My wrist is improving. Thanks to everyone who sent in suggestions about what to do about it. (Most of you suggested a trackball and I may — you'll excuse the expression — give one a whirl.)
People keep forwarding me links to articles about the bulge on the back of George W. Bush during the debates…and so far, I haven't seen one with any hard info; just so-called "experts" saying things that are mostly inconclusive. Unless someone comes forth with an intercepted audio recording of Karl Rove dictating talking points during one of the discussions, I'm inclined to think it will remain an Urban Legend.
People also keep forwarding polls to me. Can we just agree that Bush and Kerry are neck and neck and that if you shop around, you can find polls that have either ahead in the national popular vote or in certain key swing states for electoral supremacy? You can also find plenty of reasons to not believe the polls that don't have your guy ahead. This election has more unknown quantities in the voting patterns than any we've ever had in this country, and I suspect the pollsters will begin narrowing the spread as we near Election Day. Not that they cheat but the supreme humiliation for a public opinion survey group is to solidly predict for Candidate A when Candidate B wins, and it's not unprecedented for a pollster to make a last-minute "too close to call" prediction just to cover his derriere. Regardless, I don't sense that even the polls that have someone substantially ahead are all that confident of their findings.
Here's a link to an article out of the Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau that's headlined, "Post-war planning non-existent." Pretty damning stuff.
On a comic book message board, someone recently posted a message saying that someone else had told him that a certain then-beginning comic artist had ghosted Jack Kirby's last few stories for Marvel in 1969-1970. Several of you have written to me and asked, in essence, "This is nonsense, right?" Right. Utter nonsense.
Okay, that's it for tonight. Back to nursing the wrist and meeting the deadline.