First Looks category archive

Via Todd.

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” —Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

Bushies.

As wrong as he was in throwing the public good under the bus in favor of private gain, he was a brilliant and witty man and a scintillating writer.

Dick Polman offers a memoriam.

The person who wrote this had health insurance. She got t-boned in a traffic accident–not her fault. First, her health insurance carrier cut her off. Then the other driver’s auto insurance cut her off.

This happens when health care is based, not on caring for health, but on making money for anonymous third parties. (Emphasis added)

So here I am, some 4 years later more than $20,000 in debt and still without a job, a car, or health insurance. I was very fortunate to meet someone special who has helped me out, and given me the time to learn a new career that I can actually physically do.

Now, I am sure I left a bunch of stuff out of this, and if you have questions I will gladly answer them. But here is my point.

Universal Health Insurance doesn’t solve a damned thing. Insurance companies, all types of insurance companies, do what they want. What good is having insurance if they can refuse treatment?

I had insurance. I had health insurance from work, I had insurance for my car. I had disability insurance. I had insurance for my credit cards.

You know what it did for me? Not a damned thing. We don’t need universal health coverage, we need universal health care; where you cannot be told, oh sorry, we’re not going to cover that.

Here.

But Bushies do. ASZ has the scoop.

I’ve activated a new plug-in that reformats From Pine View Farm to a mobile friendly format when you connect from a mobile device.

When I tested it on my cell phone, it worked pretty good, but it did seem to strip the links out of the bodies of the posts.

If you have PDA, cell phone, or other mobile device, check it out and tell me what you think.

Paula Poundstone is playing Rehoboth.

We always look forward to her appearances on Wait, Wait. She is truly witty.

And it will be a weekend with no kids (no disrespect meant, Second Son) and no dogs (disrepect meant, dogs).

Tomorrow, Tangier Restaurant, 18th and Lombard, Philadelphia, Pa., 6 to 9 p. m.

If the dentist doesn’t beat me up too bad, I’ll be there.

And I do mean “faculty.”

Phillybits has the scoop.

Oh, my.

Advanced gadgeteers evidently cannot rest until all technology combines into a single useful tool – the Swiss Army Knifing of the digital world.

And now, along with phones that make movies and Blackberries that navigate better than Columbus, come weapons that sing.

More specifically, Tasers are being paired with MP3 players – and marketed to women as fashionable safety devices.

Scheduled to hit the market in early March, the Taser MPH is the bizarre coupling of a gunlike device capable of delivering a 50,000-volt jolt, and its holster, which contains a 1-gigabyte-capacity handheld music player.

It’s been a long week of racking up billable hours and trying to be a webmaster. As you can see, we are mostly back.

I’ll be working on the sidebar throughout the day. For the geeky among us, the blogroll is organized by categories. In updating the database from WordPress 1.5.x format to WordPress 2.3 format, the categories disappeared.

All comments are being held for moderation until until I get a WordPress 2.3 compatible anti-comment-spam plugin working. (Honestly, I got this thing back on line yesterday about 4:00 p. m.; within 15 minutes, I had seven spam comments.)

I can’t vote for this guy. I don’t live in Florida.

I’ve spent lots of time in Florida. Frankly, I wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t frankly. Also, I wouldn’t live in Florida on a bet.

But, if I could vote for this guy, I would.

What the future holds, from Radio Times:

The rising political clout of Hispanic voters. First we’ll hear about a new population projection from the Pew Hispanic Center. In 2005 Hispanics accounted for 14 percent of the U.S. population, that’s expected to increase to 29 percent by 2050. We’ll talk with JEFFREY PASSEL co-author of the new report, then we’ll look at the role Hispanic voters are playing in this year’s Presidential election. Our two guests are LUIS CLEMENS editor of Candidato USA, an internet publication that helps clients reach Hispanic voters and MARISA ABRAJANO co-author of a forthcoming research article The Hispanic Voter in the 2004 Presidential Election.

Listen here or go to the website and search for the February 13, 2008, show.

Read the Pew Hispanic Center’s report here.

Diva Dog had dental work today.

(We call her Diva Dog because she never asks for anything. She knows someone will come to do her bidding. For example, she will not bark to go outside. She will lay down in front of the door and wait. She knows someone will come to accede to her wishes without her having to ask.)

The vet says she has a bad case of cocker mouth (and she’s part Cocker). That means that it’s easy for her to develop dental problems. Unlike most dogs–and people–in Cockers, the gums do not recede from infection; they grow to cover it and hold the bacteria more tightly to the teeth.

She lost seven teeth today. And her annual physical last year was just fine.

I came home with a fist full of doggie dental products.

Ever since she came home from the vet, the World’s Largest Yorkie ™ has refused to leave her side.

The vet promises that she’ll be pretty much back to normal tomorrow.

So far, she’s only had to take one doggie Rushie.

She’s a good dog. I’m sorry she had to go through this.

Fell victim to the layer of ice on I-95. Personally, I think this weather should have stayed in Illinois, where it could feel at home.

But there’s good news tonight.

Tomorrow.

Tangier Restaurant, 18th and Lombard, just a block from South Street, Center City, Philadelphia.

I haven’t tried the Ostrich Burger yet.

Last week, several cables connecting the Middle East and the Inidan subcontinent to the Internet were cut, prompting speculation among some that there was some kind of conspiracy.

The Network Security podcast took a sane look at this. I commend it to your attention. From the show notes:

Tonight’s special guest is Mike Murray the author of Epistime.ca. We headed into the land of paranoia and conspiracy theories given recent goings on under the sea in the Middle East. We all agree that these events probably are random, but it still leaves us with raised eyebrows.

The show also took a look at the implications of the Protect America (Yeah! Right!) Act’s and the Patriot Act’s on the civil liberties of American citizens as they relate to computer network security, also in a rational way.

“Rational,” natch, means not wingnut.

You can follow the link or listen here.

Steve over at ASZ has the scoop on them.

He’s at it again.