One prefers his martinis in a glass and the other drinks his whisky straight from the bottle. They could not be more opposite, but this Wednesday movie superhero Hancock (Will Smith) and superspy James Bond (Daniel Craig) will be paired together when the first versions of a promotional "trailer" for upcoming Bond flick "Quantum of Solace"roll out alongside the premiere of "Hancock."

"Hancock" tells the story of a self-loathing, hard-drinking superhero who is given a chance to redeem himself. It is widely expected to become a box office hit, and leading up to its debut, the movie has been heavily promoted. (That's Will signing autographs at the U.K. premiere of "Hancock.")

Film footage of the upcoming Bond flick, however, has been kept top secret. Not anymore. The promotional trailer, which is essentially a long commercial, began playing on Monday in the U.S. and Canada on Web site AOL.com and internationally on MSN.com.

The trailer begins with a flashback to the drowning of Bond's love, Vesper Lynd, in 2006's "Casino Royale," and it continues with scenes of plane and car chases, a speedboat crashing into a larger boat and plenty of acrobatic fighting.

Bond appears to be bent on revenge over Lynd's death, and his boss M (Judi Dench) seems angry at her top agent for allowing his emotions to get the better of him. "I think you're so blinded by uncontrollable rage that you don't care who you hurt," M says.

Perhaps borrowing from the "Bourne" action movies starring Matt Damon, the "Quantum of Solace" trailer also hints at Bond becoming an outsider at his own spy agency. "Restrict Bond's movements, put a stop on his passports -- find Bond," Dench's character says in another voice-over.

"Quantum of Solace" opens in the United Kingdom on Oct. 31, in the United States on Nov. 7, and in various countries around the world throughout November.

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says Harry Truman, the common sense everyman from Missouri, was one of his favorite presidents. On Monday, he took a few minutes on the campaign trail to soak up some Truman history.

After Obama delivered a speech on the meaning of patriotism at an auditorium in the Truman presidential library complex in Independence, Missouri, he strolled over to Truman's old house a few blocks away.

He stopped to visit well-wishers along the way, shaking hands and joking with supporters, who poured out of neighboring houses to say hello and stopped on the street to cheer him.

When one man yelled that his wife thought he was cute and he had her vote, Obama laughed and said "I like that." Looking at the woman, he jokingly asked: "Does he always embarrass you like that?"

Later he admired a t-shirt given him by Tootie Williams, 68. It said "Obama in the House" over a rendering of the White House.

"That's what I'm talking about," Obama said.

Once he reached the Truman house, where the 33rd president lived from 1919 until his death in 1972 (except for the years when it served as the summer "White House") he received a tour from Norton Canfield, a gray-haired, bearded park ranger with a braided ponytail.

When he saw a portrait of Truman's daughter, Margaret, he sympathized with the president's threat to punch a newspaper critic who had panned her singing.

"I would have done the same thing if someone had said something mean about my daughter," Obama said.

Obama also admired a 1972 Chrysler Newport purchased just six months before Truman's death. "I wonder what kind of mileage this gets," Obama said. His personal assistant, Reggie Love, pondered its fuel efficiency.

When Canfield showed Obama a hat and coat belonging to Truman hanging beyond the foyer, the Illinois senator sounded positively nostalgic for the days when he could wander the streets without a tailing crew of media and security.

"The thing that I envy most about Truman was that when he was in the White House, he could go out and take a walk. He could put on that fedora and take a stroll, without someone following him," he said -- as the milling crowd outside waited to swarm him when he left the house. 
   

Obama criticizes McCain on immigration    

Polls show Obama has rebounded among Hispanics since clinching the Republican nomination. Many polls show McCain falling short of Bush's 40 percent of Hispanic support.

The lead story on Reuters/Yahoo contains this curious mis-statement of fact. You may wish to re-consider this! :-)

Dr. Mike

Yes. We corrected: GBU Editor

REUTERS photo by Jonathan Ernst

Five years after the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, Iraq is throwing open its oil sector to foreign oil firms  in a way Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and others in the region are reluctant to. Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani says no company will have any special privilege.

