"t's odd, then, that one of the major talking points from the McCain campaign is to attack Obama's "opposition" to nuclear power, despite the fact that Obama has said the opposite."

It's odd that habitual liars lie? I'd say that it's all of a piece, just like the talking points about tax plans, health care mandates, foreign policy, ad frickin' nauseum.

They lie. It's what they do. They're the Republicans.

Just as jarring is the fact that McCain claims to differ himself from Bush by saying he is for solar and wind power, when he only votes against them. His rhetoric is actually the same as Bush's even on this and Global Warming.

In spite of his pledge to conduct an honorable campaign, John Sidney McCain III has conducted a vicious, dishonest campaing that is completely without honor.

Did anyone think he would stop now?

It's called the "big lie" strategy. It's not really a political innovation.

Did you miss the Sarracuda speech?

It's called the "big lie" strategy. It's not really a political innovation.

Did you miss the Sarracuda speech?

POW, lies, Palin's pouts, and race.

It's mourning in America.

Fact checking? Vetting? Intelligence gathering?
That's for pussies. We are the real men and by might we will be right. Power to the Cojones!

What I find most jarring, or perhaps infuriating, is McCain's framing of all of his distortions and attacks on Obama within the larger picture of how McCain is the supposedly true bipartisan candidate. Most of McCain's lies require some digging or knowledge of Obama's real policies, which many members of the public won't do or don't have. But the juxtaposition of his comments first on how fabulously well he works with Democrats, followed immediately by nasty, smug attacks on anyone who doesn't toe the right-wing line, is right out in the open.

I would suggest that Obama's "safe nuclear power" is a code phrase that means "no nuclear power ever, because we will never admit it is safe, but maybe the voters won't notice."

Are you kidding? They can't win unless they LIE and they know the media is no longer in the habit of fact-checking. The only investigative journalists in traditional media are at the National Enquirer.

so it this the GOP mo: focus group (yes, it's a verb) a theme, and if it plays well, use it. so we get the opposition to the bridge to nowhere meme and now this drilling meme and they will just repeat it constantly. others will point out the lack of veracity in the statements, but the GOP will go on repeating the meme hoping that what appears to us as pathological will play as showing resolve.

McCain voted against the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which, among other things, sparked the new interest in nuclear power by offering loan guarantees and tax breaks for new nukes. Obama voted for the Act.

McCain and Schmidt are doing what Republicans do best: lying.

I noticed that too. It is jarring. But it is more jarring, and really alarming, that Obama's energy policy is so close to McCain's.

The Media: "Obviously, our earlier reports about Obama's positions on the matter were wrong, and we apologize to our Republican lords and masters for misleading the American people. Comrade Napoleon, er, John McCain and those who serve him are never wrong, and we wouldn't even think of contradicting anything they ever say because they're they ones who tell the real truth, not us. We're only here to serve them on behalf of those we serve, you, the American voter."

In all seriousness, when Schmidt isn't contradicted right when and where he makes a false claim, his lie does become the truth. That stinks, and so does the so-called profession of journalism as it's practiced today. Just as whores tell their Johns they're all the best lovers they've ever had, journalists tell those they interview they're the most honest and truthful people they've ever met. There used to be a few honest journalists out there, maybe, but they've all been replaced by corporate whores who are in it only for the byline.

But then maybe, just maybe, a few journalists who have souls might just say to Schmidt - why no, you're misrepresenting Obama's position on the matter. But that would require both knowledge of something more than fluffing interviewees and a backbone. Not gonna happen.

The big thing about nuclear is that almost nobody is building nuclear reactors anymore because they aren't as profitable as they've been portrayed. They've simply become too expensive to build. The right wing holds onto the idea that it's regulations that are holding nuclear plants back in this country, but it just ain't so. Nobody will finance them but governments. The right wing simply hoards its Resentment Cards for use over a broad range of unrelated subjects. Mostly taxes for the wealthy.

An unopposed lie repeated often enough is a lie. Right now the lie that is hurting Obama the most is the claim that he wants to raise taxes. Obama isn't doing enough to oppose the Republican claims.

