investing in either country falls to the level needed for private sector resource commitment.

And now from far out in right field, where the math nerds live..

I recently had the unhappy experience of having to review my understanding, or utter lack of it, of category theory. Yikes - but, with all due respect to Eilenberg et al, I'd now like to at least try to write down an appropriately childish thought about making sense of it all.

I thought I'd get a head start on predictions for 2026..

Politics:

First and foremost: the state of the world for the next two decades will be determined largely by the 2026 U.S. midterms. The people who control the democratic party certainly know their futures depend on this; Canada's Mark Carney and leaders across western Europe have bet their countries on Trump losing; and the GOP national leadership is only just starting to understand that the issues extend beyond their immediate personal agendas.

[A note to American readers: Alberta is Canada's energy province; Danielle Smith is the premier of Alberta and leader of the United Conservative Party [UCP]; Mark Carney is the Trump hating progressive prime minister of Canada; Ottawa is the capital of Canada and the people there act as if they think Alberta is a colony of rich rural yokels to be exploited at will.]

The Alberta provincial government just passed "Bill 2: The Back to School Act" to end a three week strike by Alberta's teachers. The act itself is draconian: orders the teachers back to work, establishes significant penalties for arguing with the government on it, and imposes a contract rejected by about 90% of those teachers who voted on it nearly a month ago.

My view, last year, was that the ATA [the teacher’s union] and the UCP [Conservative Alberta government] technical advisors all wanted the nastiest and longest possible strike to be followed by a poor settlement specifically and only because that would provide the maximum electoral benefit to the NDP [Canada’s leftist party].

Dear Premier Smith et al:

Let's start with the elephant: referenda on independence.

In my opinion:

Western Canadian Separatism

Western Canadian separatism in Alberta and Saskatchewan is a political hot potato in Canada right now with the federal liberal party, whose owners have absolutely no interest in meeting the needs of either province, making soothing sounds while they get their trade deal with the United States squared away and put the legislative and regulatory changes they need to implement their policies in place.

Those changes seem to include:

Abhorrent Solutions II

I have a number of "ignorant and abhorrent" ideas about how to do things - and I'm comfortable calling them that because I know first how little I know, and second that no expert would ever consider any of them. With that in mind, here are three of them - with rational comments very much requested.

A recent substack essay by Rod Martin: Should Alberta Become the 51st State?" makes what I think is a largely irrefutable socio-economic case for having voters in Alberta and Saskatchewan break out of the Canadian confederation to join the American one instead. Making the change would give us: