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Wednesday, July 18, 2012
As the world's population increases with the potential for an increase in waste with less space in which to manage it, and as rules and regulations become tighter, SWANA is poised to support its membership with the necessary education, information, and training to stay on top of solid waste trends.
"The future is coming on, whether we want it to or not," says Anne Germain.
Germain, SWANA's vice president and president elect, is chief of engineering and technology of the Delaware Solid Waste Authority. She talks about SWANA's future challenges and how the association is poised to address them.
And while it may be an urban myth, she references a story that, the person in charge wanted to shut the US Patents Office down at one time, "because there was nothing left to invent."
"It sounds like the most ridiculous thing in the world at this point, but all of us are amazed every year about something new that we've never heard of," says Germain. "Things are continuing to accelerate faster. We have to be prepared to react, accept and move on and adapt.
"Solid waste management is becoming increasingly complex and stratified," Germain adds. "We have to provide good advice and service to our members and make sure we meet their needs."
Years ago, there was very little recycling, very few waste-to-energy products, mass-burn projects, and very little composting, Germain says.
"It was all about converting from dumps to sanitary landfills and making sure we protected our groundwater," she says.
"Most of our SWANA members have protected their groundwater and the air. But in doing that, many of them have built these large landfills. People are now saying we've protected the environment in this one way, but we are putting so much material into these landfills, can we reuse it? Can we be more judicious and smart about how we manage our resources with a continuing population growth?"
SWANA is poised to help its members answer that question, says Kathy Callaghan, SWANA's associate director.
"SWANA always tries to be on the cutting edge in the industry," says Callaghan, whose duties include supporting the Executive Committee and the 70-member International Board. She also administrates SWANA's scholarship and internship programs.
Callaghan notes that rapidly changing technology is the driver for an industry that will change more quickly in ensuing years than it has over the past 50 years.
SWANA Executive Committee member Brian Tippets believes that, in the future, most landfills will have site master plans that include ecological repatriation of the property to the landscape. "SWANA already stands out as an industry leader in promoting landfill properties as ecological resources," he says, "having begun to outline how to do this in several of its eSessions and chapter conferences. In addition, SWANA's second generation of MOLO now teaches the use of native vegetation for landfill covers. As our industry changes to repatriate landfill properties to a healthier ecosystem, I expect to see less opposition to landfills and a legacy that returns more to our children and grandchildren."
SWANA's challenges going forward center on the need to maintain and grow its infrastructure within the tight constraints of the current economy, says Michelle Leonard, the Technical Divisions representative to the Executive Committee.
The Technical Divisions include collection and transfer, landfill management, landfill gas, planning and management, waste-to-energy, recycling and special waste, and communication, education, and marketing.
"Everyone likes their garbage to get picked up and go somewhere, but that costs a lot of money and it's not a sexy thing everybody likes to pay for," she says. "That's a real challenge for us.
"Another challenge is while we're looking at new things to do with waste, some of the existing laws and regulations may pose barriers to do things differently. We've collected it and landfilled it for so long. We do recycling. If we're talking about a real paradigm shift and going towards zero waste, the challenge will be to educate everyone and get everyone to accept that."
While some state and federal programs support energy conservation and technologies, "in many areas, they don't recognize solid waste energy conversion as part of those programs," Leonard says.
The paradigm shift towards zero waste entails not just looking at recyclables, but "doing everything we can to the wastestream before you dispose of the residuals," she says. "Zero waste is a real trend, so I think the energy from waste or new technologies that convert waste to some type of energy source are trends that are here to stay."
Another industry challenge going forward is that of extreme weather events, which can overwhelm a solid waste system, says Jeremy O'Brien, the director of SWANA's Applied Research Foundation.
"It's amazing to me how frequent the natural disasters are in terms of hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes," O'Brien says. "We used to not plan for those, but now we're starting to plan for them."
Financing solid waste management services also is a concern moving into the future, O'Brien says.
"That's why we're focusing on those key elements of looking at our systems from an economic development perspective, making them as efficient as possible and making sure the service is a needed service," he says. "A lot of communities pick up recyclables at the curb but also have drop-off centers for them. That's duplicative. There's an opportunity to make that system more efficient."
Increasing populations also figure heavily into future planning.
"Waste per capita in the United States is still the highest in the world, probably twice that of other countries," says John Skinner, SWANA's chief executive officer and executive director. "The volumes of waste are going to be increased and the pressures that are going to be placed on communities to manage those wastes are going to increase."
O'Brien notes that as the population changes, the amounts and types of waste change, as do the per capita rates.
"When you do waste management studies, you try to first find out how much waste is being generated and relate it to the population in the service area," says O'Brien. "If there's a large portion of the population that's not documented and is illegal, then they're all generating waste, and your per capita rates look high."
With a changing population, "we need new ways of getting the message out to the different segments of the population," O'Brien notes. "Consumer habits are changing. All of that affects the waste. We have to continue to keep on top of that."
There are watersheds and airsheds. Within the solid waste sector, there is a kind of "waste shed"—waste that moves among communities.
Skinner points out there is a large amount of interstate transport of waste from communities that generate it to communities that process and dispose of it.
Expect to see more of that.
"On a national basis, there is a fair amount of landfill capacity in the United States," he says. "The national average is around 25 years, but some locations have only five to seven years of capacity left."
It's difficult to site new facilities where political opposition is strong, Skinner notes.
"People are looking outside the community to other facilities that have the capacity to dispose of their wastes," he says.
What will tomorrow's trash look like, and how is the industry positioning itself to deal with it?
The topic of electronics continues to be on the radar, Germain notes.
"It started largely with CRT screens because of the mercury content in them, but most of the CRT screens went away as quickly as they became the center of attention, which is funny when you think about how everything accelerates so much," she says. "Now it's all about electronic goods and the turnover rate and how quickly they're disposed of."
Skinner predicts the industry will shift to a greater emphasis on resource management, energy recovery and resources from waste, with product stewardship becoming more prevalent.
Allen Lynch, manager of the North Shore Recycling Program, North Vancouver, BC, says that Canada has become a leader in Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Programs. In British Columbia (BC) alone, there are 14 industry-managed not-for-profit EPR recycling programs covering everything from electronics and beverage containers to paint and batteries. The Canada-wide Action Plan for Extended Producer Responsibility calls for all jurisdictions to regulate and implement an EPR program for packaging and printing materials by 2015. This will have a profound effect on how municipalities across Canada handle their residential solid waste. In BC, the EPR program for packaging and printed papers will take effect on May 14, 2014 and it could be the biggest change in waste disposal since the creation of the blue box. Rather than residents paying for the recycling of these products through their taxes, the companies that produced the material for sale in the first place will be picking up the tab. It will result in annual savings for BC municipalities of $60 million to $100 million. Make no mistake: EPR programs are here to stay in Canada and they will increase in the US as well. The future is here in Canada.
Extended producer responsibility and product stewardship legislation is taking place in parts of the US, too. Producers are taking responsibility for designing products that can be more easily recycled, Skinner notes.
"If that happens on a large scale, the entire structure of waste management in North America will change drastically," he adds.
While the wastestream experiences significant impacts from consumer electronics, other products are now joining the force.
"A lot of Canadian provinces have programs for many product types," says Skinner. "It's no longer just mercury-containing products or consumer electronics that have hazardous materials in them. They're also thinking about producer responsibility for recycling of packaging and printed materials."
There also will be disposal challenges related to the switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs in 2014 as incandescent lights fade away, Germain points out.
Pharmaceuticals are another wastestream challenge.
"I don't know if we as a solid waste industry are going to take the leadership role there, or how much it's going to involve additional regulation because of the limitations that are imposed on us for segregating that material out because they are controlled substances," Germain says.
The stratification of waste continues to increase, Germain says.
"There's been some compression of that with single-stream recycling versus having to separate all of the recycling out to its individual components. I think there's stratification occurring in other areas with the composting, electronic goods, and hazardous waste," she says.
Another factor that will affect the overall worldwide dynamics of how waste is managed, are efforts to control greenhouse gases and limit global warming, says Skinner.
"That's not something that's politically popular in the US today, because of the recession and the economy, but it's a real worldwide issue. Many aspects of waste management will be affected by that," he says.
"I believe there will be a significant effort to move towards more renewable sources of energy, which we're doing on a limited scale today," Skinner adds. "In the future, international events and activities may drive that to a far greater extent."
Skinner says there could be a "whole new suite of technologies" coming online.
"Today we have three basic technologies to manage wastes: landfill, incineration with combustion, and recycling—including composting," he says. "There's a series of conversion technologies that can possibly convert waste into fuels and industrial byproducts, which are receiving a lot of attention. They're new, and there's risk in their utilization. But some of these are going to work and may change the whole management suite of technologies that are available."
