Here is the artist and his work, in which he shows he's moved on from textiles to sculpture:
That's a $600 armoire. He is so crated from now on.
No TDP tomorrow, but I'm sure I'll make up for it on Monday.
Ah, Parker, having fun at the dog park, yelling at the camera. I'm posting this photo so you can imagine the toothy grin, energetic bouncing, and ecstatic barking, but in the dark at 5:45 am. At least he's now slept through the night twice in a row.
So it looks like North Korea's nuclear test failed as badly as the President's (833 days, 3 hours) foreign policy. Either or both might contribute to his 34% approval rating.
Polls open in 27 days, 15 hours, 57 minutes.
We are ecstatic: our ball of fur and teeth finally, after seven weeks, slept through the night. He woke up only when he heard Abby Ryan's traffic report on NPR. Then he danced on our heads until we took him outside.
I hope this is the first of many nights we can finally sleep seven straight hours.
...when North Korea gets the bomb.
Wow. Try as I might, I can't think of any worse result of the President's (834 days, 4 hours) foreign policies than North Korea exploding a nuclear bomb this morning. (The USGS felt it; did you?)
Josh Marshall has a fair summary of how this happened, but I think we all know already:
The origins of the failure are ones anyone familiar with the last six years in this country will readily recognize: chest-thumping followed by failure followed by cover-up and denial. The same story as Iraq. Even the same story as Foley.
All diplomatic niceties aside, President Bush's idea was that the North Koreans would respond better to threats than Clinton's mix of carrots and sticks.
Then in the winter of 2002-3, the US prepared the invade Iraq, the North called Bush's bluff. And the president folded. Abjectly, utterly, even hilariously if the consequences weren't so grave and vast.
And where is China in all this? Apparently they've decided that a nuclear-armed and insane regime on their flank is better than no regime at all.
How long will it take to undo the damage our administration has caused? How much more damage will we suffer as a result?
Broken link fixed 2014-10-12
Indian summer is here. It got up into the mid-20s (mid-70s F), so I toodled down to Millenium Park. I don't expect weather like this again until March at the earliest. At least I got to enjoy it.
Earlier today I got all excited seeing the Census Bureau's population clock at just below 300 million. In a move that will surprise no one, I got the math wrong, so my guess about when this would happen was off by an order of magnitude. This morning it was at 299,923,329; right now, it's 299,926,233. At this rate it will be about nine days before the thing ticks over 300 million.
So check the population clock on the 15th. It's likely it will take about that long to add another 74,000 people to the U.S.
It looks like the Census Bureau's Population Clock will roll over 300,000,000 this evening. We'll check back throughout the day.
First, a correction: Parker probably didn't weigh 10.9 kg (24 lbs) on Wednesday, because today he only weighed 10.2 kg (22.5 lbs). This is still half a kilo more than last week, and a total gain of 3.5 kg (5.5 lbs) in five weeks, but it does throw off Sean's calculations a trifle.
Second, Parker had some more play time at the dog park this afternoon, even though he met a bully. Parker wasn't hurt, but he could have been. I don't think Cocoa (the gray goofy-looking thing seen here in happier times) has had adequate training or socialization. So when Parker got a little too close to Cocoa's ball, Cocoa had Parker rolling on his back for ten feet before I was able to slap his behind to give Parker a chance to get away. His owner just stood there saying "Cocoa, leave the puppy alone" while Parker was shrieking and desperately trying to get away from his 35 kg (75 lb) assailant. Afterward, while I comforted my shaking puppy and kept a wary eye on Cocoa (who was still off his leash!), I heard her say, "he's usually really good with puppies."
I had a good rant in here, but I've decided to edit it out. Anne said Cocoa and Parker got along just fine Tuesday.
Anyway, Parker shook it off faster than I did, probably because within two minutes of the incident he found a full bowl of dog food in the kitchen. And he did have fun.