What I want is for the alleged journalists to call McCain and Schmidt on the lies. I am tired of journalists letting Republicans get away with lying as a matter of policy. The Republicans are so bad about lying they will lie even when the truth would make a better story. It is like the McCain campaign is saying to the media "we lie, so what, you rarely call us on it."

Last week, in his acceptance speech, Barack Obama explained, "As President, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power."

Barack Obama’s energy plan is much too timid. Thirty years ago it would have been an adequate start. Today it is too little to late. Even Al Gore’s proposal doesn’t go far enough. It relies too much on the current model of enormous regional power generators when we should be working to decentralize the whole system and moving toward individual and neighborhood energy generation.

Our goal must be to end the use of all fossil fuels as soon as possible.

I have yet to hear someone explain what “clean coal� is. Does that mean that it kills only two-thirds the number of people with respiratory problems that regular does? Half as many? And isn't mining "clean coal" just as destructive as mining regular coal?

Some people are proposing carbon sequestration programs to counter global warming – pumping carbon dioxide deep into the earth and hoping it doesn’t back leak out. Nature already has its own method of carbon sequestration – it’s called coal and oil.

As far as nuclear power, instead of building dozens of billion-dollar plants like McCain wants to do, why don’t we first put solar panels on the roofs of every home and commercial building and windmills in every wind corridor that already has a human footprint? Then, if we still need nuclear power we can work out tough regulations to keep them safe and figure out what to do with the tons of waste they generate.

McCain said “The Republicans lost the trust of the American people� he said it several times. Actually its true but how often do Republicans tell the truth? Not much. There is a bunch of rotten peanuts in this speech.

Why in the world would anyone going for the President of the United States say that in a speech before the public? Think about it, here, we know the Mainstream Media especially watching Joe Scarborough is going to avoid this super stupid action by McCain going into a speaking power dive taking the whole speech and the momentum of the crowd crashing to political oblivion. Here, again Joe warning the audience that anyone challenging the media is going to loose.

How stupid can anyone be? Both Joe and McCain.

Perhaps this is what Palin just discovered, McCain and the Media are “A� holes.

The analysis, zero reference to this stupid action. It is so funny to me as they all dance around this huge, huge, blunder. This is not a gaffe McCain truly must have brain damage from those power dives. If anything McCain the dope he is just read the stuff off the teleprompter, someone who wrote that in just ditched the whole party.

The other guy that lost his brains is David Gregory, MSNBC political analyst finally being honest slips in McCains honest recollection of his flight over Hanoi. David Gregory validates that McCain admits in “Going too far� so, the Maverick screws up and goes on and on about his pitiful time and his endurance as a prisoner of war. Sheesh.

Yuck, the whole thing stunk and they know it…

"safely harness" means that there will be no more nuclear power plants until it is "safe."

I think the modifier "safe" was meant not for centrists but for some Democratic voters who hold dogmatic positions about nuclear energy. I genuinely believe that Obama thinks nuclear is a viable option, and most of the country agrees with him. There are, of course, issues with the waste. But France has proven that the design and construction of the plants themselves can be safe.

The issue will be reinventing the culture around both construction and regulation so that both the public and private sector are aligned on the priorities. We don't need to innovate every time we build a new plant just because GE wants a shiny new toy to show off to investors. We don't need Byzantine regulations that extend the construction cycle time and increase the chance for errors. We need a few proven, efficient designs that can be continually improved and don't require a new learning curve each time one is built. That's what France did. That would require some regulatory constraints on design that would make current design and construction firms wince, but building cookie cutter plants at lower profit margins is better than building no plants at all.

The environmentalists are going to have to wieght the small risk of a nuclear catastrophe against the certain risk of dumping more CO2 into the atmosphere. Lately, it seems more and more environmental groups are willing to make that trade-off.

Safe nuclear power is not a unicorn or a political cop-out. It's an essential part of an energy strategy for the 21st century.

