"Obama A Better 007" - Daniel Craig Who Plays James Bond

In an interview for his upcoming movie "Quantum of Solace", Daniel Craig -- who plays James Bond -- picks Barack Obama over John McCain as the better James Bond:

I finally ask this British actor a deeply American question: “Who do you think would be the better James Bond—Barack Obama or John McCain?”

Craig doesn’t hesitate. “Obama would be the better Bond because—if he’s true to his word—he’d be willing to quite literally look the enemy in the eye and go toe-to-toe with them. McCain, because of his long service and experience, would probably be a better M,” he adds, mentioning Bond’s boss, played by Dame Judi Dench. “There is, come to think of it, a kind of Judi Dench quality to McCain.”

Question For Senator McCain on Black Relatives - For The Situation Room on CNN

Monday, October 20th edition of the South Florida Times reports that your Black relatives have an event called "The Coming Home Reunion" and that each member of your family has attended, including your brother Joe, except you.

In 2000 you claimed that your family did not own slaves; in the article your Black relatives dispute this. Is that why you don't attend the event, and can you shed light on this matter?

Thank you and thanks for your service to our country.

Obama's earmarks - Proper or Pork?

In 2006, according to an Associated Press report, Senator Obama inserted $400,000 for an unrelated project into an emergency bill for the Iraq war and hurricane relief. Do you want to know more, or will you share McCain's new anti-earmark stand? Earmarks can be abused, yet they can expedite passage of matters needing little or no debate, too.

Obama has pledged to finish construction of an electronic barrier in Chicago to keep the carp from invading Lake Michigan from the Illinois River. That $400,000 earmark from 2006 was targeted for the barrier project. Great Lakes fishing is a $4 billion fishing industry; do you prefer carp to salmon?

I won’t suggest all earmark funding supports projects intended to protect the environment and/or preserve regional jobs and industries; clearly the potential for abuse exists, and doubtless the mechanism is exploited for pork-barrel projects. To my way of thinking, even the “$3 million overhead projector” McCain keeps hammering away at in debates and stump speeches was a reasonable use of the technique: do we really need Congress to hold extended debate on a stand-alone bill about the value of supporting the educational goals of Adler Planetarium in Chicago?

How different are McCain and Bush?

Apart from the economic and ecologic impact of the project in question, clean water is a precious resource, essential in and of itself.

During 2004 George Bush established an inter-agency task force to develop the “Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Strategy.” He hasn't funded it much, the priorities of the Bush administration have not exactly matched the campaign promises, and they certainly haven't focused on research outside the Defense Department. Additional money was included in a 2007 package for water projects ultimately enacted over President George Bush’s veto. Senator McCain sided with the president on that vote as he has on some 90% or so of the opportunities he's had, from Wall Street deregulation to trickle-down tax theories. Obama supported the veto-override.

But back to earmarks:

McCain has decided to take a public stand against earmarks, causing the public to equate them with pork-barrel abuses. It's great for sound-bites on the evening news, but is it tantamount to throwing out the baby with the bathwater?

Introduced to the U.S. in the 1970s to control algae in catfish farms in the South, bighead and silver carp have spread due to flooding into the Mississippi River. They're taking over parts of the Illinois River. Barack Obama used an earmark to try to control this threat to the Great Lakes ecosystem, to protect the people, jobs, and industries that are at risk. Isn't that a textbook example of what a U.S. Senator is supposed to do?

The focus on earmarks distracts both the media and the voters from more significant problems, and Obama was responsible not to rise to the bait when McCain floated the "overhead projector" during the 2008 Presidential debates. The economy is a much more pressing issue, but McCain doesn't want to have to explain how he's going to ramp up some new federal department to handle the 11 million mortgages he proposes to evaluate and take over.

I admit, while I'm not surprised when a Republican claims a Democratic challenger will raise taxes, I don't understand McCain's real priorities, why he's suddenly turned on his old companions at ACORN, or why his voting seems so closely aligned with the current administration despite his mavericky protests to the contrary. If you'd like to read more about the research into and problems of invasive species in the Great Lakes watershed, or contribute to a discussion about earmarks, check the longer article that was the stimulus for this post.

