Top 10

Here are 2007's top 10 stories, as voted by Associated Press member editors and news directors, along with my comments (No-Prize for the first reader who spots the story at which I got bored stupid):

1. VIRGINIA TECH KILLINGS: What would have prevented the nation's worst mass murder? I'd guess, unsatisfyingly, whether at Virginia Tech or in almost any other workplace in the country, it's "nothing" (well, almost nothing).


2. MORTGAGE CRISIS: Amity Schlaes said it best: "The price of a standard fixed-rate mortgage is too high for many families, even at today's historically low rates. The appeal of the adjustable-rate loan, never mind that of the subprime no-doc mortgage, lay precisely in that it allowed borrowers to fool themselves about the true price of the debt they were assuming." So: Hoopleheads take money they can't pay back to the banks, who give that money to get the federal okee-doke for mergers. The rest of us? Paying for so-called entitlements and regulatory abuse with higher rates on our next mortgages, and lower market values for our homes.


3. IRAQ WAR: It ain't over when it's over. Yeah, yeah; I'll see your "bang bang, shoot shoot," and raise you an "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da."


4. OIL PRICES: Standards for energy efficiency, meet market inefficiency.
   
5. CHINESE EXPORTS: The AP slips on its judge's robe and adds that, "Despite the high-profile problems [toys with lead paint, tainted toothpaste and food], America's trade deficit with China was running at record-high levels." SOMEBODY: DO SOMETHING!


6. GLOBAL WARMING: And the No-Prize goes to . . .


7. BRIDGE COLLAPSE: Missed this one the first go-around. Let's see: Aug. 1, Aug. 1. Oh, yeah!


8. PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: sigh


9. IMMIGRATION DEBATE: Unknown Blogger beats Reason's Kerry Howley to the punch in winner-leaves-town match. UBlo: You're missed.


10. IRAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM: Years later and the story essentially remains the same. Here's Ron Paul: "If they have been paying attention, and I think they have, they would see that if countries do have a nuclear weapon, they tend to be left alone, or possibly get a subsidy, but if they do not gain such a weapon then we threaten them. Why wouldn't they want to pursue a nuclear weapon if that is our current foreign policy?"