Obama is a pragmatist. His decisions are rarely ideologically driven.

Nukes make a lot of sense as an interim energy source while we migrate off of fossil fuels.

If Senator Obama believes "we can achieve energy independence" at all then he is WRONG.

Somethings are just not worthwhile.

It isn't worthwhile to be independent in everything.

Unfortunately, politicians won't admit that reality.

The issue will be reinventing the culture around both construction and regulation so that both the public and private sector are aligned on the priorities. -- lobbygow

I'm not anti-business. Heck, I run my own business. But I don't trust corporations. They think of risk in terms of the odds that something will happen instead of in terms of how many dead bodies will result. Has everyone forgotten the Ford Pinto?

Then when the "unthinkable" happens, the people responsible hide behind the corporate structure to escape responsibility. And the corporation itself can't be punished because that could cost many innocent people their jobs.

If we're going to have more nuclear power, I suggest Sarbanes-Oxley kind of rules that holds officers in corporations personally responsible when the corporation violates laws or safety regulations. The penalties would include mandatory prison - not jail - sentences for putting the public at risk.

If Senator Obama believes "we can achieve energy independence" at all then he is WRONG.

Would you settle for MUCH less dependent on volatile, destabilizing sources of fossil fuels?

The reality is that we cannot afford the status quo. Our energy portfolio is overinvested in fossil fuels, which is a big problem because:

1) Use of those fuels is very bad for the environment and exacerbates climate change
2) Those fuels are becoming more scarce and costly
3) Competition for access to those fuels is increasing
4) Much of the oil we need is located in some of the most politically unstable regions on the globe

So if you want to quibble over whether we can ever truly be "energy independent," fine. I believe we can, especially if we concentrate on conservation and energy efficient technology first, and the actual energy sources second. But even if we can't practically become energy independent, then we MUST become less dependent on oil.

Surely no one disagrees with that.

Except McCain/Palin.

Their answer is "drill, baby, drill."

Who really has the reality problem here?

It's sad that Obama is spouting the "clean coal" nonsense. In the early 1990's the coal industry's public relations people coined the phrase "clean coal" and sadly, Obama is parroting their lies.

Jarring? Not if you're the average American voter, who is incurious and apt to believe the sources from which he/she customarily gets his/her news. Those sources are usually chosen for their propensity to deliver what he/she likes/wants to hear. I'm no different (although I'm not an American voter) - I wouldn't last 5 minutes on a Rightie blog or news source, even if some of what they reported is true.

American politics and related elections are growing steadily more polarizing; one day the two sides may despise each other so thoroughly that it will lead to civil war. But it's not exaggerating to suggest the Republicans view you - their countrymen - as the enemy, every bit as much as they once did the Germans and the Russians and the Japanese. In their view, you are deliberately, and with malice aforethought trying to drag down and destroy the country they love. As you feel about them, I suspect. However, the "reaching across the aisle" guff is becoming more and more a fantasy.

This is bad for America, because it means the party in power must have such a huge majority that they can ram through anything they want - especially true if the President and his party are simultaneously in power. The losing side feels weak and ineffective and resentful. No matter who is in power, the temptation to use a majority to ends that will be detrimental to the country overall will always be there.

Nuclear power is different from living with a huge bomb in your midst only in that the spent fuel remains dangerous even when no longer useful as fuel. It's just a tool, and if safety precautions are observed (for example, in the case of Chernobyl, the plant operators were carrying out an experiment to recover waste heat from the reactor while it was shut down for maintenance, had bypassed all the safeties and were attempting to control something as rapid as a possible chain reaction via hand control), it is safe enough. If you can just lick the problem of what to do with spent fuel without poisoning anything or anyone else, it sounds a good alternative.

I devoutly hope the Democrats win, because their ideas are less dangerous and destabilizing, but you are going to have problems down the road if you can no longer come together as countrymen.

orange

I am tired of journalists letting Republicans get away with lying as a matter of policy

You may have not have noticed but reporters have been replaced with political operatives. So, don't hold your breath on any quick change.

