OUCH: “Troubled British singer Amy Winehouse is the perfect poster girl for the current state of the music industry.” I sent in my Grammy ballot this year, but I have to say that there was nothing on there that hugely moved me.

IOWAHAWK REPORTS from the Chicago Auto Show. Among other things, “The perfect motorcade hoopty for taking you from the private jet hangar to the big UN Global Warming conference!”

BUSH AT CPAC: Cheney is the best VP ever.

THE CLAREMONT INSTITUTE files a Brandeis brief in the D.C. gun-ban case. Direct PDF link here.

THE BERKELEY CITY COUNCIL: Paper Tigers.

STEPHEN GREEN: “McCain’s pick for vice president might be the most important decision any nominee has ever made. . . . Right person: Fred Thompson, or any other principled federalist who understands there’s a war on. This is a short list. Tom Coburn would make the cut, too. So would Duncan Hunter.”

UPDATE: Veepstakes thoughts from Michael Graham.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Darin S. Morley writes: “I think Michael Steele fits all of Michael Graham’s requirements for VP.” Yeah, the Insta-Wife likes him as a running mate too.

WEATHER VS. CLIMATE: “Whatever your personal weather, around the planet January 2008 was the second coldest in 15 years. The linked post, complete with graphs and everything, does not suggest that this says anything in particular about the climate or the long-term direction of local temperatures. To me, the most interesting thing about this story is the complete absence of discussion in the mainstream media, which manages to induce a scientist or politician to blame anthropogenic global warming for any bit of idiosyncratic weather. See, if you can stand it, the latest comedy gold from John Kerry. If you are going to live by idiosyncratic weather, you should die by it.”

DELIVERING DNA VACCINES via tattoo guns.

RED-LIGHT SHOOTING SUSPECT represents self.

BAD NEWS FOR HUGO CHAVEZ: “Exxon Mobil Corp has moved to freeze up to $12 billion in Venezuelan assets around the world as the U.S. company fights for payment in return for the state’s takeover of a huge oil project last year.”

INDEED:

The U.S. just dodged a bullet in Iraq.

Recently it was reported that Pentagon leaders were considering Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the Multi-National Force Iraq since February 2007, for a prestigious redeployment to Europe. It is good news for Americans and Iraqis alike that Gen. Petraeus decided to stay in Baghdad through the fall.

What’s depressing is that top political and military leaders in Washington asked him to consider the move in the first place.

Yes. Several possibilities: (1) Somebody’s jealous of his prominence; (2) This is just rotation as usual and they’re clueless about the importance of continuity here; or — most disturbing — (3) there’s a bad enough prognosis for Europe that some people thought we needed him there more. I’d say that last is fairly unlikely, notwithstanding the unhappiness of NATO leaders at the moment.

REMEMBERING Negro League baseball.

MEN WITHOUT CHESTS. “Nowhere was this more clear than at the recent men’s wear shows in Milan and Paris, where even those inured to the new look were flabbergasted at the sheer quantity of guys who looked chicken-chested, hollow-cheeked and undernourished. Not altogether surprisingly, the trend has followed the fashion pack back to New York.” And there’s this diagnosis: ““People are afraid to look over 21 or make any statement of what it means to be adult.”

UPDATE: A reader suggests that this explains Brooks Brothers’ latest flop.

WHAT WOULD BACON DO? Continuing a theme of the last couple of days.

BAH: “Stimulus” bill passes. More properly known as the “buying votes with borrowed money” bill.

“Is the job of Vice President to a Clinton worth having?” Not for Obama. He’d be the next Al Gore, only Hillary would be far more jealous and worried about being upstaged than Bill ever was where Al was concerned. And then, of course, there’d be Bill as the real Vice President.

TIM BLAIR: Tolerance On The March!

RATING SCHOOLS, USING A “Multiculturalism-to-Math Ratio:”

To determine just how unbalanced teacher preparation is at ed schools, we counted the number of course titles and descriptions that contained the words “multiculturalism,” “diversity,” “inclusion,” and variants thereof, and then compared those with the number that used variants of the word “math.”

Sounds useful.

AN OBAMA BACKLASH?

MICHAEL YON EMAILS: “I’m in South Baghdad and this is accurate:”

Signs of improved security in Baghdad go beyond the obvious dampening of street battles and bombings: It’s in the smaller transformations taking place in neighborhoods that the seeds of possibility are starting to take root.

Read the whole thing.

SURELY STREETWALKERS are next.

A LOOK AT Putin’s new Cold War.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Wall Street is Unprepared for a Dem Sweep.

UPDATE: A reader who runs a hedge fund emails: “Anecdotally, this is hogwash. When trader talk turns to politics, it’s all gallows humor and discussions about moving to Switzerland or Singapore after November. And it’s no coincidence that stocks are down more than 10% since the primary season began in earnest.”

RAND SIMBERG: “Did Romney save us from Vice-President Huckabee?”

TOM BLUMER SAYS IT’S THE ECONOMY AGAIN, and the GOP doesn’t have a clue.