PRO-MCCAIN HERESY AT THE CORNER: “McCain wouldn’t be my first pick. Then again, none of the candidates were really my first pick. But I think the notion that, variously, conservatism, the country or the party are doomed if he’s the nominee or the president is pretty absurd. And I find such claims odd coming from some people who’ve insisted for a couple years now that the war on terror is the #1 overriding issue of this campaign.”

A NEW POST FROM MICHAEL YON. He emails: “Am back in Iraq, where it’s cold and muddy!” Hey, at least it’s not snowing any more.

ROGER SIMON IS BLOGGING TONIGHT’S Democratic debate.

UPDATE: So is TigerHawk.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson: “If one studies carefully the Clintama answers on the war on terror, illegal immigration, and Iraq then the magnitude of Republican infighting seems surreal. The gulf between Hillary and McCain is Grand-Canyon like.”

MORE ON Obama and Rezko. “An undeclared $3.5 million (£1.8 million) payment from a corrupt Iraqi-British businessman has landed Barack Obama’s former fundraiser behind bars. The payment, disclosed in court papers, is the first time that Mr Obama’s long-serving bagman Antoin ‘Tony’ Rezko, a Syrian immigrant to the United States, has been linked to Nadhmi Auchi, the Iraqi-born billionaire who is one of Britain’s richest men. The relationship is a potential embarrassment for Mr Obama, who has made his opposition to the Iraq war a central plank of his campaign.” Kind of tough language in this report from The Times.

SEAN HANNITY endorses Mitt Romney.

So does Alice Gold.

WELL, GOOD: The apparent death of Abu Laith al-Libi shows gains by US intelligence in Waziristan.

JAMES TARANTO:

There is a school of thought that this year’s election will end up turning on economic anxiety rather than national security, especially with the threat of terrorism seeming less immediate than a few years ago, and the situation in Iraq having improved considerably. If this is so, then the leading campaigns in each party are not exactly inspiring great confidence.

I noticed this bit myself last night:

The economy is not John McCain’s strong suit, by his own admission. You would think this would inspire a bit of humility, but humility is not what comes across from reading the transcript of last night’s CNN debate at the Reagan Library. . . . Two of McCain’s comments–“I did it out of patriotism, not for profit” and “sometimes people lost their jobs”–lead us to think that McCain’s problem with economics goes beyond mere indifference. He seems to view the making of money–that is to say, the production of goods and services that people want, and the act of supplying them through voluntary exchange in a free market–as a less than honorable pursuit.

Indeed. But read the whole thing.

THOUGHTS ON what’s right with the world.

YOU SHOULD PROBABLY START TRAINING if you want to enter the world wife-carrying championship contest in Finland.

I POSTED MY REVIEW of the Asus Eee PC the other day, but here’s a long-term review from the folks at Gizmodo. I have to say, though, that I’m not experiencing the frequent system crashes they are, nor am I having trouble finding wifi hotspots. What’s annoying is that it won’t automatically reconnect to a “known” hotspot — you have to go to the “choose a connection” menu every time you start it up. But it seems to work okay, once you do that. And it’s certainly not taking me anything like 5 minutes to get online — more like 15 or 20 seconds.

“OBAMA SUPPORTERS EVERYWHERE, with nary a Hillary backer in sight.” Roger Simon reports on the pre-debate festivities in Hollywood.

KARL ROVE’S AGENTS are everywhere.

SOME SUPER-BOWL RELATED FOOD NEWS — is double-dipping the chip really that bad? — plus advice on setting up your HDTV for the game.

WITH THE SUPREME COURT HAVING GRANTED CERTIORARI in the Crawford case, my colleague Alex Long’s piece on workplace retaliation is looking especially timely.

HE DOESN’T MENTION ZUBRIN, but Rick Santorum basically endorses the Zubrin flex-fuel plan. As I mentioned below, I’m hearing rumors of interest from the U.A.W., too. That makes sense. As Zubrin notes in his book, and mentioned on our podcast, U.S. automakers are actually ahead of their competitors in this technology.

MARK LEVIN: People who don’t like McCain had better get it in gear for Romney.

FRED THOMPSON: “My guess is, we’ll be missing him dreadfully by spring.” Some people already are. I certainly would have liked him to provide adult supervision in last night’s debate. And don’t miss the concluding paragraphs, which are, alas, dead-on.

SOME PEOPLE WANTED TO KNOW what kind of guitar my brother is playing in this video. It’s a Liberty FA-100.

SOME VERY IMPORTANT Jet Pack News! “Strictly speaking, you could the say the business of jet packs is, indeed, taking off. The number of companies looking to sell them to private consumers has increased by as much as 33 percent in the last week alone.”

BLOGGERS — a threat to national security? “Good. We should not fear our government, our government should fear us.” Heh. Indeed. Full story here.

James Joyner has some pungent thoughts. And Allah comments: “Glenn Reynolds, terrorist?”

IN THE MAIL: Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works, by Newt Gingrich.

VIDEO: Islam’s Advance.

QUESTIONS FOR THE DEMOCRATS ABOUT THE ZUBRIN SPACE PLAN, at tonight’s debate? Meanwhile, I’m hearing rumors of interest in the Zubrin energy plan from the UAW, which would make sense. (Edited to clarify which plan is which. Zubrin’s got a lot of ’em. And they’re mostly good!)

UH OH: Sun’s low magnetic activity may portend an ice age. I think one’s already started — it’s just been our greenhouse emissions holding it at bay!

Yeah, I know, I stole that idea.

HMM: Clinton aide caught up in funding scandal. Huh. Go figure.