LARRY KUDLOW: Time for Tim Geithner to step down, too. “For all of Mr. Geithner’s apparent skills and knowledge and other professional qualifications, he still has a tremendous ethical problem. Pres. Obama has made much of the need for a new era of responsibility and ethics. Obama is right. But Mr. Geithner is wrong. He should follow Daschle and Killefer by submitting his resignation.”

OVER AT DEMOCRATS.COM, they’re calling for a special prosecutor for Bush war crimes.

If I were a Republican leader, I’d write Holder and ask for a special prosecutor to investigate tax fraud by Obama appointees . . . .

TRAILER PARK: A whole bunch of new movie trailers.

FRANK GAFFNEY IS critical of Obama’s Muslim-outreach program. “Several observers have noted in recent days that Mr. Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world is not only defensive and apologetic. It explicitly embraces a narrative that is factually erroneous and deprecating to his own country.”

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Making energy transfer in solar cells more efficient.

IS OBAMA backtracking on his Afghanistan rhetoric?

TAXPROF: Obama’s Pick for Chief Performance Officer Withdraws Because of Nanny Tax Issue.

TOM DASCHLE WITHDRAWS: Another Ethics Casualty for Obama.

But he’ll always have that snappy Vanity Fair photo spread. So that’s something.

OBAMA’S WAR: “He’s closing Gitmo, but will Obama fight a Bush-like ‘war on terror’?”

THOUGHTS ON THE GRIM EXAMPLE OF MICHAEL PHELPS: “I merely note that this broken wreck of a man’s failure to win any more than a pathetic fourteen Olympic gold medals (so far) is a terrifying warning of the horrific damage that cannabis can do to someone’s health—and a powerful reminder of just how sensible the drug laws really are.”

STILL MORE on Tom Daschle’s tax problems. “One of the unanswered questions concerning Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Tom Daschle’s tax problem is why it suddenly occurred to Daschle, in June 2008, that the car and driver he had been provided by a wealthy Democratic donor in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 might count as income and thus be subject to taxes — taxes which Daschle had not paid. . . . Now, members of the Senate Finance Committee have had a chance to pose the question to Daschle himself. And the answer is: He doesn’t know.”

THOUGHTS ON the right to keep and bear arms.

THE LATEST Grand Rounds is up!

A LOOK AT Tom Daschle and public attitudes about tax compliance. “Showing a disconnect between the Washington, D.C. cognoscenti’s acceptance of Tom Daschle’s tax transgressions and the public’s repudiation of such disregard of the tax law.”

STILL A LONG WAY FROM STAR TREK: Progress in quantum teleportation.

DO ANY OF THESE PEOPLE PAY TAXES? “Nancy Killefer on Tuesday withdrew her nomination to become chief performance officer, a new post in President Obama’s administration, a White House spokesman told CNN. Officials said privately the reason for the withdrawal was unspecified tax issues. The withdrawal is an embarrassment to the White House, as the much-touted post was aimed at scrubbing the federal budget.”

IN THE MAIL: Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse: A Novel of the Turbulent Near Future. Here’s hoping that the near future won’t be quite as “turbulent” as this suggests. On the other hand, the very high Amazon ranking (#985) for a self-published book with no big mainstream attention bespeaks either a great viral marketing effort (I got this via a reader) or a lot of concern that’s not getting mainstream attention either. Er, or both, I guess.

AN EVER-GROWING LIST of “honest mistakes.”

A THRILLING EXPOSE of what it’s like to work at Wal-Mart. Speak truth to power! Related item here.

PROFESSOR DARREN HUTCHINSON ON OBAMA, LIBERALS AND RENDITION: Yes, it was a flipflop. Responses to Glenn Greenwald, Hilzoy, and Scott Horton, among others. (Bumped).

LAUNCHING THE Singularity University.

INSTA-POLL: Because it’s always a good time for a poll!

A LIST OF LAWMAKERS WHO HAVE sworn off earmarks.

NICK GILLESPIE ON TOM DASCHLE:

Here’s a question for Daschle (and for that matter, Timothy Geithner, who had tax and nanny problems of his own that didn’t stop him from being named Treasury secretary): When you amended your taxes and coughed up about $140,000 in back taxes plus interest, did you feel like you were stimulating the economy as much as you would have if you had spent that money yourself?

Heh.

MEGAN MCARDLE ON the “stimulus” and the burden of proof.