First Looks category archive
Everyone Wants $1,000,000,000. Everyone. 0
Word of the Day 0
From BuzzWhack (follow the link to sign up for the buzzword of the day).
Presenting concepts that look good in PowerPoint but don’t work technically. In 2004, NASA was chided for too much PowerPoint engineering and that they should (go–sic) back to writing full reports, not just bulleted slides.
PowerPoint in the hands of empty suits is evil. It has been my unfortunate experience that too many suits are empty.
Numerology 0
H/T Alison for the link.
In a Nutshell 0
John Cole summarizes Republican Economic Theory:
Step 1: No tax increases
Step 2: ?
Step 3: Profit!Why not, I guess. It worked so well for California.
The missing Step Two: Deregulation.
It’s Not “What’s Good for Business Is Good for the Country” 0
It’s what’s good for the country is good for business.
Read the full story for some of the subtleties, contradictions, and eddy currents in the possible (and likely temporary) realignment.
Even as a powerful lineup of business groups, including the chamber, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Restaurant Association, supported Obama’s stimulus plan, only three Republicans, all of them in the Senate, voted for it.
What? You Mean a Law May Actually Mean What It Says? 0
Oh Noes.
Obama, in a two-page memorandum he issued yesterday, also preserved the right to rely on the so-called signing statements to make similar challenges.
(snip)
Obama said he would attach signing statements to legislation “only when it is appropriate to do so as a means of discharging my constitutional responsibilities.” He also laid out a set of principles that will govern his use of signing statements.
Signing statements should “not be used to suggest that the president will disregard statutory requirements on the basis of policy disagreements,” Obama said in the memorandum.
Aside: It does sort of look like a “have cake, eat it too” stance. On the other hand, as an ex-professor of Constitutional Law, Mr. Obama can be expected to have a clue or two about what “constitutional” means.
“Tear Down This Myth” 0
The Philadelphia Shrinquier reviews Will Bunch’s book. An excerpt:
The hero-making has moved in other directions as well. Supporters have tried to add Reagan’s face to Mount Rushmore, while congressional Republicans backed the bill that renamed the former Washington National Airport “Reagan National.” Admirers have sought to put Reagan’s face on the dime. In California, Bunch reports, there is a Ronald Reagan Freeway near Reagan’s presidential library in Simi Valley. The state also now has Ronald Reagan elementary schools, a Ronald Reagan Park, Ronald Reagan government office buildings – even a Ronald Reagan Community Center.
Bunch has crafted an intelligent and relentlessly anti-Reagan polemic that succeeds in taking Reagan’s presidency down several pegs. Admirers have applauded Reagan for consistently sticking to his anti-big-government convictions, but Bunch shows that Reagan’s actual record is much more complicated than conservatives like to admit.
Full disclosure: Will Bunch writes for the Daily News, which is part of the company that owns the Shrinquier. Having read the Shrinquier for years and having my share of beefs about it, I am confident that that relationship did not influence the review.
Driving in the Snow 0
This is neat.
Anthropomorphism 0
Over at Mithras’s place:
. . . it’s telling that premeditated violence is the hallmark of human-like behavior.
Drawing Nigh 4
The end of our Winter of Discombobulation.
The winter part, that is. The discombobulation will continue.
The crocuses are in bloom.
He Said It Was the Saddest Story He Ever Wrote 1
Gene Weingarten looks at what happens when a parent forgets a baby in a car to die in the heat:
The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate. In the last 10 years, it has happened to a dentist. A postal clerk. A social worker. A police officer. An accountant. A soldier. A paralegal. An electrician. A Protestant clergyman. A rabbinical student. A nurse. A construction worker. An assistant principal. It happened to a mental health counselor, a college professor and a pizza chef. It happened to a pediatrician. It happened to a rocket scientist.
Last year it happened three times in one day, the worst day so far in the worst year so far in a phenomenon that gives no sign of abating.
The facts in each case differ a little, but always there is the terrible moment when the parent realizes what he or she has done, often through a phone call from a spouse or caregiver. This is followed by a frantic sprint to the car. What awaits there is the worst thing in the world.
Read the whole thing. And, for discussion, tune into Tuesday’s chat.
H/T Karen for the link.
Drinking Liberally 1
Triumph Brewing Company, Chestnut just east of 2nd, Philadelphia, Pa., 6 p., Tueday.
Don’t know whether I’ll make it this week.
If I don’t, hoist one for me.
If I do, buy one for me.
All Gone 0
Down the drain.
Bair acknowledged the new fees, announced Friday, would put additional pressure on banks at time of financial crisis and a deepening recession, but insisted they were critical to keep the insurance fund solvent and protect.
“Without these assessments, the deposit insurance fund could become insolvent this year,” Bair wrote.
Via Susie.