SWANA's role is to stay on top of that trend, ensuring members get data on how well these technologies work or don't work so they can make better decisions about their application, Skinner says.
SWANA conducted what Skinner calls an "eye-opening" workshop last year on conversion technologies that are said to produce very high-value fuels and industrial chemicals that could change the entire economics of waste management.
"If successful, these technologies could produce products that generate revenues that are five times higher than what can be obtained today," Skinner notes. "There also are additional processing costs to be able to do that so you have to look at the overall economics. The fuel and industrial chemical approach could drastically change the economics and make these products and facilities much more economically viable. It's going to happen. It's not clear which ones are going to be successful over the long term."
Lori Scozzafava, SWANA's deputy executive director, says as SWANA notices research and interest in zero waste, conversion technology, bioreactors, utilizing landfill gas as energy, waste-based technology, waste-to-energy, and mass burning technology, "our materials, webinars, and training courses all need to be incorporating that information so we have the content for our members to respond to changes in their communities."
Waste management technology in the near future will continue to focus on GPS and RFID, bar coding on cans and other such technologies that gain more leverage in customer billing that more closely reflects individual consumer participation, says Jim Warner, SWANA's president and the chief executive officer of the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority.
"The guy who puts out 2 tons versus 1 ton can be kept track of more accurately," he adds.
Other changes occurring include the type of fuel a vehicle uses. Camera technology is allowing solid waste operations to give solid waste operators a view of what's happening behind the vehicles or at the landfill.
"Compactors are becoming very sophisticated, providing data to the driver about the compaction and gradient levels of the waste they've been working on so they can more precisely manage those systems," Scozzafava says.
The increased automation in collection vehicles is going to narrow the gap on Workers' Compensation claims and help make the industry safer for workers going forward, Scozzafava points out.
"We've already seen trends toward that," she says. "The traditional way of collecting waste was by lifting very heavy cans off of the curb manually. Not only are we doing semi-automation, where we have ways to allow mechanical lifting of the cans rather than manual lifting, but we also have very sophisticated automated ways of lifting, including drivers not even having to get out of the truck and be able to reach cans at the curb."
Waste-to-energy technology is moving past the point where politicians opposed it because of a perceived air-pollution issue not well understood, Germain says, adding that the cost per ton versus taking it to the landfill was not competitive.
"But people want to look at things holistically and divert as much material away from landfills as possible to reduce, compost, go to waste energy, and now alternative conversion technologies are starting to emerge," she adds.
Germain predicts that in the next decade, there will be a full-scale tested system up and operational.
"It's just a matter of developing something," she says. "There's some maturation of the recycling and composting industry starting to occur. Single-stream recycling has started to take off across the country. There's been a focus over the last few years of reducing the toxicity of the material in our wastestream."
Warner agrees, saying waste processing going forward will focus on the next-generation of waste energy recovery and conversion technologies.
"Hopefully we'll see something come out that works and can be developed at scale," he says. "There are a lot of companies that are professing that they have it, but nobody has really established that large commercial scale alternative energy user for trash as it is off the truck. There are a lot of people trying and a lot of smart people putting money into it—it would be great for the industry if somebody could be successful at it."
Many communities are favoring a conversion route, "so hopefully something will prevail there that, if that's their choice, they can maybe begin investing public dollars into private technologies that will also recover energy," Warner adds.
The role of technology in SWANA will depend on how it's driven, Germain says.
"Technologies on the trucks were driven by regulation," she says. "Regulation forced the industry change at a quicker pace than it would have naturally. Other changes occur from a demand perspective, such as consumers' awareness and concern for the environment. With prosperity comes health and environmental concerns. Both of those things will continue to drive technology to improve."
The industry is seeing sophistication in composting plants, Germain notes.
"In Canada, there's one completely under a roof because of their weather concerns," she says. "In other areas, you're trying to accelerate composting; if you just wait for nature to take its course and doing the normal temperatures, it takes a while. How do you speed up this natural process? How do you make it more efficient without compromising the integrity of the end product?"
Germain also is impressed by what she sees in recycling.
"The technology of the single stream has gotten so much more sophisticated than it used to be," she says. "They can separate glass by color now, but there also is a demand for the end product. As market demand grows for some of these things, you'll see that technology can occur really quickly."
Technology is helping waste operations become safer, more efficient, more effective, and more accurately keep track of revenues, Leonard says.
"Efficiency and safety are very important," she says. "There are a lot of new technologies being proposed for the processing and managing of waste getting a lot of attention. It's very exciting that we're looking at other things to do with waste.
"There are beneficial uses of portions of the wastestream that previously may not have been looked at as resources but we're looking at them as resources for such things as energy," Leonard says. "In some cases, we're taking in some old technology that's been around for some time in other industries and applying them to our industry. It will remain to be seen if they work. It will remain to be seen if they are economical, but I'm excited about it because I think that's the future of our industry."
SWANA also is adopting a multimedia approach, says Leonard.
"What we do with our waste impacts our environment, our energy use, our water, and our air," Leonard says. "Some of the computer technologies, modeling, and control systems can help in looking at the multimedia interrelationships between water and air so we can make more informed decisions about what options we choose. Life cycle analysis and risk assessment are aided by a lot of these technologies where we can do simulations and model various factors."
Young professionals grew up with technology, are used to it, and expect it, Leonard says.
"I also think they're the next innovators, so they look at something we've been doing for 20 or 30 years the same way and they can think of a better way to do it because of their access to and familiarity with the technologies that may have been used in some other application. They're thinking, [ITALIC]why don't we apply it to our industry? [ITALIC]It's exciting to be able to look at some of these technologies and be able to apply them to our industry."
The technological changes taking place will require employees with a different type of skill set with computers and information management than that of today's employees, says Skinner.
When Skinner started at SWANA 15 years ago, all training was done in a classroom with print material.
"We still do quite a bit of that, but we're starting to do online training," he says. "Ten years from now, there may not be much classroom training with print material. It may all be online and through different vehicles. People might want training on their iPads and iPhones and have apps they use to obtain the information."
Virtual training also may be a common avenue.
"The new folks coming into the industry are advocates of that, and very well-versed and expecting that, so in order to be relevant to them, SWANA is going to have to deal with those types of issues," Skinner says.
The changing face of SWANA calls for translating services into other languages, Warner says.
"We've done that for our Manager of Landfill Operations [MOLO] program and in some collection training," he says. "We've heard from our membership that we need to start producing some materials in Spanish."
With more immigrants entering the United States and Canada, training those involved in the solid waste industry becomes more significant, Callaghan notes.
"It's a natural order of things that people who are looking for a way to support their families might become involved in the industry," she says.
"I also think one of the weaknesses the industry has to address is that our governments aren't always supporting us in the way we think they should be. A lot of times there are not enough funds to support the basic things we need for solid waste collection: keeping on the forefront of new developments and being able to train the people who handle our everyday situations."
Steve Viny sees SWANA increasing its role as a training institute.
"I see both private and public agencies that used to internalize it subcontracting it out to SWANA," says Viny, a former SWANA president who works in the private sector as a chief executive officer of Envision Waste Services in Cleveland, OH.
There was a time when an operation may have had an IT person on the payroll, but with computer technology changing so rapidly the IT functions are becoming outsourced, he says.
"The same is true of training," he says. "There was a time when you might have a safety manager and a staff and provide all of your training in-house. With SWANA, that is something you can outsource because much of the training you might need in our industry is provided by SWANA.
"The same is true if you have people who work for you who you want to elevate their level of education," Viny says. "You could send them to take a MOLO course and get certified. Certification is going to be mandatory at some point in every state, much like you can't be a Realtor without having a real estate license. It raises the professionalism of the industry. It keeps everyone who's been in the industry sharp, and that's something that SWANA provides."
Just as entities can look to SWANA to outsource their training rather than providing it in-house, "by the same token, I think state governments that look to have certification requirements in many cases do all of their own course material and develop their own testing. I think they're finding out now the SWANA course is the state-of-the-art course and, in many cases, they're just adopting SWANA courses."
As SWANA endeavors to give its members cutting-edge information, the organization itself has the new challenge of identifying what is cutting edge, Leonard says.
"We're entering a new era on that," she says. "This transition is just beginning for SWANA and will continue for the next few years and beyond. Initially, there was a realization step and now there is an implementation step."
The industry's demographics will be different going forward.
"A lot of our current members will be reaching retirement age. We will be seeing more younger folks entering the industry. Many of them will speak Spanish as a mother tongue, so it will be more important to provide our training courses in Spanish," Skinner says.
Younger people in the industry are bringing a different point of view, Germain says.
