Brian Gongol Show on WHO Radio - September 26, 2010
North Korea's Communist dictator, who got the job when his father died and passed it on to him, is planning to pass the same job to his own son, pretty much demolishing any reasonable argument that Communism is "democratic" or "people-friendly".
As long as you're not inclined to vertigo, you should see the video of a climb to the top of a radio tower:
Yikes. With all due respect to the engineers who do climb to the tops of these structures, this is the kind of job for which I hope we will soon have robots doing the dangerous work instead of people.
An Iowa City bar owner is arguing that a new city regulation keeping 19- and 20-year-olds out of bars is just putting them at greater risk for things like assault and alcohol poisoning, and I think he's right. Keeping them out of bars doesn't keep them from drinking -- it just pushes that drinking into more dangerous locations, like unregulated house parties. Obviously, he has a vested interest in getting as many people into his bars as possible (if only to collect a cover charge), but I think this is a case where good public policy crosses over well with someone's individual self-interest.
We only got a brief period of time to talk about Nokia's efforts to regain a lot of lost ground in the cell-phone market, but it's a worthwile study in how hard it is for businesses in certain sectors to maintain any kind of lead. Most people change their cell phones every two years -- that makes it pretty hard for the manufacturers to hang on to any kind of consumer loyalty. Just five years ago, Nokia had a 34% market share. Not anymore.