James Grant has some economic advice for President Obama: In the long run, nations consume and produce in roughly equal measure; they have no choice.... A strengthened American currency, of course, may be th best thing in the short-term, or even the medium-term, for those, like Canada, who depend heavily on selling lots of stuff to Americans every year.

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Canada's government -- the government Harper now leads -- was the first country in the world to agree that 15-year-olds, no matter what they were doing on a battlefield and no matter whether they were part of a national army or not, are, by definition, victims of war crimes and not perpetrators of war crimes. Harper's goverment, like the Liberal governments of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin before him, has never asked Khadr's jailers -- the Americans -- if we can have him back so that Canada's justice system can examine the actions of one of their own citizens under the laws that govern all Canadian citizens.

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I'm sensing that the government's communications strategy is to push out quite a bit of the budget ahead of time to gain control of the news agenda.

Up next: HRDC MInister Diane Finley at 1:30 EDT today in Toronto; Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz in Edmonton at 11 am (Mountain); and Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq at noon PST in Vancouver. Wonder what they might have to say ...

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"...Can we find a name that better fits the rugged Pacific Northwest of the continent? What can we call the Canadian arm of a distinct bio-region that includes Oregon and Washington State, which geographers have for decades been calling Cascadia?"

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Obama's big international coming-out party will be the G20 meeting in London, England on April 2. This is the essentially the second half of the G20 meeting that Barack's predecessor hosted in Washington in November to deal with the economy. At the earlier meeting, world leaders agreed to get together in the spring to to do more to help the global economy.

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Day did not elaborate on the reasons for Singh's change of heart and Day noted that Singh had, instead, invited Harper to visit India. If Harper accepts -- and why wouldn't he? - my bet is that Harper squeezes in a day or two in India when he travels to Singapore next November for the annual leaders summit of APEC leaders.

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Now, normally, the announcement of a key financial benchmark such as the size of the government's deficit is made by the finance minister speaking on the record after handing out substantial financial documentation to those in the room and publishing it online so that all Canadians can see what's going on. But for this announcement, the revelation of the size of the deficit was made by communications staff from the Prime Minister's Office in a briefing for Parliament Hill reporters.    more »

This is just cool and I wanted to share it. Relatives in Northwestern Ontario passed along these photos, taken by Ontario Provincial Police near Kirkland Lake, Ontario. You'll see a lot of moose if you spend time in northern Ontario but few have ever seen an albino moose.    more »

On his first full day in office, President Barack Obama ordered this memo be circulated: January 21, 2009 MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES SUBJECT: Freedom of Information Act A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency.... I direct the Attorney General to issue new guidelines governing the FOIA to the heads of executive departments and agencies, reaffirming the commitment to accountability and transparency, and to publish such guidelines in the Federal Register.

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The purpose of the ASO shall be to perform the specific project of supporting executive departments and agencies in preventing Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for terrorists, facilitating Afghanistan's progress to self-sufficiency, and maintaining an effective diplomatic presence in Afghanistan.... Would love to know more about budget; reason for existence; etc. Bush issued the order on Jan. 16 and it will be published in the U.S. Federal Register Thursday.

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