Gongol.com Archives: May 2006
Brian Gongol



Weather and Disasters (2006.05.12)
Nigerian pipeline explosion kills 150

Humor and Good News (2006.05.12)
Cheer up! If you'd been a caveman, you'd be dead by now.

Threats and Hazards (2006.05.12)
Ahmadinejad: "Liberalism and Western-style democracy have not been able to help"

News (2006.05.12)
Dealing with highway congestion with heavier tolls
True congestion problems are usually geographically concentrated, but better ways of charging for road use are available

Threats and Hazards (2006.05.12)
Strategic thinking, not failure to snoop, the reason Britain didn't catch the 7/7 bombers
Report on the attacks concludes that intelligence and security services simply weren't thinking about the threat that home-grown terrorists could cause. Liberties are being eroded in Western nations in the name of security, but the real failure isn't that governments don't have enough power; it's that they aren't smart about acting upon the information they already have. The revelation that AT&T, BellSouth, and Verizon have been giving away customer data to the government is another red flag that it's a trans-Atlantic problem. Why, exactly, should law-abiding citizens allow governments to continue stomping on their privacy and their liberties when those governments continue to show themselves incapable of adapting to the information they already have?

Humor and Good News (2006.05.12)
"At my men's group, we considered why English masculinity is an international joke"
"...Then we broke for some really nice cheese and planned a trip to the Chelsea Flower Show."

Threats and Hazards (2006.05.12)
Spooky video from a free-speech counter-protest in Paris

Also...
Water news: Osceola may need another lake
Graphics: Screaming Tabloid Headline