Glenn Hauman: A View From Above

Oh, and Rich Little will be there too. Take it away, Mark:

As mentioned in a recent link here, the White House Correspondents Association has selected Rich Little as the entertainer at their 2007 dinner. Here's part of this article about it...

Rich Little won't be mentioning Iraq or ratings when he addresses the White House Correspondents' Dinner April 21. Little said organizers of the event made it clear they don't want a repeat of last year's controversial appearance by Stephen Colbert, whose searing satire of President Bush and the White House press corps fell flat and apparently touched too many nerves. "They got a lot of letters," Little said Tuesday. "I won't even mention the word 'Iraq.'"

Little, who hasn't been to the White House since he was a favorite of the Reagan administration, said he'll stick with his usual schtick — the impersonations of the past six presidents. "They don't want anyone knocking the president. He's really over the coals right now, and he's worried about his legacy," added Little, a longtime Las Vegas resident.

...Of course, if Rich Little has any guts at all, he'll get up there and say, "Thank you. I'd like to start with my newest impression...Stephen Colbert!" That would make for quite an evening.

(Via news from me.)

Day 7: Jack Bauer goes to the bathroom, has three solid meals, and gets a good nine hours of sleep after working on various hobbies and home improvement projects all day, having turned off his magic cell phone and gotten a restraining order against Chloe, Kim, anyone else from CTU, and anyone named Palmer.

Because, of course, on the seventh day, he rested.

Stolen with a complete lack of shame from Tom Galloway. More takes on 24 can be found here, here (see, he did have enough popularity!) and here.

This zen question was first posed to me by the great Robert Anton Wilson, to whom we must now append the prefix "late".

I had the privilege of hosting and introducing him at a lecture at NYU back in May of 1990, a lecture entitled "From Psychedelics to Cyberspace" which was noteworthy for being the first public demonstration of VR technology east of the Rockies. Being able to converse, before and after the show, with him and Timothy Leary was a truly unique experience.

I'm sad, in a way, that he didn't live long enough to the movie "The Number 23", but I will happily note that he passed away on 1/11-- which, of course, if you add 1+1, gives you 2, and if you add 1+1+1, you get 3. 23. Of course.

Hail Eris. All Hail Discordia.

...and then listening to the pundit's talking about doubling his bet, I realized what we actually have is a President who's actually dumb enough to be using a Martingale system, because he thinks that he has the infinite wealth required to make a Martingale work.

Except, of course, that the odds aren't in his favor, and the dead soldiers and their families have no way to recoup their losses. But those losses aren't Bush's losses.

"We're not making a sacrifice. Jesus, you've seen this war. We are the sacrifice." --Ulster regiment, marching toward the Somme, World War I

Let Bush actually sacrifice something himself before he asks it of others.

Keith Olbermann has much, much more:

If in your presence an individual tried to sacrifice an American serviceman or woman, would you intervene?

Would you at least protest?

What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them?

What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them — and was then to announce his intention to sacrifice hundreds, maybe thousands, more?

And even more from Steve Gilliard:

George Bush is in no position to ask for sacrifice from ANYONE.

He told people to go shopping after 9/11. Now he wants sacrifice? From whom? The survivors of Iraq? The Iraqi people?

We're all fucking sacrificed out. Teenagers look like horror show freaks because an IED burned them up. What more can they give?

His daughters whore around Argentina and he thinks no one notices? He wants some poor kid from Wal Mart to do another tour?

I think we have sacrificed quiet enough for Bush's Colonial War. Send his fucking daughters and the rest of the Bush brood for his attempt to save his ego.

Sacrifice?

Hmmm, let's start with the Iraqi mother who's son was snatched up from a hospital and killed for being the wrong religion. I think she's sacrificed a great deal for this war.

Or we can walk around Walter Reed's neurology ward, where they're building plastic skulls for the wounded.

Maybe we can ask a nurse on the flight from Balad to Rhein Main about sacrifice.

Maybe we can ask the survivors of Haditha about sacrifice.

