On cell phones--the e-mails from my kids' schools go out in such a way that they arrive hours or days apart; this is particularly funny when you get the snow-emergency closing notice 2 days late. (Fortunately the middle school took a sensible "forget the no cell phones rule--if you have one, go get it from your locker, call your parents, and give it to a cell-phoneless classmate" approach, and the elementary school preferentially called everyone who didn't take a bus.) I imagine the 62262 list was much longer than my local middle school's.

I quite like Biden. This is the anti-Quayle pick--someone confident enough that a supercapable veep won't overshadow him. I think it also changes the narrative in a couple of useful ways: Changing Washington was never going to involve storming it from without, tossing out every politician, and replacing them with local guys. You need to show a willingness to work with people who know the ropes and also see a need for change. And on the war, I opposed it but never thought Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld would be as stunningly incompetent in its prosecution as they were--turning this into a "Neener neener we were right and you were wrong" referendum on 2002 and 2003 is not the way to look like the Better Start to the New Millenium team that I want. The future is a much better sell than the past. Frame McCain and whomever as the last gasp of those who'd like to do the Cold War and Vietnam over a few more times because they can't picture anything else, and Obama Biden as the team that will deal with the new challenges of a new century in a new way. 

Incidentally, on paper the military has been completely on board for preparing for the future style of conflict. Add in the donation gap from overseas servicemembers, and the military could swing Dem.