There is no need for any expansion of nuclear power, period. Nor is nuclear power an effective approach to reducing CO2 emissions from the generation of electricity.

The USA has vast commercially exploitable wind and solar energy resources, more than enough to supply several times as much electricity as the entire country currently uses, with today's technology. Wind turbines, concentrating solar thermal and solar photovoltaics are mature technologies that are already widely deployed in mainstream applications, all over the world. The same is true of technologies for storing energy from intermittent sources, including batteries, flywheels, compressed air and heat storage.

The reason that no nuclear power plants have been built in the USA for a generation or more is that nuclear power is a proven economic failure, and investors don't like to throw money down the toilet. That's why Wall Street -- the "free market" -- won't touch nuclear power. Unless, that is, the taxpayers are forced to underwrite all the costs and all the risks -- not only the very real risks of catastrophic accident, but the risk of economic losses if the plants turn out not to be profitable -- with hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies and loan guarantees.

In contrast, solar is the fastest growing source of energy in the world, and wind is the second fastest. Both have been growing at accelerating double-digit rates for years and attracting tens of billions of dollars in private investment every year.

Meanwhile, allies of the fossil fuel and nuclear industries in the Congress -- including John McCain -- have successfully blocked renewal of even the meager investment and production tax credits for wind and solar, in an effort to impede the growth of these industries and protect the profits of their cronies and financial backers in the coal, oil and nuclear power corporations.

Thanks to their obstruction the USA is falling behind while Germany, Japan, Spain and China are seizing the rapidly growing world market for wind and solar, which will be the cornerstones of the New Industrial Revolution of the 21st century -- an energy economy no longer based on mining and burning costly, dwindling supplies of toxic, polluting fuels, but on harvesting clean, abundant, ubiquitous, endless, free wind and solar energy.

There is no need for nuclear power, so there is no need to even consider accepting the massive toxic pollution or grave risks of nuclear power.

This could cost mccain Nevada. And if he loses Nevada it's over.

Again, BiG surprise!

Can we find a way to combat it? Do you notify major media when their guest promote lies? What is being done to change any of this.

It's worked for the past eight years, why would they not do it?

It's McCain's and the Republicans' attempt at political alchemy: tell a lie repeatedly and often enough then watch it change into the truth.

Steve, do you really think its "jarring" that McCain flat-out lied (yet again)?

I agree with others above that Obama is far too timid in his plan. Solar and wind (which is largely solar) comprise the ultimate solution, and it is time we acknowledged that, and got off our asses to develop them big time, Apollo-project like. But we won't. Big Oil has a strangle hold on Republicans and Democrats.

For the record, I don't understand how it is that developing and maintaining an arsenal of planet-killing nukes is considered "safe," while building nuclear power plants for peaceful purposes is considered reckless and dangerous.

hark wrote: "For the record, I don't understand how it is that developing and maintaining an arsenal of planet-killing nukes is considered 'safe,' while building nuclear power plants for peaceful purposes is considered reckless and dangerous."

For the record, I have never heard of anyone who holds both of those views. The reality is that both nuclear weapons and nuclear power are extremely dangerous and create massive amounts of toxic pollution.

Yes, go nuclear! By all means.

Unlike oil, uranium ore is a renewable resource which....

Hmmm...

Can I try that again?

Yes! Nuclear is the answer!
Unlike fossil fuels whose CO2 emissions produce pollution problems that endanger our environment and have lasting effects years after the benefit of the fuel has been spent, nuclear waste is, um...

One more time?...

Nuclear power unlike coal is highly portable and doesn't need to use up massive quantities of fossil fuel to transport it to central power plants and have its electricity inefficiently sent over transmission wires so that...

Crap.

Okay, folks. When we get serious about nuclear power and get FUSION online, we can say Dick Cheney and his soulmate John McCain have a point.

Until then... it's just another energy industry to subsidize with potential for kickbacks from a grateful plutocratic gentry.

