First Looks category archive

. . . in more ways than one. Brendan calls for action:

BOYCOTT THE PHILADELPHIA EAGLES UNTIL THEY PAY BACK THE $8,000,000.00 THEY OWE OUR CITY. Don’t go to their games, don’t watch them on TV, don’t buy their memorabilia and branded garments.

Talk of the Nation yesterday had an interesting show about scams. It’s well worth a listen.

It starts with the one mentioned in the excerpt below, but ends up ranging over a much wider range of subject matter:

A new scam is on the rise throughout the country; con men, posing as “grandchildren”, have been calling elderly men and women and asking for emergency cash. “Please send me $5,000 for bail,” they plead. “And please … don’t tell Mom.”

Surprisingly, there was no mention of the Republican Party.

Off to look for a parking place in Old City.

Update:

Triumph Brewing Company worked out well. We had the upstairs to ourselves (can’t have all those liberals near real customers, you know). Plenty of room. Could hear ourselves think. Nice variety on the menu. Good service. Mithras thinks we’ll probably give it a few more weeks of testing.

No second chance for the Plough and Stars.

Triumph Brewing Company, 117 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa.

Tuesday, venue on the sidebar. That’s over there——————>

Having heard nothing from FL, I am assuming that we shall be giving the Plough and Stars one more chance.

In any event, wherever it is, I’ll be there, if the creeks don’t rise.

Fear of loss is one reason my cell phone pretty much never leaves my person when I’m awake, but, I must say, nothing in my phone is very interesting:

A US couple is suing McDonald’s for $3m (£2m) after nude photos of the woman, which were on her husband’s mobile phone, ended up on the internet.

Phillip Sherman says he accidentally left his phone, with the photos, at a McDonald’s in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

He says staff promised to secure the phone until he could retrieve it.

. . . read this.

Via Phillybits.

Via Mithras.

I was hungry, and you did not feed me:

A program that provided 30-pound boxes of food to poor families across the state became a victim of the sagging economy when the Food Bank of Delaware ceased operating its emergency feeding program.

The decision to close the seven-month program, which provided food to people who showed up at one of two warehouses, came when the Food Bank ran out of grant money just as it was seeing an increase in demand.

The Bush Midas touch.

Matthew 25: 35-40

The Somali pirates, renegade Somalis known for hijacking ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden, are negotiating a purchase of Citigroup.

The pirates would buy Citigroup with new debt and their existing cash stockpiles, earned most recently from hijacking numerous ships, including most recently a $200 million Saudi Arabian oil tanker. The Somali pirates are offering up to $0.10 per share for Citigroup, pirate spokesman Sugule Ali said earlier today. The negotiations have entered the final stage, Ali said.

“You may not like our price, but we are not in the business of paying for things. Be happy we are in the mood to offer the shareholders anything,” said Ali.

Via Delaware Liberal.

Reuters:

NASA is having problems with a $250 million system it just delivered to the International Space Station to recycle urine and other wastewater into drinking water for astronauts.

But the glitches were not unexpected and will hopefully be ironed out in time for the visiting shuttle Endeavour crew to bring home its first samples, the U.S. space agency said on Friday.

Hope they have a couple of bags of lime.

. . . comes around.

The one at Marsh and Silverside.

It’s a TD Bank.

I don’t think I’ll ever see the inside, though.

Not after reading this.

John Cole:

Kevin Drum asks who should replace Bill Kristol at the NY Times. My first thought was a steaming pile of dog leftovers, then I moved on to Otto from Airplane, both of whom are on equal intellectual footing with Kristol, and probably cost less to pay.

I think Otto from Airplane has a bone to pick with Mr. Cole.

Otto is nowhere near the airhead that Bill Kristol is.

The major topic of conversation when we broke up at DL tonight was “what other venues can we try?”

Maybe it was just the waitress who had our area.

But Plough and Stars massive fail.

I set myself a two-drink limit (after all, it is Drinking Liberally); I never got the second one, not 45 minutes after ordering it.

I was there two weeks ago, on election night, when it was packed.

It was not packed tonight.

The service was nowhere near as bad then as it was tonight.

Two different worlds . . . .

Rox, what were you thinking?

Free Credit Report dot com is not free.

It may have cute commercials, but it’s not free.

Chris, how quickly can you get here?