Blogs of War

The threat of classified tech burying itself in soft ground outside of Beijing appears to have been reduced:

Wednesday’s strike began at around 10:26 p.m. EST, when the USS Lake Erie, which had been tracking the falling satellite, launched a modified SM-3 missile at the bus-sized object as it entered the earth’s atmosphere. The missile struck the satellite about three minutes later as the spacecraft traveled in polar orbit at more than 17,000 mph.

Because the satellite was orbiting at a relatively low altitude at the time it was hit by the missile, debris will begin to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere immediately, the Pentagon statement said.

“Nearly all of the debris will burn up on re-entry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days,” it said.

Raytheon is happy. Putin and China – not so happy.

He hasn’t started running yet but it certainly looks like he’s going to:

This site hosts this video to explain the launch of two exploratory projects — first, a Change Congress movement, and second, my own decision whether to run for Congress in the California 12th.

I have decided I want to give as much energy as I can to the Change Congress movement. I will decide in the next week or so whether it makes sense to advance that movement by running for Congress.

Many friends have weighed in on that decision — both strongly in favor and strongly opposed. Many more have joined draftlessig.org and a Facebook group asking me to consider it.

Watch or listen and you will understand some of my reasoning. Feel free to send your thoughts or advice to lessig@lessig08.org (though please excuse any slowness in my response).

— Larry Lessig, February 19, 2008

Larry has a blog where you can find his collected publications – most of them technology related. Open source advocates and other techies will likely be familiar with his most excellent “Free Culture” lectures.

Hillary has to be freaking out. If he wins Texas, she’s toast. It could happen.

Barack Obama is catching up fast with Hillary Clinton in the crucial state of Texas, as their epic battle for the Democratic presidential nomination increasingly focuses on the votes of white, working class men.

The latest CNN poll shows the black senator is just two percentage points behind the former First Lady.

Given a margin of error of plus or minus four points – and presuming the poll is not a rogue one – the two candidates are statistically tied in a state where a few weeks ago Mrs Clinton led by a double digit margin.

I wonder what the increasingly desperate Clinton machine will throw at him in the coming days?

Matt Stiles of the Houston Chronicle has live updates – at least until he faints:

7:32 p.m.: Security tells us that Obama is in the building, but that he might venture outside the greet the supporters who couldn’t inside the crowded arena.

Tickets are hard to come by.

Soon to be followed by Fidel Castro Dies headlines but does it matter?

In Miami, Florida, the news came as no surprise to Janisset Rivero, the executive director of Cuban Democratic Directorate, a group that works with dissidents in Cuba.

“I think there have been preparations taking place for quite awhile to assure the crowning of Raul Castro,” she told CNN on Tuesday morning. “It doesn’t mean any change to the system. It doesn’t mean there will be freedom for the Cubans. One big dictator is replacing the other.

“It will be big deal when political prisoners are released, when political parties are allowed to organize, when the country stops being ruled by a single party.”

I don’t expect this to bring significant change. The situation will get a little more interesting when the state announces his death.

NIU is providing live updates, including hotline numbers for parents, on it’s web site:

3:50 p.m.
It has been confirmed that there has been a shooting on campus and several people have been taken away by ambulance. All classses are cancelled on the DeKalb campus. People are urged not to come to campus. More information will be posted as it becomes available.

3:40 p.m.
All classes on the DeKalb campus are cancelled for tonight.

3:20 p.m.
There has been a report of a possible gunman on campus. Get to a safe area and take precautions until given the all clear. Avoid the King Commons and all buildings in that vicinity.

He “died in an explosion” which doesn’t tell us much. We’ll probably know more before the day is out:

The FBI listed Imad Mughniyeh as one of its “Most Wanted Terrorists.”

Imad Mughniyeh was suspected by Western intelligence agencies in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, which killed 63 people, as well as the truck bombing that year of the U.S. Marine barracks there, an attack that killed 241 people and preceded the U.S. military withdrawal from Lebanon, according to a CNN report from 2001.