"They've brought a lot of changes in their approach to technology and their style of communication," she says. "They seem to prefer nonverbal communication—electronic communication takes precedence over verbal or face-to-face. At the same time, their style is dynamic and forces everybody else to change."
SWANA has instituted a young professionals group, which currently has fewer than 100 members.
"We're realizing that a lot of us are getting older and a lot of people are retiring, and we value the youth and their new ideas," says Callaghan. "They are very active and passionate. Our board members are trying to support their efforts. We realize the value they can bring to the association with respect to electronic technology is immeasurable.
"We know technology is constantly changing and there has to be a great effort to keep up with that as it affects our industry," she adds. "We won't have any problem going forward with having passionate people who really care about the industry, but keeping up with the technology is the biggest issue because it drives so many things. Having the young professional group in place and expanding will help us face a lot of the challenges we're going to have to face."
Leonard defines young professionals as people new to the industry who may have come from another industry due to a layoff.
"Another aspect of our program is trying to attract people who may be looking for a new career and getting them involved," she says. "In some cases, they are even more eager to learn about the industry and to get involved."
These employees are infusing a strong work ethic and an ability to communicate into the industry, Leonard says.
"That's opposite of the technology—the ability to sit down and have a conversation with someone and pick up the phone and talk to people," she says. "It's not that entitlement mentality, but it's working hard and being rewarded for it and the experience of being in other industries and how work in general has changed over the years."
SWANA is involved in ongoing efforts to increase its membership, Callaghan says. SWANA has five North American regions, with a director overseeing each region.
Each of SWANA's 44 chapters has its own board, and there's a chapter director who sits on SWANA's board.
"These people go back to their chapters and their communities and talk about what we're doing, how they can become involved, and how they can take care of their community in a better way," says Callaghan. "It creates a trickle-down effort."
SWANA is in the process of working with several states, such as Idaho, to develop new chapters.
"The Massachusetts chapter that's been in existence for a very long time became the Southern New England chapter, and they brought in Connecticut and Rhode Island and are trying to get more people involved in surrounding areas," says Callaghan.
"There are problems in some areas in the Western states, where they have vast areas and not a lot of people," Callaghan adds. "That's also true in Canada, so they try to bring in different areas in order to have these meetings in locations that are more convenient."
In Canada, the Atlantic Canada chapter covers New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia.
Another vast area is the Northern Lights chapter in Canada, covering Alberta, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, and Saskatchewan.
"We're trying to outreach as far as we can in as many places as we can in North America," says Callaghan. "We rely a lot on community and grassroots efforts. We start with the conference training and try to reach our way down through that."
Look for SWANA to expand geographically. Scozzafava notes that a new Caribbean chapter added last year in Puerto Rico won an award for the expansion of its membership.
"That is our first chapter outside of the northern part of North America," Skinner says. "In the past, we've had discussions with folks in Mexico, but they have not come to anything yet. That certainly would be something we think could happen over the longer term."
Expanding SWANA's geographic reach has been under discussion for some time, Callaghan says.
"Years ago, we had a visitor from a country in South America talk about how they were interested in getting involved in the industry and in the association," she says. "There are a lot of roadblocks for that kind of involvement in foreign countries. There are countries where the government is not functional and they can't seem to get ahead with basic things that affect health, like waste management. I think that's starting to change."
Callaghan notes that the Puerto Rico chapter was the first established in a long time.
"We hope we can expand into South America and other countries," she says. "We have membership all over the world. Most of them are considered at-large members because they don't have a chapter where they're located."
Warner would like to see more private sector companies come into the fold.
"Right now, a lot of our private sector members tend to be those who interface more with the public sector, whether it be equipment or people who consult," he says. "I'd like to see more of the smaller to medium independent hauler types understand more what SWANA does and that we can be of value to them."
When the association first started from a local effort in California, it was called the Governmental Refuse Collection and Disposal Association and it was entirely a public association, Callaghan says.
"It was a big struggle over the years for the board to give the private sector a role," she notes. "In fact, there was a limit as to how many private sector members could sit on the board and on the executive committee."
"For a long time, we were regarded as the landfill people and the public sector people," says Callaghan. "We've greatly expanded over the past 50 years to include the private sector, which has grown a great deal in the last few years in the industry."
When the public/private sector wall was broken down, there had been many long, heated discussions, Callaghan points out.
"It was a very touchy subject," she says. "Sometimes things are tough to change. I think the effort was worthwhile, and it will continue to expand."
That expansion of the private sector within SWANA comes as the private sector itself expands.
Callaghan notes that more private sector companies have been established in the marketplace and are becoming integrated into the industry. "There is more opportunity economically for these companies to come into existence and to thrive. I think most people who are involved in the industry realize they are playing an important role, and it's vital to our success that we have their support and involvement."
Callaghan says SWANA executives know from having Steve Viny and others like him representing the private industry on the executive committee "that there is definitely an element there that we need to nurture.
"The state governments have realized there's a definite role for them in managing their solid waste efforts," she adds. "We have to continue to expand that and keep that in the industry."
Some government operations are privatizing waste handling, and in some cases it's gone the other way where government entities that have privatized operations are bringing them back in-house, Viny says.
"I personally see that as a growing trend," he says. "The bottom line is there are only so many tons of waste that have to be managed, so it doesn't matter whether it's public sector or private sector when you look at the total bodies—it amounts to the amount of waste generated."
Viny says waste volumes are decreasing and with automation increasing, he sees a reduction in the number of workers handling waste.
"Where I think you might see an increase is going to be on the administrative side," he says. "People are really paying attention to numbers and do more with less. There was a day when you had four people on a rubbish truck and one person in the office. It's going to start to get closer to one person on the truck and four people in the office."
Communication going forward will leverage the popularity of social media, Warner says.
"Social media is infiltrating everywhere," he says. "I myself now use Twitter. A year and a half ago, I didn't know what it was."
Just as changes in the wastestream call for strategies to manage them, changes in SWANA personnel going forward are being managed by a succession strategy, Germain says.
SWANA has a large board that oversees a relatively small staff, she points out.
"There's always concern about transition," she says. "We try to make sure that the bases are covered and to ensure that, in the event of a transfer of power, we're prepared."
Looking to the political impact of local, state and federal government on solid waste management, Warner notes that while most local implementations have been set, be it mandating a collection or instituting recycling programs, on the federal level "it's very hard to get things done."
It's the state level that deserves a watchful eye in terms of where most of industry regulation will occur, Warner says. More than 25 states have implemented electronic recovery programs in the last seven years.
SWANA chapters play a significant role in that regard, Warner says.
"SWANA national does some advocacy on more EPA regulatory issues rather than laws in Congress, but the chapters are where the rubber meets the road as far as member services and advocacy," says Warner.
On the federal level, SWANA endeavors to focus on issues regarding renewable energy credits or investment tax credits, Warner says.
"Congress has been very slow to renew those when they've been sun-setting," he points out. "It's taken lobbying by the renewable energy industry to get extensions which have been short-term—maybe one to three years—and in fact some of the major ones are expired right now."
Other issues that will continue to be on SWANA's radar include the definition of renewable energy and whether waste energy gets included in any future clean energy standards, Warner says.
Germain says she believes SWANA has done a good job in the interest of the industry as political mandates emerge.
"There have been quite a number of regulations relating to renewable energy," she says. "As an industry, we want to make sure we are considered a viable renewable energy, so we've advocated for that and respond to pending regulations to ensure that. We want to responsibly manage things."
Sometimes regulators are looking only at what's on paper without the practical understanding of how something will be implemented, Germain says.
That's where SWANA's input can ensure the industry's approach or focus isn't compromised by the regulations, she adds.
As the industry advances, there's a recognition of the economic benefits of managing waste in the local economy, says O'Brien.
"I think New York City produces well over 10,000 tons a day of waste, and it costs them $100 a ton to dispose of it, so every day they send $1 million out of their economy just by disposing that waste in remote landfills," he says. "As we move forward and there's such a need for local economic development programs, people are going to take another look at waste-to-energy, zero-waste-based systems, and systems where the landfill can remain in the local economy."
O'Brien points out that five years ago in the US Supreme Court case of the United Haulers Association v. Oneida and Herkimer, the high court ruled that local governments had the right to establish regulatory control of the waste if it was managed through public sector programs.
"That goes along with the economic development impact, so not only are we realizing the benefits of managing waste locally, but we've gotten a clear indication from the Supreme Court that that's a proper role for the governments," says O'Brien.
"Over the last 20 years, the trend has been to go toward regional landfills for disposal, so people are shipping the waste outside. I think there's going to be a rethinking of that whole strategy."
The emphasis on making programs more efficient and cost-effective is due to the recession and is "just good common sense to do so," says O'Brien.
