From Australia, via Poynter:

The annual Walkley Awards for journalism were rocked by an attack on stage on Thursday night at the Crown Casino in Melbourne.

Controversial crikey.com.au writer Stephen Mayne was attacked by Sunday Telegraph columnist Glenn Milne.

Mayne had just finished awarding the best business news report to the Australian Financial Review's Morgan Mellish when Milne rushed up onto the stage and accosted Mayne, pushing him off the platform and onto the floor.

Why doesn't anything this exciting happen at American awards shows?

My poor couch. I have no idea why Parker wants to kill the Ikea couch I've had for almost ten years, but he does. He has now started working on the main cushions, having tired of the armrests and the pillows. Only, he has to work a bit to get there:

Parker stayed home today, which is why today's Daily Parker includes perhaps more personal information than I generally share. I have a spare laptop, so I was able to set up the ParkerCam in our bedroom today. So here he is, in his Safe Place, proving that he's cuter than all get-up even when he doesn't know anyone is watching:

The temperature is holding at 14°C (58°F) right now, but I have a feeling it's about to cool off considerably:

The latest from the best president we have:

"There is one thing I'm not going to do. I am not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete," Bush said in a keynote speech at the University of Latvia just before a summit of the NATO defence alliance.

(Emphasis mine.) What about this, though? It's all so confusing.

(Via Talking Points Memo.)

It's still 16°C (61°F) in Chicago, which is more like September than November. But apparently there's a change in the air:

As promised, I brought both the dog and a camera to the Dawes Park dog beach this afternoon. It's a freaky-warm 16°C (61°F) today, so while Parker and I both found it a little chilly to go swimming, we both had fun with the other dogs (including his friend Louie from his morning play group). Here he is conteplating the vastness of Lake Michigan:

Parker, ever the office puppy, got his first experience on a beach this afternoon when we walked over to the Dawes Park dog beach. He met a whole bunch of new dogs, had a great time, and has now deposited his sand-covered butt on my office carpet.

It's 13°C (55°F) right now, and it may be this warm again tomorrow. If so, I'll bring Parker—and a camera—back to the dog beach.

Now I must brush my jeans off.

A member of the Windows Vista team explains (via Joel Spolsky):

I worked on the "Windows Mobile PC User Experience" team. This team was part of Longhorn from a feature standpoint but was organizationally part of the Tablet PC group. To find a common manager to other people I needed to work with required walking 6 or 7 steps up the org chart from me.

So after 12 years, you still have to go to the Start menu to stop the computer.

Parker still hates the Halti:

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am very thankful that this wonderful puppy has come to live with us. Since I'm an atheist, I'm not sure what or whom there is to thank for it, so I'll just thank Parker himself for being the wonderful puppy he is.

We're at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters this morning so I can get some stuff done. At this writing he's being a sleepy little angel. Or, not so little, as you can see from this photo I took today at the dog park:

I just discovered my mail on the credenza in the office foyer. A letter carrier opened the door and put it there, with nary a woof out of the office puppy. Maybe this is why:

I'm beginning to wonder about his contributions to the company's bottom line.

OK, I think I've got the ParkerCam figured out. Here's the current arrangement:

Anne just confirmed that the "Parker has halitosis" photo is now a ThinkGeek Action Photo. Maybe it's time to get Parker an agent? Or, possibly, a toothbrush?

I remembered my camera today, but alas, Parker is at home (so no ParkerCam). Here he is Sunday struggling (as any rational being would do) to get out from under a Cardinals blanket:

Last Monday was the first anniversary of this blog. I completely forgot.

As pennance, I will now post this photo Anne took ten minutes ago (she and Parker are at home; I'm still at World Headquarters):

Duh. Today I forgot not only my camera, but also the memory card inside the camera with the photos that I wanted to post. We'll just have to make do with the ParkerCam:

Some memes obscure deeper truths. "Liberal" and "college town," for example, often go together, as in the lede from a story in Tuesday's New York Times:

BOULDER, Colo., Nov. 14 — Voters in this liberal college town have approved what environmentalists say may be the nation's first "carbon tax," intended to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases.

This lede bothered me for several reasons. First, I don't believe that wanting to reduce catastrophic climate change is so much a "liberal" idea as it is a "sensible" idea. Second, if Boulder is "liberal," that makes my home town (Evanston, Ill.) "socialist" and puts Cambridge, Mass., on the loony fringe. And I'm not sure Greenville, S.C. really wants the label "liberal" any more than Evanston wants the label "reactionary right-wing religious nuts."

We get this via Talking Points Memo: Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) explains what's really causing global warming.

We'll be watching him lose his chairmanship as the new Congress takes office in 46 days and 20 hours.

Parker had the Big Operation yesterday and, after the drugs wore off overnight, was back to his usual puppy self by 5:30 this morning. He didn't understand why we couldn't go to the dog park this morning. Tuesday, we assured him, he could go.

Today he is once again guarding my office from productivity:

Oh, poor puppy. Today is the Big Operation. But even as the vet was leading him away, he had no idea what she was about to do to him. There are just too many interesting smells at the animal hospital. And he was probably hoping someone would feed him, since we "forgot" this morning:

Parker is at home today, so nothing new on the ParkerCam. Tomorrow is his Big Operation, which we've tried to explain to him to no avail. Poor guy. I'd like to say that this photo is him being worried about the Big Operation, but no, it's him watching a mourning dove take off:

This snapshot of Parker sniffing around the back yard was going to be today's Daily Parker:

But then he decided to help me with the laundry:

I'm trying an experiment: the ParkerCam. It may not be around long, and it's only going to be on when Parker is in my office. Still, if it's running, it will update every 60 seconds. Sometimes you'll just see my office floor; other times, such as this writing, you'll see a sleeping puppy.

I'm back in Chicago, but I'm looking forward to my next visit to San Francisco. Here's one more from our walk Saturday:

Reggie (below) gets to walk on or near a beach almost every day. Today I got to tag along.

From one of today's posts at Talking Points Memo:

Was anyone besides me delighted to note that the last two Republican senators to concede were Burns and Allen?

I'm visiting my dad this weekend. Three guesses where he lives (and no cheating):