Brian Gongol
EPA approves huge upgrade in Iowa water-quality standards
Google's chief economist answers some questions from the masses
The first question he answered -- about Google's energy strategy -- came from a familiar source
It may be impossible to watch the universe forever
The US needs a new public-diplomacy strategy
But it sounds like most of the people in power want to go in the wrong direction, focusing on public diplomacy as an advertising strategy rather than as a way of telling the truth and letting people see the value of our way of life
What's the new NYC taxi going to look like?
Nobody knows quite yet -- but given new requirements, like the one that will force all taxis in Gotham to be hybrids by 2012, there's lots of room for improvement
Who looks to the future today?
A small selection of promotional artworks from the 1960s on behalf of US Steel serves to highlight just how much effort was once put into selling the future as a concept of goodness in its own right -- and to highlight how little of that is done today. Life is many times better today than in the 1960s -- so why isn't anyone telling us just how wonderful the 2040s are going to be?
Student government at New Jersey university cuts off funding for student newspaper
The incident came about because the paper hired an attorney to look into the student government's use of closed-door meetings. The incident goes to reinforce a couple of long-standing observations: First, independence comes from ownership. Second, it doesn't take a lot of money or a lot of power to turn people with power into small-scale totalitarians in their own right. Related: Media impressions still matter, a lot. Rants on the radio appear to have worsened ethnic conflict in Kenya lately.
It's possible to win by too wide a margin
Vladimir Putin's hand-picked nominee to become the next president of Russia is hoping to get enough votes to win (which he almost certainly will), but if he wins by too much, it'll certainly look suspicious
