Unhappy Progressive Conservative traditionalists have termed the still theoretical united-right party PC leadership Jason Kenney hopes to create after he wins the party leadership in March, "Wildrose 2.0."

But surely this is incorrect. If the Danielle Smith led Opposition party ginned up by oilpatch operators unhappy with former PC premier Ed Stelmach's plan to get Albertans a slightly better return on the resources they own was Wildrose 1.0, surely the B-Team now headed by Brian Jean is already Wildrose 2.0!

That means that in the likely event Kenney succeeds in uniting the right on his radical social conservative terms, the new entity should be called Wildrose 3.0.

Saskatchewan appears to be suffering from a serious economic malady.

Nobel Prize-winning economist and journalist Paul Krugman calls it "Austerity Fever."

Canadian economist and journalist Toby Sanger calls it Sudden Apocalyptic Deficit Syndrome (SADS).

Call it what you will, a new case has now been diagnosed in Manitoba, and conservatives here in Alberta appear to have been afflicted as well -- although, thankfully, not our social democratic NDP government.

As a result, for the time being at least, we will likely be spared the worst symptoms of this tragic condition, which Sanger noted in correspondence with your blogger is "mainly a disease of affluent older white males, in which the 'cure' is inflicted on others, and is far worse than the disease."

Optimistically billing themselves "the common sense centre," Alberta's provincial Liberal Party launched its contest yesterday to find a permanent replacement for interim Leader David Swann, the party's sole MLA.

The slogan for the Alberta Liberal leadership race -- which will run from today until March 31 -- is definitely better than anything the Alberta Progressive Conservatives have come up for their effort to replace their interim Leader, Ric McIver, which alert readers will recall is also under way.

As an aside, it must be noted that the governing New Democratic Party does not have a leadership race under way at the moment, seeing as its leader, Premier Rachel Notley, cannot be accused of having botched the last Alberta provincial election on May 5, 2015.

As 2017 begins, we still await the details of Wildrose Party Leader Brian Jean's alternative plan to unite the right.

All we're supposed to know is that it presumably involves him, and not Jason Kenney or some other nominal Progressive Conservative, leading the charge against the NDP government of Premier Rachel Notley in the next provincial general election.

The Wildrose Party is still cooking up their launch strategy, and their only comment is that they won't yet comment. Naturally, idle hands being the Devil's workshop, this leads to idle speculation on the part of bloggers.