Brian Gongol
Castro and Chavez play "Whassaaap?" on Chavez's TV show
Transcript of their conversation contains about the same intellectual nourishment as the old Whassap commercial from Budweiser.
Oooh! New hat!
Graphic of the day: Blue Camouflage
Prince Charles: Commander-in-chief of Culinary Stalinism
The lucky winner of the genetic lottery that is Britain's royal family has actually gone and called for a ban on McDonald's. The Americans knew 231 years ago that monarchies are stupid. Britain (along with Australia and Canada) needs to catch up. Hereditary luck doesn't grant one the right to act like a culinary Stalinist.
40-vehicle pileup on I-25 between Denver and Colorado Springs
Anyone who's been on that road knows exactly how this happened: People tailgate on that road at 80 or 85 miles an hour on sunny days in the summertime. Add a little ice and snow, and wrecks are inevitable.
Few think about water service in a winter storm
How high-efficiency vehicles screw with road funding
The gas tax is dead; some people want to replace it with a per-mile tax. There's a right way and a wrong way to do it: It's a chapter in "Ten Big Answers You Won't Get from a Politician"
One-paragraph book review: "Chuck Hagel: Moving Forward"
There's a definite case for the Nebraska Senator to become part of the 2008 Presidential field. There's even a Draft Hagel movement underway.
Economy grew in 4th quarter, but a lot slower than originally announced
Real GDP was up by 2.2% according to the "preliminary" estimate, which is quite a bit off from the 3.5% that the "advance" estimate suggested. Once the final figure is released, it'll be added to the GDP report card. The stock market probably won't take the news very well, especially after the egg it laid yesterday.
Snow storm turns governor into a Stalinist bureaucrat
Governor Culver, speaking to those who live where the electricity has gone out: "It's not at this point, frankly, a choice. We need you to go to a shelter and we need you to go now." It's one thing to say, "The shelters are open and if you need help, we'll be happy to come get you," and quite another to say "It's not a choice." As it's been pointed out, most of rural Iowa didn't have electric power until well into mid-century.
States that offer lots of subsidies tend to be slow growers
Whether it's correlation or causation is up to question, but the dragon of economic-development incentives really needs to be slayed. Government's role isn't to make one business grow at the tax expense of another.
Staff thinks Mitt Romney needs more bad-hair days
He's one of only a few 2008 Presidential candidates with any real private-sector experience, but he's also spending a lot of energy on cultural issues rather than economic ones
"Shooting" a man in a monkey costume in front of zoo-touring kids not such a great idea
The office tower that's built like a bridge
The former Federal Reserve offices in Minneapolis, called Marquette Plaza, is built like a catenary bridge
13-year-old MacGyvers his way out of abduction
