I told him, Iggy, don't go!

If Ignatieff forces an election next month without any real need for one, just because he can, the Canadian electorate will hand him his head.
Though the pollsters and the journalists love elections, most of the Canadian public do not. They want to go to the polls only when there's a good reason.
Disliking Stephen Harper isn't a good enough reason.
Certainly, there is always a degree of political calculation in any decision to vote down a government -- and nobody is more calculating in that respect than the Harper Conservatives -- but there needs to be a good sort-of-non-political reason, too. Or at least some reason which can be presented as being in the public interest, as opposed to the politician's interest.
Basically, Canadian voters just want that good old peace, order and good government. Absent some overriding national issue or some cause celebre or scandal, or even any leader fatigue, the Canadian public doesn't really want to have to bother about politics very often.
When Harper pulled his stunt last year, calling an election for no good reason, voters would have sandbagged him if they could. What saved Harper then was that people disliked Stephane Dion, so much that many Canadians simply could not bring themselves to vote Liberal. In the end, almost 10 million Canadians sat on their hands and didn't vote at all. So the Conservatives were able to hang onto their base.
Last winter there might have been a good reason for an election -- Harper had proven himself so incompetent with his inadequate and mean economic update that Dion and Layton were able to rev up their supporters and might have been able to justify voting down the government.
And last spring there might also have been a good reason for an election -- Canadians were hurting badly while Harper remained pig-headed about unemployment insurance, so Ignatieff might have been able to justify voting down the government.
But times change. The urgency of unemployment insurance change has dissipated as a national issue, the economy is showing signs of life, and abandoning Canadians abroad is a tough sell.
If Iggy's only answer to the question "Why vote down Harper?" is "Because I can!", that's just not good enough. I fear that Canadians will be so annoyed they'll give Harper a majority just to make sure Ignatieff cannot do it again.

Heck of a job, Cheney!

Steve Benen tells Cheney to fuck off:

What Obama really ought to do, according to Dick Cheney, is seek out the former vice president's advice and follow it. After all, Cheney believes he's proven himself on the issue.
I seem to recall the Bush/Cheney era a little differently. Cheney thinks it was a sterling success when it came to national security and counter-terrorism. Perhaps there's something to this. After all, except for the catastrophic events of 9/11, and the anthrax attacks against Americans, and terrorist attacks against U.S. allies, and the terrorist attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Bush's inability to capture those responsible for 9/11, and waging an unnecessary war that inspired more terrorists, and the success terrorists had in exploiting Bush's international unpopularity, the Bush/Cheney record on counter-terrorism was awesome.
After the previous administration established a record like that, President Obama didn't ask Cheney for tips? The nerve.

Great line of the day

Talking about a ridiculous new book on Europe being taken over by Islam Zombies leads Matthew Yglesias to this comment about conservative world-views:

Running through a lot of contemporary conservative thought is the right’s staggering lack of faith in the power of western civilization’s achievements. Liberal democracy has brought us a great deal of peace and prosperity, and time and again liberal societies have proved stronger than our autocratic rivals. But the right seems obsessed with the idea that impoverished and backward social values, or else dictatorial political institutions, offer the key to world-historical success. Thus Europe, supposedly, would be stronger if it re-embraced fratricidal violence and the United States would be more secure if we embraced the methods of the KGB.

Emphasis mine.

She did WHAT???

I remember when I was pregnant with our first child, one of the things we looked forward to was how having kids would make our lives more interesting because we would learn about things we never would have thought to learn about on our own.
And it turned out to be true. Through our children we have learned about all sorts of interesting stuff, like softball and basketball and hockey and tennis and environmentalism and what its like to be a mascot and philosophy and film making and gay rights and women's studies and the Green Party ... and now, skydiving.
Our daughter went skydiving last weekend!
Apparently, just about anybody can skydive these days in a "tandem" set-up -- basically, strapped to an experienced skydiver so you don't have to take a hundred hours of training first.
Who knew?
But this time, I must say, I'm glad we didn't know until we saw her Facebook page afterwards.

Shorter

Shorter Harper spin about his crony Senate appointments:

But CHRETIEN did it too!

Why Al Gore Invented the Internet

A flow chart about Total Eclipse of the Heart:


Princess Sparkle Pony says this flow chart by Koufukuron is why Al Gore invented the Internet.
Here's the song:

Gay marriage in Maine

The state of Maine has legalized gay marriage and opponents are trying to pass a proposition 8-style ballot measure to stop it. Gay marriage supporters are framing the issue as a basic civil rights issue, an approach I agree with totally. There's their first commercial:

I love this photo

Great line of the day

From the great Dr. Dawg:

For Suaad Hagi Mohamud, it was her lips. For Abdihakim Mohamed, it was his ears. You get the feeling that facial recognition training for consular officials in Nairobi has something to do with Mr. Potato Head.

Emphasis mine.

Who da thunk it!

I hadn't realized wingnut republican congressperson Michelle Backman has become pro-choice

"That's why people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal members of Congress," said Bachmann, "and let them know, under no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions."

Face Plant

Well, I tripped and fell yesterday, over a speedbump in a parking lot when I was carrying groceries and not watching where I was going, and my nose got to the ashphalt first but my glasses broke the rest of my fall, so to speak. This morning I could get a job as a circus clown -- I don't need a fake red nose -- at least only one eye is blackened.
I now understand the term "face plant" better than I ever thought I would. It only hurts when I laugh...

Delusions of grandeur

Diaper-wearing Senator David Vittner thinks that he can destroy the Canadian health care system by permitting US citizens to buy drugs in Canada.
Commenter Maryl says

Canada points and laughs. And laughs some more. And falls down on the floor, gasping for breath.
Can we get back to you when we've regained the power of speech?

Great line of the day

Steve quotes Daniel Veniez:

“The Conservative party and its leader are permanently angry,” he goes on. “That’s an ingrained part of who they are and what they represent. On a visceral level, they remain a protest party and have turned themselves into a protest government. They manage by negatives and are genetically incapable of inspiring hope or thinking big. They attack, assassinate character, tell lies, lower the bar on public discourse, and engage in tactical and divisive wedge politics and governance. The tone, strategy, and culture for this government are established by Harper, a cheap-shot artist and cynic of the highest order.

A nut too far

So the world's bestest justice system (tm) would execute an innocent man because judicial privilege trumps actual truth? I think the Christian right wingnut Scalia supporters are going to have a hard time swallowing this one:

“This court has never held,” Justice Scalia wrote, “that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.”

Great line of the day

Talking about the the assault rifles at Obama's meetings, Rev Paperboy comes up with a new twist:

Imagine the reaction of the teabaggers and town brawl activists and other Glenn Beck fans if a dozen shotgun-toting neo-Black Panthers came and stood outside the president's next town hall meeting to show support for Obama.

Some fun, eh?
Actually, of course, that would be the very last thing Obama would want to see happen.