And since no one talks to them, why not ask some grunts about sacrifice. I mean, they're the ones watching their friends die. Iraqi, American, I think both have sacrificed enough for Bush's war.

I think of the Shia women crying on caskets as their children are given a quick burial. Or the mothers who get the phone call, which reads US Government, and the next thing she knows, she's flying to Germany to see what's left of her child.

Iraq has created a great deal of sacrifice, for many people.

Except one group:

Bush and his friends. He should take those fat, cheetos eating fucks at the think tanks and ship their asses overseas. Let Cliff May run a convoy and have Max Boot drive. Let Goldberg man the .50.

Let those useless motherfuckers sacrifice more than their filthy fucking mouths. Let them do what they ask of others and then denigrate.

Bush must be in a Potemkin Village to think he can ask for sacrifice. Sacrifice? Him and metal heart Cheney did everything but ask for sacrifice. He has no standing to ask for sacrifice. He pissed that away with his tax cuts.

What a sad little man we have running this country. Sacrifice. What the fuck does George Bush know about sacrifice? He's never sacrificed a fucking thing in his miserable life.

Instead of your usual idiotic blathering putting words into e-e-e-vil liberals mouths, why don't you resolve to stop driving drunk, particularly after a New Year's Eve celebration. Or would that impair your stand of fierce individuality, or hamper your ability to make Kennedy jokes? No, much better to get impaired yourself.

(Sorry. Turned off The 40-Year Old Virgin last night after the first half hour, because there just isn't that much funny about drunk drivers. Tinsley's hypocrisy pushed me over the edge.)

For the rest of you out there, have a safe and happy new year.

Apple - Trailers - Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer - July 15, 2007 - Teaser Trailer

Now this is what we were hoping for. Pay no attention to the fact that they fly into and out of the Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel.

Seems that old-time NY Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno is up to his bellybutton in hot water, and that a lot of it has to do with horse racing and trying to take over the contract from NYRA when it expires at the end of 2007.

I'm behind on this scandal, but I want to get a few links down for future reading before I forget. It's all going behind the fold, feel free to read on if you're curious.

A quick glance, however, suggests the following: There are three consortiums that are looking to take over the franchise: NYRA, which already has the franchise, but filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year; Excelsior, which has been selected by a state government committee in a non-binding decision but may have members that are prohibited from taking it; and Empire, which now has some serious questions about whether Bruno greased the wheels to help a founding investor.

Bruno, BTW, would have a major role in awarding the franchise, along with Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver and Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer. One Excelsior partner, casino developer Richard Fields, has close political ties to Spitzer. And as long as we're disclosing ties, my father co-owns some racehorses with Barry Schwartz, who ran NYRA for several years.

Place your bets, folks. And expect some bumping at the gate.

Short and sweet, from Steve Gilliard:

If American troops:

Bitterly complain about the quality and courage of Iraqi troops

Call them racially derogatory names

Mock and taunt their children

Do not speak Arabic

How can they train an Iraqi Army worth a damn?

(Via The News Blog.)

Frank Rich's latest column,

Mary Cheney's Bundle of Joy, makes an excellent point, although he's a bit too genteel to come out and say it:

Such religious leaders [ones who are supporting environmental protection and AIDS research] may not have given up their opposition to abortion or gay marriage, but they have more pressing priorities. They seem to have figured out, as Mr. Kuo has said, that “politicians use Christian voters for their money and for their votes” and give them little in return except a reputation for bigotry and heartless opposition to the lifesaving potential of stem-cell research.

In starker terms: if politicians are prostituting themselves to religious types for money and votes, then the religious folks who are giving them the money are the johns.

...oh, if you ever read an issue of X-Men in the 80's, you know how that ends.

Now it seems that the rest of us might be pretty good too:

globeandmail.com: Move over, Rover, humans are trackers, too:

Nosy scientists find people are able to trail scents just like dogs do

MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT

Dogs won't have to roll over any time soon, but they have unexpected competition in a field they've long dominated.

