Media Watch

While Dan Adams is out of town, Mix 100 FM's Dee James joins us for another fun and exciting Wise Guys show this week. On the show, we'll have Phil Parks, author of " Beat the Car Dealer, Beat the Car Game ".  He'll tell us how to find out if a used car had its oil changed regularly, or whether there's Bondo under the paint. Jeff Green with Click's Cyber Bar & Grill , the Des Moines metro's newest Wi-Fi cyber-cafe, will be here at noon. The Helpline, as usual, is at 1pm. Got any show ideas?  Send 'em in: Danny@RadioWiseGuys.com .  Got a Mac question?  Ask Dan, the Mac Man: Dan@RadioWiseGuys.com . See ya Saturday!

On the next Wise Guys, we'll have Office of Drug Control Policy Director, Marv Van Haaften, DNE Director, Ken Carter and Ms. Janet Zwick with the Iowa Department of Health, who will educate us on the negative effects of pot on our society.  We'll extol the virtues of our drug laws and the state's efforts to clean the scum off the streets. I don't do drugs. Well, not the illegal kind anyway. I've been known to crack open a Bud Light while barbecuing on the deck, but there's no law against that and I don't abuse it. Come to think of it, if pot were legal, who's to say I wouldn't light up once in a while -- and not abuse it either. Hence comes NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws). This national lobby says there's nothing fundamentally wrong with occasional and responsible marijuana use by adults and for medicinal purposes -- and they don't believe those particular kinds of uses should be against the law.

Everywhere we look, there's hostility on the airwaves and in the newspapers and on the net. The left blast the Whitehouse for hastily assembling a case for war against the former Iraqi regime and the right squabash 'dems' for their apparent distrust. In my view, both sides are full of hot air. I think citizens are, for the most part, very careful to measure the sensational words they hear and read, and are willing to drill down to the literal meaning of these contrasting statements. For instance, one story cited that a majority of Germans think the US staged the September 11 attacks. But when you get to the exact verbage, you learn that a few Germans believe it's "possible" that Americans "could have" been behind the assault on our soil. When you put it that way, you would have to either be naive or have full faith that no one in our country could possibly benefit from such action. The truth is that people everywhere do bad and nasty things.

In response to this crazy news story . This is goofy gubment at work again (see H.R 2517 ).  This kind of action will have a dramatic chilling effect on technology innovation. In my humble opinion, file sharing is a fascinating innovation and might otherwise become an important collaboration tool of our hi-tech world.  I want to be able to share my discoveries and developments with my peers so all can benefit.  Copyright laws need to fairly serve the public first, and the producers second.  Studios, networks, artists and their support organizations need to be in step with progress through technology and innovation -- and not suppress it! But this is obviously NOT about the artists. It's much more about the money-hungry associations, licensing companies, networks and studios.  The actual artists, whom 'they' claim to serve, get almost nothing for their trouble, winding up with a very small chunk of what the consumers pay for the materials. I'd like to see

The Wise Guys want to know! Who in central Iowa provides wireless access to the Internet? If you are a provider, please email us and let us know. We'll publish your contact information here. Please give us consumer pricing including setup fees. We will also take WiFi Hotspot providers and locations for use on another list. Users: How do you get your Internet? We also want to know how our listeners are getting connected to the Internet, whether you use a cable modem, DSL, ISDN, T1, dialup, wireless, or whether you only get online at work.

Richard writes: "My Dad had a stroke about two months ago and he has no short time memory. He is able to do what has to be done to live. But he owns cattle and they need to be sold. Is there anyway his wife can get anything on paper that will let here to do this or is she able to do that now. I worry about it because I have two greedy sisters, one of them takes care of cattle. I think they [might] take advantage of dad's problem and sell them for their own profit. Whatever you can tell me would be great." WHO Radio's own George Davison is an attorney and he has this general advice for our listeners in a similar situation: A conservatorship can be established to take care of the assets of the individual. The individual could grant a power of attorney to someone he trusts to act for him. A trust could be created by the individual to own and to manage his assets. The trustee would be a person named by the individual. This is a s

The WHO Radio Wise Guys returned to Taste of Des Moines with a live broadcast from the Court Avenue Bridge from 11:00 AM until 2:00 PM Saturday.  Recipe Lady Diane Roupe and Chris Lockergnome's Chris Pirillo joined us fr some fun chat about food and technology.