Uh-oh! Lucy van Pelt is back and she's brought her football.

She'll be setting it up any moment from now and asking all us Albertan Charlie Browns to line up and give it a kick. When we obligingly comply -- or compliantly oblige, whatever -- she's going to jerk it away again, just like she always does.

We know it. She knows it. And we keep on doing it. What's with this, anyway?

The biggest political news in Alberta in the past few days, pretty obviously, is the fact that whether we like it or not we're in for another federal election.

But just because it's in the news doesn't make it a "news story" in the way journalists would define the term anywhere else in Canada. That's because it's pretty well a sure thing what Albertans, those few who bother to vote anyway, are going to do on May 2.

With the possible exception of our eccentric neighbours in Edmonton-Strathcona, it's pretty much a given we'll all go out and vote in overwhelming numbers for Conservatives. That's just the way we do things in Alberta.

Sherwood Park is the Charlie Brown of Alberta communities.

Sherwood Park is a hamlet with a population of more than 60,000 on Edmonton's eastern border. (Really! We’re not making this up!)

It’s a "hamlet" -- legally speaking -- because it's part of Strathcona County. People out there like it that way because its weird legal status keeps residential taxes low.