First Looks category archive

Somehow I missed this:

Residents in New Castle County (Delaware–ed.) are lighting up the lines at the county dispatch center with reports of rumblings that were confirmed to have been caused by a small earthquake.

I did notice the 4.8 that happened when I was San Francisco once. It was like being in a railroad sleeping car going over rough switches.

Twitter on Dr. Dan’s couch:

What are you doing? It’s a simple question that has transformed the internet. With Twitter, we can find out what people are up to and in to at any time. But what’s different about this form of social networking, what makes it appealing, how will people use it in years to come? On the next Voices in the Family, we’ll discuss Twitter. Our guests are Clive Thompson and David Parry. Thompson is a science, technology and culture writer for Wired magazine, The New York Times and New York Magazine. He is also the author of the blog, Collision Detection. Parry is assistant professor of Emerging Media and Communications at University of Texas, Dallas. Check out Parry’s blog, Outside The Text.

Follow the link and search for the June 29, 2009, show or click listen here (MP3).

DougJ at Balloon Juice:

. . . I can’t help but be struck by the contrast between the outpouring of sympathy for people who put money in an investment scheme they didn’t understand and the outpouring of contempt for people who took out loans they didn’t understand. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that Madoff’s victims are wealthy and white, while subprime loanees are (inaccurately) seen as mostly poor and black.

The gift that keeps on giving.

Via Balloon Juice.

John Cole at Balloon Juice.

Power failure. The UPSs held long enough for me to shut the webserver down in an orderly fashion.

Meanwhile, when I went to check on the details of the power failure at the electric company website:

Read more »

Off to drink liberally.

Via Bartblog.

A picture is worth a thousand words (click the graphic for a larger image):

Via Delaware Liberal.

Vanity Fair explores Sarah Palin’s career and campaign. I know that some persons are suffering Too Much Palin Syndrome (Palin-drome?); nevertheless, it is a fascinating article.

A nugget:

The narrative that the McCain campaign employed to explain Palin’s selection and to promote her qualifications—that she was a fresh-faced reformer who had taken on Alaska’s big oil companies and the corrupt Republican establishment, governing with bipartisan support—was never more than superficially true. In dozens of conversations during a recent visit to Alaska, it was easy to learn that there has always been a counter-narrative about Palin, and indeed it has become the dominant one. It is the story of a political novice with an intuitive feel for the temper of her times, a woman who saw her opportunities and coolly seized them. In every job, she surrounded herself with an insular coterie of trusted friends, took disagreements personally, discarded people who were no longer useful, and swiftly dealt vengeance on enemies, real or perceived. “Remember,” says Lyda Green, a former Republican state senator who once represented Palin’s home district, and who over the years went from being a supporter of Palin’s to a bitter foe, “her nickname in high school was ‘Barracuda.’ I was never called Barracuda. Were you? There’s a certain instinct there that you go for the jugular.”

Vincent D’Onofrio is looking more like Raymond Burr with every episode of Law and Order CI.

Richard Adams in the Guardian on Bernie Madoff as a distraction:

Sadly for Bernie Madoff, his fraud was straight forward: he stole money from investors and ran a Ponzi scheme. (His particular genius was not to promise fantastic, overnight profits, as is usually the way. Instead he offered solid long-term returns, less likely to attract attention.) But if he’d really been smart he would have got into selling collatoralised debt obligations, credit default swaps, mezzanine level revolving syndicated loans, tulip futures and all the rest. Then, if he’d really got lucky, he’d have got a bailout.

In the early days of the US Space Program, Wallops Island, about 50 miles north of Pine View Farm, was a major testing site.

We used to go out back to watch the rockets go up during night launches.

It’s coming back to life:

NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility will hold a groundbreaking today on a launch facility that will test a new rocket designed to service the International Space Station once the shuttle retires.

This is a recent launch:

Live charitably.

Drinking Liberally Center City at Triumph Brewing Company in, natch, Center City Philadelphia, 2nd and Chestnut, Tuesday at 6 p. m.

I’m threatening to be there this week.

The Canadian Scam is alive and well in Delaware.

I heard a radio show about this several months ago; someone calls up an old folk and pretends to be a grandchild in trouble needing money sent to an address in Canada.

If you’re my age or older, read the details here and be forewarned.

I admit it. I just wanted to use that subject line.

Read the story about India’s Tata Motors, Jaguar, and Range Rover here.

Toxic Avenger II is a hoot.

The FDIC is mopping up:

Community Bank of West Georgia, Villa Rica, Ga., ain’t no more.

Nor is Neighborhood Community Bank, Newnan, Ga.

But wait! There’s more! It’s Billy DisMaying!

MetroPacific Bank Irvine, Calif.
Horizon Bank, Pine City, Minn.

Addendum, with the morning coffee:

Mirae Bank, Los Angeles, Calif.