Free at last

Here is Cam Cardow's powerful cartoon about Obama closing Guantanamo



What makes this so powerful is its basic truth: when Guantanamo is closed, it is the United States that will be free -- free of its taint to their legal system, free of its distortion to their foreign policy, free of its drain on their morals and values, free of its malignant influence over everything they are trying to achieve in the world now.

Ode to a Deficit

From "anon 1.01" in Comments

Ode To A Deficit by J. Flaherty
Oh budget, how do I blow thee, let me count the ways.
There was that trifling 10 billion in red I was hiding until summer.
Cost of that war and tanks and planes coming due, oh man, tis such a bummer.
By fate we stumbled on this reprieve, a deficit allowed.
That heap of debts I hid till now are lost among the crowd.
Experts like me, we don't come cheap, on the job all the time.
By the way buddy, with pockets deep, think you could spare a dime?

As Saskboy says, anon writes good stuff!

Can the Harper Conservatives manage a deficit?

Basically, I'm with Chet that there is nothing inherently wrong with a government running a deficit as long as the money goes into jobs and roads.
But as I see Conservatives freak out it occurs to me that maybe they know something I don't know.
They know the Harper Conservatives much better than I do.
They know whether these guys actually have the management skills to use deficit spending for the short-term and/or long-term benefit of the country.
So let's consider the track record -- what other complex and controversial programs have the Harper Conservatives managed successfully in the last few years? ... [crickets]
Oh, dear.

No apologies

I love it that Obama is not apologizing for being a democrat. And I love it that Ignatieff is not apologizing for being a liberal.
Because nobody votes for a politician who doesn't believe in himself.

WATB

Remember how, within a month of Dion's selection, Harper moved quickly to label Dion as an incompetent wimp?
Well, I think Ignatieff has turned the tables and is now applying a label to Harper.
And the label is Whiny Ass Titty Baby.
Today, Ignatieff criticized the leaks of the projected budget deficit numbers, inserting a characterization of Harper as an immature blowhard:

"I asked Mr. Harper not to play games like that," Ignatieff said during a speech in Toronto.
"I told him to put the facts and figures on the table, not let them slip out at his convenience. But the guy can't help himself. He thinks it is all some kind of game."

More fun from Drawn

Bubbilicious by Rex The Dog


Bubblicious from Rex The Dog on Vimeo.

Fighting Iggy

What a great photo to accompany this Canadian Press story that Iggy will come out swinging against Harper if he has to:

"This budget has three simple tests that it must pass," Ignatieff told Liberal MPs and senators at his first caucus meeting since assuming the leadership last month.
"Will it protect the most vulnerable? Will it save jobs? And most important of all, will it create the jobs of tomorrow?"
Liberal finance critic Scott Brison said the leader's conditions mean the budget must "avoid a long-term structural deficit with irresponsible tax gimmicks that could prove irreversible once the economy recovers."

Sounds like they wouldn't be supporting any kind of Harper magical mystery tour budget.

Great line of the day

Digby posted some music to celebrate the inauguration and then said this:

I was going to put up "Ding Dong The Witch is Dead" but it seemed inappropriate to this moment of reconciliation. But I hummed it.

As did we all.

America the beautiful

What a great concert this was, for a great country -- check out Al Rodger's photos at Daily Kos. This was my favorite, showing Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen at the Washington Mall -- I don't think I have ever seen two happier people than Seeger and Springsteen singing This Land Is Your Land while Barak Obama sang along.
Chief Lawrence Joseph has gone to the inauguration and I envy him -- the experience would be amazing. Chief Joseph says "It's going to be emotional, very exciting and, in my world, a very humbling experience".
The reports I am reading tonight from people who are in Washington now describe the atmosphere as "electric".

Cheap shot

Now that the so-called "cheap shot specialist" of the Commons, Peter Van Loan, is public safety minister, we're reading stories about Education professors being denied entry to speak at academic conferences -- the day before the Obama inauguration. Great timing, guys.
That'll sure convince the Obama administration that Canada is a place they want to do business with, won't it.

To see ourselves as other see us

It's always interesting to read about your city from the viewpoint of someone who had never been here before.
Pretty positive article, except she seemed a little surprised that the hotel was so nice. And of course she mentioned the cold -- and boy, has it ever been cold lately. But its finally warmed up now.
You know, we have large numbers of university students coming here from semi-tropical countries and they must be absolutely stunned at their first winter here. But one thing I tell them -- once you realize that you can live quite happily in Saskatchewan summer and winter, then you can live anywhere in the world, because weather simply will never be a factor to you again.
When we lived on the west coast, we met people who actually could not live in any other part of the country because they were so afraid of winter. So their careers were really truncated as a result.

MIA

Steve looks back on what the Harper government has done for the last seven months to deal with the economic crisis:

. . . in the face of an economic storm, our government has been AWOL . . . when I hear talk from the likes of Baird about "quick action" and recognizing the gravity, the proud record of pre-emptive measures, it's worth remembering- 221 days of a Parliament completely AWOL, during the worst economic crisis in at least a generation. . . . where was the Government of Canada during the crucial time? Either on holiday, forcing an election, proroguing Parliament or spending all their energy trying to kill political opponents. That's it, while Rome burned. A disgrace, by any measure.

One of the notable observations about the self-pitying Bush speech last night was that Bush thinks he should get a gold star just for showing up.
Well, Harper hasn't even done that.

Beware the donut of choice!

So Krispy Kreme is offering a free "donut of choice" in celebration of the Obama inauguration.
And there's a group of wingnuts saying this means Krispy Kreme is pro-abortion.
I wonder when they will realize that nobody is going to take this kind of stupidity seriously anymore?

It's really a cookbook

As I read Digby's post about how conservatives still worship Ayn Rand's 50-year-old novel Atlas Shrugged, I started to wonder -- has anyone ever told them "It's a cookbook"?

Great line of the day

Mr. Sinister predicts that the Tory budget will be a magical mystery tour:

The Tories will present a beautiful budget (think Stalin's 1936 Constitution), full of beautiful promises and wads of cash, never to be seen or heard from again (until the next election when they will be reannounced).