CNN Declares Clinton Win In New Hampshire

CNN has called the primary for Clinton by about 3%.

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN) — Sen. Hillary Clinton has won New Hampshire's Democratic primary, CNN projects.

Sen. John McCain easily won the Republican primary Tuesday, but Clinton and Barack Obama were locked in a tight race much of the night.

Clinton held a 2 to 3 point lead over Obama throughout most of the night, despite recent polls showing Obama 9 points ahead of the New York senator.

Supporters at her headquarters chanted "comeback kid" as the results came in.

Female voters and older voters seem to be playing in Clinton's favor, according to exit polls.

In Iowa, Clinton lost out to Obama among women 35 percent to 30 percent. It's a different story in New Hampshire, where 45 percent of female Democratic primary voters picked Clinton, compared to 36 percent who went for Obama.

Older voters are also overwhelmingly outnumbering younger voters, a proportion that is benefiting Clinton. Sixty-seven percent of Democratic primary voters are over the age of 40, and they are breaking heavily for Clinton over Obama.

Well, that's certainly a surprise.

Mailer Of Cow Head Sentenced

A man from Lower Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced to probation and community service for mailing a severed cow head to the man who had been carrying on an affair with the mailer's wife.

Authorities in Lower Pottsgrove, northwest of Philadelphia, arrested Fife and charged him with stalking, terroristic threats, disorderly conduct and harassment after he allegedly sent threatening messages and pictures to the victim between May and September 2006.

The victim received a package containing a cow's head with a puncture wound in its skull on June 1, 2006.

Police said Fife, 31, got the cow's head from a butcher's shop, claiming he wanted the dried skull for decoration. Instead, he mailed the head frozen, so as not to alert parcel carriers to the contents, police said. The box became bloody after sitting on the victim's doorstep on a warm day.

Police were able to trace the package and threatening e-mails to Fife, court documents indicate.

"My client did step over the line here, but one can certainly understand his frustration, given that the victim was carrying on an affair with my client's wife," Hilles said.

Well, of course this is a serious violation of the law. One simply cannot ship frozen, bloody cow heads about like that. Corleone's Law states that the proper contents of the package is a horse's head.

(And yes, that was a joke, people.)

AP Reports McCain Win In New Hampshire

The Associated Press just issued a breaking news alert that John McCain has won in New Hampshire. No other details than just that at this point. But the link is here, which should update as more comes in.

Pooch Prowling Puma Popped

Martha Smith of Fairburn, South Dakota may be 80-years old, but she isn't one to take it lightly when a mountain lion tries to eat her dog. Nor is she unskilled with firearms. In fact, she offed the prowling predator with a .22 caliber rifle.

FAIRBURN, S.D. - Acting to protect her dog, 80-year-old Martha Smith killed a mountain lion at her home along French Creek near Fairburn. She missed with her first shot, went into the house to call 911, then went back outside with a .22-caliber rifle.

"And he was a spittin' and a growlin'," said Smith. "All I saw was flashing eyes and teeth. And I knew I was gonna have to kill him if I could."

I have no idea how many shots she pumped into the offending puma. (Heck, a .22 long rifle bullet is only 40 grains weight. Not much in the way of stopping power there.) Personally, I would not want to face an angry mountain lion with anything smaller than a large howitzer. Those things are tough.

But then, so is Martha Smith.

No Link Between Vaccinations And Autism

A definitive study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry shows that there is no link between childhood vaccinations and autism. Despite the sharp reduction in the use of a preservative, thimerosal (which contains mercury), since 2001, autism rates in California continued to rise.

The findings came from a look at children diagnosed with autism in California from 1995 to 2007. It found that the number of autism cases continued to rise through that period even though the preservative thimerosal — nearly half of which is made of ethylmercury — was removed from most vaccines in 2001.

The data "do not show any recent decrease in autism in California despite the exclusion of more than trace levels of thimerosal from nearly all childhood vaccines (and) do not support the hypothesis that that exposure (to it) during childhood is a primary cause of autism," the study concluded.

Some earlier studies had linked mercury to autism, theorizing that as more and more children were being vaccinated against more health threats, it could explain increases in autism.

But a 2004 report from the U.S. Institute of Medicine said a review of existing studies did not appear to back the mercury-autism theory.