The FBI listed Mughniyeh as one of its “Most Wanted Terrorists,” blaming him for his role in the June 14, 1985, hijacking of TWA 847, a terrorist episode that captivated television viewers in the United States and around the world for more than two weeks.

Hijackers seized the plane as it traveled from Athens, Greece, to Rome, Italy, and forced it to land at the airport in Beirut, starting a 17-day ordeal during which a U.S. Navy diver, Robert Dean Stethem, was shot and killed.

Sweeping Maine, Nebraska, Washington, Louisiana and the U.S. Virgin Islands put him over the top. The margins have to terrify Hillary:

When the final votes of Saturday’s contests were counted yesterday, he had beaten Clinton in caucuses by 68% to 31% in Washington state, 68% to 32% in Nebraska and 89.9% to 7.6% in the US Virgin Islands. In the Louisiana primary, he beat her by 57% to 36%.

He went on to pick up a fifth victory last night in the Maine caucus where American networks declared him the winner over Clinton by 59% to 41%. The contest had been one where she had hoped to turn the tide after holding two rallies in the state on Saturday.

She turned on her campaign staff instead.

Mayor Carty Finkbeiner sent Alpha Co. packing despite the obvious importance of wartime training and the objections of his Police Chief Jack Smith:

“He told me he did not want them, as he put it, ‘playing war in Toledo,’” Smith said of the 2006 training session. “I told him, as a former Marine, that if one young Marine’s life is saved because of training he or she received in Toledo, Ohio, then it was worth the inconvenience.”

City council isn’t pleased with the Mayor either:

Several city council members today said they would look into reimbursing the Marines for money lost due to the last minute cancellation. They also demanded that Finkbeiner apologize to the Marines on the city’s behalf.

You can contact Carty Finkbeiner (WTF is up with that name anyway?) at mayor.toledo@toledo.oh.gov.

Andrew McCarthy
The mystery is why anyone would think the foreign-affairs part of Sen. McCain’s brain is not in sync with the part that produced: McCain/Feingold legislation that eviscerates core free-speech rights on which a functioning democratic republic depends; or proposals for massive, unregulated immigration (from someone claiming the mantle of national security paragon, no less); or global-warming legislation, the latest iteration of the senator’s Big Government regulatory penchant (we are talking, after all, about someone who has suggested federal government intervention in everything from professional boxing to major league baseball); or opposition to the Bush tax cuts in class-warfare rhetoric so strident it would make Hillary Clinton blush (including a swipe just last week against “greedy people on Wall Street who need to be punished”); or the Gang of 14 deal, which undermined a conservative effort to end Democrat filibusters against the Bush judicial nominees.

Michelle Malkin
John McCain and La Raza-The Race share a deep-seated contempt for grass-roots conservatives who worked successfully to defeat the disastrous amnesty bill. And they share a common impulse to marginalize their political opponents as “haters.”

JunkYardBlog
I have no confidence that McCain’s compass points anywhere we want to go. He can’t help constantly bashing conservatives and lecturing GOP voters about the glories of preventing global warming. Like conservatives in the primary election want to hear that? But that’s who he is. That’s where his instincts lie.

Franklin Foer
There are the possibilities for doing some interesting things with McCain as a leader, and I’m mostly thinking about global warming – where McCain has the best track record on energy and environment on the Republican side in the Senate,” Foer concluded. “So, I think you have some really good possibility for a Nixon-to-China type solution to climate change if he decides that that’s going to be the thing he is going to use to build a bridge.”

Old Atlantic Lighthouse
The best vote to stop McCain is Mitt Romney, although you may want to consider your state’s situation. Missouri, Georgia and California voters are in a special position to make a difference. Missouri is winner take all state wide, and is close between Mitt Romney, John McCain and Mike Huckabee. A Romney win here would give Romney 58 and take away 58 from McCain. That would narrow the projected lead of McCain by 100 delegates after today.

Mark’s Soap Box
If the GOP continues to push liberals down my throat and tell me that I have to compromise; I will leave the party and vote for a third party. I am tired of compromising. It’s time for lie-berals to compromise and give in. That means John McCain also.