Reuters: “Blundering Afghan Suicide Bomber Blows Up 6 Militants.”

A would-be suicide bomber accidentally blew himself up on Thursday, killing six other militants as he was bidding them farewell to leave for his intended target, the Interior Ministry said.

“The terrorist was on his way to his destination and saying good-bye to his associates and then his suicide vest exploded,” a statement from the ministry said.

You may claim a kidnapped child as your dependent if the following requirements are met:

1. The child must be presumed by law enforcement to have been kidnapped by someone who is not a member of your family or a member of the child's family, and
2. The child had, for the taxable year in which the kidnapping occurred, the same principal place of abode as the taxpayer for more than one-half of the portion of such year before the date of kidnapping.

• The dependency exemption
• The child tax credit, and
• Head of household or qualifying widow(er) with dependent child filing status.

This tax treatment will cease to apply as of your first tax year beginning after the calendar year in which either there is a determination that the child is dead or the child would have reached age 18, whichever occurs first.

Mr Rouse said: 'I was allowed to stay with them for only an hour each day and it was difficult taking photographs of them at their party because I was laughing so much. It was hilarious.'

As these remarkable pictures show, 30-stone Kwitonda could hold his liquor - up to a point.

'When I went back the next day, it was all very quiet, as if they were nursing gorilla-sized hangovers.'

Attorney General Eric Holder said some detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may end up being released in the U.S. as the Obama administration works with foreign allies to resettle some of the prisoners.

Mr. Holder, in a briefing with reporters, said administration officials are still reviewing individual cases of the approximately 250 detainees to determine which will be put on trial and which may be released to comply with plans to close the detention facility by next year.

For “people who can be released there are a variety of options that we have and among them is the possibility is that we would release them into this country,” Mr. Holder said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently told a group of both legal and illegal immigrants and their families that enforcement of existing immigration laws, as currently practiced, is “un-American.”…

“You are special people. You’re here on a Saturday night to take responsibility for our country’s future. That makes you very, very patriotic.”

“I was embarrassed by what she said,” said Rick Oltman, with Californians for Population Stabilization, an anti-illegal immigrant group. “Exhorting illegal aliens for taking responsibility for our country’s future…. In fact, sitting there in the audience…. I really resented that comment.”

The government released its preliminary data for 2007 births today, finding, “All measures of childbearing by unmarried women increased in the United States to historic levels in 2007 . . . ” Overall, 39.7 percent of all births now occur out of wedlock in the U.S. Appalling.

By racial/ethnic group: 27.8 percent for non-Hispanic whites (up from 26.6 percent in 2006); a really appalling 71.6 percent for blacks (up from 70.7 percent); 65.2 percent for American Indians/Alaska Natives (up from 64.6 percent); 51.3 percent for Hispanics (up from 49.9 percent); and bringing up the rear, Asians/Pacific Islanders at a paltry 16.9 percent (but still up from 16.5 percent).

Look at those numbers, and note the obvious, inverse correlation between illegitimacy and how well a group is doing socioeconomically. And then ask what it portends that all groups are headed in the wrong direction.

"It's completely hypocritical," said staff union President Malcolm Harris. "This is the union that's been at the forefront of progressive issues, around ensuring that working people and working families are taken care of, but when it comes to the people that work for SEIU, they haven't set the same standards.

Books won’t stay banned. They won’t burn. Ideas won’t go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.

— Alfred Whitney Griswold

Mark Steyn gives thanks to the Brokest Generation.

Just between you, me, and the old, the late middle-aged and the early middle-aged: Isn't it terrific to be able to stick it to the young? I mean, imagine how bad all this economic-type stuff would be if our kids and grandkids hadn't offered to pick up the tab.

Well, OK, they didn't exactly "offer" but they did stand around behind Barack Obama at all those campaign rallies helping him look dynamic and telegenic and earnestly chanting hopey-hopey-changey-changey. And "Yes, we can!"

Which is a pretty open-ended commitment.

Are you sure you young folks will be able to pay off this massive Mount Spendmore of multitrillion-dollar debts we've piled up on you?

"Yes, we can!"

Clinton: I don’t know that I have any reservations, but I was - he has apparently decided to leave to the relevant professional committees the definition of which frozen embryos are basically going to be discarded, because they’re not going to be fertilized. I believe the American people believe it’s a pro-life decision to use an embryo that’s frozen and never going to be fertilized for embryonic stem cell research….

