First Looks category archive

Tomorrow, Tangier Restaurant, 18th and Lombard, Philadelphia, just a block off South Street.

I’d much rather be there than at the Cooling Tower Place (for one thing, it’s only 25 miles away, not 79 miles away).

Pick up the slack for me, okay?

Jon Swift on the Emmys.

Fair and bolloxed.

The nutcases are coming out to support the DA.

From the SPLC:

As tens of thousands of people were preparing to make their way to Jena, La., for today’s anti-racism rally, white supremacists were burning up the Internet with furious denunciations, bloody predictions, promises of future violence, and calls for lynching.

“The best crowd control for such a situation would be a squad of men armed with full automatics and preferably a machine gun as well,” is how one person put it on the Web forum hosted by the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network. Added another hopeful VNN poster: “I’m not really that angry at the nogs [a recent variation on an ancient racial slur] — they are just soldiers in an undeclared race war. But any white that’s in that support rally I would like to … have them machine-gunned.”

As the rally began to unfold this morning, it became clear that it would attract huge numbers of people, perhaps even the 40,000 that some organizers had predicted. They came to protest the case of the “Jena 6,” black youths who were charged with serious crimes for an attack on a white youth not long after white teens who had targeted blacks were let off with a slap on the wrist. White supremacists reacted with a strange mixture of anger and admiration for the organizing behind the rally.

But the dominant response was violent rage. “I think a group of White men with AK rifles loaded with high capacity magazines should close in on the troop of howler monkeys from all sides and compress them into a tight group, and then White men in the buildings on both sides of the shitskinned hominids shall throw Molotov cocktails from above to cleanse the nigs by fire,” wrote “NS Cat” on VNN. Another poster fantasized about a terrorist attack in Jena today: “Wouldn’t that be sweet? Gosh darn, wouldn’t that be sweet? Good LORD wouldn’t THAT be SWeeeeEET? Boom, Boom, no more Coon! Well? A White man can dream can’t he?”

Via Pam’s House Blend.

Test your knowledge here.

Via Upyernoz (not as good as he, but still respectable).

Brendan has an idea.

Upyernoz on (cough, cough) accountability. Well said.

Tomorrow, Tangier Restaurant, 18th and Lombard, Philadelphia, just one block from South Street, 6 p. m.

Todd Chappelle’s from Delaware.

This is my sixth edition of What Digby Said.

Brendan calls in the chips.

I’m not a big fan of the local Wilmington rag. They are stuck between two big metropolitan area (Baltimore and Philadelphia) and are at a disadvantage in competing for ad dollars.

Frankly (which is how I try to do most things), I like a newspaper that takes more than five minutes to read (10 on Sunday), but this is way cool.

Simply by selecting a neighborhood or a zip code or by clicking on the map, you can see crime reports for that area for the last two weeks by type of crime.

Or is that incompetence? Or stupidity? Or simply “true believer-ism“?

Nothing says we’re here to help you better than turning off the power and shutting down the flow of water when it’s 122 degrees outside. Yes, the United States is busy winning the hearts and minds of the people in Iraq one parched throat in the dark scorching heat at a time. I guess the Iraqis didn’t realize that when we said we we’re initiating a troop surge that it would also result in shutting off all of the other spigots.

Troop surge power, surge, water surge? Apparently the United States can only provide one of the three at a time–kind of a multiple choice question for our friends in Iraq. After all, a troop surge is designed to bring democracy so it was the only logical choice. I guess the Iraqis need to realize that we’ll get to water and power once everyone is liberated and living in freedom–albeit in third world conditions far worse than seen under that tyrant Saddam.

1. All right, here are the rules.
2. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
3. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
4. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
5. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1. I’m a good housekeeper. Everytime I get divorced, I keep the house.

2. The first time I drove 100 miles an hour, it was in a 1965 Ford Fairlane with a 289 V-8 on Smith Beach Road (now called Savage Neck Drive). Now, that was an engine.

3. I will not cook with any form of wine or alcohol that I am not willing to drink straight up. “Cooking sherry” is for cleaning toilets.

4. Stop signs are difficult to steal. It can take up the three Saturday nights to get away with one.

5. Curry is a gift from God.

6. Guilt is for suckers. Do your best, hold up your head, and soldier on. (Of course, if you don’t do your best, guilt is for you, but then that’s your problem, isn’t it?)

