There's no doubt about it: chuckwagon races are as exciting as hell. There's also no getting around the fact they’re cruel to horses.

With the 100th anniversary of the Calgary Stampede almost upon us -- the "Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth" marks its centennial on July 6 -- it's time once again to turn our attention a popular event that uses pointless cruelty for entertainment.

For, sure as shootin', a horse will die in a Stampede chuckwagon race this year, as horses die pointlessly every year for the entertainment of the humans who pack the Stampede grounds to witness the thundering excitement of the races.

This compliment may come out sounding a little more backhanded than intended, but the Alberta Legislature could have done a lot worse than choose someone like Gene Zwozdesky to wear the Speaker’s three-cornered hat, as its MLAs did yesterday.

This concludes the principal business of this otherwise silly six-day legislative session: naming a replacement for former speaker Ken Kowalski, who is no longer a member of the House and whose influence, rest assured Premier Alison Redford long ago concluded, needed to end forthwith.

It’s great work if you can find it!

The first session of the 28th Legislature of Alberta opens tomorrow and will sit for … hold onto your hats, people … all of six days.

In their defence, sort of, that's about all Premier Alison Redford and the rest of the Legislature's 87 MLAs are going to need anyway, because they only plan to deal with one piece of legislation, something called, appropriately enough, Bill 1.

Bill 1 is … well, actually, Bill 1 is a secret. You'll find out what it’s about tomorrow at the same time as the rest of us.

"BRIEFING NOTE: Respond to criticism about economic impact of high-Loonie, everything-for-petrochemical-industry policy by making voters see Thomas Mulcair as recklessly un-Canadian…"

This isn't an actual quote from the Tories' current list of talking points, but it seems to be what the Strategic Heavy Lifters in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative brain trust have in mind for their main attack on the leader of the NDP Opposition. Expect them to trot out that French passport momentarily.

They promised us the Mother of All Battles, and the best they can come up with before Harper's Republican Guards bug off to the dusty hills of Alberta is to call the NDP leader un-Canadian?

Pathetic!

If the Alberta and federal governments' mismanagement of oil sands development were not so clear and their defence of their policies not so divisive and intellectually dishonest, one could feel a little more sympathy with their foot-stomping and tears of outrage at Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair's diagnosis Canada suffers from "Dutch Disease."

Alberta Health Minister Fred Horne's musings he just might join Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty in declaring war on physicians' fees is proof the chickens continue to come home to roost for those foolish enough to assume the polls were right and the Wildrose Party would win the April 23 Alberta election.

It was journalists, bloggers, pollsters and certain far-right politicians who had to eat crow instead of chicken after last month's epic polling fail, but it may turn out as the henhouse dust settles it was another class of customer entirely who really has to pay for this historic miscalculation.

Edmonton is going to have to deal with Wildrose Party Leader Danielle Smith. Got that?

Mayor Stephen Mandel rather dryly cleared that question up yesterday.

The mayor's actual words after a 30-minute closed-door meeting with Smith: "It was fine. … She's the leader of the Opposition."

Got that? OK, now we can … ummm … get down to business.

The probability is very high that the next Canadian federal election will happen before the next Alberta provincial vote.

So, will Premier Alison Redford's Tories just sit on their hands? Or will they get out and actively work against Prime Minister Stephen Harper's so-called Conservative Party of Canada, whose Alberta MPs so openly betrayed their provincial kin in the election that took place on April 23?

This will become an increasingly important question as the next federal election approaches -- especially if the NDP under Thomas Mulcair manage to hang onto or increase their edge in the national polls.

Oh gosh, here we go again! When in doubt, blame those Eastern bastards!

Alberta may be the richest, biggest, loudest kid in Confederation, but at the first sign of opposition to anything we want to do, we turn whiny and defensive, noisily blaming everyone else for all our troubles.

We've seen plenty examples of this in the past couple of days -- ever since federal NDP Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair dared to connect the dots between the breakneck pace of Alberta's oilsands development and the deleterious impact the resulting strong petro-Loonie is having on Central Canada's manufacturing sector.