"People are going to look more towards streamlining services," he adds. "In the last 20 years, we haven't paid too much attention to that. If we banned the material from disposal, we would just add another collection service. Right now in my neighborhood, I've got four collection services: mixed waste, yardwaste, recyclables, and bulky waste on demand."
The addition of more collections has local environmental impacts, such as wear and tear on the vehicles and roads, O'Brien says, adding, "We're going to relook at all of that."
With municipalities providing collection services and counties provide processing and disposal services, there sometimes isn't as much coordination as there should have been in developing those facilities, O'Brien notes.
"An efficient system requires both cities and counties to work together," he says. "You're going to see more of that as we relook at the efficiency of what we have in place now."
SWANA will continue to play a key role in fostering the guidance and development of new waste processing technologies, O'Brien notes.
"As new technologies develop, there are risks associated with them," he says. "There's a need to identify those risks and manage them in the best way possible. We're continuing to work on strengthening private/public partnerships and define the optimal roles for both the public and the private sector as new waste management. I see us actively being involved in these areas."
As Applied Research carries out its mission, "we identify the areas where SWANA can play a more active role such as in waste conversion technology, so we feature that in our conferences," O'Brien says. "The next step is to develop training sessions as we move them into the marketplace. It's a progression, and I see applied research as part of that progression."
The image of the industry is changing, even down to name changes for solid waste facilities.
Case in point is that of a site in Broward County, FL, owned by Waste Management. Once known as "Mount Trashmore," the site is now called the Monarch Hill Renewable Energy Park.
"They didn't just change the name of the facility—they also changed the entire focus of their operation," Skinner says. "I've seen landfills producing photovoltaic energy, which they tie into the energy they get from burning the landfill gas as a fuel. In some cases, I've seen wind turbines put on a landfill if the wind situation is right, and the solid waste management facility becomes a miniature environmental energy facility, which is a very significant change in philosophy from the past. You're going to see more and more of that."
Expect to see more positive marketing of the industry, Skinner says, noting that Waste Management presents its environmental accomplishments on its truck signage and also took out ads during the Super Bowl.
"That's the first time a solid waste company has tried to present itself nationwide as an environmental service company that produces renewable energy and good services across the economy," he says. "That helps everybody in the industry."
Efforts to improve the image of the industry are widespread, Skinner says.
"The trade association that represents the private sector—the National Solid Wastes Management Association—has a program called 'Environmentalists Every Day.' They try to present all of the positive environmental actions people in the solid waste field do on a day-to-day basis, and that works to change the perception of the industry as well."
In many ways, given the rapidity with which technology and the population is changing, it's difficult to tell what the future will bring, Skinner says.
"The way we're moving into all of the new communication and electronic technologies certainly will change the organization, but what it will look like 10 years from now is very difficult to predict," he says.
It is the goal of SWANA to continue to offer value, Warner says.
"People typically have a limited amount of dollars for what type of associations they're going to participate in," he says. "SWANA continues to be about two-thirds public and one-third private. Oftentimes, the public members have much more limited options on association-type fees. We want to continue to offer tremendous value for that annual fee. They're not only getting service on the chapter level, but getting viable options for additional training, education, and improvement opportunities on the national level.
"We have to make sure we're able to continue to offer a valuable product to people in the industry and change as the industry is changing. I think we've done a really good job of it as issues come and go. We will refocus to the new issue where people want more educational opportunities."
SWANA will have to be extremely responsive to challenges going forward, including technical developments and globalization, Germain says.
"As an industry, we don't control what comes to us. We are the recipients of whatever the waste happens to be," Germain says. "SWANA can prepare and work with the regulators to predict and project what's going to happen in the future and educate, inform and allow the communication to occur.
"As these things come along, you don't know what you're going to get, but when you attend these educational sessions—whether they're online or in person—you find out what the trends are in the future," says Germain. "You find out conversion technologies are coming, so we're going to have to learn about what they mean. These are huge investments, and you don't want to just start diving into them."
"One of the things we've been talking about over the last couple of years is that all of these conversion technology folks are directly approaching the elected officials rather than approaching the engineering staff," Germain says, adding that SWANA is taking an approach to ensure everyone understands this is happening.
"It just doesn't come down from SWANA but as a conglomeration of massive information we all have access to by consulting with each other and consulting as a whole," Germain says. "It's about education, communication, and being able to predict and protect what's coming down."
SWANA continues to be a very important and very viable organization for the industry, says Leonard.
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text:
- February 17, 2013
- 1:49 p.m.
- Suggest removal
- Reply to this post
AbeFrohman writes:
You can dish it out but can't take it. Some people can't take the heat of public office and need a straw man (like the media) to be the boogeyman. What a bunch of little babies. You know what they say about tea parties; they are for little girls and their imaginary friends. No wonder you cant win a national election.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Four blogs ago I wrote about Seminole election chief Mike Ertel outsourcing the voter information hotline to United Way. Instead of hiring citizens to man the phones (as has always been the case), Mike gave $20,000 to the United Way to let them handle it. With our primary right around the corner, I complained that no one called when I picked up. The Sentinel decided to try as well. This is what they said in today's paper:
" A quick test last week produced the following: The hold time was seven minutes, and the operator could not answer a relatively simple question about early voting. In the end, the operator recommended calling 407-708-7000--the elections supervisor's office." (Orlando Sentinel, 8/20/06)
(Full Story)
So, $20,000 just to be told to call the elections supervisor's office for voter information.
Thanks, Mike.


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- Skycastles Condominiums is situated on 4 1/2 acres of beautifully manicured grounds with lush tropical greenery on the hillside above the town of Ocho Rios. Its stunning location affords superb panoramic views of the bay with its beautiful white sand beach and busy harbour and marina. Consisting of 10 blocks of attractively designed condominiums, the resort offers accommodation in comfortable studios and one and three bedroom apartments. The resort is designed in a European style, which is particularly geared towards family and couples. Each apartment is conveniently furnished with a kitchenette, cable TV, air-conditioning and a private balcony, some with a stunning view of the ocean. Each block has its own rooftop gazebo accessible to all guests. There is a large fresh water pool on site. Airport transfers available at a cost. There are also car rentals, tours, and taxis available nearby. Please note, the front desk as well as housekeeping services are run from 9am-5pm. Every additional person will be charged USD 26.00 per night.
Ask a local about Skycastles Condominiums
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Perfect location to experience true Jamaica - people, food, beaches, ocean and sun
Welcome to Ochee, the very true and unique experience, if you're not planning to get bored on city beach! Walk around, meet people, try food, go nightclubs, hire a cab, get into...
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- posted on 04.25.12
- by Eugene S
Disappointed. Remove the "luxury" off the sign.
I am not sure what the financial situation is with Sky Castles is at this time. This once immaculate complex looks rundown and unmaintained. The pool looked as if it had been unused...
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- posted on 01.14.12
- by mbjiswheremyheartis


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October 17, 2011
Edward Lewis AztecSportsReport.com
SDSU senior Logan Ketchum has played two different positions the last three games, and might move back to linebacker next week. ...More... To continue reading this article you must be a member. Sign Up Now for a FREE Trial
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text:
- February 15, 2011
- 9:48 p.m.
- Suggest removal
- Reply to this post
Shorebreak writes:
It's money and position Bruce. If you run the NFL and can make the decision who sings the national anthem, then just pick who you want.
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Discipline - Banking
Subsector - Financial Planning
Location - Chennai
About our Client - Our client is a major global financial services provider engaged in retail banking, credit cards, corporate and investment banking with an extensive international presence in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. With over 125,000 employees spread across 40+ countries they lend, invest and protect money for over 40 million customers across the globe. The Sales Finance team has been set up to focus on developing business partnership with global Distribution Sales teams. The function is responsible for building and supporting the business' reporting needs as well as ad hoc MIS requests within each region.
Job Description - The Job Involves:
- Leading the regional Report Production team.
- Ensuring validity and data integrity of Sales Credits captured and reported in the front office system
- Ensuring that appropriate controls are in place to support robust, accurate and timely delivery of reporting.
- Initiating/Implementing best practices on report design, consistency and presentation, whilst continually pursuing process efficiencies through automation and efficient/effective peer review.
- Building a network across the value chain to explore opportunities for tightening the control environment and enhancing reporting capabilities
- Establishing a collaborative and effective relationship with the Sales Finance (Client-Face) lead and Providing them regular report production support
- Embedding a strong engagement model with the regional Head of Sales Finance
- Helping to develop new metrics and reporting standards to meet the changing needs of the business
- Participating in various infrastructure initiatives together with the client facer in designing and testing system enhancements
The Successful Candidate - You will hold a Masters Degree from a reputed Institute and have 7+ years of experience in the Sales Finance Reporting area of the Finance / Banking space. Some Accounting Qualification is preferred. You will have advanced Excel skills, proficient in designing innovative solutions and sophisticated report presentation skills. You will have a track record of leading a small to medium sized team (including coaching and performance management) You will have strong stakeholder management skills and in depth knowledge of capital markets. You will be a confident and articulate self-starter with the ability to cope with the demands of working with tight deadlines. You will additionally be a team player with a high level of commitment and enthusiasm, who is able to liaise with Sales Managers and Business managers alike. Strong Communication skill is a must.