Just like canines, many humans are able to sniff the ground, pick up a faint scent and successfully track it.

The surprising discovery, made by researchers in the United States who are trying to figure out the mystery of why mammals have two nostrils, suggests that people have a much more highly developed sense of smell than is commonly thought.

The researchers found that about two out of three people given the kind of task that would be the joy of any hound managed to find and follow a scent trail spread on a grass field -- a very pleasing scent to humans: a faint whiff of chocolate spread along 10 metres.

A paper published in the January issue of Nature Neuroscience also found that humans get better with sniffing out a scent trail over time, which suggests that with lots of practice people may be capable of the kind of tracking previously thought to be the exclusive ability of other animals.

The researchers were the first to admit that having a group of 32 people, comprised mostly of university students, crawl across a field with their noses to the ground carried a whiff of the absurd.

"It seems a little wacky at first glance," said Rehan Khan, a senior scientist at the University of California Berkeley neuroscience department who worked on the project. "It's a very strange task for a human, but it's the most natural task in the world for most mammals."

He said the tracking test was part of an effort to figure out why mammals have two nostrils, something that isn't as readily apparent as the obvious utility of having two eyes, which give depth perception, and two ears, which allow for a more accurate sense of where a sound is coming from.

"All mammals have two nostrils, so we were interested in why is this? Nobody really had an answer to this question," Mr. Khan said.

People rely most heavily on their sense of sight, leading them to under-appreciate their olfactory abilities. "Because we do have this domination in our perception of vision, we don't think of ourselves as particularly good at smelling things compared to a dog, but that doesn't mean that we're terrible," Mr. Khan said.

By taping one nostril shut, the researchers were able to show that people were far worse at tracking, with the success rate dropping in half compared with both nostrils. That meant only one person in three was able to pick up the chocolate trail. There wasn't a significant difference in olfactory prowess by sex, with women and men performing about the same.

"Having two [nostrils] permits you to be a more efficient tracker of scents in your environment. In fact, if a dog only had one, we would predict a dog would be measurably worse," Mr. Khan said.

What seems to be happening is that each nostril draws air from distinct, non-overlapping areas, allowing people to sniff out scent from a wider area.

To find out whether humans got better with practice, the researchers had subjects train at sniffing out the trail three times a day, for three days. The speed of tracking more than doubled with even this short amount of practice.

During the experiment, the test subjects were blindfolded, given full body suits, and wore gloves and earplugs to make sure they were relying only on their sense of smell to find the trail.

When people first try to sniff out a trail blindfolded, it was disorienting. Some were confused, and had no idea of where they were, but "other people got down and they were able to get into it pretty quickly," according to Mr. Khan.

The tests were funded in part by the U.S. military. It is interested in finding out more about the sense of smell to develop devices that can track scents.

...but I know that you'd win instead:

Congratulations! You are the Time magazine "Person of the Year."

NSFW.



From all over the place.

With all the discussion on Johnson's health and its implications for control of the Senate, I haven't seen this getting a lot of play:

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide:

While vacancies aren't uncommon in the Senate, they can only occur ``by death or resignation,'' said Richard Baker, the Senate historian.

``There either has to be a death certificate or there has to be a letter of resignation,'' he said. ``Nobody has the power to determine a vacancy for a person who is still living.''

Some lawmakers in the past have kept their seats in spite of long illnesses.

In 1969, two years into his fourth term, South Dakota Senator Karl Mundt, a Republican, suffered a stroke and was unable to continue voting. He offered to resign on the condition that South Dakota's governor appoint Mundt's wife to fill the vacancy.

The governor refused, and Mundt kept the seat for the balance of the term, even while missing three years of votes. He remained on three committees until 1972, when the Senate Republican Conference stripped him of the assignments.

In the 1940s, Senator Carter Glass of Virginia, a Democrat, missed two years of votes due to illness. At age 87 and in failing health, he refused to retire even as newspapers from across his state pressured him to step aside.

In any event, best wishes for Senator Johnson and his family.