from left to right: Allan Wilson, teacher and writer; Bridget Pastoor, MLA Lethbridge East; and Dr. David Swann, Leader of the Alberta Libera Party.

Dr. David Swann, who has led the Alberta Liberal Party since December of 2008, after Kevin Taft resigned, wants to make it perfectly clear that his party’s mission is to renew itself by reaching out to young people, end voter apathy, make the environment a much larger focus, and renew Canada’s democracy.

Swann has spent over three decades in the field of medicine, and admits jumping from medicine to politics has been ‘really interesting’. Swann says both medicine and politics are essentially about the same thing, creating healthy communities. He says it’s been a ‘fun transition’.

He wants to increase the involvement in Canadian politics, starting with getting people back to the polls at election time.

“It’s a challenging time for the party. You know, we only had a 40 per cent turnout in the polls last year. Our vote dropped, and our membership has dropped to 6,000, our peak membership was in the ‘90s when we had 100,000. A tremendous amount of work needs to be done, I’ve called for a renewal process within the party,” says Swann.

Dr. Swann is scared that we’re losing democracy in our province, and is determined to do something about it by creating ways for people to have a say on issues that concern them.

“That’s why I’m in politics, I’m afraid we’re losing our democracy in this province.  This is 37 years of increasing entitlement, power broking, and self-serving that seems to be a tighter and tighter connection with the corporate community and making decisions in short-term interests of private enterprise, not public interest, for the long term, which is what I’m about,” explains Dr. Swann.

One of the key ways Dr. Swann and his Liberal Party are using to connect with young people is by using the web services they use, such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, keeping a blog, and producing a podcast on Swann’s website, which is http://www.davidswann.ca/.

“[We’re] using web based interaction to hear from people about what they think about the Liberal party,” says Dr. Swann.

For the first time in Alberta history, the Conservative government will be running under a deficit of more then $1 billion. Swann says this is because of a lack of responsible spending, and that the provincial government wasn’t saving during the past decade, when it had oil and gas surpluses of nearly $10 billion per year.

“We’ve spent [all of the] oil wealth coming out of the ground in the last 15 years. The Heritage Fund is worth less then it was when Peter Lougheed left office.”

“We should have been saving during that boom time, because by spending, we caused such an inflation. Housing, costs went sky high, we had everyone wanting to come here because the economy was doing so well, that’s when we should have been saving,” explains Swann.

Dr. Swann says the best way to stimulate the economy is to move away from non renewable resources.

“We need to move away from this fixation on fossil fuels. It’s not only unsustainable, because of the non-renewable resources, it’s unsustainable because we’re killing our climate.  We can tax carbon and give tax incentives for retrofitting your home, for using a high-energy furnace, [and] for using public transit.”

“It’s a lack of imagination, lack of commitment. The [Conservative government is] so tied in tight with the oil industry that they can’t back out,” says Swann.

A lack of affordable housing is a huge issue. Dr. Swann says that the way to solve the housing crisis is to slow down the population growth that has been encouraged in recent years.

“Slowing down the growth would be one thing. That would make less inflation, more affordable housing. We have to, federal, provincial, municipal, develop a longer term plan. We have the largest homeless population in the country in Calgary,” says Dr. Swann.

Dr. Swann blames the growth of the oil sands in respect to our current environmental and economic threats. He says that because of the inflation, the oil sands themselves are in trouble.

“We’ve allowed the oil sands to grow as fast as they’ve wanted to grow without respect to environmental, social, or even the economic threat that we’ve created. Because we’ve increased the level of inflation, we’ve now threatened the oil industry itself,” says Dr. Swann.

Dr. Swann also explains that the government needs to invest more in green technology, and give more incentives.

“If you’re going to invest in a real legacy for future generations, if you’re going to give more incentives for green technology, like solar and wind, geothermal, giving money to create energy efficient buildings. That’s a good investment. We know [the cost of] fossil fuels are going to go higher and higher,” emphasizes Swann.

Swann says the current provincial government isn’t doing enough to monitor or enforce environmental protection.

“They denied climate change up until three years ago. It’s not a priority for this government, to educate people on the greening of their lifestyle, or how to reduce their carbon footprint. That’s where the environment department needs more resources.”

A common complaint among young people and many Canadians is that the level of rhetoric in the legislature needs to be toned down, since seeing our leaders screaming and yelling at each other is hardly inspiring, nor conducive to meaningful conversations.

“My goal is very simple, I want to attract people to politics. I don’t want to repulse them. I think what you called apathy is really repulsion. They don’t like who we are, they don’t like what we do. I want to attract people to politics. If we’re going to attract, we have to act in a responsible, mature, respectful way,” says Dr. Swann.

Last semester, students were quoted saying they would really appreciate it if politicians would come to their workplaces, and our schools, to speak directly to people, many saying it might change their vote if that happened.

“Definitely. I would love to see that. I want more younger people involved. This is your future we’re playing with,” says Dr. Swann.

