First Looks category archive

This post, from The Economist blog, is a must read for those who believe that there is anything coherent in Teabaggery.

I’m not even going to try to summarize or extract it. Just click and read.

Many thanks to Thoreau for finding it.

Hanlon, who I normally find muy sympatico, does not think that Congressman Lamborn’s characterizing President Obama as a “tar baby” was racist.

I must disagree.

Unfortunately, in a new bug-not-a-feature, Hanlon’s blog now requires me to create a user name and password with some service called “LiveFyre” (not with his blog, which I would quite happily do) and I’m not going to do that, so I cannot comment directly. It’s not worth the annoyance.

So I will disagree right here, because I have a website and I can do that thing.

Hanlon quotes Lamborn, then says

Honestly, this is like using “niggardly” in conversation. Yes, it sounds bad, but his intention was clearly non-racial and even made sense. Okay, bad choice of words and honestly who even says “tar baby” any more, but this guy ain’t a racist. Settle down.

It’s nothing at all like using “niggardly.” Niggardly is a word with a long history that has nothing to do with race or racial slurs. Those who attribute racism to its use display their own ignorance.

He identified the primary reason I disagree when he wrote this:

honestly who even says “tar baby” any more . . .

There is one group who says “tar baby” any more.

And it ain’t, to quote the immortal Bugs Bunny, Wendell Wilkie.

I’m a Southern boy.

I can decode the damned code.

Excerpt:

It’s not government that doesn’t work. It’s when Republicans run government that doesn’t work.

The sidebar disappears from the normal view in my regular theme, but reappears when select an individual post to view.

While I trouble-shoot it, there will be no only a few new posts. Posts already in the queue will continue to appear. I hope.

No idea when it will be fixed, but I’ll be happy if I’ve figured it out by Monday.

The problem appears to be local to my theme, so, for the duration, I’m reverting to a different theme.

I’m going to download everything to a local computer and trouble-shoot on my own server, rather than trouble-shoot across the innerwebs.

Updates will be added below the fold:

Read more »

OhMyGov! reports that, although Twitter does not require its users to register as male or female, that analyzing tweets can be revealing:

. . . there are certain “buzzwords” that can often be found by analyzing the output of female tweeters. Phrases such as “chocolate” and “shopping” are among the most repeated for women tweeters. The most popular phrases for men, you ask? “Http” and “Google”…hey we never said either gender was more interesting than the other.

In other news, they found a nest of twittering twits.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

Via McClatchy.

Dental deflation:

Compared with a year ago, youngsters reaching under their pillows have found an average of 40 cents less per tooth, according to a recent Visa Inc. survey.

The going rate nationally per tooth is down to $2.60 from $3.

Three dollars!

Off to drink liberally.

New location: We are trying to find a place with a good mix of menu, location, and layout.

Fun and fellowship for liberals. Join us.

When: Wednesday, July 27th, 6 p

Where:
Abbey Road Pub
203 22nd Street (Map)

More here.

Warning: Abbey Road Pub’s website rudely plays music without asking permission.

Via The Richmonder.

Mano Singham explains how.

Read more about the malevolent history of the American lawn.

Via Contradict Me (Warning: Some risque content).

What Atrios said.

The mope searched the victims Facebook posts for clues to their, email accounts, then broke into them and helped himself:

Once he took over women’s email accounts, George Bronk searched their folders for nude or semi-nude photographs or videos sent to their husbands or boyfriends and distributed the images to their contact list, prosecutors said.

He did this by figuring out their “password recovery” questions.

I do not enter answers to “password recovery” questions unless a site demands it; if they do, I put in an answer to another question.

I write my passwords down and store them in several separate secure, encrypted locations.

Important passwords, like financial ones, do not get stored on electronic media.

Date: Saturday, July 23rd.

Special Guest Speaker: Guest Speaker: Lucy Morrisette of OFA.

Location: Bubba’s Deli & BBQ, 3600 Dam Neck Rd, Virginia Beach (Map).

Cost: Adults $10.00, Under 12 $6.00 for all-you-can-eat buffet (it’s a good value for the price).

More information here.

It seems to have been part of a variation of the old badger game, in which theft, rather than extortion, was the goal:

During a motel room beating administered by three attackers, a South Carolina man was struck in the head by a Bible and told by one of his assailants that he needed to read the Good Book.

Like so many who recommend reading the Bible, they ignore the messages.