What's on Offer - An Opportunity to be a leader in an environment that promises phenomenal future growth. Additionally, a chance to be involved in the set up, policy formulation and growth stages of a nascent team in a globally reputed brand.
To Apply - Click here to apply


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Notorious bike thief jailed after catalogue of offences (From The Advertiser Series)
Send us your pictures, video, news and views by texting NORTHERN ECHO to 80360 or email us
Notorious Darlington bike thief jailed after catalogue of offences
5:37pm Monday 29th October 2012 in News By Hannah Bryan, Reporter (Darlington)
A NOTORIOUS thief who once claimed an anti-social behaviour order (Asbo) helped him turn his life around was today (October 29) locked up after stealing more than £30,000 worth of property.
Shane Preston was locked away for two-and-a-half years after confessing to two burglaries in Darlington earlier this year.
At court today (October 29) the 22-year-old asked for eight more offences to be taken into account when he was sentenced, which totalled £34,000 of stolen property.
Teesside Crown Court heard Preston stole four bikes worth £7,000 from a garage on Clare Avenue, in Darlington, after using a still saw to cut through the heavy duty chain they were secured with on Monday, September 17.
After he was arrested at his mother's house, Preston then went on to show police another garage on Brinkburn Road, which he had also broken into and stolen £8,700 worth of bikes.
In a victim impact statement, Nigel Potter, of Clare Avenue, said his son, Christopher, had come home early to take his bike out.
He said: "When I saw how he reacted it was particularly heart wrenching. It meant the world to him to race his bike."
Prosecutor David Wood said there was a significant degree of planning and organisation to the incident, as Preston had heard about the bikes and had obtained a still saw specifically to cut through the chain.
Paul Abrahams, mitigating, said: "He is not likely to get employment. He goes back to Darlington where everybody knows him as Shane Preston who steals bikes and gets back into crack cocaine.
"He knows bikes, he knows the value doesn't make a great deal of money but he gets his drugs. How he is going to break that chain I do not know."
Judge Peter Bowers: "It is clear from the victim impact statement that these were families that were affected. You are well equipped to remove all sorts of safety precautions which people take."
After the sentence was passed, a woman in the public gallery shouted to him "oh, not bad", to which Preston gave a thumbs up.
In 2004, he achieved notoriety when he was given Britain's toughest Asbo aged 14, which banned him from entering the Skerne Park Estate.
Despite claiming the Asbo had turned his life around, he was later jailed in 2010 for 13 months after holding a knife to his partner's throat.
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- Developer: Tap Pocket
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- Genre: Miscellaneous Edutainment
- Release Date: Aug 4, 2012
- ESRB: Not Set
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text:
Fuel Duty regulator
The absence of detail - from either the Tories or the SNP - makes it hard to judge the effect of the policy, but the claim by George Osbourne, Shadow Chancellor
If the system had been introduced in the 2008 Budget, fuel would currently be 5p cheaper.Gives you some idea of the utter modesty of the proposal.
Perhaps Mr Allan or Mr MacNeil would let us know how much their proposals would save? Although I suspect they are mouthing a policy they do not understand and which is desperately in search of an intellectual and economic foundation. Otherwise Alex Salmond (former economist) would surely be explaining exactly how it would work.
As previosuly mentioned, the impact on duty claims by fishermen and bus operators would be horrendous. But leave that aside for the moment.
But there is another side to this policy.
If fuel duty falls when the oil price is above a certain point (so as to give the same yield to the Treasury), then perhaps Mr Allan or Mr MacNeil - or even Mr Osbourne - could enlighten us as to what that base yield is to be. Just what is the starting point?
Let us just say it is £1 per litre and whatever yield that gives.
So what happens if petrol prices fall below that point?
Why pump prices don't go down very quickly, as the deadening effect of the regulator preserves the yield to the Treasury by keeping prices artificially higher. Ooops. This might explain why the specifics are slow in being forthcoming.
The real issue is - of course- dependency on oil. As in the 1970's a price shock should be causing us to fundamentally review how and why we are dependent on fossil fuels which have a limited lifespan.
Pandering to the every whim of the electorate in the short-term leads to long-term problems. Whether that is in dealing with education in the Western Isles or ignoring energy issues, the blame lies fully with the politicians who are more interested in protecting their job and benefits than in doing what is best for the communities they represent.


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Audio |
Jane D'Arista is a research associate with the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she also co-founded an Economists� Committee for Financial Reform called SAFER, i.e. stable, accountable, efficient & fair reform (http://www.peri.umass.edu/safer/). She is also a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute. Jane served as a staff economist for the Banking and Commerce Committees of the U.S. House of Representatives, as a principal analyst in the international division of the Congressional Budget Office. Representing Americans for Financial Reform, Jane has currently given Congressional testimony at financial services hearings. Jane has lectured at the Boston University School of Law, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the University of Utah and the New School University and writes and lectures internationally. Her publications include The Evolution of U.S. Finance a two-volume history of U.S. monetary policy and financial regulation.
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay, coming today from Lyme, Connecticut. On November 7, the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, issued a statement calling for the reintroduction of some form of gold standard to establish the value of money. Why now? Now helping us to unravel all of this is Jane D'Arista. She used to be a congressional staffer working for the House Banking Committee. She's now the coordinator of the SAFER project at the PERI institute, which is a group of economists working to come up with financial reform proposals. And she's also the author of this book, The Evolution of US Finance. Volume 1 was a history of the Fed. Thanks for joining us.JANE D'ARISTA, POLITICAL ECONOMY RESEARCH INSTITUTE: My pleasure. Thank you.JAY: Is Robert Zoellick's proposal grasping at straws?D'ARISTA: Well, what you're saying is quite right. The gold standard or gold exchange standard under Bretton Woods was one in which the dollar was backed by gold and the US government offered to sell so many ounces of gold for so many dollars. It got to the point where the amount of US dollars held outside the United States by other people, foreigners, if you will, was so much greater than the gold supply in the US that President Nixon closed the gold window and said, we can't do it anymore, we don't have enough gold.JAY: Now, what do we make of that decision? In whose interest was that decision?D'ARISTA: It was considered to be an inevitability, on the one hand, but on the other hand, it had been thepeople like Milton Friedman had been pushing for it all along and saying, well, let the market determine the price of the dollar, and therefore go to a fiat system where that market price depended, as you point out, on the value of assets. So, eventually, after some attempts to raise the valueto lower the value of the dollar in relation to gold, by 1973 we were on a floating standard and gold was not backing the dollar.JAY: Is the underlying problem here sort of more profound than what they're talking about? In other words, is the underlying problem that so much of capital is parasitical, so much of capital is actually not being invested in a productive process? It's being either used for speculation or as part of these derivative gambling schemes. And you've described them as Ponzi schemes, that when you have so much of the global capital not involved in the productive process, you wind up creating bubbles that burst, bubbles that burst, and in the end, like we are now with American real estate and other parts of the US economyand not only the US economynobody knows what a house is worth. In fact, nobody knows really what anything's worth, 'cause if the truth of the bank ledgers was known, the whole system wouldlike, talk about hair on fire.D'ARISTA: Would collapse. Yes, exactly so. That is really very true. Theit is a parasitical system in the senseand, of course, I mean, we areor going into the G-20 meetings, the United States is pretending to an innocence that they should not pretend to. The world knows exactly what's going on. When the Federal Reserve'sgoes into the quantitative easing 2 that they're going to do, they're going to increase global liquidity. Everybody knows that the US banks.JAY: Okay. Just one more time, quickly explain what the Fed's going to be doing here.D'ARISTA: The Fed is going to go and buy a great many assets, $600 billion worth of long-term assets, in the hopes of removing them from the system so that.JAY: From the banking system.D'ARISTA: Yes, or from thenot only from banks, but fromin any kind of financial institutioninsurance companies, mutual funds, whatever.JAY: Anyone holding Treasury bonds.D'ARISTA: Anyone holding treasuries. Right. Companies, the treasuries of GE or whatever. And that's going to put money in their hands to do something with. Now, what we know is the banks are not doing anything productive with it. At the same time that the Fed goes off and buys these government securities, takes them out of the market, and increases liquidity by that fashion. I mean, if I've taken your security and I've given you money, you need to buy something else. So the idea here is you're going to buy something else that's going to gin up the economy. It's a very nice idea but, it is not working in practice.JAY: 'Cause what they're doing is a lot of the banks and corporations are going to take the cash and just take it to Brazil and earn more of a spread on the interest.D'ARISTA: