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Joe Biden prepares the media for Gen. Petraeus' testimony this week by declaring the surge a failure. Democrats have no idea how foolish they look when those kinds of headlines reach mainstream Americans. The American people understand that the surge has dramatically reduced violence, enable significant political progress at the grass roots level, and led to slow but steady political progress by the national government.

Children abused a youth prisons. This is why we should never allow government to have monopoly power over us. Prisons should be managed by a number of competing companies. Free market competition is the best protection against abuse.

Iran helped broker Basra truce.

Zimbabwe opposition claims they won 50.3% of the vote last weekend, so there should be no run-off election, but the government still hasn't released official results, and Mugabe is preparing for a run-off election. The opposition claims that Mugabe is preparing to wage war against the people in order to win the run-off. Opposition sues to get results released. Ruling party demands a total recount and requests results not be announced until then.

New riots in Tibet.

OPEC claims high prices are not from a shortage of crude but the falling dollar, limited refining capacity (how does that affect the price of crude?), and politics. They forgot speculation.

Rice prices rise another 10%.

French navy is tracking hijacked French yacht. They say the don't want to use force. Of course they want to save the lives of the people on board if at all possible, but I would love to see the French people wake up and demand their military kick some ass.

Slate offers ideas for reforming our financial system.

Reason explains that Republicans are on the ropes because they abandoned the libertarian ideals of free markets and small government. Big time. The country doesn't need 2 big-government parties, and anybody who wants big-government understands that Democrats do it best.

The Clintons made $109 million since 2000. Being an ex-president can be pretty lucrative. All of their 2006 charitable contributions were to the Clinton Foundation. That's a sweet deal. They get say they give tons of money to charity, but the charity is themselves.

Clintons busted for lying about a woman who died after giving birth, claiming she was refused care because she couldn't come up with $100. In fact, she was insured and receiving care when she died. The Clintons are just sick, twisted people.

Columbia cuts ties with Clinton aid and lobbyist who supported free trade deal despite Clinton's protectionist lip service.

Clinton wants to create another bureaucracy, empowering a "poverty czar". Taking more money from the American people to give to bureaucrats is a sure way to increase poverty.

Talk show host's warmonger comment about McCain will help inoculate him for the rest of the election.

Obama adviser recommends a more sensible plan of cutting troop numbers in half in about 16 months, then leaving American troops at that level, acknowledging the need to keep US troops in Iraq. But this is at odds with Obama's stated position. Obama is just lying to the MoveOn.org crowd about removing troops. Once he wins the nomination, he'll start talking about leaving US troops there to insure we don't lose the war. But it makes no sense for a bureaucrat to decide troop levels without input from the military, so when he does that, McCain will make him look like a fool because Obama is trying to tell the military how to do their jobs. Like Obama is some sort of military expert.

Odd collection of celebrities as AD&D characters.

Absolut billboards in Mexico show Mexico and American border from over 150 years ago.

Thomas Sowell writes that JP Morgan arranged a bank rescue in 1907. The free-market is self-correcting because of the natural incentives that make it work.

Both Milton Friedman and Ben Bernanke explain that the Fed caused the Great Depression.