First Looks category archive

Cynthia Tucker on the new Know Nothings:

This country’s founding principles express the most benevolent and hopeful aspirations for a civil society. As examples, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” and “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” are declarations that separate the United States from even other Western democracies. They are also principles of which most of us are justly proud.

As Americans, we like to think that our country is exceptional partly because of those ideals. But, at the moment, we’re having a hard time living up to them. Indeed, some of the people most enamored of the notion of American exceptionalism are among those least committed to the principles of individual freedoms — at least for those who are somehow a bit different in worship or accent. (During the Bush years, many conservatives liked to say that jihadists attacked us on 9/11 because they “hate our freedoms.” Sometimes, we don’t like them much, either.)

Josh Marshall takes a thoughtful look at the confluence between fundamentalist Christianity and “radical secularism.”

My friend has been asking me to try napping on the couch (I like my La-Z-Boy). She finds it not particularly nappabilicious.

(Four hours later.)

Can’t prove it by me.

Earl stayed well out to sea.

We had April showers that dropped more rain and did more damage. Even the Banks seem to have gotten off lightly:

On Roanoke Island, Coast Guard assessments turned up little more than a few downed trees, said Lt. Greg Mosko, a supervisor with the Outer Banks safety detachment.

“We’re seeing some minor flooding on the roadways, a few trees on the ground – that’s really all,” Mosko said. “So far all the marinas I’ve looked at, they’re in good shape.”

About 10:20 a.m., Dominion’s (Power-ed.) website was reporting that a little more than 3,400 of its customers were without electricity. About 250 customers were without service in Virginia.

Judging from the water in the flower pots, there’s been about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch of rain.

It should be an interesting weekend.

From my car insurance company:

As Hurricane Earl approaches, we trust that you are taking every precaution to ensure you will suffer no injury or damage to your property.

We realize our most important responsibility to our policyholders following a loss is to ensure the claim settlement process is quick and easy. We are busy preparing to do just that; teams of GEICO claim adjusters have deployed along the projected storm path, and they will remain in affected areas until they have resolved every hurricane-related claim.

And so on.

PayPal is the worst company in the world, in solidarity with John Cole, who seems to have sunk into a bureaucratic no exit at PayPal which exceeds anything any DMV ever did to me.

John’s request:

*** Update #2 ***
If you have a website, I would appreciate your help making a google bomb. Use the title of this post and link back to me.

No doubt they were bombed.

A PennDot archaeological team arrived at a dig under I-95 this morning to find two men drinking beer and sitting on a 20-foot-long torpedo they apparently had found hours earlier in the Delaware River.

The archaeologists called police and the Bomb Squad evacuated the immediate area at Richmond and Cumberland Streets, near I-95.

Five years and over 7500 posts later . . . .

And the boast is yet to come.

The dog’s owner has been trying to keep the dog “contained,” but it seems to keep slipping through the cracks.

A Chihuahua named Coco is in quarantine as Animal Control investigates reports she bit a two-year-old.

An Animal Control officer’s report says Coco broke free of a collar/leash and got into Dwain Ware’s backyard on Friday.

(snip)

“(The dog) has been terrorizing the neighborhood,” said Mr. Ware.

Special Guest: State Senator Ralph Northam

Date: Saturday, August 28th Time: 9-10:30 a. m.

Location: Bubba’s Deli & BBQ, 3600 Dam Neck Rd, Virginia Beach (west side of Dam Neck Rd. between Princess Anne Blvd. and Rosemont Rd.; access via service road at Lansdowne Ct. next to the Farmers Market).

Cost: Adults $10.00, Under 12 &6.00 for all-you-can-eat buffet (it’s a pretty good buffet, too–plenty of variety).

More information and suggested items to donate here.

By definition, a truism is a statement that is so obvious it doesn’t have to be mentioned.

Except, I guess, when it does.

True Blue Texan: A prejudice held by the majority is still prejudice.

“Sovereign citizens,” members of an anarchist branch of extreme wingnuttery (I know that sounds redundant), are moving into foreclosed houses and filing false deeds claiming ownership of them. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Prosecutors say the $1 million brick home next to the Goddards’ farmhouse is one of at least 19 properties that have been taken over by a sect of anti-government extremists involved in criminal behavior.

They call themselves “sovereign citizens” and believe they are immune to state and federal laws. They assert, among other things, that banks can’t own land and that any home owned by a bank – including the thousands throughout Georgia – is free for the taking.

Police and prosecutors take a different view. The FBI has listed them on the domestic terrorist list, saying their crime of choice is paper terrorism and attempting to disrupt the U.S. economy.

Then, again . . . .

Certain trees are able to clone themselves, which raises the tantalising possibility that they could effectively “live forever”.

But a study published in the journal PLoS Biology has dashed that hope.

Dr Dilara Ally and her team at the University of British Columbia, Canada, found that the fertility of clones declines with age.

Two hours earlier than usual to allow persons to attend the debate among 2nd House District candidates Glenn Nye, Scott Rigell, and Kenny Golden at 7:00 PM, Princess Anne High School, Virginia Beach.

• What: Third Thursday Dinner
• When: August 19th, 5:00 PM
• Where: Kelly’s Hilltop Tavern, 1936 Laskin Road, Virginia Beach, VA 23454 (map)

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

The Richmonder visited the USS Midway Museum in San Diego.

Neat pictures.

Via The Daily Dish.

And it can mean big money in tournaments:

When hundreds of thousands – sometimes millions – of dollars are on the line, nobody wants to hear the adage about how fishermen tell lies.

So tournament directors across the country use polygraphs to keep things on the up and up.

Yep – lie detector tests for fishermen.

The story contains this gem, down towards the end:

T.V. O’Malley, the polygraph expert who administered the Big Rock tests, agrees.

“The people who fish in most of these things own million-dollar boats and pay thousands of dollars to compete,” said O’Malley, who has performed polygraphs at fishing tournaments all over the world. “They are professional people who have to worry about their reputations. There is a lot of honor in this sport. They want the pride and bragging rights.

This quotation is supported by the sidebar detailing fishy frauds over the years.

Daniel Schultz writes in the Guardian:

The evangelical activist and historian Randall Balmer spilled the beans back in 2006 about what he called “the abortion myth”: Contrary to what its leaders would have you believe, opposition to legalised abortion was not the organising principle behind the religious right. Abortion was an after-the-fact justification – and sustaining principle – of a movement mobilised largely in response to a 1975 IRS attempt to lift the tax-exempt status of racially segregated Christian schools such as Bob Jones University.

Read the whole thing.

Aside: I visited Bob Jones University when I was a senior in college as part of research for a sociology paper I was writing on the radical right.

It was one eerie strange place.