AFTER WORLD WAR TWO, PEOPLE WORRIED ABOUT TAMING THE GERMANS, but apparently we succeeded: German soldiers too fat, smoke too much.

HERE’S A LIST OF MEMBERS OF CONGRESS WHO HAVE SWORN OFF EARMARKS. Call your Rep. — congratulate ’em if they’re on it, and if they’re not, ask why not.

A LIST OF THE SEVEN most significant DVD releases for March.

TEXAS AND OHIO PRIMARY PREDICTIONS, from James Joyner.

MEGAN MCARDLE:

Perhaps I am too jaded by excess air travel, but most of our homeland security seems designed to

A) Increase the power of congressmen and agency heads or
B) Put on a show for the yokels

rather than

C) Make us safer

Homeland security is the conservative version of the national healthcare plans I keep reading. Sure, in theory this new agency is going to make us all safer. But the plans all seem to rely on the interest group politics, bureaucratic dysfunction, and congressional power games that have produced the immense problems in our current system somehow magically disappearing. Instead, the thing gets more expensive, and less efficient.

All I can say is I told you so.

A JOHN EDWARDS REVIVAL? I’ll believe that when I see it. Well, maybe.

MEASURING MUGABE: “In the years following independence, Zimbabwe had the second largest economy south of the Sahara and the third highest per capita gross domestic product. In the first two years after independence, the economy grew by 24 per cent. This was followed by 5 per cent annualised growth in the next 15 years. The highest inflation rate was 12 per cent. Today, 70 per cent of the country’s commercial agriculture has been destroyed by government mismanagement. Only 10 per cent of the winter food crop was planted due to lack of fuel and fertilisers. More than four million Zimbabweans are in need of food aid, 45 per cent of the population is malnourished and unemployment is over 85 per cent.” Read the whole thing.

SOMETIMES, hindsight is 20/400.

BOYCOTTS DON’T USUALLY ACCOMPLISH MUCH, but maybe Citgo is an exception:

The Bush administration may be trying to ignore Hugo Chavez, but some local gas station owners are moving to protect themselves from the backlash against the Venezuelan president’s anti-American rhetoric.

Calls by some across the country to boycott gasoline sold by Venezuelan-owned Citgo are cutting into sales, prompting some station owners to move to other suppliers. . . . “My gas sales were down 30 percent last year,” Vazquez said. “People will come into the store and buy groceries, but they tell me they won’t buy gas from Citgo.”

Hmm. Read the whole thing.

THE EARTH AND MOON, photographed from Mars.

CONTINUOUSLY UPDATED Super Tuesday II coverage from Bill Bradley.

WHO LOST JAMES FALLOWS?

WHERE’S THE BEEF? It’s well-aged.

HOWARD DEAN: It now looks as though Pennsylvania will be the deciding state.

SECULARISM IS returning to Iraq, not least because of the lousy behavior of religious extremists.

HERE’S MORE on the 9″ ASUS Eee PC that I mentioned yesterday. I’m pretty happy with the 7″ model I’ve got but for those who’d like something a bit larger this may be nice.

TAKING A VIRTUAL BREAK: A bit overwrought, but a good idea. That’s why I stay offline on my dive trips. It helps clear the head.

IN THE MAIL: A publication copy of John McCain’s new book: Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them.

It’s already acquired quite a few reader reviews, with a surprising lack of trolling.

WHY DID THE PRESS TAKE SO LONG to ask Obama any tough questions?

DOUBTS ABOUT MALARIA ERADICATION EFFORTS: It’s hard. But we came surprisingly close once, until — as even the New York Times report notes — Rachel Carson put an end to that.

I SAW HOWARD DEAN, I ADMIRED HOWARD DEAN, and Barack Obama is no Howard Dean.

REPORTS OF eco-terror in Washington. If somebody were burning down environmentalists’ headquarters, this would get more attention.

HERE’S A BIG ROUNDUP on today’s Super Tuesday II primaries.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: “All utterly predictable.”

SMALL POTATOES COMPARED TO WASHINGTON: “A review of 2007 legislative expense payments by the News Sentinel shows that 22 legislators received more in per diem than the base salary for a lawmaker, $18,123.”