I'll tell you what's jarring, the unemployment rate! Obama has some real ammo against the Repugnant lack of fiscal.. oh fuck it, governmental responsibility. John McCain can go fuck Sarah Palin for all I care, the last thing this country needs is another Republican in control with some bat-shit crazy Pentecostal sidekick speaking in tongues and throwing morality around like she has any.

"This is the typical liberal politician making sure he has an out."

Orwell, you Republicans suffer from an inability to stop projecting issues with your party onto the opposing party. You state that Obama will lie about something in the future, while your candidate McCain lies his ass off right to your face on an almost daily basis. What's the matter with you losers ? Did you get spanked too much as kids and can't disagree with your daddy without experiencing severe anxiety ?

Oh, I get it: Now it's cool for liberals to defend Obama for being pro-nuclear. What's next: Defending Obama for funding the Iraq War? Oh wait, that's been done.

Wait just a minute ... NUCLEAR power wasn't added to Obama's laundry list until very, very recently ... and even then with disclaimers (claiming unspecified "safety" issues)

Obama has been advocating nuclear power as part of his energy plan since the beginning of his candidacy. When I made my decision among the candidates way back before the Iowa caucuses, I remember looking through a League of Conservation Voters chart outlining the environmental and energy positions of all the candidates, and there it was. The NYT had one too. Nukes were right there. And I remember reading at the time that Barack got heavy funding from a power company in Illinois that's heavily invested in nukes. So this claim that he's opposed to it, or that he's a johnny-come-lately to the issue, is just bullshit. I sort of wish he were opposed to it, but he's not.

That said, I think toowearyforoutrage wins the damn thread. Nicely put.

jeff davis writes (I just realized I miss the numbered comments from the old CB site): The big thing about nuclear is that almost nobody is building nuclear reactors anymore because they aren't as profitable as they've been portrayed. They've simply become too expensive to build.

Jeff, the problem lies not with the technology but with our system of private utility companies and the system that actually encourages them to gouge their customers. Take the Westintghouse AP-1000 reactor, for instance. They can build them for about $1 billion/gigawatt, and are in fact doing so in China right now. Yet Florida Power & Light says they're going to build two of them and they say it's going to cost between $12.8 and $18 billion dollars (for about 2.18GW that should cost about $2.2B). How do they get away with this? Well, the way the regs are set up is that they say how much these things are going to cost and then they can start charging their customers right away for what they're ostensibly going to build, even before they ever turn over a spadeful of earth. In fact, Westinghouse is having some certification issues with the design so they have neither a solid timeline nor a contract, but you can bet FP&L's customers are already getting hosed.

When people toss around numbers of $10 billion/GW for nuclear, it's not a matter of actual cost but of political and corporate machinations. The fact is that nuclear power could be extremely economical, cheaper than almost any other source of power, if not for how we're getting jacked around by the politicians and private utility companies. It's the system that's bad, not the technology. Fix the system and the new nukes would be fine.

SecularAnimist and toowearyforoutrage, both of you have a lot to learn about Gen III and Gen IV nuclear technology. Your arguments are dated and inapplicable. In a couple weeks you can bring yourselves up to date. Check out www.prescriptionfortheplanet.com (I tried html but it doesn't seem to work on this new site.)

I'm going to try html just this once, even though it doesn't seem to show up as working in preview mode. Just in case. Ah, I miss the old CB site...
Does it work?

YES!

Nukes were tried...and died. There may have been reasons !
Costs are usually understated by proposers of nuke tech, but I seldom hear anything about the supply side. Firstly, I have not run into information that fuel is or could be available.
Secondly, you damn well wouldn't want any such mining done in your neighbourhood.
I haven't seen anything posted there for a while, but http://politicsnpoetry.wordpress.com/ ran a series of articles that would have any sane person reacting to a proposal of uranium mining with something like horror.

With Generation IV reactors, we wouldn't even have to mine any uranium for hundreds of years, even if we built enough of them to power the entire planet.

With Generation IV reactors, we wouldn't even have to mine any uranium for hundreds of years, even if we built enough of them to power the entire planet.