Reuters reports today that the Spanish Parliament's Environmental committee has approved legislation to extend the fundamental "right to life and freedom", to our cousins the Great Apes.

"Yes your honor, that's the one! He did it!"

What a giant leap for human consciousness!

In response to someone's question about whether McCain's website still had golf gear, I checked the site out. Gone is the gear (and the astonishingly good commentary that accompanied, unfortunately). The good news is that dKos diarists were on it, saving some of those wonderful comments for posterity.

But what really caught my eye this time around was the website's "Coalitions Apparel" page.  Now, my understanding is that a "coalition" is one of those things where you've got something you need to do, and you can't do it yourself so you ask some other people to help out.  And of course those people may not have the same agenda as you do, but they're willing to stomach things about you they don't like, in order to achieve that one single goal.

With my definition of "coalition" in mind, and wondering exactly who it was the McCain campaign was looking for in coalition partners, I just had to click to find out more....

Per the BBC.com front page.  I didn't see this on the lists so I figured I'd throw it out there:

"Democratic hopeful Barack Obama has had an unannounced meeting with his defeated rival Hillary Clinton....  A spokesman for Mr Obama said the two former opponents met to talk about bringing their campaigns together and uniting the party."

Just because we all know where the real action is, here's the current results from CNN on the closed South Dakota Republican Primary. With 5% results in so far, non-candidate Ron Paul is in at 19%, non-candidate Mike Huckabee at 10%, and the current challenger for Number One Loser In The General, John McCain coming in with a respectable two thirds of the vote.  

I'll put a couple updates up as more comes in.

The question of the night is, what the f#&* are three percent of the Republicans waiting for? Uncommitted? At this point, why even show up?

Final update: 90% in, Uncommitted at 3%

CNN Results over the fold, updates throughout this long, long night.

...who am I to argue?  Particularly since I've been plugging this ticket since last year, and put up a pithy diary on the subject last month.

My argument is that a McCain / Lieberman ticket would make a perverted sort of sense to Republicans and independent-leaning Republicans.

And apparently, Bill Kristol feels the same way.

Well, now that the West Virginia Primary is over, there's a few things I wanted to talk about, particularly race, sex and education numbers shown in West Virginia exit polls.

You know, nothing controversial or anything....

I know it's early in the evening, but I know my dKos crowd, y'all are glued to the Indiana primaries, chewing nervously on your fingernails as this harrowing race moves forward. And tonight, you're asking the same question I am.

What if- just what if John McCain doesn't win Indiana tonight?

First, let's give a big, big round of applause to fellow Kossack jpfdeuce for coming up with the sick idea of Photoshopping McCain onto "The Brain" from WB's Pinky and the Brain. One can only hope coming off that kind of high wasn't too rough.

But good as the idea was, seeing poor Sidney standing there, microphone in hand, with only a cartoon character in the background and no one to remind him where al-Qaeda lives and that let him know that Purim doesn't equal Halloween, etc., it made me realize I needed figure out who'd best fill the "Pinky" spot.  If you click on the little "There's more" button below the photo, you'll get the revised lyrics (to fit the revised image) and a short explanation of why I picked Joe Lieberman for Pinky. In the meantime, It's Joey and McCain, yay!

Aloha!

Amongst all the excitement and disgust following along with last night's PA primary, a friend emailed me to ask a question about a set of CNN exit poll numbers he didn't understand.  After a couple minutes of staring at it, I gave up. Well, apparently we two aren't the only ones stumped by the table, at least one diarist at TPM also had problems figuring out the table.

Oh, and here's the exit poll page at CNN we're talking about;  it's the last table on the page, titled "Vote For President in November"

The diarist (obviously) had a problem with what they were reading; that 69,000 who voted for Hillary say they'll vote for McCain in the general.  My confusion is much deeper, to me, none of the table makes sense.  6% who said they weren't voting in the General, but 95% said they'd vote for Obama?  What does that even mean?

It's a simple question on the surface. Like any other question of its kind. One expects a "low, medium or high" answer.  My only problem is that for many people, their answer isn't the correct one.  And yes, I'm about to tell you the correct answer to any question that includes a list of priorities including the war in Iraq.

A few months ago I noted a survey that said the Iraq war wasn't top of the Republican issues list in the primaries. It didn't sink in right away, but something clicked when I read the following Raw story that noted:

In Republican primaries and caucuses so far, only 18 percent of voters rated Iraq their most important issue behind the economy and immigration. The number was higher — 28 percent — among those voting in Democratic primaries and caucuses but Iraq still trailed the economy.

My father was in the military. My grandfather was in the military. My grand-uncle was in the military. My half-brother was in the military. Two of my uncles were in the military. Insane freak that I am, I tried to join in 2002, and was denied due to age. Tried to get someone at the company I worked at to pull strings (he was ex-military), but it was early on and they weren't begging for hands to hold the guns at that point.

So when someone talks about accepting this or that form of coercion as "acceptable" my natural reaction is to think to myself "well then, that makes the use of it against my family acceptable too, now doesn't it?"

And that really pisses me off. And it pissed George Washington off too, 'cause he said so....

Over the past few months I've been reading candidate platforms online, talking to friends, trying to figure out who is the best next leader of the US. Hey, I even gave Ron Paul's site a look. And after visiting, 'it's a wonder I'm still sane', as they say. Fascinating stuff.

But this diary isn't about the side that will lose in November, it's about picking the winningest winner, and that will be on our side. The more I read about the respective Clinton and Obama health plans, the more I was drawn to Clinton's side. Sure, there's plenty of other points to fix on. And certainly there's been no lack of information on KOS to check out as well.  But I gravitate towards the underdog. When Obama was behind I rooted for him. Once he started pulling ahead a little, it was "Go Hillary!" time.

But there's been something nagging at me. The "war vote" and lack of apology afterwards? Moments of seeming arrogance, where it really came across to me at least that she felt she was presumptive heir to the Nominee throne? Well, I finally figured it out, and it wasn't any of those, nor Whitewater, nor missing legal documents - hey, most of that junk was drummed up by Republicans as smear, why should I even care?

Yes, you've all felt it. The need for change. The right kind of change. Too many insiders in Washington doing things for political reasons (umm yeah, it's Washington, I hear a number of political decisions get made over there).

But we're blessed with a special candidate. One who can be a uniter, not a divider. A kinder, gentler Giuliani. He likes Bush, but doesn't gush. He's moderate, but not too much so. And by golly he's sweeping the nation without yet even running for office! That's right, Michael Bloomberg!

And just look at the numbers!

Rationalizing terrorist attacks on the day of the largest terrorist attack ever in the US should be undertaken with caution. Not that I was wrong of course. But let me begin with Rep Paul's comments during the Republican presidential debate.....

Hey y'all.

So in the interest of supporting open access to information, I tried creating a new account on Conservapedia. Have you tried it? If not, let me take you on my little magic carpet ride....

David Kuo is stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place. As he himself says, "I went to the left and to the right, and I've ended up pretty much in the center" to get funding for the poor.

McCain wants to have it both ways. First he blames the Clinton Administration for North Korea, then this morning he comes out with "I think this is the wrong time for us to be engaging in finger pointing."

Aside from sounding like a little child trying to blame others, he's also wrong. Big surprise there.