First Looks category archive

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.

Remember, my ancestors wore the gray.

Follow the link.

The first part of the Great Lie
Is to deny
That slavery was savage, barbaric—
Instead, bleating and placating
With soft metaphor and subtle explication
That so many owners were good and kind,
And most slaves redeemably well-treated,
Never whipped, never maimed,
Never shipped into coffle lines,
Iron masks or necklaces of horns,
But lofted with warmed clothes, adorned quarters,
And a living comfortable and soft.

There was nothing nice, no kindness, no benevolence, to chattel slavery.

George Fitzhugh said, Cannibals All.

I say to George Fitzhugh and his contemporary apologists, Liars All.

If you can take a liberty away from one simply because you don’t like him, you can take it away from everyone.

From the The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom, authored by Thomas Jefferson:

Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

Excerpt:

This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are. The writ of the Founders must endure.

Domestic terrorism.

I’m staying out of Massachusetts. All I have to do to get poison ivy is look at it.

Also, global warming:

An unusually moist spring and a hot summer have conspired to produce a particularly abundant crop of poison ivy this year, leaving more Massachusetts residents than usual scratching their skin raw.

Scientists believe the plant might also be gaining in potency because, especially in cities, it is thriving on increasing carbon dioxide levels, partly the result of burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests.

Leonard Pitts, Jr. on Anne Rice’s deciding to forsake Christianity so as to cleave to Christ:

To put that another way: The Christian Bible contains numerous exhortations to serve those who are wretched and poor, to anger slowly and forgive promptly, to walk through this life in humility and faith. The word Republican does not appear in the book. Not once.

Yet somehow in the last 30 years, people of faith were hoodwinked into regarding the GOP platform as a lost gospel. Somehow, low taxes for the wealthy and deregulation of industry became the very message of Christ. Somehow, hostility to science, gays, Muslims, and immigrants became the very meaning of faith. And somehow Christianity came to seem a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party.

Consider that, after the 2004 election, a church in North Carolina made news for kicking out nine congregants because they voted for Democrat John Kerry. Has atheism ever had better salesmen than Jerry Falwell, who blamed the Sept. 11 attacks on the ACLU, or Pat Robertson, who ascribed Haiti’s earthquake to an ancient curse?

Taking the day off, at least most of it.

More here.

I’ll have a Scotch on the rocks with a glass of drugs on the side (emphasis added):

The (water quality test–ed.) results, provided in response to a request from The News Journal, show smatterings of medicines ranging from analgesics and antibiotics to anti-convulsives and hormones in water used both by public and private companies, including all three of New Castle County’s largest public utilities and major suppliers in Kent and Sussex counties.

None of the medications detected at water intakes and treatment plants is regulated, and none is targeted or routinely removed by current treatment methods. detection ranged from caffeine and analgesics in United Water Delaware’s big freshwater intake near Stanton to micro-bits of synthetic estrogen in a Seaford well.

I’m betting Delaware is not alone in this.

In a few years, I reckon folks will know whether the “smatterings” are significant enough to cause harm.

Happy 49th.

Non carborundum illegitimi.

I know these folks. Ever since I first met them, they has been planning and talking about this, taking pains to play by the rules and do everything within the law and above board.

And now they are twisting slowy in the wind.

Family business.

Back tomorrow.

Via Inverse Square.

Customers:

Bankster: