SLATE: Barack Obama’s Uzbekistan Problem. Except it’s not just Barack’s problem, is it? Any more than Iraq was just W’s problem.

CAMILLE PAGLIA BLASTS DEMOCRATS ON THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE: “They’ve totally betrayed the soul of the party to even mention this.”

HERE ARE THE DETAILS on tomorrow’s today’s taxpayer protest in Denver. If you go, send me a pic. Remember, dissent is the highest form of patriotism!

MICHAEL BARONE: The Real Lessons of the Great Depression.

TRYING TO PREDICT EARTHQUAKES, with satellites and drills.

Plus, five natural disasters to worry about.

GOVERNMENT CHEESE: Going Postal.

GOOD FOR HIM, IF SO: Obama planning to de-escalate the drug war?

MORE BAD ECONOMIC NEWS from Japan.

Via Megan McArdle, who comments: “It wasn’t long ago that I was pleased to start writing that Japan was creeping out of more than a decade of doldrums; now it seems to me that this was just the very tail end of America’s credit bubble, as our uncontrolled spending boosted demand in an economy that was still fundamentally weak.” Given that we’re trying Japan’s approach here now, this suggests that we’re making a mistake.

ORBITAL DEBRIS UPDATE: European Space Agency hopes to clean up space junk.

FIGHT, FLEE, OR just read.

HOLOCAUST Oxymorons.

SAY IT AIN’T SO: “Hotshot greens caught wasting home heat. “THEY may shout their green credentials from the rooftops, but some of Britain’s most prominent environmental champions are living in homes that produce up to half a ton of excess carbon dioxide a year.” That’s okay. I’m sure they turn the thermostats down when they go off on vacation in their private jets.

READER WALTER SOBCHAK WANTS A TRUTH COMMISSION:

Who were the bag men for Fannie, Freddie, Wall St, big CA lenders? Dodd, Frank, Obama, Clinton, Pelosi, etc. Let’s start the “Truth Commissions” asap. No more of this revisionist “same failed policies of the last 8 years” BS.

Conservatives need to stay on point and not let people forget who caused this mess. The fact that all of these bag men that caused the problem are now in charge of fixing the problem. Keep on hammering and keep on educating the masses. Don’t let this issue fade away.

We are waiting in mass here in “flyover country” for a true conservative voice to rally us. If we don’t fight now we can take this to your f-n grave. To our f-n graves. ( God bless Herb Brooks).

I don’t think anybody wants to turn over all the rocks behind this scandal.

NEW YORK TIMES: Burris problems worry Democrats.

UNDERWHELMING APPROVAL: 38% think stimulus will help the economy.

CRUDE OIL IS GETTING CHEAPER, so why isn’t gas?

ANOTHER REASON NOT TO OVERPAY: Kansas suspends tax refunds.

ALEXANDRA PELOSI explains it all to you.

BUSH, LINCOLN, and the laws of war.

More thoughts here.

JERRY POURNELLE ON California’s budget problems: “It is essentially the way the classical political philosophers would have predicted that democracy would go. It’s not so much that the voters vote themselves largess from the public treasury, although that certainly happens; it is that those with a particular interest, such as civil servants including teachers and prison guards unions will always organize effectively while those who are affected less directly won’t, and the result will go in one direction. We’re certainly getting an illustration of that in California.”

BILLIONS OF EARTHS: “There could be one hundred billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, a US conference has heard.” Which makes Fermi’s question about intelligent aliens — “where are they?” — even more significant.

SOME PRESIDENT’S DAY THOUGHTS from Jules Crittenden.

VIDEO: Calls for Roland Burris to resign, and Burris’s response to talk of perjury.

HOPE. CHANGE. The world still hates us. Well, dang.

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND keeps two guns under her bed. She and Jim Webb should get along just fine.

UPDATE: She’s moved ’em. Plus, from Carolyn McCarthy, “I hope the guns didn’t have bullets in them.” I’ll bet she does.