A remix of will.i.am’s Yes We Can video with John Boehner stepping up to provide the standard Republican contribution:

Builds nicely, and the end is the best part. Found it via this Frank Rich op-ed, The Rage Is Not About Health Care.

Too funny, spiced with a pinch or three of sad: Obama Tells Nation He’s Going Out For Cigarettes.

The Big Picture’s Inauguration photos are up. I wish I could requisition satellite shots like this one.

So moving. Who knows what the coming months and years will bring, but I was thrilled to witness this, and to be able to put my political cynicism aside for the day. Three other notes:

• Joseph Lowery kicked Rick Warren’s ass (stole the show, really).
• Dick Cheney in the wheelchair! Aside from the obvious symbolism of the decrepit and tired exiting the stage, there’s the fact that he now physically embodies the Bond villain he has always been (or, even better, the HH take).
• How ‘bout that kid in the front pew in Chicago? Asleep the first time we cut to that location, and struggling to stay asleep the next time. Awesome.

Inauguration day’s coming, do you have your t-shirt? I could go for either the “Yes We Can” soup can, or the dollar bill.

P.S. Speaking of Obama t-shirts...

My Great Fake Bake Experiment by Daniel Nester:

After the session, I spend the rest of the day meeting with students. They compliment my darkening tan. Later, while lunching at a nearby bar, I notice that every waitress and prepster’s skin glows from lamp-born UV radiation. I sing along to Steve Miller Band’s “Jet Airliner,” a song I can usually only tolerate in the summer. Perhaps it’s because my face is emitting its own sultry heat.

If Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi could see me now, he’d compliment me on my tan, just as he did our president-elect shortly after the election.

Bonus, I learned a bit of new(ish) slang: tanorexia.

Hertzberg on Blagojevich. Wow. I don’t even know what to excerpt. Blagojevich’s musing about what a fair price for Obama’s senate seat would be? His reaction when told Obama wouldn’t be coughing up? The contrast with NY? Oh what the heck, when in doubt, go with the profanity:

Blagojevich—who had remarked of the Senate seat, “I’ve got this thing and it’s fucking golden, and, uh, uh, I’m just not giving it up for fuckin’ nothing”—was not happy when told that no offers were forthcoming from anyone around “this motherfucker,” as he referred to the President-elect: “Fuck him. For nothing? Fuck him.”

The Onion rises to the occasion, as usual: Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress, Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job, and Kobe Bryant Scores 25 In Holy Shit We Elected A Black President, are all gems. Is that last one the first ever Onion piece that is more touching than funny?

Like in '04, Mark Newman's fantastic maps remind us that our country is purple, not red and blue.

Two cartoons: one from Patrick Moberg and the other from Toles.

Reactions From Around the World.

I'm definitely going to print out and read this seven-part saga from Newsweek once all the chapters are posted. An "in-depth look behind the scenes of the campaign, consisting of exclusive behind-the-scenes reporting from the McCain and Obama camps assembled by a special team of reporters who were granted year-long access on the condition that none of their findings appear until after Election Day."

If there's a wet blanket in all this, it's California, with its five million bigots. Discouraging. I think, as a MA resident, I'll drive over there and demand they hand over the "Most Progressive State" championship belt they've held for so long. Great post from Andrew Sullivan. Also, Toles again.

Update #1: Ze Frank's from 52 to 48 with love (about).

Wow, I thought The Onion was for laughs, not dead-on predictions. From 2001: Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'. Spooky. Via Waxy.

It will be nice to have a president (with any luck) who reads.

And, to get off of politics, I'm sure this is old news by now, but I just saw this today, and I can't stop watching and smiling: Where the Hell is Matt?

Funny, came across two fun, completely unrelated "Teach the Controversy" links this week: one on Barack Obama, and the other to these intelligently designed t-shirts.

Cass Sunstein @ The Chicago Tribune: The Obama I Know.

Lawrence Lessig via YouTube: 20 minutes or so about why I am 4Barack.