— "The untouchable has been touched by India's growth. Dalits are coming out from hunger and humiliation," said Chandra Bhan Prasad, a popular Dalit newspaper columnist and childhood friend of Ram's.

— Well, it's no wonder Democrats didn't want former President Bill Clinton to speak on the economy. Some delegates might have had the temerity to wonder: Hey, why did we experience all that prosperity in the '90s?

— Our economy rewards entrepreneurship and investment, allowing all Americans to benefit. The policies of the four horsemen share a top down, command-and-control philosophy that is out of step with global economic trends and costly for America's taxpayers and consumers.

— What we are being offered on television is two flavors of dictatorship. One party imagines Athens, with fairness and justice for all, international brotherhood and sisterhood, a world free of hate and discrimination in which all wealth is shared and no wealth is made at the expense of nature. ...

— He explained it as "the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise and fall as one nation" and described it as blending "individual responsibility and mutual responsibility." Simply put: You have to do what you can for yourself, but that you also have to ...

— This is the sort of distinction the Amethyst Initiative's supporters would like to reinforce. They complain that a blanket ban on alcohol consumption by 18-to-20-year-olds, who are considered adults in virtually every other respect, makes it difficult to inculcate responsible drinking habits.

— None of this, however, answers the question: Is there, or should there be, a right to reproduce? Though perhaps thinking in terms of rights is not the best way to frame the problem.

— By taking a couple of courses in economic theory, we could immunize ourselves from nonsense spouted by politicians and pundits, but in the meantime check out Professor John R. Lott's "Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works." Read the Full Story: Why the Free Market Works

— In 1987, Florida wisely affirmed personal freedom by letting law-abiding citizens get permits to carry concealed weapons. But this year, the legislature decided it was not enough to let licensees pack in public places.

— Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is about to make a killing by selling water he doesn’t own.

— "I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty but leading them or driving them out of it." What hate-mongering politician would be so politically incorrect as to suggest that things like higher minimum wages and more government handouts don't ...

— Barring a burst of legislative activity after Labor Day, this group of 535 men and women will have accomplished a rare feat. In two decades of record keeping, no sitting Congress has passed fewer public laws at this point in the session -- 294 so far -- than this ...

— But the LGA warned that social services might have to treat very fat children as victims of "parental neglect" – just as malnourished children are. It predicted that social services would have to intervene "more and more" with obese children.

— Denis O'Brien, a self-made billionaire who owns Digicel Group, is arming the masses in dangerous countries like Haiti, Fiji, and Papua New Guinea. But he's not giving them guns and artillery.

— The justices rejected a San Diego County fertility clinic's attempt to use its physicians' religious beliefs as a justification for their refusal to provide artificial insemination for a lesbian couple. Read the Full Story: Doctors can't use bias to deny gays treatment