Aww… you poor thing.

You always have the option of ignoring the posts simply from the title. After all, it was fairly obvious even to a non USAian like myself what a post titled McCain and Jindal was likely to about. Thus, for instance, I am not and never have been a fan of Dr. Who, it just never appealed to me from the very first series in the 60s, even though I am generally a huge SF fan. So when I see a post with a title indicating that it is about Dr. Who, unless I have a lot of time to waste, I simply skip them and move on to something that interests me more. Obviously a really difficult concept for some.

So by going on rumours and possibilities you have used this opportunity to write a screed against republicans. One might have thought that it would be a little more honest to actually wait until a republican VP is nominated but that would mean passing up on the chance to rake the muck.
By the way:

“I’ve got the job that I want,” Jindal said. “I’m not going to be the vice president. I’m not going to be the nominee.”
- Bobby Jindal, from the sources you cited but did not read

So the guys says that he’s not going to be a VP nominee, he could change his mind but that sounds pretty final to me. I love your science/sceptical writing but I can’t stand the political shilling.

Mark

McCain needs to pick an energetic, dynamic personality. His choices are limited because politicians with national ambitions are going to think twice before joining an almost certainly losing effort.

Telling me to stick my “condescension” somewhere and putting a smiley a couple of sentences later does not make it “humorous”.

On a European scale, I would put the Democrats as centre-right, the Republicans as hard-right. You don’t have a left-wing in USA politics as far as I can tell. Having said that, we don’t seem to have a left-wing party in UK politics any more either.

But then I guess I’m just a pinko commie lol.

As for the politics, I am disgusted that once AGAIN, I’ll only be voting for the lesser of two evils, instead of a candidate I actually support.

Although I am firmly in the “Phil can post what he darn well wants” camp, that’s *not* a bad idea for the RSS feed. It might lower the level of whining.

Dude, I don’t even *have* an ideology. I judge every issue on a case by case basis using as much skepticism as I can bring to bear. You’re just seeing me through the filters of your own ideology. That would make the most rational ideas seem senseless to some.

There’s also the possibility that you mistook some of my obviously (or I at least I think they are obvious) posts for serious ones. Happens all the time. The intertoobs is full of people very full of themselves.

For example, I don’t *really* think Obama will cause the federal government to collapse into a gravitational singularity. Honest.

I figure dense neutron material at the very worst.

MattGS: we have every right to judge you. Deal with it.

You know, I *did* put a smiley at the end of that paragraph. Deal with yourself.

Shane: He’d be elected in a heartbeat in Australia…

Nah. people would think he’s an abo.

Smiley for the humor impared —-> See it? See the smiley? Right back there. Go look again. I’ll wait.

I don’t know if his creationist views will have an effect on his policy. What I do know is that his creationist views show he’s an idiot. If he fails to see how laughably stupid his position is on this one issue, how can I trust him on other issues.

I’m not a Democrat….but it seems to me they are the free thinkers. If Obama is elected i think HE will be president….i don’t believe anyone’s putting words in his mouth or forcing his decisions. And he seems like a pretty smart guy too. Imadgine…..a pres who isn’t a dummy! What a concept! Still, ya gotta wonder….if Al Gore had run again……

You have to understand (and I am quite serious), we are just coming out of many years of Republican rule, where even the slightest criticism of the (Republican) government was (and is) regarded as unpatriotic, if not down right treasonous. They don’t just object to other countries criticizing…they object to ANYONE criticizing. Dissent is to be silenced.

And for you Republicans about to answer this, let me just tell you: I came out against Bush’s war from the very beginning (earlier, actually), and received 2 death threats, and dozens of variations on “traitor” for my trouble. The rest of the country may have forgotten all that. I have not. You people are scary.

In the modern era, many state party organizations hold primaries. Other states hold caucuses. The winning candidate acquires the “pledged” vote of that state’s convention delegates.

Party rules, i.e., not the law, typically require a delegate to vote for the candidate he or she had been pledged to — on the convention’s first ballot. After that, they’re up for grabs.

Candidates for president and vice president are placed in nomination and the delegates vote. In the modern era, the presumptive nominee names a VP candidate and the delegates all dutfully line up and nominate that person.

Because most of what happens during a convention is governed by party rule and not the law, and because a convention can rewrite rules, things can get interesting, in theory at least.