What causes autism remains a mystery. Some experts have said the increased number of cases is due at least in part to more awareness, an expanded definition, education and other factors.

This, of course, will not change the mind of a certain scion of a political dynasty who has made a living off his scaremongering. What is of concern is the number of people who have bought into that mendacious mercury mythology and have kept their children from being properly immunized. That may be a public health crisis in the making. We have already seen epidemics of mumps break out in the Midwest. Failing to vaccinate your children is so seventh century.

SoylentVOLT Green Is People

Local governments in Britain are planning to burn human bodies for electricity. No, really, they are.

Heat created by burning the dead at crematoria could be used to keep mourners warm under plans to make funerals more environmentally-friendly.

Instead of letting the gases emitted by cremation escape into the atmosphere, councils want to use them to heat radiators or even generate electricity.

They admit some might find the idea of being kept warm by the remains of their loved-ones macabre.

But there are thought to be no religious objections, and ever-tighter controls on pollution mean such systems could become commonplace.

Harmful mercury emissions are created by cremating those with old tooth fillings. To meet tough pollution targets, councils are having to fit filters to crematoria.

Cremation requires temperatures of as much as 1,000C but this must be reduced to around 160C for the mercury to be removed, which requires heat exchangers to be installed in chimneys.

This involves passing the hot fumes through what are effectively cold water radiators. They absorb much of the heat and it is this which can be reused.

Tameside Council in Greater Manchester is planning to link heat exchangers at Dukinfield Crematorium with its boiler system and hopes to use it to generate electricity through turbines.

Soylent Green comes true, in a slightly different way. So far.

Absolutely anything I write about this is going to produce a Godwin's Law violation. I'll leave it at that.

Analyzing The Arcane Rules

Democrats have some big quirks in their nomination process. Those arcane rules actually work to Hillary Clinton's advantage even if she loses a lot of primaries in the months ahead. Jay Cost over at Real Clear Politics delves into the arcana and breaks it down for mere mortals to understand. Bottom line, Clinton could lose a lot of primaries and still win the nomination. (Democrats can blame their own fundamentally undemocratic rules for this oddity.)

As you probably know, voters do not directly elect nominees. They register their preferences for presidential candidates - either through primaries or caucuses - and those preferences determine how many of a candidate's delegates go to the national convention. The nominee is the person who wins a majority of delegates. Strange indeed - but delegates, just like the conventions they attend, are holdovers from the era of state party dominance.

There are two features of the Democratic nomination process that could help Hillary.

First, Democratic primaries and caucuses allocate delegates proportionally. Candidates win "pledged" delegates based not on whether they win a state - but on how many voters support them. So, for instance, even though Clinton and Edwards lost Iowa, they still won a few delegates.

Second, about 20% of all delegates to the Democratic convention are "super" or "unpledged" delegates. This quirky provision - which does not have a corollary on the Republican side - has its origins in Chicago, 1968. In the wake of that disastrous convention, the DNC formed the McGovern-Fraser Commission to recommend improvements for the nomination process. McGovern-Fraser suggested that the process be opened to rank-and-file Democrats on the principle of "one Democrat, one vote." The reforms contributed to George McGovern (the same McGovern from the commission) winning the nomination in 1972. The party establishment did not like this. So, it added the super delegate provision to serve as a check on the party rank-and-file.

This year, according to the indispensable Green Papers, there will be 798 super delegates at the convention in Denver. They include all elected members of the Democratic National Committee, all current Democratic members of Congress (including non-voting delegates), all sitting Democratic governors, and past party luminaries (e.g. former presidents). Unlike pledged delegates, who are bound to particular candidates, super delegates are free to vote their consciences.

Cost lays it all out in detail. You can safely bet that these calculations have also been made by camp Clinton. Obama is still not assured the nomination, regardless of how the press is now playing the stories. Nor is the Clinton campaign dead.

Bill’s Whining Again

The conventional wisdom about the way the states compressed the time frame of the primaries was that those changes would benefit the candidate with the most money and best organization. In other words, it would be a boon to Hillary Clinton. When the Clinton campaign was riding high, nary a word of objection to those moves was heard. Yesterday, however, Bill Clinton began whining about how the compressed primary schedule now works against Hillary and for Obama's momentum.

