Planet Swank extends heartiest congratulations to my good friend Musashi of Destroy All Monsters and his lovely wife Natasha, who welcomed their firstborn child Saturday, Jan. 24 at 7:46 a.m. Manuel Alejandro Mayo entered the world weighing in at a robust 8 lbs 2 ounces. The entire family is doing fine, and we send them all our best wishes and warmest congratulations.
My apologies for the continued lack of posting. The work situation continues to be a headache, and I have several projects that have been taking priority. In fact, I've considered declaring an official hiatus, but I haven't yet decided to go that far.
I'll be out of town this weekend. With luck, I can blog a bit from the friends' house where we'll be staying.
I'm deeply saddened to note the passing of Captain Kangaroo himself, Bob Keeshan, who died at the age of 76 after a long illness. The Captain Kangaroo show entertained me for countless hours when I was a kid. In his later years, Keeshan expressed disappointment and frustration with the programming available to children, and given the quality of his own show, I don't think he was far wrong.
Jaquandor has my gratitude for reminding me of the groovy site The Swank Pad. I mentioned it back in November of 2002, but it's long overdue for another look.
Mark Kleiman reminds us that the "popular wartime president" label attached to Bush is so much wishful thinking on the Republicans' part, and quotes Paul Krugman as noting that Bush is vulnerable indeed in 2004.
I haven't commented yet about the latest round of we-found-weapons-no-we-haven't in Iraq, but it was so obvious that the mortar rounds were obviously buried and forgotten way back during the Iran-Iraq war and were obviously no threat at all to anyone, there didn't seem to be much comment from the usual suspects, either. Joshua Marshall sums things up pretty well.
CalPundit serves up a great example of a loony neocon plan that won't go away despite its obvious disconnect from reality. The punch line: It's the same bunch who predicted unqialified success in the Iraq war, only some 20 years earlier.
As I pointed out in the comment thread, the seriously delusional aspect of the neoconservatives who hold such influence over the uncritically-thinking Bush administration is no doubt perceived as a major potential liability, hence the mind-boggling intellectual dishonesty of the pre-emptive strikes launced by David Brooks et al, who claim that merely criticizing the nutty neocons is tantamount to anti-Semitism. Kevin Drum and many others aren't buying, of course. One only hopes the so-called "liberal media" gets the right message.
Planet Swank extends its hopes for the safe rescue of 16 crew members trapped in a capsized cargo vessel off the coast of Norway. Two have been confirmed dead but 12 other crew were rescued after the Rocknes capsized at 4:30 p.m. local time.
We've been rearranging our kitchen, and my lovely wife found a pair of incredibly solid and well-built cabinets -- evidently custom-built but never installed -- at a secondhand furniture shop. Over the weekend, she built a tiled countertop for them, painted the left-hand one white (from a former shade of forest green)., and installed the pull knobs. We still have to grout the tile, but I'm very pleased with the results.
Where was I? I was watching The Girls, mostly, and also installing a second floodlight next to the garage, in hopes of deterring any more unpleasantness in the future.
