Today we went over to Oakland to the Zoo. I'd told Alex ahead of time there would be no rides (she sure had plenty yesterday!) and this is apparently the hallmark of this week... not the Mickey Mouse pancakes, not the game I brought her, not Six Flags, not the map on the door, not bunny salads, not books, no, Nana didn't let her go on any rides at Oakland Zoo. Yesterday "I rode on 20 rides." Today, "I only rode on ten rides yesterday" and later it was "5"... Nothing worked. She really didn't get to go on any rides.

They have bats! And a great children's area. Alex was eager to go on the lily pads, and of course she fell in. (She was pushed, she says.) I wanted Rich to take a picture of me helping Teddy on the pads, but he thought the camera wasn't working, since it was on display instead of "picture". Oh, well. The kids can comb goats (the goats can get away when they're tired of it.) We only lasted 4 hours this time. And we didn't go for any rides. She sure had a lot to say to her daddy about how Nana mistreats her.

Bertie, the shy cat, has cupboard courage. After all, the food is here, and one must eat, even if the strangers are in here.

Rich went looking for that cache again, and found it, this time. It was in another cacher's hand!

The First 100 Days.

The Week in Peeps.

Letting the Troops Speak for Themselves.

Krauthammer:

By the day, the debate at home about Iraq becomes increasingly disconnected from the realities of the war on the ground. The Democrats in Congress are so consumed with negotiating among their factions the most clever linguistic device to legislatively ensure the failure of the administration's current military strategy -- while not appearing to do so -- that they speak almost not at all about the first visible results of that strategy.
...
How at this point -- with only about half of the additional surge troops yet deployed -- can Democrats be trying to force the United States to give up? The Democrats say they are carrying out their electoral mandate from the November election. But winning a single-vote Senate majority as a result of razor-thin victories in Montana and Virginia is hardly a landslide.

Second, if the electorate was sending an unconflicted message about withdrawal, how did the most uncompromising supporter of the war, Sen. Joe Lieberman, win handily in one of the most liberal states in the country?

And third, where was the mandate for withdrawal? Almost no Democratic candidates campaigned on that. They campaigned for changing the course the administration was on last November.

Which the president has done.