[Guest post by DRJ]

93% reporting:
Obama – 86,474 – 26% – 7 delegates
Clinton – 223,509 – 67% – 16 delegates

81% reporting:
Obama – 78,531 – 26%
Clinton – 199,589 – 67%

77% reporting:
Obama – 74,687 – 26%
Clinton – 188,776 – 67%

57% reporting:
Obama – 56,072 – 28%
Clinton – 133,510 – 65%

31% reporting:
Obama – 32,432 – 29%
Clinton – 72,554 – 64%

4% reporting:
Obama – 8,514 – 36%
Clinton – 13,749 – 58% — CNN projects Clinton the winner.

All results from CNN.

— DRJ

Jamie Gold asks: is the L.A. Times left-leaning, or nonpartisan? (The question arises in the context of the paper’s use of the label “conservative” to describe conservative organizations, and “nonpartisan” (or no label) to describe left-leaning ones.)

If you’d like to give her your feedback, you may answer her question politely here. Save your comment, and note the date and time you left it. If it doesn’t get published within 24 hours, email it to me, and I’ll publish it here.

(H/t Bradley J. Fikes.)

[Guest post by DRJ]

The lead story at the Denver Post (online version) concerns a traffic accident on the I-70 ramp:

“Some beer “uninjured” in I-70 ramp spill”

(THE DENVER POST | RJ SANGOSTI)

Here’s the rest of the story:

“The new flyover has a nice curve on the top, and if you’re going too fast, there’s no way you’re going to make that turn,” she said.

“It would appear the rig hit that curve and tipped, ripping the side and top of the trailer piece — can-opened it right open. All the beer went flying out, down the embankment between that off-ramp and I-70 down below.”

The driver of the truck was not seriously injured but was transported to a local hospital.

The “uninjured” beer, as Stigall called it, was being transferred by hand to another truck.”

Imagine if it had been Coors beer. That might have ranked an obituary.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

According to Breitbart, the AP has released the following headline without any accompanying story on the West Virginia election:

“Clinton wins large but symbolic victory in W.Va.”

I guess this is the media’s way to get those talking points out early.

UPDATE: Here’s the complete AP headline and story released May 13 @ 7:41 PM EST. The headline alone was released at 7:32 PM EST according to Breitbart.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Barack Obama quit wearing his U.S. flag lapel pin in October 2007 because:

“You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin,” Obama said. “Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest.

“Instead,” he said, “I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”

Fast forward to May 2008 in which Obama faces an uphill battle in conservative states and is inching closer to being his Party’s nominee in the general election. ABC News notes that Obama has worn his flag lapel pin for two straight days:

“A rather prominent flag pin is on Obama’s lapel, for the second straight day. Here’s guessing he won’t lose it until after the general election.”

Barack Obama: A Change We Can Believe In.

— DRJ

Posted by WLS: 

Update 5/14:  Final raw vote tallies:

Clinton 2008 — 238,939

Obama 2008 — 91,613 

Kerry 2004 — 175,065

Which brings me back to my question yesterday — if Obamania is so irresistable, why was he able to tally only 52% of the vote total that Kerry tallied in 2004?

The 2004 primary was meaningless to the nomination of Kerry, just as the press has said the 2008 primary was meaningless to the nomination of Obama.

Kerry was as liberal as Obama, and  with his haughty boarding school upbringing and elitist Brahmin-esque  manner, should have been stepped on by Edwards in the same manner Clinton stepped on Obama yesterday.

Yet Kerry was able to rally the party to him on his way to getting 175,065 votes in the primary, on the way to getting 326,541 votes in the general.

That was an increase of 151,476 votes.

For Obama to equal Kerry’s raw vote in W.Va. in the general election, he’s going to have to find 234,928 more votes than he did yesterday — a quarter million more W.Virginians will have to pull the lever for Obama in Nov. than were willing to do so yesterday.

Assuming McCain runs within 10% of Bush’s raw vote total in 2004 — giving McCain 381,400 votes in Nov. — Obama would need to find 289,787 more votes than he tallied yesterday to win W.Va. 

If McCain performs even with Bush’s 2004 totals, Obama needs to find 332,165 more votes than he got yesterday.

I’ll have a post up later that compares Obama’s raw vote totals in key battleground states in the rust belt against Kerry’s raw vote totals in primaries of those same states. 

——————  

The polls will be closing in WVa in two hours.  Within a couple hours after that we will know the raw vote totals for Obama and Clinton. 

Everyone is predicting a Clinton blowout victory, and it will not be a surprise if she wins by 25 points.

What I want to see, however, is the raw vote total for Obama.  As the Clinton campaign surrogates have pointed out, Obama is the front-runner and the press has annointed him the presumptive nominee.   If the party is going to rally around him, there should be some evidence of that now, and there is no good explanation for why it would not be seen to be happening in WVa.  That was supposedly the message from his blowout win in NC last week, and he very narrow loss in Indiana.

He has outspent Clinton on paid advertising in WVa, he has more offices and more paid campaign staff in the state, and he has the endorsements of the two most prominent elected Democrats — and I’m not considering Sen. Byrd due to his poor health.

So, why are the Dems of WVa not getting behind him?

In 2004, the presumptive nominee of the Dem. party came to WVa and garnered 175,065 votes, or 69.25%, with his nearest challenger garnering only 33,950.

The Dem race for the nomination was over by May 11, 2004, the date of the 2004 primary, but the Dem race this year is pretty much over — none of the punditocracy sees a straightforward way for Clinton to win.  

Yet in 2004, 175,000 faithful Dem voters still turned out and voted for the ultra-liberal elitist junior Senator from Massachusetts. 

