When in doubt, stall.

There's not a politician on this planet who hasn't tried this one from time to time, for the sensible reason it often works. After all, the media and the public are like a kitten with a string -- they lose interest easily.

So the buzz at the Alberta Legislature today was that the battered and reeling Tory government of Premier Ed Stelmach, coming off a spectacularly bad 2010 and contemplating a fairly iffy 2011, is about to give itself a little extra breather by delaying the spring session of the Legislature until late February.

If you're wondering where most of Stephen Harper's big political ideas come from, look no further than Alberta.

And so it is with this holiday season's Conservative-NDP détente, which is whipping the federal Liberals into a froth of self-righteous frustration. The prime minister has torn this particular page right out of the Ralph Klein playbook.

This year's winter holiday season marks the beginning of the end of one more in a long string of media traditions that have fallen to the Internet.

You are forgiven if you missed this one. After all, it was a secret. That is, it was information to which only privileged members of the media and political fraternities were privy. It tells, nevertheless, a story of how the Internet and the technology that drives it is irrevocably changing the cozy little world of media insiders. For the better, I guess.

With likely future political challenges in mind, presumably, Alberta Finance Minister Ted Moron recently rolled out a spiffy new Website.

Alberta Finance Minister Ted Morton successfully portrayed himself as an arch-typical Western gunslinger yesterday when he mused aloud in the Calgary media about going toe to toe with Wildrose Alliance Leader Danielle Smith in the new Okotoks-High River riding in the next provincial election, which is surely coming sooner than later.

In reality, however, Morton's talk of seeking the Conservative nomination in the area of well-heeled bedroom suburbs and million-dollar hobby ranches south of Calgary was more likely motivated by a simple instinct for self-preservation.

Alberta is not quite at the point where it can be said with confidence that the next government will be formed by the far-right Wildrose Alliance Party, but that possibility seems a lot closer today than it did two weeks ago.

Results of a new poll published Sunday by Environics Research Group shows Danielle Smith's party in a statistical dead heat with the Conservatives under Premier Ed Stelmach.

Plenty of troubling facts have emerged in the media about the bankruptcy of Networc Health Inc., the private Calgary surgical clinic that Wildrose Alliance Leader Danielle Smith says Alberta taxpayers should bail out and keep operating.

For example, it is well known to the public from mainstream media reports that Alberta Health Services has intervened in bankruptcy proceedings against Networc in order to ensure that hip and knee surgeries can continue in the Calgary area, and that this court action has turned into an increasingly acrimonious public battle.