7. I had one date in high school. And it wasn’t a very good one.

8. I hate computers.

Oh, and now I have to tag eight people–I don’t think I have eight people to tag, at least not eight people who would notice me.

But I will do my best and to hell with the rules (whose rules are they, anyway?)

Not Always Mayberry

Karen’s Rant Page

My Turn

DelawareLiberal

That’s 8 divided by 2 and all you get.

Oh, yeah:

9. To hell with the rules.

String Band.

What Digby said.

Addendum:

What TBogg said:

To paraphrase Monica, “Officer, I didn’t mean to commit a felony.”

Yeah.

Right.

“Officer, I didn’t know I was going 75 in a 35 mph zone.”

Give me a break from imbecilic ideologues who have no idea what the Constitution of the United States of America means. Furrfu.

Cep’s. Help keep him in business so I can keep enjoying his ribs. He’s got nothing to offer except good ingredients and his wife’s recipes.

And some of it is worthwhile:

***********************************************************
REAL ID REVOLT: RAISE YOUR VOICE
From the Desk of Caroline Fredrickson
Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office
Link.
***********************************************************

Dear Friend,

States from Maine to Montana are in revolt against Congress’s
REAL ID scheme. By adding your voice today, you can help us
prevent this ‘Real Nightmare’ from becoming a reality.

The REAL ID Act requires every American to have a standardized
driver’s license — a de facto national ID — to fly on
commercial airlines or enter government buildings. It also requires
driver’s licenses to have a “machine readable
component,” that will be read everywhere, from retailers to
airports.

This component — combined with state databases of drivers’
information — will create one-stop shopping for identity
thieves. More importantly, it will invade people’s privacy
by allowing easy tracking and monitoring of ordinary, law-abiding
Americans.

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposed
regulations to implement REAL ID. As required by law, the
department is now accepting public comments on these proposed
regulations.

Take Action: Submit your own comments telling the Department of
Homeland Security and Congress that REAL ID is a ‘Real Nightmare.’
Link.

Anyone in America has the right to submit comments to the government
on this proposal. The government hasn’t made submitting
comments easy, but that just makes your comments more valuable. And
we’ve made it much easier to submit comments than it normally
is, with a step-by-step guide and talking points.

The number of comments will be watched by many influential Members of
Congress, not just your own. So today you really have a chance
to make a difference on the national stage. The extra impact is
definitely worth the extra effort!

Take Action: Your comments to the Department of Homeland Security will
make a huge difference in this debate:
Link.

REAL ID creates enormous administrative burdens for state governments,
and it’s a massive unfunded mandate that will cost state
taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. The law forces state
governments to remake their driver’s licenses, restructure their
computer databases and create an extensive new document storage
system.

Five states have already said ‘no’ to Real ID, making the
program pointless. More states are expected to follow suit. We hope
this activity, combined with your comments today, will convince
Congress to rethink this ill conceived law.

Submit Comments: Tell DHS and Congress that Americans reject REAL ID:
Link.

Congress needs to go back to the drawing board and fix Real ID. Many
influential members of Congress will be paying close attention to the
number of comments submitted by the public on REAL ID. By
submitting your comments today, you will make it clear to DHS and
Congress that Americans oppose this costly, intrusive and unworkable
program.

Tell DHS and Congress that Americans reject REAL ID:
Link.

Thank you for your extra effort today, it really does make a
difference. I look forward to writing you to say, “this
‘Real Nightmare’ for Americans is over.”

Sincerely,
Caroline Fredrickson
Director
ACLU Washington Legislative Office

P.S. For more information on the ACLU’s efforts to defeat REAL
ID, go to:
Link.

I’ve been tagged by Phillybits, so I’ll do my best to come up with five reasons why I blog that are better than the basic one: because I can.

But first, stealing a meme from Phillybits, a little background.

This did not start out as a political blog. My goal was to run a webserver out of my house (see number 1 below)–the political slant just sort of happened. I’ve always been a news junkie–something I inherited from my father.

But, by heavens, the political arena is just so full of easy targets and the Current Federal Administration just so outrageously corrupt and incompetent that I drifted over towards a political slant. Easy targets make for many marksmen.