Originally posted 2009-03-17 01:34:13. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

The internet has grown in use, and so have the tricks hackers and malicious websites use to steal personal information and put viruses and spyware computers. They might try and get you to download a file in order to see special content, or put hidden code in a website that can put itself on to the computer and use it for malicious purposes.

The latest example has been an issue on the website called “Twitter”, where users connect and exchange short messages with useful information and handy links with friends worldwide. Users receive a message from a friend, not knowing their friend’s account has been compromised, they click a link that brings them to a hacker’s website, which steals their twitter login and password, hoping they use the same combination on important websites, like banks.

It’s best to have a different login and password for each website you register for, but if that’s not realistic, have a different set for types of websites, one for banks, one for social networks, one for email, etc.

You’re a smart person, and in no way would I imply otherwise, but hackers and spammers out to make a buck off of your information, and can be very enticing and tricky in getting you to click that link or download that seemingly innocent browser plug-in, so be aware of what you’re doing online.

You may argue that you are running security or antivirus software and that you’re protected. True, but nothing is guaranteed. If you click “yes” or “ok” on something unwittingly, hopefully your software catches it if it’s bad, but it might not. User behaviour is the best defence, so please, pay attention.

A few extra seconds of paying attention to exactly what you are downloading and the websites you are visiting can mean the difference between a healthy computer and having to reinstall Windows and potentially lose your data.

Originally posted 2009-01-17 20:40:25. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

You may have seen it being talked about or used on CBC or CNN, or as a blue icon or bird logo on many popular websites or blogs. If you’re not tech-savvy, you likely just ignored it, thinking of it as just another tool on the internet, which it is, but it’s one of the more useful tools, and it’s seriously worth taking a look at.

The internet is no longer just about going to a website and reading articles. Users are leaving comments, and in a lot of cases, the comments on articles are more interesting and thought-provoking then the news stories themselves.

People are using tools such as Delicious.com, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Twitter, among others, to share their findings with friends and family, and the people they know online. It’s faster and far easier than simply e-mailing something of interest, and much less annoying, as we all hate sifting through email.

Most of us use Facebook on a regular basis, and we update our “status” as we check the latest news of what’s going on in the life of friends and family. Twitter uses a similar function, but eliminates the extra stuff, like applications, and focuses solely on those small status messages.

Facebook’s  status messages are among a mix of other news feed items, not a part of an ongoing conversation between “friends”. Facebook does not have a simple way to view status messages over time. Twitter, on the other hand, is an ongoing, easy to follow conversation between “friends”.

Twitter uses the same concept that text messages use, using a max of 140 characters to say what you want, and is completely free, unlike text messages. You can use your phone, too, but you must have a “smart phone”, like an iPhone or Blackberry (in Canada, anyway, they allow text messages in the U.S.).

One of the most loved components of Twitter is that it’s instant. Last month, when a plane crashed into the Hudson River in New  York City (no one died), people living in the area started “tweeting” about it a full half-hour before news organizations started talking about it.

The reason I enjoying using Twitter is because it’s like a hive mind, with knowledge, websites links, current events, and more being shared on a real-time basis within the online community. Such items may not be newsworthy, but it‘s of interest to me. Obviously, you’re not going share personal details about yourself, though you can talk to other users directly through private messages, if you wish to.
Unlike Facebook, Twitter can communicate with desktop programs designed to work with the service, such as Tweetdeck, or my personal favourite, Twhirl. So, as I’m working or playing on my computer, I can see what my friends (people I “follow”) are saying in real-time.

It’s also a great marketing tool.  Companies can monitor Twitter conversations through the search function, and respond to what is being said about their company or a product. Ever hear the saying, if people have a bad experience, they’ll tell 10 of their friends? If they have 1000 friends on Twitter, that could be a public relations nightmare.

It’s also an awesome tool to get mass-opinions and perspective on issues in real-time, whether it is thoughts on a new law, or a new trend.

Hash tags (i.e.: #lethbridgehurricanes) are often used to make searching for terms and topics easier. To send another user a message, type “@username” (without the quotes). For example, @kevinlcc (my username).

Barack Obama used Twitter (and Facebook) to communicate with those using the services and to reach the younger crowd who use the internet in their daily lives.
There’s no point in joining Twitter if you’re only going to post things like “I had soup for lunch”. That’s what Facebook’s status updates are for. Twitter is about creating conversation. Instead, say “I’m about to have lunch at Moxies. What the best thing on the menu?”

Its best not to start “following” everyone you can find. Use http://search.twitter.com to find a topic of interest, and ”follow” people who are talking about things you care about, and follow who they follow, and so forth. If you end up following thousands of people, and don’t have many people following you, your account can be deleted for abusing the service, so engage in conversations to avoid this.

Even though Twitter’s page asks “What are you doing?” think of it as asking, “What has your interest?”

Originally posted 2009-02-28 20:00:48. Republished by Blog Post Promoter