Democrats always lose elections because they root for recessions and for people losing their jobs in the hope that the more economic misery there is, the more likely they are to vote Democratic. Democrats always root for America to lose wars and for hurricanes to destroy shore communities for the same reason. Even if recessions come, America loses wars and hurricanes destroy towns, people don't vote for Democrats because they don't want the country run by sadists, gloomy people, whiners, and losers.

I've been to many closings, but only in two states. In California, you generally close at the Title Company. In New Jersey, you need to hire a lawyer. Guess which state leads the nation in foreclosures?

I'm also not sure why a couple morons jumped on me above for pointing out that there's a relationship between looser lending standards and increased home ownership. It's like in the computer business, you keep tightening the security of your network until it's completely useless.

Almost 70 percent of Americans now own a home. That's the highest ever. Yes, there are some foreclosures, but it's only 15 percent of the subprime loans and subprimes are only a fraction of all loans. And even among the 15 percent of subprimes going into foreclosure, the lender is going to make a substational recovery, although maybe not 100 percent of the loan value.

In the car business if they make the lending standards to strict, they won't sell many cars. Too loose, and they lose money through repos. The point is to balance risk and reward. The point is not, as this dumb cartoon suggests, to turn the clock back to horse and buggy days when only rich, white people could get a loan.

Yes, in the good old days banks would only loan money to rich people, generally rich white people. Then they began loaning money to poorer people and now a few of those loans are in trouble. However, lots of poorer people now have homes and are keeping up with the payments. Tom Tomorrow is a stinker for suggesting that things were better in the old days when people who weren't rich were shut out of the housing market.

If you know very much about any topics -- science, medicine, transportation, law etc. -- you quickly realize that newspapers and other forms of journalism are filled with complete junk. Most articles are written by a naive reporter who talked to two people, misunderstood much of what he heard, and writes in an authoritative manor. The trade press can be much better, but pretty much anything from the AP is garbage.

My guess is that this woman sees the 30-year-old as the man in her life. She talks in glowing terms about him, probably goes to dinner and the movies with him on the weekends. She doesn't really want him to move out. What she wants is for him to get a better job and support her like she would expect a husband to. Getting him to support her financially is the next step in her plan to convert him from her child into her husband.

I'm sure the Minneapolis police never make a mistake or arrest an innocent man, but if this cop happened to be next to you in the bathroom and thought you moved your feet incorrectly, how would you be able to defend yourself? If the cop said you plead guilty now and pay a fine or we will ruin your reputation, how would you fight back?

I think I know why that bridge in Minnesota collapsed. The state was using its transportation money to bust gay people at the airport.

I don't think Officer Fagbait was looking for US Senators in the men's room. I think he wanted to hassle gay people. Yes, he was protecting the men's room for the children, but his technique was to roust gay men.

BJD Cruz lives in a dreamworld. California's energy usuage is low because the coal for it's electricity is burned in other states such as WYOMING. Californians are too sensitive to burn their own coal so they pay for the electricty from burning coal in other states and then live in their state of denial.

How come Californians keep talking about environmentalism while they continue to set records for how much electricity they use. And they get about 100 times as much electricity from coal as from solar energy. What a bunch of humbugs.

Pilots flying the airplane. Now that would scare me. Line from Pushing Tin.

People also think about automating the pilot function due to so many crashes being blamed on pilot error. The one where the pilots took off on the wrong and too short runway, turns out the pilots were discussing their kids and pets and a dozen other topics while taxiing toward the wrong runway. Computers tend to stay on task. Pilotless planes are quite common for military surveillence drones -- a plane can fly over Afghanistan searching for the Taliban with the pilot safely at the Pentagon. Still, pilotless commercial planes are unlikely. We are just beginning to see driverless subway cars, and a subway driver only controls the speed.

Boeing and Airbus compete to build planes cheaper, with greater range and greater efficiency. Perhaps they should would on a 100 percent reliable airplane that would never have mechanical issues and could fly in every type of weather. I bet Boeing and Airbus could get government grants for this.