Some  analysts take a different view. They reckon U.S. and British oil majors are in a strong position to help develop the world's third-largest oil reserves. Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and BP head the queue. They have already built up a relationship with Iraq's oil officials by negotiating short-term technical deals.

Now Iraq is inviting bids for long-term development contracts at its biggest fields, the "backbone of its industry" in the words of Shahristani. He believes Iraq could become the world's second- or third-biggest oil producing country, rivalling Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Are U.S. and British firms obvious choices as partners because of their expertise? After all, before the U.S.-led invasion Iraq often preferred Russian firms. Or are U.S. and British firms reaping the benefit of their governments' policies?

Consumers may be cutting back on restaurant visits and car purchases but they are still buying crackers and juice, as Campbell Soup raised its full-year profit forecast.

The maker of Pepperidge Farm cookies and V8 juice has raised prices to offset soaring commodity costs and announced a $1.2 billion share buyback program that should help boost shares.

In more news on consumer staples, UBS is recommending that investors look to price leaders such as Wal-Mart Stores and Kroger, saying they are poised to gain market share as consumers shop for the best deals. That firm downgraded shares of grocers Safeway and Whole Foods.

Also in the basket:

Spending less at the ballpark

Growth in negative equity pressures homeowners

Quick quiz: which of these are really great homemade?

a) fresh peach ice cream
b) blueberry pie
c) buttermilk biscuits
d) submarines

Exactly. Not the subs. Submarines just seem better when they're made in a shipyard, not some bozo's hobby shop. Yet despite my warnings in posts like Gosh, this sub really dives fast!, there is now a whole frickin' FLEET of homemade subs smuggling cocaine from Colombia. They found nine last year alone! 

I'm talking to you recent college grads now. No matter how glamorous a career in the Homemade Submarine Service may sound, don't go for it. If you're gonna be submerged for weeks at a time, you want a better propulsion system than just shouting "Go-Go-Gadget," don't you? 

Related posts: This bathroom door is just painted on! 

Submersibles used to smuggle cocaine under water to avoid detection, in Buenaventura, Colombia. Photos taken in June, 2008. REUTERS/Jaime Saldarriaga

More stuff from Oddly Enough

WASHINGTON - The presidential campaign trail took a side trip down memory lane today when the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth re-surfaced.

The Swift Boat group was responsible for raising doubts about Democrat John Kerry's war record in Vietnam, where the Massachusetts senator had served on a small combat vessel known as a swift boat.

The group's charges were so contentious -- it said Kerry did not deserve the combat medals that he subsequently tossed on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to protest the war -- that the slogan, "the Swift Boating of John Kerry" became a metaphor for the 2004 campaign that George W. Bush won.

Against that backdrop, one of the Swift Boat veterans turned up on a conference call that Republican John McCain's camp held to defend McCain's war record after retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a supporter of Democrat Barack Obama, said just because McCain's plane was shot down over Vietnam does not make him qualified to be president.

The Swift Boater was retired Col. Bud Day. A reporter on the call asked Day how the current flap over Clark's comments compared to the Swift Boat flap.

Day said that, well, the charges against Kerry were accurate and the ones against McCain were inaccurate.

"The Swift Boat attacks were simply a revelation of the truth," Day said.

This prompted the expected outrage from Democrats, including Kerry himself.

"John McCain condemned these kinds of attacks in 2004 when he called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth 'dishonest and dishonorable.'  Senator McCain should condemn these remarks and cut ties with the colonel and anyone else connected to SBVT (Swift Boat Veterans for Truth)," Kerry said in a statement.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo: Reuters/Joshua Roberts - Sen. John McCain speaks to National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials at a Washington, D.C. conference on June 28, 2008. 

Times are tough for Americans as their wallets take multiple blows from the housing slump, rising oil and food prices, growing unemployment, inflation fears and recession talk. Many homeowners are facing negative equity, with mortgages bigger than their property's value.