But those committees need to be really careful to make sure if they don’t want a big storm to be stirred up here, that any of the embryos that are used clearly have been placed beyond the pale of being fertilized before their use. There are a large number of embryos that we know are never going to be fertilized, where the people who are in control of them have made that clear. The research ought to be confined to those….

Before you shell out for a tution payment you might want to look at their schedule to see if it includes one or more of these intelluctually stimulating courses. Looks like about one-half of them are California colleges and they wonder why their state is an economic mess.

• Agree
• or
• Negotiate

I recently wondered exactly why we observe Daylight Saving Time (DST). For some reason, I had harbored a vague notion that it had to do with farmers.

Well, it turns out that DST had nothing to do with farmers, who traditionally haven't cared much for it. They care a lot less nowadays, but when the first DST law was making its way through Congress, farmers actually lobbied against it. Dairy farmers were especially upset because their cows refused to accept humanity's tinkering with the hands of time. The obstinate cud-chewers wanted to be milked every twelve hours, and had absolutely no interest in resetting their biological clocks—even if the local creameries suddenly wanted their milk an hour earlier.

As Michael Downing points out in his new book, Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time, urban businessmen were a major force behind the adoption of DST in the United States. They thought daylight would encourage workers to go shopping on their way home. They also tried to make a case for agriculture, though they didn't bother to consult any actual farmers.

The new "Totally Stylin' Tattoos Barbie" comes with a set of body art stickers to be placed anywhere on her body.

The set also comes with a tattoo gun so kids can stamp designs on themselves.

Manufacturer Mattel says the tattoos for children are temporary and wash off.

But some parents believe the toy is not appropriate for young children and would not buy the doll...

Mattel says it has no plans to discontinue the doll, insisting it gives girls a chance to express themselves and be creative.

Every customer sits on a stylish acrylic toilet (lid down) designed with images of roses, seashells or Renaissance paintings. Everyone dines at a glass table with a sink underneath. The servers bring your meal atop a mini toilet bowl (quite convenient, as it brings the food closer to your mouth), you sip drinks from your own plastic urinal (a souvenir), and soft-swirl ice cream arrives for dessert atop a dish shaped like a squat toilet.

The reasonably priced food includes curries, pasta, fried chicken and Mongolian hot pot, as well as elaborate shaved-ice desserts with names like "diarrhea with dried droppings" (chocolate), "bloody poop" (strawberry) and "green dysentery" (kiwi). Despite the disturbing descriptions, the desserts were great. But after seeing curry drip down a mini-toilet, I may never have that sauce again.

"These days are like calendar comets, you wait and wait and wait for them, then they brighten up your day--and poof--they're gone," Ron Gordon, a Redwood City, Calif., teacher who organized a contest intended to publicize the event, told the Associated Press. The prize, or course, is $339.

For example, the favorite musician of the smartest students was Beethoven, with an average SAT score of 1371. Also on the “smart” end of the scale were Sufjan Stevens (1260), Counting Crows (1247), and Radiohead (1220). And sadly for Lil Wayne, enjoying his music was associated with being the dumbest, with an average SAT score of 889.

On the book front, Lolita was favorite tome of the brightest students (a result which Griffith called “charming”), with an average SAT score of 1317. The lowest-scoring students liked the erotica author Zane, with an average score of 980. And strangely, the students who listed their favorite book as “The Bible” were smarter (1047) than those who said it was “The Holy Bible” (980).

As for his own place on the scale, Griffith’s favorite band is Daft Punk, which didn’t make it onto the list, and his SAT score was “actually fairly low — 1370 out of 1600. I’m actually a little embarrassed by it,” he wrote in an email message, though he then noted, “My GRE was a very acceptable 1490 out of 1600.” The bands that are on the list that he likes? “I actually like Tool a lot, and I see Tool is one of the dumber ones on there. That’s pretty charming.”

America's Most Congested Cities

He certainly wasn't a conservative. The Lorax is a parable of anti-capitalism and The Butter Battle Book is a peacenik's morally equivalent take on the Cold War. Even so, I've always maintained that his book I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew is deeply anti-utopian. Others have extracted a pro-life rallying cry from Horton Hears a Who: "a person's a person no matter how small." And a few have detected anti-socialist themes in Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose.

IF you were jealous of the most popular boy or girl in your class, you were right to be so . Researchers have found that the more friends a child has at school, the more earning power they will enjoy later in life.

A study by Essex University indicates that for each extra friend a pupil had at school, their salary 35 years later was 2% higher. The research adds to growing evidencethatsocial skills - and not simply academic prowess - are vital to success later on in life.