In what may very well be the beginning of the much anticipated Taliban “spring offensive” in Afghanistan, the Taliban — some believe it is the Haqqani network, an offshoot of the Taliban — launched a coordinated series of attacks on the diplomatic quarter of Kabul, the Afghan Parliament and at least three eastern provinces on Sunday. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post are reporting...

Even before the humiliating failure of North Korea’s Taepo Dong-2 missile launch, the regime there was already considering the possibility of failure and whom to blame it on. Well, not exactly. The paranoid leadership apparently entertained the possibility of the “U.S., Japan and the ‘group traitors’ running South Korea” intercepting the rocket, and promised an ‘Unimaginable and Miserable Punishment’...

Personal “UPDATE”: After this monumentally embarrassing failure to North Korea and its new, young leader, the big question, in my opinion, is what will North Korea do in response, both in the short term and in the long term. Will they blame it on “someone else”? Claim that another country shot their rocket down or somehow caused its failure? And, if so, what will be the consequences. Will...

Beleaguered Syrian cities, including Idlib, Homs, Deir Ezzor, Raqqa, Aleppo and Damascus, have enjoyed about ten hours of relative quiet so far on Thursday as President Bashar al-Assad’s gunmen silenced their weapons. But concern is rising that both sides are using the lull to restock and resupply to fight more fiercely within days or even hours. The ceasefire is already starting to look like an opportunity...

UPDATE: The watch area has been reduced but some East African countries have issued tsunami warnings. ==================================== Remember the massively destructive Indonesian tsunami in 2004? The same area has just had two major earthquakes (8.6, 8.2) and a tsunami watch has been issued. So far, no damage has been reported. BBC CNN

UPDATE Orlando Sentinel: Like two worried parents with a wayward child, George Zimmerman’s lawyers stood puzzled in front of the Seminole County Courthouse on Tuesday and admitted they’d lost control. Zimmerman has not talked to or communicated with them since Sunday, said Craig Sonner, one of his lawyers. Worse, Zimmerman has done two dangerous things, his lawyers said, He telephoned a special...

UPDATE II: Fox’s Greta Van Susteren web site confirms what many expected egomaniac Gingrich’s reaction would be to Santorum suspending his campaign: “I am committed to staying in this race all the way to Tampa so that the conservative movement has a real choice. I humbly ask Senator Santorum’s supporters to visit Newt.org to review my conservative record and join us as we bring these values to Tampa....

Rick Santorum just flew the white flag. Televised announcement imminent from Gettysburg PA. The New York Times

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Tom Owen, forensic consultant, court-qualified expert witness and chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence, analyzed the 9-1-1 recording of the night Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman. His conclusion: “you can say with reasonable scientific certainty that [the person calling for help is] not Zimmerman.” The technology Owen...

The Supreme Court spent over an hour and a half this morning acting like it was going to strike down the key feature of the Affordable Care Act, but a funny thing happened on the way to the noon recess: The justices made it apparent that they have no interest in going through the remainder of the entire 2,700 pages of the law to figure out what to keep and the net effect may have shored up support for the controversial...

UPDATE: Perhaps a sign of just how tough things are for Gingrich is the decision of the Gingrich campaign to start charging supporters $50 to have their photo taken with the vanishing GOP hopeful. Holding the ridiculous cardboard gallon of gas is $2.50 extra. (Sorry, couldn’t resist it.) Trying to make the absurd and the cheapo look logical, generous and patriotic, the campaign says that the new...

It took the front and back of a military “Charge Sheet,” DD Form 458, and three additional sheets to list the 17 specifications of Charge I, “Violation of the UCMJ, Article 118– each one specifying the murder of an Afghan man, woman or child — and the following two additional charges: Charge II: “Violation of the UCMJ, Article 80,” I.E. the attempt to murder one Afghan man, one woman...

UDDATE: AP and Memeorandum have finally noticed. Jerusalem Post: A gunman opened fire at a crowd of parents and children outside a Jewish school in Toulouse, France on Monday morning, killing four people. Eyewitnesses said the unknown assailant drove up to the Ozar Hatorah school’s entrance on a black scooter around 8:00 a.m. and fired at the gatherers with a heavy-calibre firearm and a pistol. Yonathan...

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal reports that, in addition to winning the Puerto Rico Republican presidential primary contest, Mitt Romney wins “all of the island’s 20 delegates at stake because he took more than half of the votes.” === With 11 percent of the vote tallied, CNN is projecting Mitt Romney to be the winner of the Puerto Rico GOP primaries. At this time, Romney has 82 percent of the vote,...

A little less than a year ago, I explained why I did not shed a tear, why I did not feel any pity and why I experienced some closure when I heard that Ukraine-born John Demjanjuk, a guard at Sobibor, was found guilty by a German court of taking part in the murder of more than 28,000 Jews, including my relatives, at a death camp in World War II and was sentenced to five years in prison. Many felt that a five-year...

The late Tyler Clementi A verdict in the case involving the tragedy of 18 year old Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University student who jumped to his death off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate used a webcam to spy on his lovelife and tell others that he caught it on camera. And it’s a strong verdict: A former Rutgers University student accused of using a webcam to spy on his gay roommate’s...

Because of my links to both the Netherlands and Belgium and, in particular, because of the ages of most of the children involved, the horrific bus crash inside a tunnel is Switzerland has hit me very hard. Please read the details here and please keep the victims and their loved ones in your thoughts and prayers.

As of 11:09pm Eastern, both Alabama and Mississippi have been called for Santorum. Santorum forces will likely be calling for Gingrich to leave the race. The smart money says both the Romney and Santorum campaigns are right now trying to strike a deal with Gingrich. (This item cross-posted to Dean’s World.) Graphic via shutterstock.com

UPDATE II: And now from the Washington Post in “5 lessons learned from the Alabama and Mississippi primaries,” one of them being: It’s a two-man race: Santorum’s wins in the deep South badly complicate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s logic for continuing on in the contest. Gingrich, never one to bow to electoral reality, seems to be committed to staying in the race for now — proclaiming in...

Probably your best source for up-to-the-minute (or nearly so) updates on the Super Tuesday race is right here at Real Clear Politics. As I write this (9:28 PM Eastern) Romney has racked up a number of wins where he was expected to win, although Ron Paul showed surprising strength in Virginia with about 41% of the vote there, probably the best he’s ever done. Georgia has been called as expected for Gingrich....