Gongol.com Archives: October 2008
Brian Gongol


October 29, 2008

Water News Clean Water Act turns 36 this month

Business and Finance Is it the economic end of the world? No.
However, some members of the majority party in Congress think that the government should completely overturn private-sector retirement savings. That might be the worst economic idea they've offered yet.

Aviation News Delta and Northwest are now one airline

Computers and the Internet Crooks use clickjacking to take over webcams

News Nebraska governor calls special legislative session to tighten "safe haven" law
He wants it to apply to infants only -- the law, which only recently went into effect, was vague enough to allow parents to leave their teenagers at hospitals without any questions, and a handful did. Overall, the question is whether there is any better way to manage these cases in which parents are willing to give up on their adolescent children. There's quite obviously a need.

Business and Finance How to save General Motors
GM and Chrysler are turning to the taxpayers for $10 billion to help carry out a merger. Really? $30 for every man, woman, and child in the country to help them carry out a merger? The automakers have gotten themselves into trouble in slow motion for at least three decades going -- getting out of trouble isn't going to be a simple matter of mergers and layoffs.

Humor and Good News If websites were people, this would be their party
(Video, with a couple of indiscreet references)

Threats and Hazards Air-travel security is really just expensive theater
We could be doing much better to provide real security, but the flaws are all too real: Weak identification checks, exceptions to rules that become routinized, and gaping holes in who gets screened in the first place. And that overlooks the huge point that security checkpoints themselves are a colossal target.

Computers and the Internet Google will ante up $125 million to digitize all the books it can find
Seems like a great bargain for them, since one would imagine obtaining specific individual rights to all of the copyright-eligible books in the world would cost a lot more than that

Business and Finance Volkswagen briefly becomes the second-most-valuable company in the world

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