First Looks category archive

Fun and fellowship for liberals. Join us.

When: Wednesday, October 26th, 6 p

Where:
The Jewish Mother
600 Nevan Road (Map)

More here.

Still over 400k:

Jobless claims dropped by 6,000 to 403,000 in the week ended Oct. 15, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey called for a drop to 400,000 applications. The four-week average fell to the lowest level since April.

Some companies are still paring their workforces at the same time demand has fallen short of the level that may spur businesses to expand staff. The lack of employment growth, which is limiting consumer spending and restraining the recovery, underscores the challenge for President Barack Obama, who is trying to push Congress to pass parts of his jobs initiative.

Firing more persons and further decreasing demand will no doubt remedy this situation.

Off to drink liberally.

When I lived in the Greater Philadelphia Co-Prosperity Sphere, I could never muster the energy to attend the Mummers Parade, though I sometimes watched bits and pieces of it on the telly vision. Mumming seems to be its own little weird Philly subculture.

The idea of spending all of New Years Day standing on Broad Street straining to see a parade of over-dressed men with banjos from behind a bunch of folks taller than me never dragged me away from a nice warm television showing bowl games.

But I think I now understand why men mum.

In Shawnee County, Kansas, you can’t have a same-sex spouse, but you can beat your other-sex spouse.

Such nice people.

A woman in northern New Jersey saved one of her llamas from a bear attack.

Lydia Chiappini was asleep in her Blairstown home when she awoke to the screams of her llama “Gus” being mauled.

She stood the bear down.

Mr. Feastingonroadkill is back.

Drinking Liberally is a support group for liberals, where you can realize you are not alone.

We are still looking for a (semi-)permanent home.

Our chapter host tried to call the scheduled location repeatedly today and no one answered the telly phone. That and the Madoff film triggered the next to next to next to last minute change in location.

When: 6 p., Wednesday, October 12.

Where:
The Green Onion
1603 Colley Ave.(map)
Followed by the 7:15 show
Chasing Madoff
Naro Expanded Cinema
1507 Colley (map)

Details here.

Since resurrecting my bicycle, I’ve have ridden it four of the last five days.

I can’t imagine trying to send a text while peddling:

Bicyclists soon will face the same restrictions against texting while riding in Chicago as motorists do while behind the wheel.

The City Council today passed an ordinance prohibiting bicyclists from texting while moving. They also cannot make cell phone calls unless using a hands-free device under an ordinance that passed the council without dissent. The ban will go into effect next month.

Via Attytood.

Off to drink liberally.

New location: We are still checking out locations to find a place with a good mix of menu, location, and layout.

Fun and fellowship for liberals. Join us.

When: Wednesday, September 28th, 6 p

Where:
The Jewish Mother
600 Nevan Road (Map)

Seventy-three linear feet of shelving and an 8×4 pegboard installed to south side of garage.

Regular insanity resumes tomorrow.

Home improvements continue through the week.

A reporter from the local rag tells of trekking to Custis Tomb on the Eastern Shore and wonders about the implications of the epitaph on the tomb of John Custis IV:

Aged 71 years and
yet liv’d but seven years
which was the space of time
he kept a bachelors house
at Arlington on the
Eastern Shore of Virginia.

Eastern Shore legend does not wonder, but unequivocally holds that Mr. Custis was most unhappily married.

The story told by my father states that, one day, accompanied by his wife, Mr. Custis steered his carriage into the Chesapeake Bay.

“Mr. Custis,” asked his wife, “where are you going?”

“To hell, Mrs. Custis.”

“Drive on, Mr. Custis, drive on.”

The north wall of the garage is now lined with 68 linear feet of shelves.

Next: 70 linear feet plus pegboard for the south wall.

Status: Dubious.

Social-networking users should be on the alert for shady investment schemes being pitched on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and eHarmony by their “friends,” state (Delaware–ed.) officials said Wednesday.

Although social media websites connect users more easily to family, friends and acquaintances, they also have opened the door to con artists who prey on unsuspecting victims, state Attorney General Beau Biden said.

Scams committed through social-networking sites are rapidly spreading versions of the traditional “affinity fraud,” in which criminals connect with victims through common interests shared through social networks, Biden said.

Home improvements.

Beating plowshares into swords exacts a toll.

Bloomberg looks at the report on eye-witness identifications in criminal cases from the Innocence Project, the American Judicature Society and the Police Foundation.

The failings have been exposed through some 2,000 studies of eyewitness identifications over the past three decades. As investigations of human psychology, the studies are fascinating; as assessments of American justice, however, they are deeply disturbing, documenting an extraordinarily high prevalence of error in eyewitness identifications in both lab experiments and cases in the field. As a report from New Jersey’s court- appointed special master concluded, “At a minimum, almost one third of witnesses who make identifications are wrong.”

If that seems implausibly high, consider this: Three- quarters of convictions overturned on the basis of DNA evidence involved eyewitness identifications. In more than a third of those cases, multiple eyewitnesses identified the same innocent suspect. (There is no way of knowing how high the rate of eyewitness error might be in cases where DNA is not a factor, though there is no reason to think it is lower.)

Some witness errors result from faulty memories that have been further clouded by the stress that often accompanies seeing a crime. Witnesses are especially prone to error when identifying a suspect of a different race. Other misidentifications are a product of everyday human frailty combined with substandard — yet widespread — police procedures.

Read the whole thing.

You can’t believe what people say they saw, especially when the reputation of police and prosecutors is judged on convictions, not on justice.