First Looks category archive

DougJ at Balloon Juice inspects the sty.

Mencken.

It might be a good time to buy Smithfield stock:

Swine flu doesn’t come from eating pork.

But that didn’t stop fearful investors from selling off Smithfield Foods’ shares Monday, driving the price down 12 percent, or $1.28, to $9.04.

I’ve stayed in the Hotel Pennsylvania; it’s right across Seventh from Penn Station. The legend is that the girlfriend of one of Glen Miller’s musicians lived there and the musician wrote the song because he called her every night.

Aside: I much prefer Benny Goodman to Glen Miller, but my father was a big Glen Miller fan. Something to do with WWII and France, I think.

Tuesday, Triumph Brewing Company, Letitia and Chestnut, Philadelphia, Pa., 6 p. Easy access from everywhere in the Greater Philadelphia Co-ProsperityRidiculosity Sphere.

I won’t be there. In fact, I’m not even here. I am not here nor there.

I am someplace entirely other.

Click on the image for a larger view.

Via Noz.

Keep up with the latest place setting:

When checking in with (Martha–ed.) Stewart, you always pick up news of her latest endeavors: a line of home-cleaning products in development that will be formulated to be safe for kids and pets; her growing number of Twitter followers (more than 364,000 this week); and efforts to find a retailer to replace her Kmart contract for linens and tableware that expires at the end of the year.

The Klan in camo.

Via Delaware Liberal, which wonders why these self-dubbed patriots hafeel they must disguise their voices.

Evil comes in plain wrappers gowned with hypocrisy, not on chariots heralded by thunder and lightning.

Follow up story here:

Read more »

Sign the petition here.

Via Atrios.

Cheers.

This, by the way, is my ringtone of choice, except for three special persons who get their own ringtones. (They are not all special for the same reasons.)

Steve has the skinny.

Aside: I could live on $3500.00 a month. And often have.

Tuesday, Triumph Brewing Company, Chestnut within sight of Penn’s Landing if it weren’t for the Chinese Wall of I-95, 6 p.

Good food, good talk, good company.

Hold a stool for me. If the creeks don’t rise, I’ll be there.

Robotic war, the next sign of progress:

Autonomous armed robotic systems probably will be operating by 2020, according to John Pike, an expert on defense and intelligence matters and the director of the security Web site GlobalSecurity.org in Washington.

This prospect alarms experts, who fear that machines will be unable to distinguish between legitimate targets and civilians in a war zone.

“We are sleepwalking into a brave new world where robots decide who, where, and when to kill,” said Noel Sharkey, an expert on robotics and artificial intelligence at the University of Sheffield, England.