Precisely. What they're going to use it for is exactly as you say, for the carry trade. In other words, they're going to takethey're going to be able to borrow short-term funds at a very low interest rate and invest in longer-term funds or higher-yielding (in terms of interest rate) assets in Brazil, Indonesia, etc.JAY: Which will cause an inflation in these other countries, and supposedly make their goods more expensive, in theory.D'ARISTA: Right. It willwhat it will cause in these other countries is a rise in the value of their currencies, because those dollars are sold to buy the currencies of the countries in which they're going to invest. That depresses the dollar when they're sold. That raises the rupee or whatever the currency may be that they're buying. And in the process of raising the value of the currency of a given emerging-market economy, you make them uncompetitivenow their goods cost more.JAY: So it's partly what Zoellick's trying to deal with is the world saying, well, if you, America, can snap your fingers and just create $600 billion of new liquidity, then what's the dollar? Then what is this whole currency system worth? And then he says, oh, okay, now we need to talk about gold. So what's wrong with that idea of going back to some kind of a gold standard?D'ARISTA: Well, it is not wrong that he's raising the alarm. Many people are. But he's not sophisticated enough in these areas to understand that gold will not work, that gold is produced primarily by two countries, Russia and South Africa. There's not going to be enough. How are you going to evaluate who's going to hold it? There are so many questions. You know, is it going to be held by the public sector? Or is it going to be the private sector, in which case it's back to speculation?JAY: Well, right now it is mostly.D'ARISTA: Which we have. Yeah, right.JAY: There's tremendous speculation in gold now.D'ARISTA: Exactly. So if you want to do a commodity, I have colleagues who promote the ideas of Nicholas Kaldor, who was a British economist and who wrote very presciently in 1970 that when we went to the fiat dollar standard, that we would be taking a nation of entrepreneurs, i.e. the US, and making us a nation of rentiers, and that.JAY: Meaning?D'ARISTA: Meaning that we would be living off other people. And that we would be an empire like the Roman, featuring bread and circuses to our people. Now, that appeared in The London Times in September of 1971. It was amazing. You could have written it every year since and it would have been true.JAY: Is there a model that anyone's proposed that takes the valuation of currency out of the world of speculation, in other word, links the amount of money supply and the value of money to how much actually gets produced?D'ARISTA: Well, theoretically, yes. At the international level you would have to take the private financial system out of the game. That is exactly what Keynes proposed.JAY: I mean, is there any real solution short of that?D'ARISTA: No.JAY: So what would that look like?D'ARISTA: Well, the Keynes proposal, which many people still favor, is a central bank, if you will, at the international level, in which the deficit countries could borrow, everybody puts something in the pot, and deficit countries can borrow, and surplus countries put in their surplus, and everybody pays interest, whether you're surplus or deficit. And the idea is the Keynes idea that was proposed would only work if there are capital controls. In other words, you don't have this free flow of capital.JAY: That's really the key, is it not?D'ARISTA: That's the key.JAY: I mean, as longessentially it all comes back to curbing the power of the finance sector and reducing the amount of capital involved in this parasitical part of the economy.D'ARISTA: Exactly.JAY: Which means an assertion of public interest through some kind of law, international and domestic.D'ARISTA: Yes, yes, with the mantra that came in in the Nixon administration and right on through the '70s and '80s of the free market, backed constantly with all that money that flowed into the Heritage Foundation and others, that the main message there was let the market decide.JAY: And the market seems to be deciding to crash the market, which peoplewhich they know how to make money out of, too.D'ARISTA: Yes.JAY: Thanks very much for joining us.D'ARISTA: Thank you.JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.End of Transcript
DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.


text: Hubert Hung-Hsien Chang wrote: > > For the gadget parts, even nokia fails. And forget about Ericsson > and Motorola which has no i-mode phone so far. Nokia has about 1% market share in Japan with Nokia's imode phone. Ericsson does sell an imode phone. I do not know Ericsson's handset market share in Japan, but my guess is that it's very far below 1%. But I do know some Japanese people who own ER209i's, so Ericsson's market share is not zero. You can compare screen shots of Nokia's European made imode-phone with the most popular imode-phone model here and see for yourself: http://www.eurotechnology.com/imode/faq-gen.html You can find a table of all current imode phones here: http://www.eurotechnology.com/imode/faq-handsets.html Gerhard Fasol Eurotechnology Japan K. K. http://www.eurotechnology.com/ [ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]Received on Sun Feb 18 03:40:38 2001


text:
Posts Tagged Race & Politics
Are you a coward? Am I?
Posted by elderj in Uncategorized on February 20, 2009
The Attorney General of the United States apparently thinks so.
After having elected a bi-racial president of the United States, had two supreme court justices who are Black, two Black Secretary's of State, we apparently are not doing enough, or are simply cowards. Because we are largely segregated in our social life and church life, we are therefore cowards.
The issue of race seems to never go away and even as I think through the intersection of faith and life, I am also very aware of how race is often used as a bludgeon to end rather than begin conversation.
Americans are cowards about race, Attorney General Eric Holder, Black Church, church, race, Race & Politics, racism
Brief Reflections on an Historic Election
Posted by elderj in Uncategorized on November 5, 2008
Today is Election Day and I am NOT watching the returns on TV. I cast my vote during early voting and am just waiting to find out who will take the job of president for the next four years, barring any unforeseen circumstances. I am however grateful that this long election cycle has come to an end.
I have ling been an avid follower of politics and this year has been no exception. I have always voted and consider myself well informed as to the issues. I am also interested in the political game itself, and have some personal reflections on things that have happened this cycle which are somewhat disturbing to me as a believer.
Race – It must be said that racial politics have loomed exceedingly large in this election. Many people are intrigued by Obama's campaign and the symbolic nature of electing a Black man (really bi-racial) to the White House. It seems to me though that he and his campaign have brought this issue up (along with the media) far more than his opponents, which may complicate race relations going forward. Electing a Black man as president does not magically address issues of economic disparity among the Black populace in this country.
Gender – I have for the first time in my Black life had my eyes opened to the prevalence of gender discrimination and bias on a wide scale. First against Hillary Clinton I watched and heard people disparage her campaign for reasons only tangentially related to politics, and then in more personal contexts, I have seen people justify a vote for Obama on the "issues" when he and Sen. Clinton have similar policy platforms. Some of these same people are choking over the prospect of Gov. Palin being VP due to a perceived lack of "experience" though Obama has less experience than she does. This is alongside all kinds of other slights, insults, subtle put downs and blatant stereotyping that has gone largely unreported and un-commented on by the media.
Media – the American media is the vaunted fourth branch of government and is supposed to present information so that American voters can make informed decisions about candidates. This year, people on many sides of the political spectrum and independent analysis has demonstrated a blatant disregard for journalistic integrity from the major media outlets. Gotcha journalism has replaced investigation and politicians are permitted to make randomly erroneous statements without the least challenge from the media. It was clear in 2000 and even more clear today that media are not interested in effective journalism, but in what will sell and in promoting their own biases and narratives as "fact" to the American public. This is a danger to our democracy as we are dependent upon an independent and objective media in order to effectively participate in our political system.
Finally I can say that I am fairly disappointed overall. The election season that was supposed to be above the usual political fray has been the most divisive in my memory. Irresponsible charges of racism, unreported instances of misogyny, electoral and voter fraud, sexist and racist paraphernalia have proliferated and I do not believe this will be easily mended, though I think it could have if:
– both candidates had stuck to their commitment to receive public financing, thereby reducing the role of money and the appearance of "buying" the election
- both campaigns early and often condemned and restrained irresponsible race baiting and sexism
- both campaigns gave full disclosure to their histories and associations rather than lying or seeking to explain away uncomfortable facts.
- the media recognized and reported on the reality that the election will be historic no matter who wins; it is a HUGE deal that a woman could be VP, but that has been consistently downplayed.
Barack Obama, Christian view of politics, Culture, election, Election 2008, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Politics, Presidential election, Race & Politics, racism, Sarah Palin, Sexism, Society
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A few weeks back I posted a blog detailing a new feature which allows you to block abusive members from your projects. I'm happy to report that it is NOT being used very much, and where it is being used, it is working.
However, I did fail to include another important feature. I had meant to add the ability for a project owner to delete comments posted to tracks on his/her projects -- I forgot.
