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CLAYTON CRAMER: Activists have long asked drug companies to provide free AIDS drugs for poor African nations. Now African nations are turning down offers of free AIDS drugs. Cramer's theory: the corrupt bribe-takers who control the African economy can't make any money off of free medicine.

PLASTIC: Iran to Canada: we killed your reporter. The Iranian thugocracy has admitted they beat Iranian-born Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi to death with a shoe. If that isn't enough of an outrage, Kazemi was beaten to death - not by a mob - but by an Iranian judge. The Iranians are refusing to turn over her body so that Kazemi's family can bury her in Canada.

STEVEN DEN BESTE: Barbie represents positive Western attitudes towards women. No, really.

Barbie is the most popular doll in Iran, much to the chagrin of religious zealots there. Barbie likes nice clothes and goes on dates with Ken (who is also popular); she certainly doesn't cover her face. She's a career girl, a model, sexy and beautiful and glad of it. She lives alone. She wears short skirts and bikinis. She's a woman and she likes being a woman. And she's the star of the show; Ken is a supporting actor. She dates Ken because she wants to, not because her parents set her up with him. Barbie is free.

If you don't believe the non-Western world needs Barbie, read this story of arranged marriages and dowries in modern-day India in the year 2003. The day of the arranged wedding, with 2,500 guests attending, the groom demanded an additional $40,000 dowry payment. When the bride's father couldn't pay, the groom and his friends beat him. Now, would you want your daughter to grow up in Iran, India or a Western nation? The bride, Nisha Sharma, had the husband thrown in jail and called off the marriage, something almost unheard of in India. Nisha Sharma should be a role model for a lot of young women all over the world.

SOUTH KNOX BUBBA: TVA's air quality report card: some good news, some bad news. SO2 (sulfur dioxide) and NOX (nitrous oxide) levels are down. CO2 (carbon dioxide) levels are up. I consider that good. S02 contributes to acid rain and (at high elevations in the Smokies) acid fog, which are known to be bad for plant life, fish, and amphibians. C02 is one of the greenhouse gases, which are still an unproven danger in my book. Decreases in SO2 emissions are mostly attributable to TVA burning coal with lower sulfur content.

GLENN REYNOLDS: Lower the Drinking Age. It is nuts that you have to be darned near out of college before you can legally drink (and I started college at age 17; I was in college for four years, two months before I was legal). Age 19 seems about right to me.

EMBARRASSED, GIGGLING SCIENTISTS: M@sturb@ting may cut risk of prostate cancer. (I sometimes use l33T-5p33k on "bad words" so that LesJones.com doesn't get blocked by web-filtering software. - LJ)

BJORN, AGAIN: So long and thanks for all the fish. Bjorn Knoxley is calling it quits on his blog, though KnoxPatch will still be around.

New to the Quotes File

Civilized people cannot fathom, much less predict, the actions of evil people.
- Ed Evans

Never pick on groups - you are immediately outnumbered to the extent that even a fool can predict the outcome.
- unknown

I'm a man of means by no means, King of the Road.
- Roger Miller