With all this talk of winning the war on terror, halting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and rooting out Muslim fundamentalists hell-bent on annihilating anything American, one has to wonder why we continue spending $16.4 billion annually on agricultural subsidies for unprofitable domestic farmers, no?

Here's the connection:

Quite a few developing countries rely solely on one all-important economic sector to fuel any kind of sustainable growth: agriculture. Farming was the first and will remain humanity's foremost economic activity. A majority of people worldwide still base their daily survival upon what they can grow and subsequently can sell. [Read article]

Arizona finally has something to brag about when it comes to education, and it's not being consistently ranked near the bottom of the list when it comes to nationwide comparisons of the state of education.

While students may be delighted that the tables have shifted a little, it should be the taxpayers calling it payback, as they might finally be getting their money's worth out of Arizona's education system. [Read article]

Police often paint a nightmarish picture to punctuate importance of campus safety: An 18-year-old woman is at a party and there's alcohol. She's new to Tucson and at a house she's never been in before. Suddenly an older man walks up, grabs her by the arm and hustles her out the door.

Yet the police who so sternly warn against this danger were recently the perpetrators of the nightmare. On Aug. 26 three plainclothes law enforcement officers not affiliated with campus police snuck into the Kappa Sigma house, 1423 E. First St., and began running students outside. [Read article]

$21K for LIDAR gun better spent elsewhere

Today is a wonderful day in Tucson history. Apparently, violent crime in this city has dropped to a point so low that our local police departments are able to spend $21,000 on a single radar gun to catch those pesky speeders ("Cops get $21K traffic tool").

My first question is, doesn't University of Arizona Police Department have radar guns already? In case they don't, a quick search reveals that used radar guns can be bought for as low as $600, with brand-new ones selling for about $2,000. Why on earth would they pay $21,000? Some would say it's because it was purchased through a specific grant offered through the state's Office of Highway Safety. [Read article]