I noticed today that a member (who has since been inactivated) had posted dispariaging remarks on all tracks of a certain project. The project owner, after noticing the comments, blocked the member, but he had no way to remove the abusive comments. I removed them, then quickly impleted the "delete comment" feature. As of today, project owners can now delete comments posted to their projects.
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Bits of Stone for June 3, 2012
Roberts remembered on cover of national Model Railroader magazine
Many local residents know Charlie and Mary Gene Roberts, their daughter Dawn (Mrs. Robert) Bailes and remember their son, Kent, who lost a valiant battle to cancer in December 2009 at age 52.
Kent's model railroad layout is featured on the cover and in the centerfold story with seven pages of color photographs of the June issue of Model Railroader magazine. The publication is available at local stores.
A 28-by-32-foot HO scale model railroad layout, conceived and begun by Kent at his new home near Asheville, N.C., in 1997, was his third attempt at achieving his goal of a balanced operational layout.
Kent named his layout the Tennessee, Carolina & Coast but his inspiration came from the Tennessee Central, a 286-mile Class I railroad that ran east-west through the center of Tennessee and into Western Kentucky. The Tennessee Central went out of business in 1968 but some of its 80-year history is preserved at the Tennessee Central Railroad Museum in Nashville. Its slogan was "The Route of Personal Service."
He established the layout by giving it a purpose. It represents a bridge route handling through traffic from Georgia and Alabama bound for the Carolina coast. The scene is set in East Tennessee between the years of 1968 and 1972.
Even non-railroad readers will enjoy sharing in the thought involved in building a layout with a specific purpose. Though we may not realize it, there are numerous model railroaders in Blount County. Kent got his start at age 4!
Kent picked a guitar and played in the Lamar Alexander campaign band in 1982 about the time he and Linda Courtney of Knoxville were wed. They have two sons, Will, 22, and Wesley, 20.
Though retired, Charlie is remembered as an outstanding basketball player at Walland High and Maryville College and as a referee in many athletic contests. Mary Gene is a retired dietician who was a close friend of my late sister, Margaret, also a dietician.
Not many of us realize the thought and planning which goes into a realistic model railroad layout. As a youngster, I had the interest but not the money. My son, Neal, has been more active but with six sons there's not much time available. But there are people like Mike Davis who have outstanding layouts.
We wanted to share this national recognition of Kent with readers.
Postage stamps with state greetings offered on silver
The U.S. Postal Service has commissioned an interesting offering of reproduction of a 2002 (37-cent) postage stamp greeting from each of the 50 states, in full color on a base of .999 pure silver. The series resembled a post card greeting from each state.
We were told the silver ingot on each stamp weighs half an ounce which we figured by market prices today is worth about $15. Each of the collector stamps sells for $100 including printed materials and a collector's wooden chest. Thus the 50 stamps on silver will cost about $5,000 per set, mailed at two stamps per month.
Joining in the enthusiasm of collecting gold and silver, the Postal Service is allowing the Hallmark Group to market 17,500 reproductions of those 50 stamps on silver for sale in a Greetings from America Collection at $99.50 per state. If Hallmark sells all 17,500 that should gross in excess of $85 million. We hope they sell and the Postal Service gets a good share of the profits.
The first 50 -state sheet of stamps was issued in 1976 for America's bicentennial and showed each state's flag. The second was in 1982 and featured the state birds and flowers; the third was the 1987 North American Wildlife stamps, fourth was the 1992 Wildflower stamps and the fifth was the 2002 for the Greetings from America issue. That series resembled a post card greeting from each state and was issued when stamps were 37 cents.
For more information, call 1 (800) 871-7578.
1900 To 2011 pictures changing times
The August 2112 issue of American History magazine lists some interesting changes in photography.
In 1900, the first year of production, Kodak's fixed-focus Brownie cameras were popular with 250,000 being sold.
In 1960, a total of 2.2 billion photographs was taken, more than half of them of babies.
In 2000, Americans bought 1 billion rolls of film.
Kodak's biggest foray into digital cameras since its initial 1888 fixed-focus point-and-shoot film camera occurred in 1975. That year Kodak produced an unsatisfactory crude prototype, eight-pound, toaster-size device. Fifteen years later the first commercially available digital camera, the Dycam Model 1, became available.
Soon after, Kodak produced its own line of digital cameras but misjudged how quickly consumers would abandon film, its bread and butter for 124 years. The company filed for bankruptcy in January.
In 2011, an estimated 80 billion digital photographs were make in the U.S. Of that number, 30 billion were taken with cell phones. Today, 250 million pictures are posted daily on Facebook.
Summary of world's largest remains listed in Smithsonian Magazine
As a guideline, the Smithsonian magazine details the world's largest remains found:
• Herbivorous dinosaur — Estimated at 100 feet long, weighing more than 73 tons and may have been even longer, stretching to 130 to 200 feet in length.
• Predatory dinosaur — A sail-backed animal 41 to 59 feet long.
• Flying bird — Roughly 6 million years old, it had a wing span of 23 feet. How a bird so large took off is a matter of debate but once aloft it was primarily a glider like vultures and condors.
• Frog — Found in a 70-million-year-old rock in Madagascar, it measured about 16 inches long and may have weighed more than 10 pounds.
• Arthropod — Hundreds of millions of years ago the earth was overrun with oversize arthropods which included spiders, scorpions, crabs, centipedes and barnacles. The biggest of all may have been a sea scorpion that may have been more than eight feet long. The 300 million-year-old bug has no modern equivalent.
Land mammal — Today's blue whales are the biggest mammals ever. On land, mammals topped out about 37 to 23 million years ago in a group of hornless rhinoceros which looked like a rhino impersonating a giraffe. About 18 feet high at the shoulder, the hoofed animal could stretch its head 25 feet high.
Shark — Largest of these predatory fish swam 28 to 15 million years ago. A distant cousin of the great white shark, its size is calculated on its seven-inch teeth. Estimated to be 50 to 55 feet long, recent research indicates it could bite with a force of more than 11 tons, several times that of large dinosaurs.
Crocodile — During the age of dinosaurs, about 73 to 110 million years ago, they reached about 40 feet. An ambush predator and relative of modern alligators, they ate dinosaurs.
Dean Stone is editor of The Daily Times


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Sports Network
AKRON: Rob Ianello's first year at Akron has gotten off to a rocky start, as the new head coach is winless in four tries. Akron showed improvements this past weekend, but still fell on the road against Indiana, 35-20. Patrick Nicely led the way for Akron with 175 yards and two scores through the air, while Jeremy LaFrance was on the receiving end of both touchdown tosses. Akron enjoyed plenty of success on the ground, as the team posted 160 yards. Alex Allen led the way with 80 yards, while Nate Burney tallied 62 yards on nine totes. Still searching for their first victory on the season the Zips will return home to open league play against Northern Illinois.
BALL STATE: Ball State's struggles against the Big Ten continued this past weekend, as the 18th-ranked Iowa Hawkeyes clobbered the Cardinals, 45-0. It was the 20th loss in 21 matchups against opponents from that conference. Kelly Page connected on 4-of-11 throws for 30 yards and Eric Williams carried the ball just 10 times for 21 yards for an offense that mustered just eight first downs and 112 total yards. The Cardinals will remain on the road this weekend and will open conference action against Central Michigan.
BOWLING GREEN: The Falcons were the latest victim of Michigan's dangerous ground attack, as BGSU was pounded 65-21 this past Saturday. Bowling Green, coming off a win last week against Marshall, managed just 283 total yards, including 32 on the ground. Aaron Pankratz completed 17-of-28 passes for 231 yards with a touchdown and an interception in defeat. Looking to rebound from the tough loss to Michigan, the Falcons will begin conference play this weekend at home against Buffalo.
BUFFALO: Since opening the year with a victory over Rhode Island, the Bulls have dropped three straight games, including a 45-21 setback to Connecticut this past Saturday. Jerry Davis led Buffalo with 227 yards and three touchdowns, each of which went to Ed Young. However, Davis was also intercepted three times, including two that were returned the other way for touchdowns. Conference play will begin this weekend, as the Bulls will remain on the road to take on Bowling Green.
CENTRAL MICHIGAN: The Chippewas can not create a winning streak, as the team was defeated, 30-25, against Northwestern. The loss came a week after CMU demolished Eastern Michigan, 52-14. Ryan Radcliffe was 29-of-43 through the air for the Chippewas for 347 yards and two touchdowns, but was also picked off twice. Kito Poblah caught six balls for 89 yards and a touchdown in the loss. The Chippewas will be on the road for the third straight contest when they battle the Northwestern Wildcats in Evanston.
