Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Look, Ma! No Hands!

This is scary. A new model of the Toyota Prius, available only in Japan at the moment, has a feature that will automatically parallel park the car for you. It involves a rear-mounted camera and some sort of on-board computer that figures out when the wheel should be turned and how much. Here's a video that displays this feature in action.

• Posted at 9:59 PM · LINK

On Now

I'm watching tonight's Larry King Live, which is an hour with Ed McMahon plugging his book on Johnny Carson. As explained here, I didn't care for the book but this interview is pretty good and you might want to catch one of the reruns tonight. It was obviously taped ahead because almost every time Ed starts to tell a story — and sometimes, even before he starts telling one — the producers cut to an appropriate clip or photo. But what really makes it work is that Bob Costas is the guest host, reminding us that he's the best interviewer working in television these days.

• Posted at 6:27 PM · LINK

Finally...

The Los Angeles Daily News runs an obit for ventriloquist Rickie Layne.

• Posted at 6:18 PM · LINK

Today's Political Thought

I'm obviously not a fan of George W. Bush but the latest controversy — this thing about outsourcing the operation of several U.S. ports to an Arabian company — seems like errant criticism. One can make a good argument that we shouldn't be handing a job this sensitive over to an outside supplier at all...that it should be done by the United States government. But none of the folks yelling at Bush today seem to be making that case. They weren't bothered when it was a British company that was running the six U.S. ports...but now that the company's being acquired by a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates, all Hades is breaking loose.

Bush didn't help himself with the way he let this be announced. Donald Rumsfeld was put in the embarrassing position today of telling reporters he'd just heard about the deal over the weekend, even though it was approved unanimously on February 13 by the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, of which he is a member. And someone has to tell George W. that since his approval ratings started occasionally hitting 39%, even some loyal Republicans won't rubber-stamp everything he wants to do.

But really, what's the problem here? Is the company qualified to handle the job? If they are, they should be allowed to do it. And if they aren't, they shouldn't have the job, no matter what country is involved. I think Bush is getting a bit of a bum rap on this one.

• Posted at 12:12 AM · LINK