So here, in no particular order (well, that’s not true–in the order in which I make them up):

1. Opie. When I met Opie at a training class in America’s Second City, he told me how he was running a website out of his home. I got fascinated with the idea of self-hosting and thought to myself, “Me do that thing.”

Opie also told me about No-IP.com, which provides DNS service for DHCP sites.

At the time, I had a website sitting out on AOL and, frankly, the main reason I hadn’t cancelled my AOL account after getting cable was the chore of moving the website. But I had a Linux computer that really wasn’t doing anything except giving me the opportunity to learn about Linux. When I learned I could bring the website home and maintain it on my own server, I got off my rear end and got to work.

2. I enjoy writing. No, that’s not true. Writing is work. I enjoy having written–having put words on paper, or, in the case of computers, black squiggles on a white background, in such a way as to make my point and, I hope, from time to time, provide some amusement and enlightenment. I’ve made my living with my pen for the past 30 years. It’s fun to write for my purposes, rather than for my employer’s purposes.

3. I like making computers do things. I also like crossword puzzles. The two are not that much different. In both cases, you have to have the right letters in the right squares to make everything work.

4. I enjoy the online conversation that is blogging (though, given the small stature of Pine View Farm, I’m much more a listener than a talker–but I can write a blog post and blow off my steam and imagine that thousands hundreds dozens two or three persons might actually notice what I wrote.

5. It’s mine, I tell you. MINE. ALL MINE!

So, now I’ve done my part.

I’ll tag a few sites, but, since I doubt many of them read me, except Opie, probably nothing will come of it. But maybe I can at least generate a few hits for them.

Not Always Mayberry
Delaware Liberal
Delaware Watch
TommyWonk
Loose Lips Sink Ships

I have mentioned that my current project involves Industrial Strength Cooling Towers.

Here’s one:

(Aside) Ain’t that the forklift from hell?

The Federal Trade Commission has disabled their old email address for reporting spam. It is no longer uce (for unsolicited commercial email) at ftc dot gov.

The new address is spam at ftc dot gov.

The FTC says not to expect a response when you use this address. They get too much mail. They do use it in setting priorities on whom to pursue.

I don’t use it for routine spam–I don’t have that much keyboard time!–I reserve it for identity theft emails, such as this one I got this morning:

We recently have determined that different computers have logged onto your Online Banking account, and multiple password failures were present before the logons. We now need you to re-confirm your account information to us. If this is not completed by November 9, 2006, we will be forced to suspend your account indefinitely, as it may have been used for fraudulent purposes. We thank you for your cooperation in this manner.

To confirm your Online Banking records click here:

https://login.personal.[name of bank].com/logon/logon.asp?dd=1&Update&Your&Info

Thank you for your patience in this matter.

[name of bank] Customer Service

When I hovered the mouse over the link above, the actual link was revealed to be

http://[bogus address].com/forum/www.[name of bank].com/IdentityManagement/index.html?MfcISAPICommand=SignInFPP&UsingSSL=1&email=&userid=

I forwarded the message, with all headers, to abuse@[name of bank] dot com and to Uncle Sugar.

Note: For reporting such stuff, the address of “abuse at [domain name] dot whatever usually works; the “abuse” email address is built-in to mail servers. Generally, only less than legitimate persons disable it.

Jeez Oh Man and people fall for this stuff!

By the way, here is the whois for the bogus email address, courtesy of Sam Spade. Note that there is a good chance that the actual provider knows nothing about the scam–these scammers set up house for a day or two, then move on quickly.

Domains by Proxy Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd. Ste 160 PMB 353
Scottsdale Arizona 85260
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com Inc. http://www.godaddy.com
Domain Name: VPSLAND.COM
Created on: 23-Aug-04
Expires on: 23-Aug-09
Last Updated on: 08-Feb-06
Administrative Contact:
Private Registration VPSLAND.COM@domainsbyproxy.com

Domains by Proxy Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd. Ste 160 PMB 353
Scottsdale Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599
Technical Contact:
Private Registration VPSLAND.COM@

Domains by Proxy Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd. Ste 160 PMB 353
Scottsdale Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.VPSLAND.COM
NS2.VPSLAND.COM