Happy St. Patrick's Day
(Video) "Danny Boy" delivered with a Muppet Show twist
Show notes from the WHO Radio Wise Guys - March 13, 2010
Chlorine: The lifesaver
The future of the Federal deficit
Every annual deficit lumps more on top of the already huge Federal debt. For a real scare, take a look at how the Medicare/Medicaid portion of the spending side of things grows steadily and painfully from now on. Getting our deficits under control and paying down the ($12.6 trillion) national debt are matters of national security.
What you and the rest of the world are really doing online
The BBC offers an interactive infographic illustrating where people from the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Brazil, and Australia are spending the most time online, and it offers some interesting insights. Search and portal sites (e-mail services, mainly) serve up the biggest single block of traffic, by far. But there's also a surprisingly large volume of traffic to Microsoft outside of its search and e-mail services -- more than either YouTube or Facebook get in their own respective dominions. And in what should be a warning to Facebook, the old titan (MySpace) is nowhere to be found. Social networks are fickle things and giants there are likely to fall. Related: The South Korean government is training 4,000 counselors to treat "Internet addiction".
Could a redesigned hospital "crash cart" save lives?
New owners might close the Terra offices in Sioux City
Little-known to central and eastern Iowans, Terra Industries is #704 on the Fortune 1000 and one of the biggest companies in the state. It's announced a plan to merge with CF Industries, and that could very well lead to a closure of the Terra headquarters in Sioux City -- and if not a closure, most likely at least a reduction. It's the result of a less-than-friendly takeover, so some outcome with fewer people and less control from Sioux City is pretty likely. That would make the second major blow to the Sioux City economy of late, following the announcement that the John Morrell meatpacking plant is closing in April. In 1920, Sioux City was larger than Phoenix, Albuquerque, and Las Vegas -- each much larger than Sioux City today -- and it was about the same size as Tulsa. Des Moines at the same time was bigger than Nashville, Fort Worth, or El Paso, and about the same size as Houston. The future of Sioux City in 2020 looks far less bright, which is deeply unfortunate, both for the community and for the state.
How little we know about what lives under the sea
(Video)
Why public utilities should consider raising their rates just a little bit every year
New York assemblyman wants to ban salt in restaurant cooking
You'd be welcome to add your own salt to the dish later, but the chef wouldn't. And he wants to ban it across the entire state of New York, with a $1000 fine for every infraction. This kind of absurdity comes from good intentions (he says he wants to cut down on high blood pressure) mixed with gross incompetence and a dash, if you will, of too much government power. Then again, Assemblyman Felix Ortiz takes credit for introducing the nation's first ban on using cell phones while driving, so his paternalistic notion of government has been put into law before. He also wants to add a state cover charge of $10 for everyone going to a strip club. Not everything that can cause harm should be banned.
Excellent tools for calculating how much of a nest egg you'll need to retire
The "retirement shortfall calculator" from AXA is especially eye-opening.
Broadband Internet access as a campaign issue
The Conservative Party in Britain wants to eliminate a tax on telephone lines that's being used to subsidize the rollout of broadband Internet access to rural areas of the country. The philosophical principle behind the policy is that broadband access should be provided through private investment rather than public subsidy may actually hurt the party's -- though the realpolitik of the matter is that the party has a lot of voters in rural areas, so the proposal might actually run contrary to the interests of many of the party's voters. The big story here is that broadband Internet access is on the verge of being regarded as a true public utility -- like water service, sewers, and electricity. That's a very big change from just a short decade or two ago.
Roald Dahl lost a daughter to measles
The children's author subsequently pled with parents to realize just how important vaccinations are. Particularly interesting now that the supposed link between vaccines and autism has been thoroughly smashed. Vaccinations are a modern miracle, and should be hailed for their saving power, not slandered by people relying on myths and fake "science".
Author says the market panic of the last few years was created by stupidity, not malice
And he's likely right. As has been said before (though it's not clear by whom): "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." It was wrong to panic in 2008, just as it remains wrong for traders and fiduciaries to take extraordinary pay for work that fails to produce extraordinary good for society.
Roger Ebert gets his voice back thanks to a computer
He lost his voice due to radical surgeries to stop the spread of cancer. Now, a company which combed the archives of his many television appearances for snippets of the many sounds and words which make up the English language has assembled a library of those recordings from which to generate a text-to-speech synthesizer in his native voice.
Welcome to the Great Plains
For a little perspective on why overcrowding issues don't make a lot of sense to Midwesterners, consider this: The state of Rhode Island covers 1,045 square miles and has a population of over a million people. Cherry County, Nebraska, covers 5,961 square miles and has a population of 6,100. Cherry County, in fact, is also larger than Delaware (1,954 square miles), Connecticut (4,845 square miles), and Puerto Rico (3,425 square miles).
Should we have bailed out the banks and the automakers?
Margaret Thatcher said this 30 years ago this month: "Too much money spent by Government has gone to support industries which have made and are continuing to make heavy losses. The future requires that industry adapt to produce goods that will sell in tomorrow's world. Older industries that can't change must be slimmed down and their skills transferred to new products if they are to serve the nation."
27% of Americans haven't saved anything for retirement
And more than half have less than $25,000 saved up. Only a third have $50,000 or more in savings -- retirement or otherwise. Considering that a nest egg of almost a million dollars is what's really required to retire comfortably and with confidence that it won't run out, we have a nation in serious savings trouble.
A trailer for every Academy Award-winning movie ever
(Video) Hilarious
Why kids shouldn't be allowed to use YouTube without supervision
(Video)
Recent history...
March 7 to March 13, 2010
February 28 to March 6, 2010
February 21 to February 27, 2010
February 14 to February 20, 2010
February 7 to February 13, 2010
January 31 to February 6, 2010
January 24 to January 30, 2010
January 17 to January 23, 2010
January 10 to January 16, 2010
January 3 to January 9, 2010
January 1 to January 2, 2010
More...
Archives (2001 to present)
Comments or questions? Contact Brian Gongol