More politics updates.

* That "overheard projector" John McCain was talking about last night? A projector for Chicago's Adler Planetarium. Sounds like a reasonable expenditure to me.

* How will Obama save the economy and the planet at the same? As Matt Yglesias mentions, it's a two-fer: a green recovery plan that creates jobs modernizing the nation's antiquated energy infrastructure. We're getting closer and closer to the point where a truly solar economy is possible—there were two major solar innovations just this week, cheap, more absorptive panels and light, more flexible panels—and frankly it's all happening just in the nick of time.

The miracle of an Obama presidency reminds me a bit of the old Bismarck line: "God protects fools, drunkards, and the United States of America."

* The language of "Green Recovery" also provides the necessary "crisis" rhetoric required for an massive expenditure of this nature, as if the ecological and energy crises weren't already reason enough. Because apparently they aren't.

* And the polls all show the same thing: Obama is winning big.

Could the writer's strike achieve the impossible and bring about an Arrested Development movie? Jason Bateman's been teasing people about the possibility for months, but it sounds as if things could actually almost be heading somewhat in that direction, maybe:

On the other end of that phone was “AD” creator Mitchell Hurwitz, who has found himself with a lot of time to talk since Hollywood’s writers put down their pencils. “This writers strike, it’s a devil’s playground,” grinned Bateman, who has been lobbying for a big-screen “Arrested Development” ever since the show that resurrected his career died a premature death. “The guy doesn’t have anything to do.”

...

“[During the strike] you’re allowed to write things you’re not being paid to do,” Bateman explained, revealing almost as much as a never-nude. “I’m trying to talk [Hurwitz] into writing the ‘Arrested Development’ movie. And he could be coming around.”