CLAREMONT – Former President Bill Clinton said the timing of the New Hampshire primary is to blame if his wife, New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, doesn't beat Illinois Senator Barack Obama in their quest for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Asked by a voter in Claremont how the Clinton camp planned to propel itself past Obama, Clinton said, "The answer is there might not be enough time, because New Hampshire made a decision that I didn't agree with."

He said the state gave up much of its political sway by holding its primary so close to last Thursday's Iowa caucus. With more time, he said, more voters would begin to question the substance behind the Obama campaign.

"The point is the momentum is broken when people get to think for themselves and not get caught up in the press hysteria," he said.

The former President attacked Obama, saying that although he claims to oppose the war in Iraq, he has consistently voted to fund it, a point, Clinton said, negates the Illinois senator's entire campaign.

"The central logic of the Obama campaign is that it doesn't matter that I don't have experience because I have good judgment because I was against the war," he said.

It actually got worse for Bill Clinton yesterday, too. Students began walking out on him during a campaign appearance at Dartmouth.

HANOVER, N.H. — About thirty minutes into Bill Clinton's nearly two-hour stop here at Dartmouth College, a steady stream of students started walking out of the venue.

Moments later, Clinton — his voice hoarse, sometimes cracking — took arguably the toughest question of the night, courtesy of a tall, blond 19-year old freshman wearing a bright red sweater. "My main concern is, if Hillary were elected, it would create a dynastification of American politics. Bush, Clinton, Bush. What do you think?" asked Sebastian Ramirez, standing less than a hundred feet from the former president.

Clinton responded, to rolling laughter across the room, "I'm not responsible for the 12 years that the American people gave to the Bushes." He continued: "I actually tried to talk Hillary into leaving me when we were in law school, that's the God's truth. I told her, 'You have more talent for public service than anybody in my generation that I have met… I shouldn't stand in your way.' She looked at me and said, 'Oh, Bill, I'll never run for office.'"

That got a few cheers from the crowd of about 600, most of them students, with their backpacks and books in tow. But many of the students in the room, judging from more than two dozen interviews, are supporters of Sen. Barack Obama. They plan to vote for him tomorrow night.

I have said before that seeing a former president whine is spectacularly unappealing. It would appear that I am not the only one who thinks so.

Refusing To Deal With Reality

Even the Washington Post is having a very hard time with the refusal of the Democrats running for the presidential nomination to deal with the reality of improvements in Iraq. They point out that the candidates appear to be unable to acknowledge the improvements and are, in fact, lying when they talk about Iraq these days. Pretty strong, especially for a major media outlet.

A reasonable response to these facts might involve an acknowledgment of the remarkable military progress, coupled with a reminder that the final goal of the surge set out by President Bush — political accords among Iraq's competing factions — has not been reached. (That happens to be our reaction to a campaign that we greeted with skepticism a year ago.) It also would involve a willingness by the candidates to reconsider their long-standing plans to carry out a rapid withdrawal of remaining U.S. forces in Iraq as soon as they become president — a step that would almost certainly reverse the progress that has been made.

What Ms. Clinton, Mr. Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson instead offered was an exclusive focus on the Iraqi political failures — coupled with a blizzard of assertions about the war that were at best unfounded and in several cases simply false. Mr. Obama led the way, claiming that Sunni tribes in Anbar province joined forces with U.S. troops against al-Qaeda in response to the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections — a far-fetched assertion for which he offered no evidence.

Mr. Obama acknowledged some reduction of violence, but said he had predicted that adding troops would have that effect. In fact, on Jan. 8, 2007, he said that in the absence of political progress, "I don't think 15,000 or 20,000 more troops is going to make a difference in Iraq and in Baghdad." He also said he saw "no evidence that additional American troops would change the behavior of Iraqi sectarian politicians and make them start reining in violence by members of their religious groups." Ms. Clinton, for her part, refused to retract a statement she made in September, when she said it would require "a suspension of disbelief" to believe that the surge was working.

Of course, the Post and the rest of the media helped create the toxic atmosphere that the Democrats were so happy to posture about and pander to when things were not going so well, so they are not above all this. But still, even at this late date they realize that it would be a disaster for America and for the Iraqi people if the US simply walked away. That's a start. It doesn't seem likely the Democrats will acknowledge the real gains, though. At least until after the primaries.