WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Message To Republicans: Show Us The Cuts.

THE HILL: Obama Considers Arming Libyan Rebels.

LIBYA: Serious, Or Not?

STATING THE OBVIOUS.

SYRIA UPDATE: Syrian president blames protests on ‘conspirators.’ Can we get some conspiring going on for Iran, then?

Syrian President Bashar Assad blamed a wave of protests on “conspirators” who are trying to destroy the country, giving his first address to the nation Wednesday since the demonstrations erupted nearly two weeks ago.

As he entered Parliament for the speech, legislators chanted “God, Syria and Bashar only!” and “Our souls, our blood we sacrifice for you Bashar.”

Sounds like the media at an Obama press conference.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Viewership for President Obama’s speeches keeps slipping. “The speech was down 12% from Obama’s address on Iraq last August (29.2 million), which fell 9% from his speech on the Gulf Coast oil spill in June (32.1 million), which in turn dropped 21% from his Afghanistan speech back in December of 2009 (40.8 million).”

AMAZON RELEASES new Cloud Drive service. “Amazon Cloud Drive is your hard drive in the cloud. Store your music, videos, photos, and documents on Amazon’s secure servers. All you need is a web browser to upload, download, and access your files from any computer.”

“COULD BE?” Double Dip in Housing Could Be Imminent, Scholar Says.

WOW: Honshu tsunami reached 100 feet in Ofunato.

SURVEY: Majority Of Experts Predict Government Shutdown. Key bit: “The current crisis has its genesis in the failure of the Democrats to pass spending bills for the fiscal year that began last Oct. 1 before Congress adjourned for the mid-term elections.”

TOM COBURN RIPS GROVER NORQUIST for supporting ethanol subsidies.

PARKING LAWS, LIKE TAXES, ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Anthony Weiner’s Parking Tickets.

UNEXPECTEDLY! Consumption Spending Slowing Down.

GUT CHECK FOR THE GOP: Dan Mitchell: Budget Battle Update: It’s About Preparing for the Inevitable Fight, not Forcing a Shutdown.

NATCH: Thug known for shutting down independent media gets journalism award.

VERONIQUE DE RUGY: Pension-Crisis Deniers Never Sleep. “I always find it surprising that the people who really believe that state employees should get very generous pensions from state governments aren’t the ones who are sounding the alarm about the upcoming pension crisis. I would assume that they understand that reforming the pension system today is key to preventing some rather dramatic consequences in the near future when states run out of money on their pension plans — which 8 states are scheduled to do by 2020. No matter what data you look at, you can see that many state pensions — led by Illinois and New Jersey — have underfunded their liabilities for years, which means that when their pension plans run out of money, these states will have to either raise taxes dramatically, cut non-pension spending massively, or alter their pension formula for current employees. The question of whether states will be allowed to change the benefits for current retirees will depend on the courts, but the reality is that when there is no more money, there is no more money.”

CHANGE! Matt Welch: Obama’s Doctrine Of Pre-Emptive War.

SO IS THIS THE HOPE, OR THE CHANGE? Housing market: 13% of all U.S. homes are vacant.

UPDATE: Reader Stephen Siegel writes: “You have to be careful with real estate statistics, especially when the government is involved. In the story you linked, the census bureau includes any home not a primary residence as ‘vacant,’ including beach, mountain, and other vacation homes. That is not a relevant marker when we’re trying to evaluate the state of the housing market. Perhaps it just goes into the category of ‘close enough for government work.'”

LISTENING TO ANTHONY WEINER: “My oh my how they change their tunes when the shoe is on the other foot.”

JIM TREACHER: The schism in the Coffee Party is so bad, they split up into two different booths at Denny’s.

CHUCK SCHUMER MESSAGE CONTROL: On a Senate Call, a Glimpse of Marching Orders. “Moments before a conference call with reporters was scheduled to get underway on Tuesday morning, Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate, apparently unaware that many of the reporters were already on the line, began to instruct his fellow senators on how to talk to reporters about the contentious budget process.”

AT AMAZON, a sale on knives.

CHANGE: Not enough? Syria govt quits, but may not satisfy protesters.

UH OH: “Here’s an entire op-ed column by John Kerry about what a humdinger nifty war this Libya thing is. That’s how you know it’s going to be a complete disaster.”

OBAMA CUTS IN LINE and gets an iPad2.

Or maybe he just did like I did, and stopped by the Apple Store in time to get the last one.