The Chicago Tribune has an interactive cicada map to plot out reports of 17-year cicadas emerging. Cool.

No photo today. Instead, yesterday's message from the dog-walking service: "He was excellent today. He even had a crap, which is getting to be rare."

I'm so glad someone else is as interested in my dog's bowel movements as I.

I remember 25th May 1977 well. My dad and I waited in a very, very long line in Torrance, Calif., for some movie he wanted to see, and said I would really like. He had to read the opening crawl to me—something about some rebellion somewhere. I had no idea what it meant. Then I saw the first spaceship—the first one, the little one, not the planet-sized one chasing it—and I was in love.

Yes, 30 years ago today, Star Wars hit the theaters. Wow.

Due to a problem between chair and keyboard, the ParkerCam today will be showing the guy who's working on my house:

Fully 63% of Americans want a timetable for our withdrawal from Iraq. This percentage includes me, 42% of registered Republicans, every member of my immediate family who can vote, Parker (who agrees with everything I say except "down, stay!"), the Speaker of the House (who is also my father's Congresswoman), and both of my U.S. Senators.

Unfortunately for the free world, majorities of both houses of Congress don't. So sad.

Correction, 9:00 CT Friday: Crap. One of my U.S. Senators, Dick Durbin, voted for the bill.

Today is the Brooklyn Bridge's 124th birthday.

Parker's brand-new friend Harper showed up at the dog park this morning:

Got one. Here's Parker in full-stealth mode:

From our visit to the park Saturday Morning: Parker sees an old friend.

This little piggy went to hell: Parker disembowels yet another toy, decapitating it in the process.

Via Andrew Sullivan, Senator Obama's remarkable address to the graduating students at Southern New Hampshire University yesterday:

There is a verse from the Bible that is sometimes read or recited during rites of passage like this. Corinthians 13:11: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.”

I bring this up because there’s often an assumption on days like today that growing up is purely a function of age; that becoming an adult is an inevitable progression that can be measured by a series of milestones – college graduation or your first job or the first time you throw a party that actually has food too.

And yet, maturity does not come from any one occasion – it emerges as a quality of character. Because the fact is, I know a whole lot of thirty and forty and fifty year olds who have not yet put away childish things – who continually struggle to rise above the selfish or the petty or the small.

We see this reflected in our country today.

Steve Benen at Talking Points Memo nicely sums it up:

The AP had an interesting item today, highlighting Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' perspective on being close friends with the president. As the embattled Gonzales sees it, his close relationship with Bush, which spans decades, is inherently "a good thing" for everyone.

"Being able to go and having a very candid conversation and telling the president: 'Mr. President, this cannot be done. You can't do this,'—I think you want that," Gonzales told reporters this week. "And I think having a personal relationship makes that, quite frankly, much easier always to deliver bad news."

"Do you recall a time when you (were) in there and said, 'Mr. President, we can't do this'?" Gonzales was asked.

"Oh, yeah," the attorney general responded.

"Can you share it with us?" a reporter asked.

"No," Gonzales said.

Now, I think there are two ways to look at this.

1. Gonzales is lying about this little story, and there's never been a time in which he's had to keep the president from going too far. He's the quintessential "yes man," who does as he's told.

2. Gonzales is telling the truth, and the Attorney General/WH Counsel—the one who's approved of abandoning the Geneva Conventions and the rule of law—believes some of the president's other requests are beyond the pale. I'm struggling to decide which is worse.

Only 611 days and 4 hours (or fewer) remain in the most corrupt presidency in history.