First Looks category archive

Helen Philpot composes the travelogue.

The Olympia – last surviving warship of the Spanish-American War of 1898 – may still be scrapped or face a watery grave as an artificial reef off Cape May without money for restoration.

But the Penn’s Landing attraction will not close as originally planned Monday after the Independence Seaport Museum’s decision, announced late Wednesday, to fund interim repairs.

The Olympia will continue its daily visiting hours through Dec. 31, then move to a three-day schedule through March 31 while its fate is pondered.

This would be a good target for some stimulus money.

Barry R. comments on TSA’s security theatre.

• What: Virginia Beach Democratic Committee Third Thursday Dinner
• When: November 18th, 6:00 PM
• Where: Kelly’s Hilltop Tavern, 1936 Laskin Road, Virginia Beach, VA 23454 (map), in the nonsmoking section.

Show up, order off the menu (separate checks), socialize, and talk politics–or whatever else interests you.

I have attended several of these. They tend to be smaller gatherings, highly informal, and a lot of fun.

For more information, email VaBeachBoy@aol.com

Frankly, he’s got a point.

(The video appears to have been taken down.)

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on World Toilet Day.

Taking the weekend off. See you Monday.

The Philadelphia Inquirer interviews one of the railroad men involved in the incident that inspired Unstoppable, the movie whose relentless onslaught of advertisements has annoyed me so much that I shall probably avoid it (no link provided to the movie because I’m already sick of it).

Aside: I used to work for the railroad. I can tell they phonied up the facts just from the ads.

No real railroader would be heard saying, “I’m starting to like this job.” They may love railroading–the railroad is fun and I miss it–but real railroaders aren’t going to admit that they like their jobs.

They’d rather talk about back pay.

Shaun Mullen tells the rest of the story of the girl in the photograph.

Addendum:

Link removed. Shaun emailed me that he had to delete the post because it was giving the rest of Kiko’s House the vapors for some reason which he could not figure out.

Computers. Great when they work. Otherwise, otherwise.

Read this one instead.

And not meant the way the Cream meant it.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

I’ve been distracted by computer problems for the past few days (you can read about them at Geekazine) and have put off responding to this comment, from which I’ve excerpted the opening sentence. I’m promoting it because, in my view, it deserves the plain light of day:

Mississippi has more registered voters than residents is that not a problem?

Startpage is your friend.

• The U. S. Census reports Mississippi’s 2009 population as slightly less than three million.
• As of 2004, the most recent year for which I could find voting registration figures, as opposed to voting turnout figures, the voter roles totaled slightly more than 1,500,000. I rather doubt that the voter rolls have more than doubled since then.
• Mississippi’s turnout in the recent election was slightly under 800,000.

I have not argued and will not argue that keeping accurate voter records is not a good thing.

Nevertheless, the right-wing hysteria over voter fraud is a redstate herring.

It is simply not true that large numbers individual persons are registering fraudulently in order to throw elections.

The voter fraud fraud is the spiritual and intellectual bastard child of the poll tax and the literacy test–Sunday go-to-meeting clothes on a strategy to keep the poor, the downtrodden, the dispossessed from having a public voice.

Elections are stolen in the counting room, not in the voting room.

I have a computer to troubleshoot, or perhaps just shoot.

Image via All Things Amazing.

Working a polling place for Andrew.

Vote, if you haven’t already.

The higher the turnout, the higher the chance that virtue will triumph not-virtue will fail.

Not voting ensures sullied virtue.

Normal insanity will resume late tonight or tomorrow.

Afterthought:

Jamie’s Top Ten Reasons Not To Vote:

10. I am really looking forward to nonstop investigations of President Obama over the next two years.

9. It will make Sarah Palin proud.

8. Majority Leader Mitch has a real jazzy sound to it.

7. Insurance companies should have the right to deny coverage to anyone and jack up the prices whenever they want.

6. Who really cares about that pesky environment?

5. Wall Street needs more money!

4. The top 2% needs more money!

3. Shutting down Congress is a great idea right now. We don’t have any problems to fix.

2. Glenn Beck can shift all his focus straight to the White House instead of having to split it between the White House and the democratically controlled Congress.

1. Speaker Boehner!!!!!!

Listen now: He’s the only President on the Ballot (mp3).

To quote Donovan Leitch.

Excerpt:

That big sucking sound you don’t hear? That’s the war—spending that’s getting away with murder.