Brian Gongol
Show notes from the WHO Radio Wise Guys - May 3, 2008
Socialism
The new branding strategy for the Obama campaign
Russia could be the next big threat to home-heating costs
Russia's government-controlled natural-gas company already handles about a quarter of the world's natural gas -- widely used, of course, to heat homes throughout Europe and North America. But now it's spending billions of dollars to develop natural-gas resources in Africa. The goal? Probably to put a tight grip on the world's natural-gas supply, which would give it power over prices similar to what OPEC enjoys in the petroleum universe.
How much is your first officer making?
Mesaba Airlines, which serves lots of smaller markets in places like Iowa, starts its first officers (co-pilots) at $24 per hour, with a monthly guarantee of 75 hours. That's $1,800 a month, or $21,600 per year.
Eastern Iowa struggles against flooding
Your consumer spending at work
What's the Chinese government doing with the staggering amounts of cash being sent its way by consumers in other countries? Building nuclear submarines and a big semi-underground naval base at one of its southernmost locations, right next to strategic shipping lanes out of southeastern Asia. They're also talking about leasing cropland from the former Soviet republics.
How's this for a housing bubble?
The average home price in the UK has fallen by an average of $1,000 per week since the start of 2008
"Without chemical fertilizer, forget it. The game is over."
Norman Borlaug points out one more of the irrefutable connections between food and energy: We need lots of chemical fertilizers to produce food, and those fertilizers are created through the use (and sometimes the feedstocks) of energy, like petroleum. With energy prices rising around the world and causing political distress, some people are fooling themselves into believing that socialism is the answer. It certainly isn't; poverty and demotivation are the inevitable by-products of any consistent socialist regime. Meanwhile, the decision to spend $770 million on international food aid is probably good short-term politics for the United States, but it is far from the right long-term answer. What's needed is more innovation and more trade -- the only things which ever successfully put human capacity to work towards solving real problems. Much of the rise in world food prices has arrived with the onset of tremendous new demand from parts of the world that used to be much poorer. Instead of bemoaning the price rises, we should be celebrating the escape of billions of people from poverty.
One step closer to better medicine -- maybe
A $150,000 machine designed to sequence a person's genes is hitting the market, to the great delight of researchers who haven't been able to buy such equipment at anywhere close to that price before. The better we know our own genomes, the more likely we will be able to anticipate serious conditions to which we may be predisposed and to do the right things to extend our time spent living. Some think that we're getting close to "radical" extensions in life expectancy, the good of which may be subject to debate, but the desirability of which ought to be pretty obvious to anyone who has grieved the loss of a loved one.
Landing a big plane safely with no nose gear? That takes talent.
(Video)
Opponents of HR 2421 / S 1870 step up their counterattack
The paper that gets thicker when you stretch it
Illinois state government offers to buy Wrigley Field
But they say they'll do it without tax dollars. The real question is whether they can keep the Cubs there and hold off any bids to buy naming rights
Wastewater pumping efficiency and total cost of ownership
The American Way isn't just about the trappings of freedom
Essayist makes the excellent point that much of the world is starting to pick up on the virtues of free markets -- but the notion of having rebellious thoughts is still not quite as common elsewhere as it is in the USA
Lee Elia to Cubs fans: I'm still really sorry about that whole 1983 thing
25 years ago, he went on a profanity-laced tirade about Cubs fans that was so exceptional, it was worth turning into parody. Now, he says he's sorry. And on the subject of 1980's parody, some Photoshopped Atari game boxes are worth a little hilarity, too.
Always make sure you have someone on your team who has a dirty mind
And then make sure that anything potentially embarrassing gets past their filter before you release it to the public
What real efficiencies are really likely to come out of a Delta-Northwest merger?
The next big fright: Pharmaceuticals in drinking water
"Nobody in the Southeast has been paying the true price of water"
Face scanning at the airport
Tax competition is very, very real
Some residents of a village in England are so envious of some of the benefits of living in neighboring Wales that they're holding an unofficial vote to leave England and join Wales. While they're not really serious about breaking away, they are serious about making the point that they think government works better in Wales than in England. And that's an example of the value of competition among neighboring governments. It happens on the national level, the state level, the county level, and the city level -- and it's a good thing for taxpayers, since it helps ensure that they get the quality of services that they expect for what they're willing to pay. In fact, the value of tax competition alone is enough to make one skeptical of any plans for city-county mergers -- which, by their very nature, erode the quality of tax competition among neighboring communities by taking away their independent identities.
Notes from the Brian Gongol Show - April 27, 2008
How to test whether Java is working correctly
Regency Homes closes up shop
Tornado-chasing film from 1985 reveals the real value of technological change
Tornado chasers in 1985 search for pay phones, National Weather Service forecasters try to interpret fuzzy radar sweeps, and drivers get lost with oudated maps. Today's cell phones, radically-improved radar installations, and GPS navigation tools make 20 years ago seem impossibly outdated.