A few midday links.

* In my previous election prediction thread I forgot to mention tomorrow's marriage equality vote in Maine, on which Adam Bink has an update at Open Left. I always think people will do the right thing on these marriage equality votes and I am always disappointed, so this year I'm expecting to lose but still hoping to be wrong.

* Looking past health care: can a climate bill actually pass the Senate? Steve Benen has more.

* The Climate Race: How Climate Change Is Already Affecting Us. Via Boing Boing. In the American Southeast:

* Average daily temperature about 2 degrees higher with the greatest increase in winter.
* Days below freezing (32 degrees) reduced to four to seven per year.
* Average fall precipitation 30% higher since 1901, with the exception of South Florida.
* Moderate to severe droughts in spring and summer have increased 12% and 14%, respectively.
* Destructive potential of hurricanes has increased since 1970, due to an increase in sea surface temperature.

* 23 Private College Presidents Made More Than $1 Million. I was a little surprised not to see Brodhead's name on the list, until I remembered how much money we pay Coach K.

* Elsewhere in North Carolina, a majority favors the public option.

Fifty-four percent of North Carolina residents surveyed by Elon University said they would support a public option. Forty-one percent said they would use a public option plan should one become available.

It's crucial to recognize here that the health care reform that is under discussion is far less ambitious than what the public would actually support; nothing close to 41% of the state will be eligible for the very limited version of the public option that is actually going to be voted on.

* How is televised science fiction doing in the ratings? What this list really shows, Dollhouse aside, is how bad TV SF is right now. Even the shows I do watch—FlashForward, Fringe—aren't exactly what I'd call good.

Dollhouse, Flashforward, and a few SF links.

* Both Dollhouse tonight and Flashforward yesterday were noticeable improvements over a string of weak episodes, but problems persist. On Flashforward, the characters remain essentially interchangeable ciphers, with almost no tension or mystery surrounding their relationships or their individual participation in these events. (This is perhaps the one area where the show really should have cribbed more from Lost.) But the tease that China may have been involved is a nicely paranoid reading of the disastrous consequences of the Flashforward for the Western hemisphere and a clever post-9/11 twist on the novel, which has no such subplot—and the connection of the isolated L.A. office to a larger investigatory framework has been much needed. And the episode was just more fun.

The Sierra episode of Dollhouse was good, but I can't help feeling as though the show is being quietly retooled yet again; the actions of most of these characters just aren't commensurate with either half of last season. In particular, most of last season was devoted to a multi-episode arc in which the Dollhouse staff struggled to stop the dolls from "glitching"—but now the exact same glitches are considered perfectly acceptable to everyone involved. Echo is allowed to openly discuss her newfound continuity of memory without consequence or even particular interest from the staff, while Victor and Sierra are apparently now allowed to openly date. What has happened to account for this radical shift in Dollhouse policy? Dr. Saunders's disappearance and the generally chaotic atmosphere that plagues the Dollhouse week to week should incentivize them to keep a closer eye on the dolls, not give them freer reign.

Likewise, the idea in the episode that the Dollhouse staff had been "misled" about Priya's situation—a fairly clear attempt to retcon one of the characters' most heinous crimes—doesn't really hold up to scrutiny; patients in mental institutions can't consent to secret medical experimentation (or, for that matter, sex slavery) any more than kidnapped women can. There's no excusing what's been done to Priya either way, and that Topher supposedly believed he was somehow "helping" her barely qualifies as a fig leaf. I think I preferred the harder edge of Original Recipe Adelle and Topher 1.0.

Other things rankle, too. The violent final scenes in the Evil Client's House are well-acted, but the sequence of events makes little sense outside the heat of the moment. What did Priya and Topher think was going to happen, and why were they so utterly unprepared for what obviously would? Topher would have given her a ninja update at the very least.

Seeing so much praise for this episode from critics and the Twittotubes just shows again how badly people want this show to be better than it really is. I'm still enjoying Dollhouse, but abandoning the 2019 arc and failing to sign Amy Acker as a regular are starting to look like fatal flaws for the series. Even an heavily hyped episode that (for once) didn't focus on Echo doesn't compare to last season's stellar second half (1.6-1.11 and 1.13). I hope the upcoming focus on Senator Wyndham-Price and the inevitable introduction of Summer Glau help pick things up.

