omg it's biden

[elpollodiablo]

I been gone for days, cut me some slack

[girl]

I thought it was funny this time, too.

[Illest Waffle]

Clean coal generally refers to plants which use gasification, that is, plants which refire the methane gas created by the combustion of coal in order to generate additional energy and get rid of a pollutant. 

What's painful is that the US has been so high on the hog that every plant of every kind has been built on the premise that energy is cheap an limitless. Whereas you look at japan and those niggas recycle the fuck out of everything from "waste heat" to kitten farts down in the basement. Retrofitting factories is a pipe dream since so many investors don't understand short term sacrifice for long term prosperity.

[RavingLunatic]

I get that RL thinks we shouldn't use coal at all, but come on.  Even if all sane people were raptured away tomorrow and Kucinich was consequently inaugurated in '09, you're not going to get rid of coal power by 2012.

Never said that actually. I said that if someone's plans involve building new coal plants on top of the already existing ones, that's not a plan I can support. We need to be moving away from coal as rapidly as possible, not increasing our use of coal because oil is getting expensive. I think we agree on this basically. There is such a large amount of relatively cheap coal in the ground worldwide though, that it's gonna take some serious treaties that offer large incentives to and/or impose severe penalties on countries that have massive coal reserves and who would be passing up on a major economic opportunity if they left it in the ground. I don't see it happening. Very scary and demoralizing.

[nonotyet]

Motherfuckers, where is the convention coverage, why is Nick Lachey and a bunch of overly tanned teenagers on my teevee?

[diesel_powered]

Fuck that, where's Milly's color commentary?

[silentsigh89]

I kind of wish Michelle was running for president.

[WhereTheSlimeLive]

This is such a shitty convention. 

[elpollodiablo]

Michelle Obama is so severely pretty

[WhereTheSlimeLive]

Truth.  She's nailing this speech. 

Message of DNC Night 1: Democrats are people too.  We know blue collar.

blah blah blah.   They hardly acknowledge this is a race and how you need to be persuading.  Name dropping healhcare a bunch of times is not enough of a rally for voters.  Show more leadership evidence.  Less about American dream and it's existence...more fire in justifying a progressive america. 

[jess]

They'll do that later. Clinton is going to be all about the politics. So will Biden. They can be the tough ones. Michelle Obama needed to be soft to get people to like her, and they need to start on a warm, welcoming foot. After all, that's one thing they can use that McCain lacks severely, is being likable, funny, warm people you can relate to. And that's how a lot of Americans vote, by having a candidate they just like, someone who stirs them emotionally. Obama will bring on the leadership aspect to it, and he's the one you need to hear from, not her.

So yeah, I agree, she nailed it, and it's what she needed to do.

[Antero]

And good lord is she pretty.

[slow west vultures]

After all, that's one thing they can use that McCain lacks severely, is being likable, funny, warm people you can relate to. And that's how a lot of Americans vote, by having a candidate they just like, someone who stirs them emotionally.

i think that's where you're wrong.  all the RNC needs to do is run the entirety of john mccain's 2002 SNL appearance.  in the words of the onion:

http://www.theonion.com/content/whitehousewar/johnmccain

i think for a people over a certain age the words you just described "someone they just like, someone who stirs them emotionally"  would apply more to john mccain.  just saying.  in a party full of creepy walking corpses, he's slightly more approachable. 

[Antero]

That might have been true six years ago, but jesus the man is not doing too well.

[WhereTheSlimeLive]

I went to McCain town hall meeting type of thing in Boston.  It was like 40 people and him in Fanuel Hall.  He has strong charisma. 

[dieblucasdie]

He's good in a townhall setting.  He sucks fat balls if he's just reading a prepared speech from a podium.

Which is, you know, like the entire of job of president. 

[DCDave]

So some dudes were planning on assassinating Obama

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/2624438/Police-stop-white-supremacist-plot-to-kill-Barack-Obama.html

[Greg Nog]

When one of the suspects "was directly asked if they had come to Denver to kill Obama", a CBS4 source said, “he responded in the affirmative".

WORST CONSPIRATOR EVER

[Andrew_TSKS]

Concerning Joe's point re: McCain, he's basically right in pinpointing McCain's retention of a fighting chance in this election. Considering the lead Obama has in young voters, women, and racial minorities, at this point the only reason McCain is competitive is because of the lead he has with white men over 35. That's it. And obviously he has a pretty decent one, because women are for Obama by 20%, voters under 30 are for him by at least that, and African-Americans are for him by some insane number like 80%. For McCain's polling to show him down by 3%, that means he's gotta be kicking ass with old white men.

But if Michelle Obama can convert more women, more young people, and more racial minorities (other than African-Americans... I feel like it's basically impossible for more African-Americans to be brought into the Obama fold than are already there), she can maybe cut down on the old-white-male factor. Plus, she is a beautiful, confident, assured woman who honestly reminds me of my best female friends. I would seriously love to hang out with Michelle Obama. I can't imagine that at least a few divorced old white men with a tiny touch of jungle fever can't be brought over for that exact reason. Although I'd imagine they mean something different by "hang out with Michelle Obama" than I do.

[DCDave]

Guess who answers the phone when pollsters call. 

(PS, it's old white men)

[girl]

Bob Herbert's column  is about this today. (If I ever had to choose someone to have my opinions for me, it'd be Bob Herbert. I almost always agree with what he has to say.)

“We’ve been talking with staff in different parts of the Midwest,” he said, “and we’re all struggling to some extent with the problem of white workers who will not vote for Obama because of his color. There is no question about it. It’s a very powerful thing to get over for some folks.”

Mr. Costigan believes — and hopes — that the number of people holding such views is relatively small, and that Mr. Obama, now with the help of Senator Biden, can surmount that obstacle.

Surmounting it will be tough. Not only do the polls show this to be a close race, but the polls, when it comes to Senator Obama, cannot be trusted. It is frequently the case that a statistically significant percentage of white voters will lie to pollsters — or decline to state their preference — in races in which one candidate is black and the other white.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Yeah, I totally think about that a lot. I know there are a lot of people in the world who don't admit to or even understand their knee-jerk xenophobias, and I'm sure that a lot of them who swear they aren't racist will at the same time not end up voting for Barack Obama where they probably would have if he was white. I don't want to believe that this sort of person will lose him the election, but I know there's a good possibility of it. The only thing that will save him is if all the people who really do want to see him be president can be rallied out to the voting booth despite the fact that they come from groups that are not as likely to vote as the groups that do contain the secret and not-so-secret racists.

[jess]

Or there's the guy I heard call in to CSPAN today (had it on in the background)--he said he was voting for McCain, but he'd voted Democrat in every election before this, and didn't feel Obama explained "what he was about." He was asked what he liked about McCain and he listed a few things, but then said his vote for McCain was mostly a vote against Obama. I just wanted someone to ask him if he realized he's a racist or if he's in denial about clearly just voting against the black guy. (Because really, if you wanted to be turned off by the feel of a recent Dem candidate, why else pick Obama to rail against over, say, Kerry?)

It's true that it means that mobilizing the left is going to be so important in this election. I really hope everyone who is leaning Obama is getting registered and if needed absentee ballots etc.

[dieblucasdie]

Also I'm very doubtful that these man-on-the-street "lifelong Democrats" the media continues to drum up are actually what they say they are.  I mean, the numbers just don't add up.

[Illest Waffle]

eet ees tiem foh ah cha-iinge.