EASTERN MICHIGAN: The losing continues at Eastern Michigan, as the Eagles fell for the 16th straight time since the beginning of last season. The most recent setback was an embarrassing, 73-20 loss to second-ranked Ohio State in Columbus. Alex Gillett was 13-of-22 for 200 yards, and two touchdowns, but was also sacked twice. Kinsman Thomas and Donald Scott each tallied three catches and scored once each, and Dwayne Priest posted a rushing TD in the crushing setback. Without a victory since 2008 the Eagles are in desperate need for one, and the hope is that EMU will find the win column this weekend against Ohio.
KENT STATE: Kent State was not in action this past weekend, but the team will return to the field this upcoming Saturday when the Golden Flashes head to Oxford to take on Miami-Ohio in their conference opener. KSU opened the year with a victory over Murray State, but since then the team has lost back-to- back games against Boston College and Penn State.
MIAMI-OHIO: The RedHawks saw their modest two-game winning streak come to a screeching halt on Saturday, as they were pummeled by Missouri, 51-13. Zac Dysert completed 20-of-27 passes for Miami-Ohio (2-2), but finished with just 178 yards and was intercepted once. Armand Robinson was the top target for the RedHawks, as the wide out hauled in 10 passes for 99 yards. The RedHawks will return to league action this upcoming Saturday when they host Kent State.
NORTHERN ILLINOIS: Coach Jerry Kill's crew went to Minneapolis this Saturday and walked away with a 34-23 victory over a Big Ten school. The win over Minnesota came a week after NIU was defeated by other Big Ten squad in Illinois. Chad Spann rushed for 223 yards and two touchdowns on 15 carries, while Chandler Harnish threw a pair of touchdown passes for Northern Illinois. The Huskies will be on the road for the third consecutive week this Saturday, and will finally open league play in Akron.
OHIO: After opening the season with a win over Wofford, the Bobcats have dropped their last three matchups, including a heartbreaking, 24-23 setback to Marshall this past weekend. Ohio, which had a chance to kick an extra point to tie the contest, decided instead to go for a two point conversion on the final play of the game, but unfortunately for coach Frank Solich's squad the gamble did not pay off. Ohio received a big night from Terrence McCrae, who had four receptions for 118 yards and two touchdowns. Bobcats' quarterback Boo Jackson threw for 115 yards with two scores and one interception in the loss. The Bobcats will try to break back into the win column this Saturday when they travel to Ypsilanti to battle Eastern Michigan.
TEMPLE: The Owls went to Happy Valley riding high on their 3-0 start, and even though Al Golden's gang fought hard, they eventually fell to Penn State, 22-13. Chester Stewart was picked off three times and completed just 8-of-19 passes for 46 yards. Bernard Pierce rushed for two scores before leaving with an apparent right ankle injury in the third quarter for the Owls (3-1), who were off to their first 3-0 start since 1979. Fresh off their first loss of the season the Owls will try to bounce back into the win column when they head to West Point to take on Army.
TOLEDO: The Rockets opened the season with a loss at home to Arizona, but since then the team has ripped off three straight road victories. The most recent win away from home was an impressive 31-20 decision at Purdue. Austin Dantin threw for two touchdowns and also ran for two more in the win, while Adonis Thomas added a team-best 79 rushing yards. Dantin's main target was Eric Page, who hauled in 10 passes for 94 yards and one score. The Rockets will return home for the first time since early September this upcoming weekend and will host the Wyoming Cowboys.
WESTERN MICHIGAN: The Broncos will not be on the field this weekend, but will return to action on October 2nd when they host Idaho. Western Michigan has lost two of its first three games, and is coming off a 37-24 setback to Toledo in Kalamazoo.


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Fusion Marketing Experience Interview: J-P De Clerck
Fusion Marketing Experience Founder and Organiser, J-P De Clerck sits down with Go! Media's Chris Tompkins to explain his vision and hopes for the conference in addition to what we can expect from the series in the future.
Fusion Marketing Experience Interview: Olivier Blanchard
Here Chris Tompkins sits down with Fusion Marketing Experience 2011 Keynote Speaker Olivier Blanchard to learn more about why he chose to take part in this year's conference
Fusion Marketing Experience Interview: Andre Lejeune of Selligent
Here is my interview with Andre Lejeune, the Co-Founder & CEO of Selligent, a leader in conversion marketing and interactive CRM solutions. Andre tells us why he wanted to
Fusion Marketing Experience Interview: Chris Hall of Hallmann Marketing
Here I sit down with Chris Hall of Hallmann Marketing, who are also founders of SocialClarity.co.uk. Rich tells me why he was drawn to Fusion Marketing Experience in
Fusion Marketing Experience: Venue Sneak Peek
Want to get a sneak peek of the Fusion Marketing Experience's venue? Then watch I give you a taste of what to expect at the actual event.
What to Expect at This Year's Fusion Marketing Experience
Looking forward to Fusion Marketing Experience or want to learn a little about what this online marketing conference is all about? Join me as I bring you all
Fusion Marketing Experience: Brussels, Belgium 2011
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6 Quick Thoughts on Your Twitter Campaign
Recently on my radio show, The Social Media Chef, I spoke about some Twitter tips to use to enhance your new or existing Twitter marketing campaign. If


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Steel Pipe Stolen Again
A $250 piece of steel pipe was stolen from the 55th Street construction site near Clarendon Hills Road during the overnight hours of Sept. 11-12.
It was the second report of steel pipe being stolen from the site.
Obama Sign Taken
A resident from the 0-10 block of McIntosh Avenue reported at 11:22 a.m. that the pro-Obama political sign in the home's yard was stolen.
The sign had been vandalized three different times before this incident, police said.
Man Charged with Disorderly Conduct
Kevin A. Cawley, 39, of the 200 block of Oxford Avenue, Clarendon Hills, was charged with disorderly conduct, police said. Officers responded to a report from one of Cawley's neighbors that the man was yelling loudly from his apartment balcony.
Welcome Home
A man from the 200 block of north Richmond Avenue told police at 7:39 p.m. that he came home to find eight empty beer bottles on his floor and his toilet defecated in. It was the second straight week the man had made such a report.
Police say that apartment had been locked and there was no sign of forced entry. They advised him and his landlord to change the apartment's locks.
Vodka Bottle Versus Window
Someone threw a Skyy Vodka bottle through the rear window of a car parked in a driveway in the 400 block of Colfax Avenue during the overnight hours of Sept. 9-10.
Lawnmower Taken
A resident from the 20 block of Iroquois Drive reported at 3:26 p.m. that his lawnmower, which he left in the driveway for 15 minutes that afternoon, was stolen.
Police said that because it was Sunday afternoon, it's possible that the lawnmower was taken by a refuse collector.
TP Revenge
A resident from the 300 block of Western Avenue reported at 8:30 p.m. that a woman was toilet-papering the caller's neighbor. Police say the 41-year-old woman doing the toilet-papering told police that she had herself been TP'd by the homeowner the week before.
The homeowner who was getting TP'd told police everything was OK.
Sign up for Patch's email newsletter and get all the top Hinsdale and Clarendon Hills headlines in your inbox each morning. And then like us on Facebook!
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A cheeky little monkey swings in
ZSL London Zoo is welcoming the pitter patter of furry paws, after the birth of a tiny black-tailed marmoset, a rare species of monkey.
The baby's parents, Victoria and Albert, have proudly shown off their royal bundle of joy to crowds of captivated visitors in the Clore Rainforest exhibit. Just a few weeks old, the animal measures 12cm long and is the first of its kind to be born at the zoo.
Native to South America, marmosets munch on insects and chew on tree branches and plants in the wild – and within two months our little one should be doing the same. Belonging to a family known as New World Monkeys, marmosets feature curved claws, which help them jump horizontally from tree to tree. The happy family has so far been left alone by keepers, so we are yet to find out if the baby is a prince or a princess!
Team Leader, Gerald Asher, said: "We are delighted to welcome the new addition because there has never been a black-tailed silvery marmoset born at ZSL London Zoo before. The baby has settled in very well and is already popular with the public. We have a hands-off policy with these types of baby animals, so our only direct involvement so far is to feed the adults water."
Take a look at the baby when it is just 2 weeks old in our video below.
For a sneaky peak at how this little monkey is growing up take a look at our second video with the baby at 4 weeks old and growing up fast!


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Quality |
Biodenta stands for the highest Swiss quality and precision. Our staff collaborates with dental professionals including specialists from other industries on a daily basis in order to improve products and solutions in the field of design, reliability, and simplicity. With the integrated business model and the "Biodenta-system" dentists and dental technicians can achieve the best final result in terms of quality and esthetics.
Biodenta is making an outstanding effort to connect the different topics surrounding "teeth" and to constantly facilitate and optimize the everyday work if clinicians and technicians accordingly to increase the quality for their patients. Our key factors