Free kibbles

Using the record number of Americans on food stamps and the credit crisis, UK paper declares US is in another Depression. I bet survivors of the great Depression are angry at this flaunting of history. The US and the world will most likely end up in a Depression worse than the great depression in a decade or so, but not now. But the food stamp issue highlights how badly government has injured our economy and the American people. Nobody in America would need food stamps or welfare of any kind except for the burden of government crushing our economy.

Fighting in Basra has pushed up civilian casualties to their highest level in Iraq since August. Funny how you didn't see front page headlines like this each month as the casualty numbers dropped over a year, but days after they rise, the story of increased casualties pushes everything else off the front page.

Bush wants Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO. What's the strategic advantage to the US of adding these nations to NATO? There's 500 million people in Europe, but they can only send 43,000 to Afghanistan, and almost none of them fight. NATO can't even win in Afghanistan right now, so why would we want to further antagonize the Russians? Does Bush think they'll send troops to Afghanistan instead of keeping them home to defend against a belligerent Russia? I don't think NATO nations would show up to defend Georgia or Ukraine from Russia anyway. The US would be left defending from a nuclear power these countries in which we have no significant interest.

UK PM Brown rejects caps on immigration, touting instead a points based system that favors skilled labor.

I hope the Tibetans don't carry out suicide bombings on the Chinese. They will lose all credibility if they do, and the Chinese will crush them in return. Pentagon staffer pleads guilty to spying for the Chinese.

Opposition party appears to be winning a close race in Zimbabwe election returns, which are still trickling in. Why are they coming so slow if they are accurate? Why would Mugabe's party be losing if they were being rigged? Maybe they're really loosing much worse, and the rigging is making it look closer, but if they still lose, the new party will investigate the vote counting and discover the fraud. This seems very odd.

NYCity passes plan to charge drivers to drive downtown. I assume that's only during peak hours, but the article doesn't say that. That's double taxation. Taxpayers already paid for those roads. Private toll roads would solve these congestion problems.

11 third graders plotted to harm their teacher. Sounds more like they planned to kill her to me. Do we need any more examples to show that discipline in our schools system has been destroyed by government? Of course these kids obviously don't fear discipline at home either. Liberalism and nanny-state government is driving society insane by destroying personal responsibility.

Copper pipes are not worth more than homes. Since the pipes are part of the homes, the home is worth at least the value of the copper. But people are breaking into homes to steal copper pipes.

Report claims 59% of doctors favor national health care. Over what? What were the choices? What is national health care, exactly? This sounds like a poll designed specifically to create that headline by misrepresenting the debated solutions for our health care problems.

This is a bizarre story. Democrats in Congress are investigating whether or not politics played a role in the corruption investigation of former Alabama governor, convicted on corruption charges, but one Democrat don't want to call the governor because the hearings would become about his guilt or innocence, instead of simply an attack on the Republican investigating him. It seems to me the first priority should be to establish his guilt or innocence. Democrats are playing politics with the law, in another bogus investigation intended to slime Bush, and they're going to burn themselves.

Author of The Color Purple compares Obama to MLK and Nelson Mandela. I thought she was supposed to know something about history. Interesting she came home "from a long stay in Mexico". Is that code for "had previously abandoned her country"? I wonder if she feels any more pride in America than Obama's wife Michelle.

Obama misleads voters by announcing he doesn't take money from oil companies. Nobody does because its illegal. But he takes money from employees of oil companies like everybody else.

Clinton has a gambit called a minority report to manipulate at the convention in an attempt to seat Michigan and Florida delegates.

Now Chelsea is criticizing Bush. That expands her role to full-fledged surrogate, not just daughter helping mom. Questioning her about Lewinsky is now fair game, imo. If she wants to play hard ball with the big boys, anything is fair game.

Google resists calls to pre-screen YouTube content even after mistakenly allowing gang rape video up for long time. That's a huge mistake, but I'm glad Google is resisting pre-screening.

Scientists discover binary star systems with stars so close, they resemble peanuts.

Rambus wins ancient patent case on DDR and SDRAM. Those patents are close to running out.

Europe's spacetruck flawlessly executes maneuvers close to the space station.

Muslim bus driver in UK forces passengers off his bus so he could pray.

Cato explains that US immigration policy foolishly allows only a handful of skilled workers to come to the US and work. But that Bush/Kennedy/McCain amnesty bill was not the answer. We should simply immediately pass legislation to increase the number skilled workers we bring into the country.

Cato explains that government wasting its time trying to establish uniform dropout rates for the states. The problem with schools is the government monopoly, and until we change that, our kids will continue to receive terrible educations and our country will continue to decline.