Obama wins Louisiana primary

Big night for Barack. He went 3 for 3. CNN called Louisiana for him, too.

The margins of victory in Nebraska and Washington, especially Washington, are actually quite stunning.

And, Wolf just told us Obama won the Virgin Islands, too. Ben Smith reports that means Obama secured three delegates there. Read the rest of this post...

Obama wins Nebraska and Washington state

From AP:

Sen. Barack Obama defeated Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in caucuses in Nebraska and Washington on Saturday night, hoping to chip away at her delegate lead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. The two rivals also contested a Louisiana primary....

Preliminary results of a survey of voters leaving their polling places in Louisiana showed that nearly half of those casting ballots were black. As a group, African-Americans have overwhelmingly favored Obama in earlier primaries, helping him to wins in South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia.

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Early results in Nebraska look good for Obama

From the Omaha World-Herald:

Barack Obama won 76 percent support today from caucusgoers in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District.

The Omaha-based district includes Douglas County and almost all of Sarpy County.

In unofficial results announced by the Douglas County Democratic Party, Obama won 12,252 votes in the 2nd District to 3,709 for Hillary Clinton.

Read the rest of this post...

Hillary may boycott MSNBC because they're an offensive network, but FOX is okay

Well, to be 100% accurate, Hillary was against FOX before she was for it. But now, one week after she flip-flopped and agreed to debate on FOX, a Republican propaganda network that launched racist attacks against Barack Obama and I'm sure has had its share of unkind words about the Clintons, Hillary is now talking about boycotting debates on MSNBC, of all networks, because one guy said something she didn't like about Chelsea.

Which leads us to ask: Is Hillary going to boycott debates with John McCain because he made a foul remark about Chelsea being ugly? Read the rest of this post...

Huckabee wins Kansas caucus in a rout over McCain

According to CNN, Mike Huckabee won the Kansas GOP caucus. He won BIG:

With 76 percent of precincts reporting, Huckabee had 62 percent of the vote, compared with 22 percent for Arizona Sen. John McCain and 11 percent for Texas. Rep. Ron Paul.

Big loss for McCain in the first contest after he became the GOP nominee. Dana Bash just told us the Huckster is going to get at least 33 of the 36 delegates from Kansas.

UPDATE from CNN's results page is that Huck got all the delegates in Kansas. Read the rest of this post...

Our Ad Policy

I got numerous emails every day from people complaining about this ad or that ad on the blog. Typically, it's someone upset that a Republican ad is on the site, and the typical email criticizes me for being money-grubbing, a Republican sell-out, etc. Because I value the relationship I have with my readers, I answer these emails and explain what's going on. Well, now I'm getting several of these emails a day, every single day. I can't spend a good chunk of my time constantly explaining the same thing all day long, so here you go.

1. Most of the ads that you see on this blog, and most sites on the Web, are randomly generated by the ad companies we use. Advertisers buy run-of-network ads that run on thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of Web sites at once, often randomly. Not only does the advertiser have no idea what site their ads are running on, but the sites have no idea what ads are coming (you may recall Obama recently having an ad on Drudge or something, this is what happened). In our case, Google tries to hone in which ads match our content, and they often see us talking about politics. So they send us political ads. Unfortunately, computers are dumb, so the political ads we get are sometimes Republican ads. So that's why you see ads you don't like on this, or any other, site.

2. I like to think that our readers are a step above the rest. Any of you who are going to suddenly turn into a conservative Republican because you accidentally saw an Ann Coulter ad on this Web site, well, I'm not sure we have a single reader who's that dumb.

3. Here's our ad policy. It's the same as Markos'. It's the same as The Nation. In a nutshell, we'll accept advertising from anyone, in principle. As Markos has clearly stated, if he starts cherry-picking which ads he deletes then it means he's endorsing the ads that remain. And I am not going to start endorsing every advertiser on this site. The advertising is separate from the editorial, period.

4. Having said that, I do block some ads sometimes. I'm certainly not going to take racist ads, bigoted ads, sex ads, or the like. But I am not going to get into the business of trying to decide whether 51% of you like the advertiser, which company is in favor or not this week, etc. It's just not going to happen, we have bigger and better things to focus on, all of us.

So in the future, if you write me about our ads, I'm going to send you to this post. I love you all, but you need to get over this ad fixation. Not everyone is a sell-out, and assuming they are, after watching years of their work, is rather insulting. Read the rest of this post...

Failed Republican energy plan helps radicals in Iran

The longer the oil prices stay high, the better it is for extremists such as Ahmadinejad and his supporters. Why does Big Oil and Dick Cheney want to help Iran? Why do they hate America?

Even the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini has been barred from running in the elections because he may not be conservative enough.

Despite those problems, the government feels confident about excluding candidates because of plentiful oil revenue, said Saeed Laylaz, an independent political analyst in Tehran.

"It is a sign that the government, supported by lavish oil revenue, does not need anybody, except an obedient parliament," Laylaz said. "They not only barred Khomeini's close allies but also his grandson."

Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Big day for politics. Well, another big day for politics. Caucuses today in Kansas (Republican only), Nebraska and Washington. Primary in Louisiana. We'll start to hear results from Nebraska, Washington and Kansas late this afternoon Eastern time. Polls close in Louisiana at 8 PM Central.

Because of the upcoming "Chesapeake primary" on Tuesday, we're seeing lots of the ads on our local stations. It's actually fun (in that geeky political way) to feel part of it.

The all important Maine caucuses are tomorrow. The Maine Democratic Party allows absentee votes -- over 5,000 Maine Democrats have already submitted absentee ballots. Meanwhile, the GOP had 5,400 total participants. There is a snow advisory in effect tomorrow for most of the state. The Portland area is expecting 4 - 8 inches. That would shut down DC, but Mainers know how to deal with snow.

The poem of the week is ostensibly a love poem -- an unrequited love poem -- but a love poem nonetheless. It's "A Drinking Song" by William Butler Yeats. (Fixed the link...sorry about that...)

Okay, enjoy. Read the rest of this post...

Gift cards used to buy food

Republican economics at work again. Is this what they call compassionate conservatism?

Here's a sign of how shaky the economy has become: Wal-Mart says its shoppers are redeeming their holiday gift cards for basic items — pasta sauce, diapers, laundry detergent — instead of iPods or DVDs.

Merchants had hoped shoppers armed with gift cards would provide a lift after a dismal holiday shopping season — partly because shoppers tend to spend even more than the value of the card. But that didn't seem to happen last month, and retailers are feeling the pain.

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Not your average rush hour - Hue, Vietnam

This foreigner is bold to drive a moto in Vietnam, though Hue is much more relaxed than Saigon or even Hanoi. I remember watching traffic, looking for someone to stop but traffic just kept coming. Fortunately I'm big enough (especially with a forty pound backpack) to be viewed as an obstacle so I would remove my glasses, stop looking at approaching motos and just start crossing the street. As long as I maintained a steady pace, motos would just go around me without problem. You'll get a sense of the flow in this video but it does take some time to adjust.

In Hanoi, we met a towering Aussie who resembled a rugby player, but was terrified of the traffic. He told us that he couldn't bring himself to cross the street to enter the train station because of the endless and chaotic traffic. A little boy noticed his fear so the kid grabbed his hand and walked the 6'4" Aussie across the street, without problem. Ahhh, travel. Read the rest of this post...

'Plastic soup' twice the size of the US

Fifty years of plastic has to go somewhere.

A "plastic soup" of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said.

The vast expanse of debris – in effect the world's largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting "soup" stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.

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