Saturday, 19 January 2008

Live Blogging South Carolina

07:37:03 PM Polls are closing, so we get to see if Fred's momentum was real.

08:02:50 PM 5% of SC is in and it isn't looking good for Fred. He is in 4th and a good deal off the lead. McCain has the early lead so these aren't Fred areas. We will have to see what happens when the strong conservative areas report.

08:09:55 PM 12% in and Thompson has moved into third. Unfortunately, he is way behind the leaders.

08:31:43 PM 26% in and it is looking like McCain and Huckabee are going to finish in the top 2. Well ahead of Thompson and Romney who are fighting for third.

08:38:56 PM 38% in and the battle between Huck and McCain is interesting. McCain has a lead but the Huck areas haven't come in yet. Thompson is slowly pulling away from Romney and will probably finish third.

08:58:25 PM 55% of the vote has reported and McCain still has a 5% lead, but it still hasn't been called. Interesting.

09:00:24 PM 61% in an McCain has 4% lead. The big Huck areas must not have reported yet since the race hasn't been called.

09:18:02 PM 75% in and McCain still has a large lead on Huckabee. Looks like McCain is going to win. Huckabee in a close second. Thompson is going to finish 3rd but he is almost 20 points off first place. I think Fred should stay in the race thru Super Tuesday, but I think his chances are pretty much gone. Republicans are not going to nominate a conservative this year. What does that mean for conservatism going forward?

09:28:36 PM 83% of the vote in South Carolina has reported and McCain has ben declared the winner. Huckabee is going to finish a close second. Thompson and Romney a distant 3rd and 4th respectively. I am going to sign off here and have a few adult beverages.

09:30:35 PM I'll write more on the SC results tomorrow.

Posted by elendil at 7:36 PM in Kentucky Politics
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Guns and Universities

Democratic Representative Bob Damron form Nicholsville has put forth a common sense gun law change for this session. One that would allow people to keep guns in their cars while on university property.

First off, I didn't know it was illegal to have a gun in your car while on a campus. Second, it is a bad law. The rest of the state allows peaceful journey with a gun in the glove compartment. Why shouldn't a university? What are you supposed to do when you get to the university? Throw it out the window? Leave it at home? What if you live in a high crime neighborhood? If you come home late at night are you supposed to be defenseless just because you were down at the university working on a report?

But still the university's strongly oppose the law.

Carol Jordan, director of UK's Center for Research on Violence Against Women and a leader on campus safety issues, said she continues to support UK's policy of banning firearms for the "protection and safety of the UK campus."

"From the point of view of campus safety, I am extremely pleased with the policy we have in place," Jordan said.

Safety? What safety? What the universities have is an illusion of safety. Virginia Tech had the same gun ban, but it didn't help the 32 students who were slain by Seung-Hui Cho in 2007. Criminals aren't going to follow the law and the police is only good for cleaning up afterwards.

Of course my favorite argument from the opposition comes from UK professor Tagavi.

Kaveh Tagavi, a UK professor and president of the Senate Council, a campus policy group for faculty, administrators and students, said the authority to bear firearms on campus should be reserved for the campus police.

Otherwise, the threat of someone bearing a concealed weapon could destroy trust between faculty and students, Tagavi said.

"Under the present policy, I don't have a weapon, and neither do my students," Tagavi said.

He said he is particularly concerned about what could happen after an intense class discussion about a controversial topic.

"If a student is upset and the car might just be two minutes from the classroom," a real threat to safety could exist, he said. Tagavi said he was speaking for himself and not for the Senate Council, which has not addressed the issue.

Give me a break. I want some one to name a school shooting that took place right after an argument in class. Every shooting I can recall were all planned days in advanced by the gunman. This is the same stupid argument people made against the concealed carry permit law. They claimed that gun battles would erupt in the street. Guess what? Their predictions haven't come to pass on that one and they won't come to pass on this law either.

I always found it amusing that universities are the biggest defenders of the first amendment. In fact they hide behind it as they teach their liberal dogma. Yet they continually excoriate the second amendment. They want to protect all of our basic rights except the right to self defense.

It makes me wonder if they don't want to ban guns on campus to encourage big massacres. It seems like every time a shooting occurs professors are at fore front calling for greater gun control. I find it difficult to believe that they would want gun slayings on their campus. But there refusal to allow people to defend themselves makes you wonder. Personally, I don't think that is the case. I imagine that the campus shootings are just another unintended consequence of a misguided liberal dream world.

Posted by brians at 2:39 PM in Kentucky Politics
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National Fred Day

It is primary day in South Carolina. Go Fred Go! I might try to live blog the results tonight depending on if I am somewhere that is showing the results.

Posted by brians at 9:43 AM in National Politics
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