First Looks category archive

“Won’t you try . . . ?”

Later, Dudes.

Down the hall, second door to the left. (See the fourth comment.)

My cell phone battery was reaching end-of-life. Instead of holding a charge for more than two days, it was dying after a day and a half. (Hey, it happens.) Rather than order a new battery on line, I decided to swing by the local store.

They did not have a new battery in stock. They did, however, have an unused return waiting to be shipped back to the mothership.

The salesperson checked with the manager, then swapped out my battery at no charge.

Editorial Comment below the Fold

Tuesday, Triumph Brewing Company, Chestnut two blocks from the I-95 trench, Philadelphia, 6 p.

I plan to be there this week. (I hope this plan works better than most of my plans.)

To find a chapter near you, go here.

The Shepaug River west of Roxbury, Connecticut:

Looking downstream (south)

More below the Fold

(If the embed doesn’t load, go to Noz’s place to view it.)

Via Noz.

Accountability now.

From BuzzWhack (follow the link to sign up for the buzzword of the day).

PowerPoint engineering:

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.

H/T Alison for the link.

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.

Mad Kane:

When paying my taxes great pains
Always shoot through my muscles and veins.
But for once there’s relief
From an oft taxing beef:
Schedule D won’t show capital gains.

Via Skippy.

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.

“It’s interesting how a sinking ship unites all crew members,” said Massa, 49, brandishing the group’s statement to deflect charges of fiscal irresponsibility. “If I’m a tax-and- spend liberal, they better ask the Chamber of Commerce.”

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.

How two galaxies merge, from Scientific Blogging:

Oh Noes.

President Barack Obama ordered federal agencies to get legal reviews of statements that his predecessors, including George W. Bush, used to challenge parts of new laws they viewed as unconstitutional.

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.

The Philadelphia Shrinquier reviews Will Bunch’s book. An excerpt:

Bunch’s book is a lively, overdue, and slashing rejoinder to the lengthening list of pro-Reagan hagiographies that have appeared over the last decade. Tear Down This Myth reveals that the right’s lionization of Reagan is part of a far-reaching campaign to build up Reagan’s image for posterity’s sake. Reagan’s supporters envisioned, for example, that his death would be an opportunity to create “a legacy-building event,” in the words of one former aide; upon that death in 2004, they used the weeklong funeral observance to showcase to the nation that Reagan was “a man who won the Cold War” and revived “America’s faith in itself.”

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.

This is neat.

Over at Mithras’s place:

. . . it’s telling that premeditated violence is the hallmark of human-like behavior.