Even as recently as November, households were going into debt to maintain spending, but new numbers show that Americans are saving at the highest rate since March 1995.

With gasoline prices topping $4 per gallon, fewer Americans will be hitting the road for holidays. Die-hard sports fans are making sacrifices even as they refuse to give up the luxury of going to the game.

What are you sacrificing to make ends meet?

Caption: A vendor sells candy to fans attending the MLB interleague baseball game between the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs in Chicago June 27, 2008. REUTERS/Frank Polich

Famous for high-tech products, Japan has become synonymous among foreign investors for heavy regulation and taxes.The world's No.2 economy is much farther down the ladder ranking when it comes to foreign investment or ownership, although trying to change that.

Dan Sloan reports.

President Robert Mugabe's re-election has sparked cries of outrage from Zimbabwean bloggers and demands for international intervention.

Mugabe's victory in Friday's one-candidate poll was condemned in the West and by all three African monitoring groups who said the vote was deeply flawed.

"Now we wait for the Old Man (Mugabe) to swear himself in to a power that he does not have. We wait for him to claim a throne that he stole one-dark-night-that-is-our-country. We wait for real international pressure and solidarity to force a transition," Zimbabwean protest poet Samm Farai Monro, better known as Comrade Fatso, wrote.

Official results of the June 27 election, from which opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew a few days before the poll, showed Mugabe, 84, received 85.51 percent of the vote.

Many bloggers said the figure was rigged.

"They are cooked results and unfortunately or fortunately rather, they are not valid to the world and around us," wrote one blogger who called himself Nice-Shona-Guy on www.newzimbabwe.com

Zimbabwe's crisis has ruined a once prosperous country, saddling it with the world's worst hyper-inflation and straining neighbouring nations, especially South Africa, with a flood of millions of economic refugees.

Inflation is officially 165,000 percent but analysts it is is closer to nine million percent.

One blogger linked the election results to inflation.

"Somehow, despite mass intimidation, gross violence, increasing poverty, murders, and hyper-inflation, Robert Mugabe's popularity accelerated faster than our inflation figures -- which is quite something".

The majority of bloggers were against Mugabe although some of those posting comments questioned what right other African states had to criticise him.

"How can the African Union punish Mugabe they are guilty of worse things in their countries," said Jon.

Human rights groups, monitors and witnesses have accused pro-Mugabe militias of forcing people to vote in some areas with beatings and intimidation.

The MDC said a state-backed campaign of violence had killed at least 90 of its supporters and injured thousands.

Bloggers also had tough words for South African President Thabo Mbeki, whose mediation attempts in Zimbabwe have so far failed.

"Zimbabweans let's react by sending money to Zimbabwe for our relatives to move over to South Africa then Mbeki should realise his stupidity. Congratulations to (the) Mbeki and Mugabe marriage," said Negondo on www.newzimbabwe.com

More than 60 people, including Zimbabweans, died last month in wave of brutal xenophobic attacks on African immigrants which shocked South Africa.

Some three million Zimbabweans have already fled to neighbouring South Africa to escape the economic collapse of their once-prosperous country.

Tsvangirai also came under fire for pulling out of the run-off.

"You (Tsvangirai) are slowly letting the people of Zimbabwe down. It seems you are desperate to be the one in office and the one to rule the people. You should not be the one under pressure, that is for Mugabe. But you are falling into his trap and playing his game," a blogger who called himself Chinja commented.

Despite a crisis that has reduced many Zimbabweans to poverty, their sense of humour continued to show on blogs.

Bev Clark wrote that in the context of frequent water and electricity cuts and spiralling hyper-inflation which has led to a worthless currency, there are some things not to say to a Zimbabwean woman.

They are: "Can I run you a nice hot bath?", "You look like a million dollars" and "Would you like a candlelit dinner tonight?"

A loaf of bread now costs 6 billion Zimbabwe dollars.