I read the news today oh boy

I meant to mention this before, but Scotian has a great post up about the first, and hopefully last, year of the Harper government. It ain't pretty.

This is amazingly stupid -- does Obama think he's running for president of the senior class? Or is he actually serious about winning, first, the nomination, and second, the election? He will be battling an entrenched Republican machine AND a society where racism will be a significant factor limiting his vote-getting potential. So he'll have to out-fundraise and out-spend the Republican candidate by millions and millions, and certainly he'll have to run a 50-state campaign to create the "unstoppable rock-star landslide" impression -- which is the only way a Democratic president has been elected in the United States in the last, oh, 50 years. The last dull Democratic president was Johnson in 1964 -- and he won against Goldwater!

Ouch! I can see the campaign ads already. But I am very glad to see Dion is travelling the country introducing himself to Canadians -- once they get to know him, I expect they'll like him -- he has no where to go but up. RossK wrote an extremely perceptive piece about Harper's success, so far at least, in "KarlRoving" Stephan Dion. In passing, Ross mentioned the Ontario gas shortage, which led MyBlagh's Robert to share this this anecdote in the Comments:

While I was getting gas today, another person pulled up behind me, got out of their car, read the sign on the pump that said "Due to a shortage at this station there is a limit of 50 litres per fill up" and remarked, "Fucking Albertans are hoarding their gasoline." This gas shortage is going to be a ticking timebomb for Harper if it continues for very long; especially once the summer driving season arrives.

Though the Ontario gas shortage has nothing to do with Alberta, I've been wondering if Ontarians are remembering Ralph Klein's "Let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark" insult. And yes, yes they are.

Alison notes that Multiculturalism minister Jason Kenney still hasn't qualified for the Certificate of Hitlertude, but he is making progress. Keep up the fair work, JK!

And the New York Times reports in tomorrow's paper that American airstrikes north of Baghdad have killed "insurgents with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia", a terminology I have never heard before. They are also described as "key terrorists" and "Sunni insurgents". So I guess now the American military is fighting Sunni Al Qaeda Mesopotamian insurgent terrorists -- well, that includes just about everyone, doesn't it?