• 2,380 total delegates
• 1,191 votes needed to win nomination
• less than that results in a brokered convention
• According to CNN.com:
  • John McCain : 663 pledged, 17 unpledged
  • Mitt Romney : 261 pledged, 9 unpledged
  • Mike Huckabee : 173 pledged, 3 unpledged
  • Ron Paul : 16 pledged, 0 unpledged
• As noted on the CNN site says: “Unpledged delegates in the Republican Party do not have to indicate a candidate preference, but a majority are elected just like pledged delegates. Of the 463 unpledged delegates, 123 are RNC members who become delegates automatically.”
• These numbers are estimates. No one knows for sure who all the delegates belong. Some states have yet to finalize them.
• The Paul campaign has announced that in fact they have an estimated 42 delegates.
• There are 2,380 - 1,142 = 1,238 delegates left to get.
• With 680 total delegates McCain needs 1,191 - 680 = 511 more to lock in a win. 551/1,238 = 44.5% of those available.
• The Wikipedia article on the Republican presidential primaries does a wonderful job sorting out when and how delegates are picked.
• Kansas has 36: Paul is the number 1 fundraiser, Rudy 2nd, McCain 3rd. I suspect McCain will do well but with no poll data it’s hard to tell. This poll which matches candidates shows McCain doing the best against Clinton so my guess is he wins. It’s not a winner take all however. If we follow Montana which Paul also was number 1 fundraiser… it went to Romney who raised 2nd most.
• Washington has 40: Paul is doing well there. 2nd in fundraising to Mitt. Hopefully those two pick up most of the delegates.
• Virginia is winner takes all. Looks like McCain will take their 63.
• Maryland looks like Rudy and Romney country. Assuming they move from Rudy to McCain he may pickup a majority of their 37.
• DC looks like a McCain win with 16.
• Louisiana is a cluster fuck. Paul may have gotten 2nd to the Pro-Life slate though McCain may have. Either way it’s split and counted in the 42 the Paul campaign is claiming. There are more (24+) to be selected however.
• Wisconsin should go well for Paul and be fairly split. They have 37 to give.
• Based on $$ raised Romney should pick up a majority of Ohio but Rudy + McCain could take a large chunk of the 85 they have.
• Texas’ 137 appear to be very split. If the Rudy supporters go to McCain he will get many of the delegates.
• I’m counting about 330 for McCain from these states. At that rate it seems likely he will get his 511 but it may be fairly close. I’ve heard rumors that some of his delegates aren’t really his. I doubt it’s all that many but it could be enough to force a brokered convention. Even though I don’t expect Paul to get the nomination the opportunity to address the entire Republican establishment and pitch his platform would be priceless. The whole Republican world would hopefully be watching.

http://www.tcsdaily.com/…

Warren County, Virginia, at the confluence of the North and South Forks of the Shenandoah River has neither the rolling hills of horse country nor the fertile plains of the Shenandoah Valley.

Of its 36,000 citizens, an estimated 6,000 are uninsured. Typically, when they get sick, the uninsured go to the emergency room, which is about the most inefficient and costly way of delivering primary medical care.

But, thanks to the initiative of some local Christians, the uninsured of Warren County can instead go to the St. Luke Community Clinic for free medical care. In FY 2006, 2,633 uninsured people did just that.

St. Luke Clinic is one of an estimated two thousand Free Clinics around the country, fifty of them in Virginia. In 2006, the total budget of all the Free Clinics in Virginia was about $18 million, which they leveraged to a value in excess of $80 million.

The Free Clinic movement is living embodiment of many conservative principles: the principles of subsidiarity and voluntarism, the spirit of enterprise and of community self-reliance. As health care becomes more and more of a national concern, if people are truly concerned about the less fortunate, there should be a population explosion in the number of free clinics around the country.

People always ask how the poor would receive care in an actual free market of healthcare. Here’s one way. There used to be these before our current system it’s just that the government effectively put them out of business. It doesn’t take much effort to research the history of our nation before it went all hybrid socialist… I really wish people would do so before ignorantly spouting out about how the world will end without universal healthcare. Passing ignorance is forgivable. Knowing you’re ignorant and making statements about the topic anyway is not.

http://kotaku.com/…

“He was enrolled in a Tae Kwon Do program for awhile, watched TV, and played video games like Sonic the Hedgehog.”

“None of the video games were war games or had violent themes. He liked basketball and had a collection of figurines and remote controlled cars.”

“…Cho’s roommate never saw him play video games. He would get movies from the library and watch them on his laptop.”

Poor Jack Thompson, his ammo has been taken from him in this incident. Though… in Sonic Adventure Sega did introduce guns. Or perhaps it was simply the terrible Sonic games (like Adventure) that drove Cho to snap. This was expected but it is nice to see it become publicly acknowledged. Media may give people ideas, it may help push someone to perform an act, it does not make someone commit the act nor change their potential.