Brian Gongol

Warren Buffett observes -- correctly -- that the debt ceiling is just a symptom, not the real problem

It's a necessary step if the amount of ethanol produced is to meet the Federal mandates requiring its use

They're attacking everything from peaches to roses

The numbers aren't particularly surprising -- 50% are on the social-networking site, and 37% can travel abroad.






Of course, the structural problems of entitlement programs are the true 800-pound gorilla in the room

There are consequences to the way China has been developing










It's going to be anything but a laughing matter if the US defaults on debt. There are those who say that people should adjust their investments in anticipation, but that's not likely to be the best move.


A punter announces his trade to the Chicago Bears with a clever reference to getting a dinner with the sausage king of Chicago (a reference to "Ferris Bueller's Day Off")


But no other tablet computers do

Skype (which just established a new deal with Facebook) is touting a "special" deal to offer videoconferencing for about $55 a year. Google is trying to attract customers to its similar service...offered for free.

An Omaha grain elevator that's been abandoned has been decorated, turning it into a giant outdoor art display.

That seems like more than we should be asking from anyone in our volunteer military service.

Firmware is the stuff that works behind the scenes to keep other programs working, but it may be susceptible (under limited circumstances) to exploitation by crooks.

The official White House channel on Twitter was used to Rickroll the public. Good to see someone has a sense of humor, but what a weird way to show it.

Google Plus should add a "Share on Twitter" link, tied to the Google URL shortener. It should automatically post the first XX characters of your Google Plus post, with a shortened link pointing to the full post over on Google Plus. It would be a little sinister and a LOT effective.

If a government debt default occurs, don't be surprised if that really rattles a few stocks. Not all would be shaken, but some would be hit quite seriously. Don't be surprised if, in turn, that creates a serious buying opportunity for an investor with a fat wallet, like Warren Buffett. The best investments happen when everyone else is in a panic.

A lot of people say a lot of impassioned -- and often angry -- things about gay marriage, particularly when they oppose the principle. Several of these signs make the counter-argument gently and with a good sense of humor.

The terrible crash involving the country's new high-speed rail system about a week ago is, inescapably, an important news story, and as the facts of the story got out, people re-told those facts. The facts, however, serve to undermine the legitimacy and trustworthiness of the government. And as people speak out -- especially on microblogging websites, where brevity begets frequency, which is the enemy of the censor -- they are expressing a natural distrust for the lies their government insists upon telling them.

A technology columnist observes that by rather radically homogenizing data on the Internet, Google may have actually been undermining the sort of value-driven branding and quality control that it may need to survive in the future of Internet searching. People have ready expectations for how much to trust what they read on Wikipedia or Snopes or LinkedIn; there is no such pre-conceived notion of how much to trust the first result delivered by a Google search.