"Joe The Plumber" Lived In Alaska and Worked For Roto-Rooter

I happened by the Anchorage Daily News in Alaska, looking for "Troopergate" updates when I saw this story that , well, was front and center above the fold about how Joe Wurzelbacher AKA "Joe The Plumber" lived in Alaska, and I thought "It figures" because of his seemingly almost anti-tax "leave me alone" views that fit with some of the more extremist Alaskans we've come to know of since the rise of Sarah Palin.


Here's one series of paragraphs:

Alaska records show Wurzelbacher listed a North Pole address in 1992 and 1993, and Eielson Air Force Base address in '94 and '95. He applied for hunting permits, owned an old Ford and a new Dodge, and paid a $76 fine in Fairbanks court for speeding.

It was unclear Thursday afternoon whether Wurzelbacher registered to vote while living in Alaska, and if so with which party, Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai wrote in an e-mail.

Wurzelbacher's son was born in the Fairbanks area in 1995, Morrison said.

"Jennifer had called up to Joe to tell him that she was in labor and Joe made it down the stairs just in time, his baby was delivered on the wooden floor in their home," Morrison said.

"That was a huge thing for us ... We joked with them and said, 'OK, you did it the Alaskan way,' " said Morrison, who was living Outside at the time. She later married an Alaskan and moved here herself.

"I met (Joe) when he was working for Roto-Rooter," said her husband, John.

Morrison said Wurzelbacher served in the Air Force and that as far as she knows, he and her sister never met Gov. Sarah Palin, who is now Sen. John McCain's running mate.

But what also caught me was what he did while he lived in Alaska...

"I met (Joe) when he was working for Roto-Rooter," said her husband, John.

John McCain Gags On Mistaken Debate Direction Behind Obama

This is a funny John McCain photo that just may sum up his campaign. It's from Yahoo and  Reuters and has this caption:

US Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain (R-AZ) reacts to almost heading the wrong way off the stage after shaking hands with Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) at the conclusion of the final presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, October 15, 2008. REUTERS/Jim Bourg (UNITED STATES) US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2008

McCain Claims He's Not George Bush...

...But the facts prove otherwise. At last night's third and final debate, John McCain turned to Barack Obama and said "Sen. Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago." Barack Obama - wisely, as the polls seem to be bearing out - chose not to respond to that comment.

The full story discusses a hypothetical response Obama could have given to shut McCain down. McCain is so vulnerable on this issue that making such a statement may prove to be a liability for him.

Rob J

Can you explain McCain’s goals and priorities?

McCain’s a fine man; his record shows he’d be an adequate President for those who are so wealthy that taxes are just a nuisance handled by an accountant - a number that never impacts their daily spending decisions.

The rest of us, the folks on Main Street still waiting for Bush’s economic policies to trickle down some personal prosperity or create jobs, need Obama~Biden. We don't understand why McCain wants the government to administer 11 million mortgages but says health care should be as deregulated as Wall Street has been - we think bureaucrats already impede our access to health care, and we haven't lost faith in the power of the Government to be a positive force.

In some ways, if you don't try to get inside McCain's head or worry about which of Bush's fiscalor tax policies are to blame for the sub-prime mortgage crisis, it's really a pretty simple choice.

You can choose between:
1) a guy who wants government to do less because he doesn't trust the competence of anybody and everybody below him - except evidently in areas it's politically expedient to say government must intervene like the mortgage mess - or
2) the guy who wants to make health care universally affordable and available while extricating us from Iraq, fixing some inequities in the tax policies Bush has established, and bringing a unified vision to our energy and environmental policies that he sees dovetailing with national security.

One of these guys is going to run the country, taking over the government in the midst of profound economic turmoil. If you're rich, and have no kids, you may pick the former if you so desire. After watching the final 2008 Presidential debate, I prefer the vision of the latter, and I'm voting for "that one."

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