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50% of people living in China have cell phones, according to official figures. That could be a huge factor in the future, particularly when it comes to replacing the Communist government with something a little friendlier to human rights. Cell phones allow people to take pictures and videos, send text messages, and coordinate group activities with relative privacy. And as more cell phones get Internet access, they make it harder for the authorities to monitor and track people's online behavior. That could end up being great news for pro-freedom organizers in China, which could have revolutionary effects.

Here's a question for you -- and we'd love to get your response via text message at 515-745-7887: How would you use your cell phone to fight back against a totalitarian government?

Speaking of cell phones: The heavy use of cell phones, cradled between the shoulder and the ear, could be causing strokes among people as young as their 40s. So even if you aren't inclined to use a hands-free earpiece for the sake of safety while driving, perhaps you ought to consider doing it for your health.

We had some brief severe weather on Friday -- and it's kind of exciting to note that there were so many big outdoor events going on that Polk County Emergency Management put out a special notice to organizers about it. There's so much good stuff happening in Des Moines these days that mass outdoor events require extra attention. That's great news.

An overdue backlash may be growing in Britain against the widespread use of surveillance cameras by the police. It turns out that better streetlights are seven times more effective than video surveillance at preventing crime.

Now that Bill Gates has retired from his full-time position at Microsoft, we'll find out how much that company was based on a cult of personality and how much it was based on a long-term strategy for success. With or without him, Microsoft needs to get into other lines of business to remain strong and profitable in the long term. Software is a tough business, and the Internet seems to keep giving Microsoft black eyes. But they have tools like computing power and human brainpower that the rest of the economy could really use...and would probably pay a pretty penny to get.

What makes things funny? One researcher says it's all because the brain rewards itself for finding novel and unexpected connections and conclusions to series of events. And that makes some sense: The better your pattern-recognition skills, the more likely you (and your offspring) would be to avoid being killed by passing saber-toothed cats because you learned to recognize their tracks.

FYI: Getting shipwrecked and trying to form your own independent libertarian paradise country probably isn't going to work. It's like the Free State Project: In theory, it sounds OK, but you're really much better off trying to influence your friends and neighbors to share your point of view rather than running away and taking your toys with you.

Think people are confused now by the proliferation of toll-free telephone prefixes (800, 888, 866, and 877)? Just wait until the rules on top-level domains go crazy. The bosses in charge of these things will allow more than just .com, .org, .net, .edu, and so on -- they're going to open it up to dot-just-about-anything. As long as you're willing to pay at least $150,000 for the privilege.

Life keeps on getting better, and robots deserve some of the credit.

Send us your comments via the Internet or via text message to 515-745-7887.

A highlight of this show is available as a podcast.

If you'd like to help flooding victims here in Iowa, we encourage you to donate to the Race to Recovery. Or you can send your donations to:

Race2Recovery Fund
c/o Vantus Bank
PO Box 687
Newton, IA 50208

If you haven't gotten certified in CPR, visit the American Heart Association website to find a class near you.

Cooking grease has gone from being useless waste to becoming a profitable commodity. In fact, it's so much of a profitable commodity that San Francisco's Greasecycle program is now fighting grease theft. (Homer Simpson, by the way, was a grease-recycling pioneer.) This is a great example of how resource recovery is going to be a much bigger business in the future. Landfills are becoming like banks -- they store valuable stuff that increases in value with time. There will come a time at which someone will be able to make a profit from recovering all of the metals and other materials buried in our landfills in the form of old refrigerators and cars and other junk that has been thrown away over the decades.

It should be noted that rising gas prices are probably going to become the new "normal" -- we predicted $5 per gallon gas earlier this year, and they're just about to happen in San Francisco. We don't need to be energy independent, just not quite so energy-submissive. The recent Nigerian pipeline attacks are a good example of why. We depend too much on unstable and dangerous parts of the world for energy, which we desperately need for our economy to keep humming. The problem really isn't speculation, even though the king of Saudi Arabia and Senator Obama both think they can score points by claiming so. Speculation can't explain the persistence of the increase in prices. The problem really is that China, India, Brazil, and other parts of the world are rapidly increasing their consumption of oil, and none of the major producers are finding huge new supplies.

The part that's probably hardest for most people to understand is that consumption doesn't have to double for the price to double. The problem is that we, as consumers, don't have a lot of alternatives to petroleum. Thus, it's really hard for us to cut our consumption by 10% or 20% without making big lifestyle changes or spending a lot of money (for instance, by moving closer to our workplaces). Thus, our demand for oil is pretty inelastic -- that is, it doesn't change much unless the price changes by a whole lot. But on the supply side, it's really tough for the producers to come up with big increases in production without spending a lot of money on exploration, new pipelines, and new refineries. Thus, when the rest of the world starts using a little more, the oil producers have a hard time catching up, and the market becomes a lot like an eBay auction for a popular item as the bid window comes to a close. The price goes up and up as everybody chases the same thing.

A new report suggests that the average American is deeply in debt. We desperately need better fiscal education, pronto.

If gas prices or debt are putting the pinch on your budget, here's a list of a bunch of legitimate ways to make money online. Most of them don't require you to leave your house, so you don't have to spend any money on gas to get there.

Great news: Math can help cure leukemia. That's why Microsoft's bosses are stupid if they don't start getting into computational biology and other fields where computing power can pay huge dividends. The real progress of the future will come from harnessing the power of computers and smart people to solve big problems without a lot of wasted human effort.

And if you're into analog entertainment, Tetris ice cubes might be the thing for you.

A huge number of roads around the state have been closed due to flooding. Fortunately, improvements at Saylorville Dam mean that we may come close to the 1993 flood levels, but we don't have to worry about losing our water again. That said, you should always keep a three-day supply of fresh water in the home. Mason City, on the other hand, has lost the use of its water-treatment plant to flooding.

One of the emerging challenges of the modern era is social isolation, particularly among the elderly. Could pet-like robots be part of the answer? We might also look into using artificial intelligence to send personalized compliments by e-mail.

Universal Studios claims it has backup copies of the 50,000 movies and TV episodes destroyed in the fire the other day. It's funny to think about how much of the ephemera of the Internet today is being lost, simply because no one is really archiving it. But wait...someone is! The flashbacks might scare you. (You might try looking back at old versions of WHORadio.com, for instance.)

The Tiananmen Square massacre happened 19 years ago this week. Will it take another 19 years for the Chinese people to give the Communists the boot? We can hope not.

Why in the world would the bosses at FedEx do away with the Kinko's name? Seems ridiculous.

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