This day in (blog) history

Hey, remember H1N1? A year ago, it was all the rage. People were terrified of the disease, mass public immunizations were impacted by a yet-unexplained worldwide shortage, and after weeks of worry that conspiracy theories would keep people from getting the shot, Alberta's clinics were swamped.

Naturally, this was a field day for the opposition parties. As a sign of "the more things change", this year it was ER wait times. As the fall sitting of the legislature opens, it seems that there is no shortage of seniors that the Liberals or NDP can try to scare into voting against the Tories to save their own lives.

Which, of course, brings us back to last year's crisis. Another opposition politician scaring seniors that the Stelmach government was going to kill them. It wasn't ER wait times, which was surely a problem last year. It was the government reaction to flu clinic wait times that were an issue (as is normal for this, the issue was government inaction until action was taken, then the action itself was a horrific act).

Which is where Third Edge of the Sword came in. Last year, in a shameless attempt to scare high risk infection groups gullible voters, Alberta Liberal MLA David Swann, who claims to be a doctor, lied his ass off.

Yes I know I'm still linking to the post. David Swann is a liar. He used his alleged medical job to bring a (false) sense of gravitas to his claims, he outright lied to the people of Alberta and endangered the lives of real people who could have succumbed to the flu had he got his way.

Okay, you've had lots of chances to click the link now. Let's summarize. Seniors are not at very high-risk for contracting H1N1: in fact they are amoung the lowest. Of course, Swann could hardly say "hey easily frightened old people! Stelmach is right, you shouldn't be allowed to get H1N1 shots because to do so would risk the health and safety of women and children." It's true, of course. Which is why a Liberal would have so much trouble saying it.

So I said so. I pointed out the outright lie that had serious consequences for the health and safety of Albertans. Then for fun, I pointed out another lie by Swann that was more just for fun. Then, after some surmising that Swann had gotten his own shots, I proved that he promised he would be doing so earlier in the week. Much to the delight of Lib-NDP apologists, it transpired he didn't...which means that later on in the post I identified yet another lie by David Swann.

Here, let's read some highlights:

Ahh, great stuff.

So, uh, you might see that the Alberta Liberal Party left almost as many blog comments as there are MLAs in their party. Amoung them, Ken Chapman went apeshit that I used ellipses to shorten one of the quotes, so I could fit it in a nice little info-box next to Swann's picture. They really jumped on that, which would have been impressive had I not already noted in the post that no matter which version (long or short) you read, Swann is a liar and/or an idiot. Chapman tried making strawman argument after strawman argument on Twitter. I got so tired of trying to fit responses into 140 characters (and also his tendency to accuse me of making up things that I already had linked to the proof of) that I just wrote another blogpost. It's got some highlights too, though less political and more just ripping into somebody who doesn't like his sacred cows being slaughtered by a master hunter:


A year later, with "ER wait times" the new emergency, what else has Swann been lying about? I neither know nor care to read up on the fine details of this "issue", so unlike H1N1 (where I had a specific reason to be concerned in favour of Swann: despite volunteering in a flu clinic my mother was not vaccinated -- even when interacting with potentially infected members of the public she was deemed not in a high risk group) I can't pick apart the public statements and promises in the legislature Swann has made. Though if past performance is any indication of future earnings, then David Swann is lying about ER wait times. And he's playing politics with your tax dollars and your health. Again.