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49 international troops including 29 Americans were killed in Afghanistan war in June, making it the most deadly month since we invaded. Fewer troops were killed in Iraq.

Nobody should be surprised that the US is the top consumer of marijuana and cocaine. This article says "in spite of" draconian laws. It's at least partly because of the draconian laws. The black market is unregulated, meaning that drugs are available to anybody whenever they want them. You don't see pushers on play grounds peddling booze to elementary school kids. The war on drugs is funding the Taliban, the Mexican drug cartels that control our border, and the drug gangs in the US. It's taking a huge toll in lives and incarceration in the US and around the world. It undermines parents and families by providing drugs to children. These problems from the black market dwarf any problems from drugs themselves.

Where to begin with this article showing the Taliban's strategy: using our War on Drugs against us by funding their terrorism through the heroin trade, using Europe's weakness against us, and using patience and determination against us. We're our own worst enemy.

It's hard to see how lifting a ban on head scarves could be evidence of pushing Sharia in Turkey. Lifting a ban is increasing freedom, not restricting it. The ruling party must be doing other things to promote Sharia that I haven't read about.

Not only are we in danger of falling behind the Chinese and Russians in the space race, the Europeans are in danger of falling behind the Japanese and India. This had nothing to do with spending and everything to do with wasteful government in the form of welfare state bureaucracies.

Law school loses hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal funding because it doesn't allow military recruiters on campus. That's a good thing, but why in the world were taxpayers sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to this law school? Probably because we do that to every school, which is just stupid.

One of our gazillion or so agencies is spending tax dollars studying the emerging phenomenon of terrorism in massively multiplayer online roleplaying games.

Our state and local government spending, waste and bureaucracy is as bad as the federal government, and this economic downturn should be used as an opportunity to dramatically cut spending at all levels. Chicago sales tax tops 10%, the highest in the country.

Oil tops $142. Can we start drilling to participate in the profits and help lower the price yet? Can we start building alternative power plants like coal and nuclear to lower the price yet? Harry Reid says coal and oil make us sick. I say Harry Reid should do without any benefits from coal or oil. Let him live like they did 200 years ago, and let's see how sick it makes us. Let him ride in a horse drawn carraige and muck his own stalls. Let him grow his own food plowing behind a mule. Our world, all these people in it, couldn't survive without coal and oil. Coal and oil enable human life, progress and cleanliness we've never seen in the history of man. If he wants to go back to the times when the average life span was 50 years, he can go by himself. The rest of us want the better lives enabled by coal and oil.

Why would McCain pledge to stay in office only 1 term if elected? I think that would hurt his chances, not help them.

Obama to expand faith-based initiatives. This guy is the worse of all possible worlds. He's a liberal socialist and conservative socialist. Some would call that being a centrist, but those people only see the world in 1 dimension, left versus right. Now we get Obama 24/7. The bad news is we get Obama 24/7. The good news is this guy is a gaffe machine. From what we've seen so far, he makes Dan Quayle look smart. Obama may be great at giving prepared speeches, but he's arguably the worst candidate I've ever seen speaking off the cuff. He's been smart to keep the press under his thumb. Allowing this freedom of the press will likely blow up in his face.

Study shows that 55% of firearms deaths are suicides. So? Why do we care if a person kills themselves with a gun as opposed to some other method? I'll bet 99% of deaths from falling off buildings are suicides. What does that tell us about buildings? Guns and buildings don't commit suicide, people do.

The wild fires in California are so numerous that every fire tanker is in use and firefighters have to pick and choose which fires to battle. Maybe they should consider managing their forests.

Cato explains that ethanol would be a more price volatile fuel than oil since corn yield is weather dependent and there's only one major source - midwestern farmers.

Texas now requires anybody doing PC repair to have a PI license. If this is accurate, it's crazy.