Guest: Nick McGregor, energy analyst at Redmayne Bentley

Guest: Andrew Leonard, Salon.com

Takeaway contributor and "Freakonomics" author Stephen Dubner grapples with the balancing act of being a responsible parent and telling his children some cold, hard truths. Dubner wonders when is the right age — and what might be the wrong moment — for a dose of adult-strength reality.

This year, middle-class and poor consumers are being hit with a triple whammy of energy increases: gas bills, home heating fuel bills and utility bills.

Guest: Elizabeth Harris

Guest: Tara Parker-Pope, The New York Times

Wind turbines are the coolest thing around. The only problem is, with so many wind turbines, qualified recruits are hard to find. Vestas, and other wind power companies, are hiring anyone who can climb a tower.

Guest: Charles Duhigg, The New York Times

The 17th International AIDS Conference in Mexico City runs August 3 to 8, 2008. This year’s conference coincided with the startling revelation that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had underestimated new HIV cases by 40 percent.

Western journalists will be swarming Beijing later this week. Meanwhile, BBC correspondent Hugh Sykes has been on quite a different path through China.

A new CDC study finds that the annual HIV infection rate is higher than previously estimated. The country had roughly 56,300 new HIV infections in 2006 — about a 40 percent increase from the 40,000 annual estimate used for the past dozen years. What do these new numbers mean for how the community handles AIDS prevention?

Guest: Juliet Macur, The New York Times

Let the competition begin. After a month of playing hardball with Brett Favre, the Packers organization has reluctantly welcomed their superstar quarterback to compete for the starting job. But is Favre’s return what the players — and the city of Green Bay — want?

Guest: Javier Blas, Financial Times