If Obama is the historic transitional political figure the press and the leftwing have claimed him to be, why would he not be able to generate the same raw vote totals of a rather dull, unexciting, French-looking New Englander who had wrapped up the nomination in 2004 a full two months before the WVa primary?

If Obama can’t get the same 175,000 votes in WVa. that Kerry did, why not?  Even if Clinton beats him, why would his vote total be less than Kerry’s?  These are registered DEM voters — they should be predisposed to the presumptive nominee of their party who is proclaimed as a gift from the gods of politics.

Why are they voting for someone who has no chance of being their nominee?  Why didn’t those same voters pull the lever for John Edwards in 2004? 

[Guest post by DRJ]

The University of Colorado at Boulder, home of Ward Churchill and the Pot Smoke-Out, is so liberal that even the University’s Chancellor is searching for a right-wing professor to add diversity to the campus:

“How liberal is the University of Colorado at Boulder? The campus hot-dog stand sells tofu wieners. A recent pro-marijuana rally drew a crowd of 10,000, roughly a third the size of the student body. And according to one professor’s analysis of voter registration, the 800-strong faculty includes just 32 Republicans.

Chancellor G.P. “Bud” Peterson surveys this landscape with unease. A college that champions diversity, he believes, must think beyond courses in gay literature, Chicano studies and feminist theory. “We should also talk about intellectual diversity,” he says. So over the next year, Mr. Peterson plans to raise $9 million to create an endowed chair for what is thought to be the nation’s first Professor of Conservative Thought and Policy.

Mr. Peterson’s quest has been greeted with protests from some faculty and students, who say the move is too — well, radical.

“Why set aside money specifically for a conservative?” asks Curtis Bell, a teaching assistant in political science. “I’d rather see a quality academic than someone paid to have a particular perspective.” Even some conservatives who have long pushed for balance in academia voice qualms. Among them is David Horowitz, a conservative agitator whose book “The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America” includes two Boulder faculty members: an associate professor of ethnic studies who writes about the intersection of Chicano and lesbian issues, and a philosophy professor focused on feminist politics and “global gender justice.” While he approves of efforts to bolster a conservative presence on campus, Mr. Horowitz fears that setting up a token right-winger as The Conservative at Boulder will brand the person as a curiosity, like “an animal in the zoo.” We “fully expect this person to be integrated into the fabric of life on campus,” replies Todd Gleeson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.”

Chancellor Peterson is (surprise!) a Republican and he hopes to lure conservatives to campus as visiting professors — people like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, columnist George Will and Philip Zelikow, who chaired the 9/11 Commission.

However, even Chancellor Peterson knows it’s going to be a hard sell. That’s probably why he acknowledges that the visiting professors of conservative thought may not actually be conservatives. After all, some French teachers aren’t actually French.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

There are many opinions about proper cell phone etiquette.

For instance, schools usually require students to turn off their cell phones during class. In addition, most pharmacies and doctor’s offices in my town have posted signs that they will not talk to patients about health care matters while patients use their cell phones. It’s surprising how upset some people get when they see that sign and have to turn off their phones.

You can almost always tell when drivers are on the phone because of the way they drive or the way their heads are tilted as they hold the phone to their ear … or the presence of an earphone and the fact they are talking with no one else around.

When it comes to driving and airline travel, however, cell phone use is more than a question of etiquette. For instance, Federal Aviation Administration regulations bar cell phone use on planes because it could interfere with the flight’s navigation system, and airlines can be fined up to $25,000 for allowing the use of cell phones during flights.

Fifty-year-old Joe David Jones, president of Austin environmental technology company Skyonic Corp., has direct experience with this FAA rule. Jones was cited for disorderly conduct because he refused to disconnect his cell phone during a recent Southwest Airlines flight:

“Jones had forgotten to turn off his phone during takeoff and received the message about his father as the plane moved closer to Dallas, said Mark Clayton, Skyonic’s vice president of corporate relations.

“His father’s heart had stopped,” Clayton said. “The cardiac unit requested a call immediately to discuss decisions regarding his father’s immediate care. “So Mr. Jones attempted to call them back. And it took several tries.”

“He expresses regret for the inconvenience that it caused the airline and its passengers, but he felt compelled because of the life and death nature of it to make that call.”

According to a police report, Jones was on his cell phone for about 20 minutes at the end of the flight. The report said Jones, when asked to turn his phone off, responded with an obscenity.”

Jones’ father may have been in a dire medical situation but he was in the care of physicians, so it’s hard for me to understand why Jones was unable to communicate his problem to the flight crew and request assistance with emergency communications. My guess is he just didn’t care that his cell phone was a problem for someone else.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

It’s been all politics and law around here recently, and it’s time for something different. Today’s news has a reminder that Chinese espionage is alive and well in America:

“A U.S. citizen from Taiwan and longtime southeast Louisiana resident pleaded guilty today to conspiring to pass American military secrets to the Chinese government.

Tai Shen Kuo, 58, a businessman who made a name and a lot of money for himself over more than three decades in Houma and New Orleans, is being held up by the U.S. Justice Department as representative of a new spying threat from China.”

Kuo agreed to a plead guilty to “one count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government.” The maximum penalty is life in prison.

The original charges and parties are set forth in this February 2008 FBI press release. In brief, Kuo was one of 3 Chinese nationals charged with a civilian U.S. Defense Department analyst in connection with the release of classified information concerning weapons systems sold to Taiwan.

Prosecutors have repeatedly emphasized how aggressive the Chinese are in trying to penetrate American military and economic secrets. They described Chinese espionage programs as reaching levels that have not been seen in the U.S. since the Cold War with the former Soviet Union.

Thus, while Kuo’s network may be closed, there are many more still out there.

— DRJ