THE HILL: Insurance costs spike, opening new Republican attacks on health law.

POLL: Only 38% Of Independents Think Obama Deserves To Be Re-Elected.

BLUFF, CALLED? Warren Buffett Should Release His Tax Returns. “If Mr. Buffett’s anecdote is going to be the main political basis for rewriting the U.S. tax code, Americans have every right to know the basis for the anecdote. We called Berkshire Hathaway last week to see if Mr. Buffett would release his 2010 return, but we haven’t heard back.”

ON SALE, TODAY ONLY: The Logitech Quick-Cam Orbit, $65.67. “The Logitech QuickCam Orbit AF features motorized tracking that follows your every move, keeping you right in the middle of the picture.” Cool.

MICKEY KAUS: Why’d Ford Pull That Ad? “Poor Ford. They don’t go broke like their rivals. Then Obama White House props up and promotes those rivals. They try to point out their relative independence in an ad, which then risks turning the Obama White House into an actual enemy. But when they pull the ad it only reinforces the point that they have to suck up to the Obama White House. Corporatism’s a bitch.”

BYRON YORK: The myth of Republican unhappiness with the field. “Some Republican elites, not just members of the commentariat but also big GOP money men, are in fact unhappy with the field. But what about the voters? Is dissatisfaction with the Republican field widespread among the people who will actually decide the next GOP presidential nominee? Not really.”

UGH: Egyptian women, long allowed to vote, see little progress from revolt.

Thousands of Egyptian women fought in the 18-day uprising that unseated longtime President Hosni Mubarak. They hurled stones at pro-regime attackers, delivered meals to hungry protesters, and drew global attention to the struggle through their blogs and Twitter accounts.

At least 15 women died in the uprising, according to official figures. Hundreds were wounded.

And still, complain prominent Egyptian feminists, women are being sidelined from post-Mubarak politics: their names ignored for government posts, and their divorce and custody rights threatened by a powerful new Islamist lobby.

Shocking.

JOHN HINDERAKER: Obama’s Scandalous Department Of Justice. “The Obama administration has been such a policy disaster that little attention has been devoted to its scandals. But scandals there are, especially in Eric Holder’s Department of Justice.”

RIGHTHAVEN UPDATE: Judge: Righthaven lacked standing, abused Copyright Act.

CHANGE: Blacks Leave Obama. “According to a Washington Post/ABC News survey, his favorability rating among African-Americans has dropped off a cliff, plunging from 83 percent five months ago to a mere 58 percent today — a drop of 25 points, a bit more than a point per week!”

AT AMAZON, Top Deals In Electronics.

MY POPULAR MECHANICS COLUMN: Invasive Species Problem? Just Eat ‘Em! (Bumped).

HMM: “Europe’s Crisis Is Real, Ours Is Self-Inflicted.” I think Europe’s is self-inflicted, too. Running out of other people’s money.

DORITOS CREATOR DIES AT AGE 97. I think the preservatives in junk food keep you young.

OUCH: See, this is what happens when you get people’s hopes up.

COMPETENCE: Nightmare in Libya: Thousands of Surface-to-Air Missiles Unaccounted For. “The White House announced today it planned to expand a program to secure and destroy Libya’s huge stockpile of dangerous surface-to-air missiles, following an ABC News report that large numbers of them continue to be stolen from unguarded military warehouses.” A day late and a few billion dollars short.

Plus this: “Every time I arrive at one of these weapons facilities, the first thing we notice going missing is the surface-to-air missiles.”

UPDATE: A reader emails: “Do I understand correctly, that the best intel in Libya is ABC News? Dark times.”

MORE: Reader Donald Gately emails: “It’s probably nothing. I bet Eric Holder just sold them to Mexican gangs.”

Related thoughts: “They’ll turn up eventually. Around Heathrow, Sheremetyevo, Reagan National and LAX. And when they do, the question will be asked, ‘Why in the hell didn’t we blow these caches in place, when we were running around blowing the hell out of everything else?'”

“SMART DIPLOMACY:” Germany slams ‘stupid’ US plans to boost EU rescue fund. “Germany and America were on a collision course on Tuesday night over the handling of Europe’s debt crisis after Berlin savaged plans to boost the EU rescue fund as a ‘stupid idea’ and told the White House to sort out its own mess before giving gratuitous advice to others.”

THE WIKILEAKS ILLUSION: WikiLeaks’ tsunami of revelations from U.S. government sources last year did not change the world, but it did change WikiLeaks.

LUCKILY, SHE’S NOT A REPUBLICAN SO IT’S NO BIG DEAL: Hey, Let’s Cancel The Elections! You know, there were some Bush-deranged Democrats who claimed Bush would cancel the 2008 elections, but there weren’t any high-ranking Republican officeholders saying idiotic stuff like this.

UPDATE: Democrats Oppose Democracy. “The press assures us that she was just kidding. I would modestly submit that suspending elections is not something an elected executive should kid about.”

Tar and feathers is the traditional remedy for excessive “kidding” along these lines.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Charles Austin isn’t buying the press spin: “The self-proclaimed guardians of democracy can’t lose their power soon enough.”

They’re bigger on the self-proclaiming than on the democracy-guarding.

MORE: Reader Don Noone emails:

So, the Governor of North Carolina is suggesting we suspend having elections, huh? Pollster Pat Caddell has said America is in a “pre-revolutionary” mood. Gee, I wonder why that is…

Why, indeed?

IT’S STARTING TO HURT THEM ECONOMICALLY, I SUSPECT: In China, business travelers take extreme precautions to avoid cyber-espionage.

PLENTY OF OTHER EARTHS OUT THERE: One third Of Sun-Like Stars Have Earth-Like Planets In Habitable Zone. Which only makes the Fermi Paradox more significant.

BRIAN STANLEY: EVERYTHING IS INTERESTING. “Nothing is boring, except people who are bored.”

JIM ROGERS: America’s Problems Are Worse Than Europe’s. “Europe’s got some bad problems but the entity as a whole is not nearly as deep in debt as the U.S. They don’t have a huge balance of trade deficit, like we do.”

OVERCRIMINALIZATION: As Federal Crime List Grows, Threshold of Guilt Declines.

For centuries, a bedrock principle of criminal law has held that people must know they are doing something wrong before they can be found guilty. The concept is known as mens rea, Latin for a “guilty mind.”

This legal protection is now being eroded as the U.S. federal criminal code dramatically swells. In recent decades, Congress has repeatedly crafted laws that weaken or disregard the notion of criminal intent. Today not only are there thousands more criminal laws than before, but it is easier to fall afoul of them. As a result, what once might have been considered simply a mistake is now sometimes punishable by jail time.

In my opinion, this should be regarded as a due process violation.

THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED: At last, statistics that prove a sexist stereotype… Women are worse at parking.