You spoke to us all Mr. President. We all listened, and now we all must act.

The Entire Text of Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address

My fellow citizens,

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America — they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them— that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort — even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment — a moment that will define a generation — it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence— the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed — why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

“Let it be told to the future world…that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive … that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].”

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

A number of unnamed McCain campaign aides have come out since the Republican defeat Tuesday anonymously criticizing that:

• She had $150,000 spent on her clothes by the RNC
• She was fooled by a Canadian comedian pretending to be the French president
• She didn’t know Africa was a continent, not a country
• She did not know which countries were covered by the North American Free Trade Agreement

In response she shot back that the criticism was “cruel and it’s mean-spirited, it’s immature, it’s unprofessional, and those guys are jerks.” To everyone’s surprised she didn’t call them poo-poo heads.

She then went on to say:

“So, no, I think that if there are allegations based on questions or comments that I made in debate prep about Nafta, and about the continent versus the country when we talk about Africa there, then those were taken out of context”

Ah… it was just taken out of context. Ok, that happens all the time. I mean, Republican Jerks and the Liberal Media Elite always do that. Wait, wait, hold up. Did you say “the continent versus the country when we talk about Africa” ?

Umm, Mrs. Palin. This isn’t Australia. There is no “the country” of Africa.

And in case it happens that you come across this post, let me take this opportunity to explain that South America is, in fact, a continent, and not the place where gators and the Confederates come from.

It’s no secret that Obama can deliver a speech, but watching him just now I realized it’s more than that. Any trained politician can deliver a speech. What Obama can do, and where McCain so obviously failed, is deliver hope and belief that he will foster in a new dawn for America – a better America.

Will everything change tomorrow? In January? In 2009? Not likely. But today American politics, which for so long has slipped further and further out of touch with both its own people and the international community, has taken a massive step back towards where it should be – a symbol of freedom, liberty and democracy.

Because, and this is key, a person or a country doesn’t have to be perfect to be a role model, but they have to at least appear to be trying – and it’s been a long time since America has appeared to be trying much of anything but xenophobic isolationism.

Obama’s foreign policy isn’t set to make huge changes in the way America handles the world outside Her borders, but perception is everything. Having a black man, with a foreign sounding name, whose father and step-father were foreigners, who grew up outside the continental United States… the perception of a Ultra-Christian White/Right America has come to an end.

Whatever happens next, today is a great day in America’s history. A day where, for the first time in my life, I am proud to be North American not because of my birth country, but because of the country just south of it.

America, take a bow. Obama, give yourself a pat on the ass. You won it without attacks, you won it without the “race card”, you won it with integrity. Sure there’s much to be done, but today you can sit back, crack a cold one and say “well fucking done.”

Some days my countrymen, yes even the Quebecois, make me entirely proud to be a Canuck . Need further proof where Canadians stand on jokes made about the jokiest of all White House contenders? The Globe and Mail, one of the largest and most respected newspapers in Canada, ran the entire transcript of the prank.

I was the assistant editor for a series of music/performance-based magazines. I had grabbed my extra large double double and headed in to work. I hadn’t finished the cup when my boss’ wife, Mo, came into the office and said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

With no TV in the building, we all crowded around a little radio in Mo’s office and listened to reports that seemed unsure if it was an accident or a terrorist attack.

Back in front of my computer I tried to get on CNN’s site, but the flood of traffic had brought the site down.

Then the second plane hit and we all knew it wasn’t an accident.

The rest of the day was spent checking Web sites and trying to find out more information. I called my girlfriend, who not being one to watch the news was completely unaware. I spent my lunch-hour in front of my TV watching the awesomely horrific images of two of the world’s largest towers – towers I had visited – be hit by planes – like ones I had travelled in. Surreal doesn’t cover it.

The following day I had to travel up to Toronto for a tour of the Yorkville Sound factory I was doing an article on. To get there I needed to drive over the Burlington Skyway and for the entire trip I couldn’t keep images of a jetliner flying into it, however irrational, out of my head.

