If you’re eligible for food stamps but don’t take them because of pride or the desire to be self-reliant, the federal government sees you as a problem. The USDA has programs designed to try to talk people into getting food stamps. It gave an award to a North Carolina county, for instance, for confronting “mountain pride” in order to increase food stamp participation by 10 percent.

  • In Great Britain, a 22-year-old man who died in a government hospital was so desperate for water that he even called police trying to get something to drink. According to an official inquest, the man died of dehydration. When are people going to notice that the more government involvement — and the less the patient is a customer — the worse health care gets? The problems we have now are from a market that’s too regulated. It hasn’t been free for decades, at the least.
  • If you like dogs, this is a nice rescue story about a dog named Daisy who somehow got herself stuck on a narrow ledge of a rock quarry, 200 feet above the floor of the pit. Firefighters had to rescue the dog, but the mine owner had to get federal approval before the firefighters could make their rescue attempt. Why?

  • If you’ve been hearing that scientists in Europe seem to have discovered the Higgs boson, but you haven’t a clue what that really means, take a look at this story from December that explains the significance of this so-called “God particle.”
  • Some places have theme parks with Mickey Mouse and Cinderella. Others have roller coasters, haunted houses and water rides. But Detroit might be the only place in the world with a live-action zombie theme park.
  • We’ve been angry when food was slow, but this is ridiculous. Five black men who were angry that a fast food restaurant was too slow shouted racial slurs at the Hispanic cook — before shooting and killing him.