Hey RAGBRAI, welcome back to Scott County.The 2008 route for the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa will end July 26 in LeClaire, where riders will dip their bike tires in the Mississippi as the traditional completion of the ride. The route also includes Tipton as an overnight stop before riders roll into LeClaire, the ride’s organizers announced today.RAGBRAI last ended in Scott County in Davenport in 1982.The Quad-Cities Convention and Tourism Bureau sought a resolution from Scott County in support of seeking LeClaire as the endpoint. RAGBRAI’s executive director visited LeClaire last summer during Tugfest to see how the river town handles a large influx of visitors.The 417-mile route will begin in Missouri Valley, with overnight stops in Harlan, Jefferson, Ames, Tama-Toledo, North Liberty and Tipton.

Filed under: NFL

-The worst month for sports is what were going through right now. The NBA is hitting the mid-season and there is yet to be any real excitement. You have the NFL that just got over a month ago, and yes, we're all sad because that marks the end of football for another 6-7 months. College Football recruiting is always fun, but we all know that in a sense it is just a waiting game that is boring. We have College Basketball hitting conference schedules real hard which is truely fun to watch, but we then enter the conference tournaments and they mean nothing. MLB isen't even heard of in this month, and NASCAR has qualifying on the week before Daytona. Isen't that just interesting. The month of February is a complete let-down. This month is almost worthless in the world of sports. I mean, the NBA season may be shaping up, but there is another 40 games to be played.

News.blog: A new look for Facebook

Facebook first announced last year that it was working on a redesign of members' profiles. Now, the social-networking site has unveiled previews of its upcoming new look. The Facebook profile redesigns will start rolling out in the next few weeks.

Part of this is because of technical issues, Facebook has said, telling members that the changes will make the interface cleaner.

Guba Debuts Online Video Store with Warner Bros.

Guba Debuts Online Video Store with Warner Bros. Posted by: Heather Green on June 26

Warner Bros. keeps pushing the envelope in delivering TV shows and movies in alternative ways. After announcing last month that it was teaming up with BitTorrent, the studio today is now offering videos via online video service Guba.

The shows can be rented, starting at $1.99 cents for movies. Or they can be bought and downloaded onto a computer or copied onto a laptop. Movies prices range between $9.99 and $19.99. They can't be copied yet to portable players, though that's in the works. The company is using Windows DRM, though Guba says they're looking into other formats.

With Change, Cubans Speculate on Currency

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A note to liberals about economics

Its economy declined from one of the strongest in Africa to one of the world's weakest after nationalization of industry and redistribution of private land.Then there is Ireland. Ireland's heavy industries, due to poor planning and international problems, almost disappeared by the early 1980s.Agriculture was constrained by production quotas. There was mass unemployment and the national debt had doubled, mostly due to welfare programs and subsidies.This changed in the mid 1990s when Ireland began to institute free market economics and lower taxes. Ireland is now ranked, by some measures, as the second wealthiest per capita country in the world.Then there is China. The socialist policies of Mao almost destroyed one of the most long-lasting societies on the planet. Since China opened up its economy with free markets, they have achieved the second highest GNP in the world, and unless they return to socialism, they will catch up to, and perhaps, even pass the United States.We could even conduct experiments in which one country is given all the resources except economic freedom and the other country gets almost no resources, but is given a more free market.

Counties draft plan on bike accident liability

Bicycle riders would be unable to collect damages from a county or city for most accidents under legislation that the Iowa State Association of Counties has drafted for state lawmakers' consideration.

Counties or cities would not be liable for injuries or damages resulting from bike accidents on their roads unless it was shown that government officials were notified of a road deficiency before an accident and that road crews neglected to take action, according to the legislative proposal.

Tiger breeder eyes Idaho

Ledbetter did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press on Tuesday.Renzo said that if a resolution isn't reached at the April 21 review, he will continue with legal action against the department. He said he has the same rights as other zoos in the state."We want to save all the cats," he told the Idaho State Journal. "If we can save a cat, we're going to save it. There's also not that many Siberians left worldwide, and it's hard to keep count because they're so elusive and stay in forested areas. We need to keep a viable population of them because we're losing them."Renzo said that if the judicial review goes his way, he will open the "Tiger Pavilion" sometime this summer. He said a location hasn't been selected, but it will likely be between Idaho Falls and Blackfoot."It's a beautiful area," he said.