Only a few days before and I would have had put to use the deepest, darkest parts of my imagination to string together that image. But that day, and on any day since, it’s as simple as recalling a scene from a movie.

About two months after the attacks I was in Manhattan and it was remarkable to see how solemn, humble and friendly the attacks had made the city. Talking to Americans, and more specifically, New Yorkers, who only two months before had suffered the worst foreign attack in the country’s history, I was impressed with their resolve to not let it change them, not let it terrorize them.

In the seven years since the attack I’ve consumed about as much media as the next guy about the September 11th attacks. I’ve followed the memorials, the conspiracies, the justifications and condemnations.

What strikes me the most about the intervening time is that not since my November 2001 visit to NYC have I again seen that resolve to not be terrorized.

Instead, the US has allowed its media and its government to use that horrible tragedy to fill their time slots and ballot boxes. Manipulated it to manipulate the people it had made feel most vulnerable.

In the seven years since, foreign opinion of the US has gone from thinking of it a victim deserving of our sympathy to thinking of it as a bully deserving of our scorn.

In the seven years since, the War on Terror has had an ever-increasing army of shadows in caves to fight against. Terrorism has increased exponentially since the “war” was announced – a war, through its actions, virtually assures its perpetuity.

In the seven years since, rather than using the tragedy as an opportunity to bring people together, as the Manhattanites had shown me possible in 2001, the country has been galvanized into camps of thought that breed ignorance, hate and discrimination.

In the seven years since, America has gone from being a beacon of diversity, liberty and democracy to being a xenophobic nation willing to throw away the things that define it in hopes of increased safety against an unseen enemy.

Now, of course, this isn’t America. Not the America I grew up learning about and admiring. Not, I’m sure, the America most Americans grew up living in and being proud of.

Perhaps it is auspicious that seven years after the mirrored glass of the towers broke and fell, America is being given the opportunity to make changes. I’m not much for the fortunes that fate may bring. However, I do strongly believe that a powerful nation with a moral high-ground can bring about equality powerful and moral changes to the world.

It would truly be great if such a nation existed.

Peace be with those 2,998 families that deserve better than they’ve been given, and hope be with the even greater number who fight for the changes needed.

For all its attempts to be shocking (a la Michael Moore), the film is a bit more subdued in its point – but all the better for it.

Hacking Democracy tells the story of essentially one lady, Bev Harris, who has made it her crusade to reveal to the world (or American voting public) how insecure and erroneous the use of electronic voting systems are – systems that count nearly 90% of votes cast in the US.

The film gives some pretty solid evidence to its point, cut, of course, with claims from the machines’ manufacturers that they are completely secure.

From the HBO synopsis:

In the 2000 presidential election, an electronic voting machine recorded minus 16,022 votes for Al Gore in Volusia County, Fla. While fraud was never proven, the faulty tally alerted computer scientists, politicians and everyday citizens to the very real possibility of computer hacking during elections.

Hacking Democracy trailer

In 2002, Seattle grandmother and writer Bev Harris asked officials in her county why they had acquired electronic touch screen systems for their elections. Unsatisfied with their explanation, she set out to learn about electronic voting machines on her own. In the course of her research, which unearthed hundreds of reported incidents of mishandled voting information, Harris stumbled across an “online library” of the Diebold Corporation, discovering a treasure trove of information about the inner-workings of the company’s voting system.

Harris brought this proprietary “secret” information to computer security expert Dr. Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins University, who determined that the software lacked the necessary security features to prevent tampering. Her subsequent investigation took her from the trash cans of Texas to the secretary of state of California and finally to Florida, where a “mini-election” to test the vulnerability of the memory cards used in electronic voting produced alarming results.

With US presidential “elections” only months away, it’s a solid watch with some weighty content.

• Watch It On HBO
• Watch It Online
• Download It

h/t to my Mom whom I’m beginning to suspect is a closet American.