Brian Gongol
Retiring Sen. Mike Johanns says "opposing legislation was just as important as getting bills passed"
That doesn't make him negative -- it means he was sufficiently humble about the role of government to know that sometimes saying "No" is more important than reacting to the cry of "Somebody do something!"
Lots of infrastructure needs replacement
Roads and bridges happen to be highly visible, but dams, levees, airports, the power grid, and water and sewage treatment plants all need ongoing investment, too. If we want civilization, we have to pay for it.
A look at the 1982 Thanksgiving Day fire in Minneapolis
A couple of kids started a fire that took down two downtown buildings and could have been a lot worse. Someone kept the TV news tapes from that day, too. Aside from the TV commercials (some of which show just how much better and cheaper consumer goods have gotten since the 1980s), the news coverage also gives an idea of how firefighting has improved since that time. One of the destroyed buildings had a weather beacon on top that could be seen from 15 miles away.
Leave the creative writing for the "fiction" section
Says a Washington Post reader
Natural gas is really, really cheap -- for now
And it's going to be used much more extensively in the not-so-distant future for power generation, as coal-fired power plants across America are going to be retired. So, is there a national-security justification for telling American natural-gas drillers not to ship their product overseas? Is there some kind of moral imperative to keep it here, as Charlie Munger has argued?
WHO Radio - Brian Gongol Show - February 24, 2013
Q: Is the economy doing really well, or is it stuck in low gear? A: Both. Available for listening on-demand
Some deep -- and important -- thoughts about the future of the Internet
First, it's not as robust as we might like to believe. More than a hundred countries are connected in ways that could easily be shut off by centralized powers. Second, it's turning into a militarized zone (anyone who's been paying attention to the news about China's apparent use of cyberwarfare should recognize this matter). And third, there's ever-less chance of getting the many nations of the world to agree to a set of principles about the use of the Internet that would mimic our common agreement about the use of space. All of these are bad news items.
Productivity tips from the very busy Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Mmm...sawdust-fed beef
An Iowa farmer seems to have found a way to turn sawdust into a nutritive feed for his cattle
