2080 Run it up the flag pole

As I mentioned yesterday, I put Stephen Harper, the new Canadian Prime Minister, in the prayer job jar (a clear glass jar on the kitchen table from which we take requests when we say grace). I showed my husband his photo on my blog, and explained who he was, what a tough job he was going to have, and why we should pray for him. But the name was new (to both of us), and twice during the prayer he stopped and asked me his name. "Stephen Harper," I whispered, as though God wouldn't notice how rusty we are on our Canadian politics.

In today's WSJ, Mark Steyn, a Canadian columnist, has an article "An Act of Political Hygiene" in which he gives a tepid endorsement of Harper and a red hot condemnation of the previous liberal government. One funny story (which I hope is an urban legend, but perhaps Mr. Cloud knows) he reported was that when the Canadian Liberal party was trying to win over the Quebecans, it was so burdened by scandals and incompetence that it outsourced a flag project to overseas companies which for $45 a flag, sent back "a gazillion flags that can't fly." No eyelets, no sleeve, no halyard line for a rope, no toggle.

Steyn says Harper won't be "George W. Bush's best friend," as his liberal opponents threatened, and there will be no military presence in Iraq. They don't even arm their border guards so they won't be much use for domestic threats in this hemisphere, either.

Stephen Harper