No new episodes until December, in any event.

Meanwhile:

* Harlan Ellison has won $1 from Paramount Pictures in his suit regarding Star Trek's "The City on the Edge of Forever." In fairness, $1 was all he asked for.

* Christopher Hayes reviews Ralph Nader's "practical Utopia," Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!.

* And Gregory Cowles reviews Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City for the New York Times.

Lethem’s Manhattan is an alternate-­reality Manhattan, an exaggerated version where an escaped tiger is rumored to be roaming the Upper East Side and Times readers can opt for a “war-free” edition dominated by fluffy human-­interest ­stories. Instead of terrorist attacks, an enervating gray fog has descended on the financial district and remained there for years, hovering mysteriously. (Mysterious to the novel’s characters, anyway; investigators may want to subpoena DeLillo’s airborne toxic event.)

Looks good.

Unexpectedly busy day yesterday. Here are some links.

* One of Flashforward's creators has apparently been fired, suggesting the show might get better soon. Nerds may also rejoice at the news that Brannon Braga isn't actually involved with Flashforward at the moment, as he's off driving 24 further into the ground.

* "Good Ol' Gregor Brown" and other "Masterpiece Comics."



* The future of academia? UNC Chapel Hill has made Spanish 101 online-only.

* More bad news for NJ's Chris Christie in advance of next month's election: federal prosecutors gave the New York Times specifics on how one of his former assistants, to whom he made a large, undisclosed loan, may have improperly helped his campaign. Lautenberg isn't an independent observer by any means, but for what it's worth he's called for a federal investigation.

* Columbia has suspended its environmental journalism program. Because the environmental crisis is so 2008.

* A new book called Manthropology makes a lot of claims about the "inadequate modern male" that don't seem right.

Many prehistoric Australian aboriginals could have outrun world 100 and 200 meters record holder Usain Bolt in modern conditions.

Some Tutsi men in Rwanda exceeded the current world high jump record of 2.45 meters during initiation ceremonies in which they had to jump at least their own height to progress to manhood.

Any Neanderthal woman could have beaten former bodybuilder and current California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in an arm wrestle.

Also, "manthropology"? Really?

Dollhouse fandom can't figure out if it's getting good news or bad news. With DVR numbers, it turns out Dollhouse's ratings are 50% higher. But this only puts the show's total viewership about even with the live viewership during mid-season last year. Fox is promising to air all 13 episodes, which is also a good sign—but a strong "And that's it" seems to be fairly loudly implied. And Stargate Universe beat it again.

At least last Friday's episode was decent—best of the season so far, though not near the heights of episodes 1.6-1.11 or "Epitaph One."

Elsewhere in televised SF news, ABC is so happy with Flashforward's ratings they've ordered 9 more episodes. Who mourns for Bill Simmon?

Friday night roundup.

* Why would they send Obama to Copenhagen if there was any chance it might not work? Really poor showing from the White House on this one.

* Best thing on the Internet today: Liu Bolin's extreme camouflage photography. Warning: May blow your mind.

* The Sesame Street Mad Men parody. Warning: probably will not.

* Scenes from the A-Team movie.

* Bill Simmon is rapidly losing patience with Flashforward. I agree—but as I wrote in the comments over at his place, we have to remember that Lost's first great episode was episode four, and that the show was by and large pretty terrible until at least the second half of season three. So there's still hope. It's doing well enough in the ratings that the producers should have time and leeway to develop the story however they want.

* Related: What caused the flashforwards?

* Jaimee has a review in the Indy this week.

* Presenting the gas mask bra.



* And some bad news: Supermassive Black Holes Bringing Universe Closer to Death.

I want to give a tentative endorsement to Flashforward, the latest entrant in "the next Lost" sweepstakes. I've heard complaints that the pilot was dull, but I didn't find it to be—and the talk from the producers suggests something like a coherent long-term plan has already been sketched out. I'm a notorious sucker for time travel plots but I think it could be good.

The pilot is on Hulu; give it a whirl.