Saturday, March 21, 2009

not sallowed to be sick

Its true I filed a late report last election time, as I was sick as a dog with the flu- fever, chills, nausea. All of this was verified by the City Clerk, but they fined me anyway. I guess in big campaigns you have somebody to do it for you. I had only me at the time. I guess you are not allowed to be sick while you are campaigning for office. I have other witnesses too, to verify my condition at the time. It was due on a Friday and I filed it on the following Monday, still sick, but a little better than the previous Friday. I filed an appeal with Tallahassee but it wasnt allowed, without an explanation by them. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

commentary

You should vote for the candidate that best represents your views and values and has a record of doing that, in spite of various influences and pressures brought upon them. If elected, and a majority of my fellow Council members want a vote of confidence to be taken the next day, I am prepared to do that. After all the fiascoes, screw ups, money disappearing, forgotten hookups, and errors in judgement over the past couple years, it would be very difficult to give him a vote of confidence at this point. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

commentary

Yes, I believe that everyone on the Council voted fot LINK. Of all the ones making a presentation, there's was far and away the best. They would have gotten my vote too, if I had been on the Council. I also believe that Pistorino should have been able to make a presentation too, but his report was deep-sixed long before that because it didnt come to their foregone conclusions. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

Friday, March 20, 2009

clarification

Is Mr. Stiff saying he has NO PLANS to submit a bid on the new gym in the future? Or is he just waiting until after the election? The 280k from the bathrooms is STILL missing on the City Managers watch. The Giglio fiasco was botched from the start and his responsibility. The CC disaster and missing money there is still on record as occurring on the City Managers watch. The handshake deals at the pool are still in place, and Gyms responsibility. Etc etc. To say that I have SERIOUS doubts about the City Managers performance, or lack of same, is an understatement of gargantuan proportions. I say AGAIN- if elected, and my other Council members want to give the City Manager another six months to redeem himself from his dismal performance for the past five years, I could probably live with that. A re-evaluation would be made at that point and a vote of confidence held at that point. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

ideas, not slogans

We have run the gamut from Vote For Me- Im Latin, to Vote For Me, Im Female, and Vote For Me, Im Billy's Buddy And Will Do Whatever He Tells Me To Do - that is a big improvement? I am not so sure. What about new ideas, being a proponent for accountability, transparency, reasonable construction fees,and due diligence as a process for doing City business as a platform for consideration by the people? Those are the ideas my campaign is built on. The people will decide if those things make sense to them and are what they want in a representative, or not. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Electronic Medical records

6 Ways Electronic Medical Records Could Make Your Life Safer and Easier
Here's one: E-mail and Web access to doctors means fewer office visits needed
By Nancy Shute
Posted March 10, 2009

We'll all soon have electronic medical records, given the $19 billion tagged for a big rollout of the long-touted paperless systems in the economic stimulus plan. Healthcare experts say EMRs will make medicine safer, more efficient, and more cost effective, and three quarters of the public say they're all for it. But will the electronic records really be better than the chaotic paper-based system we've got now? Here's the latest, gleaned from research on health IT in the current edition of the policy journal Health Affairs and a meeting of EMR superstars in Washington, D.C. The bottom line: Electronic medical records are essential, but they're far from simple. "As a software guy, I'm really optimistic about what technology can do to improve healthcare around the world," said Peter Neupert, a Microsoft vice president. "And as a software guy, I think: Holy crap, this is really going to be hard to do." Here's what they can do now:

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1. Skip trips to the doctor. It's a pain in the buns to have to trek to a primary-care doctor every time you need a question answered or a prescription reordered. Primary-care office visits in Kaiser Permanente's Hawaii region dropped 25 percent from 2004 to 2007, after the healthcare organization started offering people the option of E-mailing doctors as part of the 8.7 million-member organization's Web-based electronic health record. No need to take time off work, and no miles driven; this even helps fight global warming! But since most doctors outside of a group program like Kaiser don't get paid for E-mail consults, this might be a tough sell.

2. Track Mom's medical chart even if you're in Albuquerque or Altoona. Online personal health records like Microsoft's HealthVault and GoogleHealth make it much easier to share medical records among family members, which could be great for managing aging parents' healthcare. The downside: Very few doctors and hospitals are set up to let you download your records onto these third-party sites, so for now you might have to type it all in yourself. "A personal health record is really an electronic notebook," says Alfred Spector, a vice president at Google Inc. "It's under the patient's control."

3. Get lab test results without having to play phone tag with the doctor's office. Some clinics and labs, including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and Quest Diagnostics, let customers download lab results the moment they're reported. Kaiser Permanente patients viewed 16,773,273 lab tests online in 2008. That's faster access, for sure, but many test results read like gibberish. Will insurers or labs help with interpretation, or will we still have to ask the doctor?

4. Never again drag X-rays to a specialist. X-rays and other diagnostics are going digital, and big IT companies such as Cisco are designing systems that would make it possible to store and retrieve a lifetime's worth of X-rays and MRIs. Doctors might start incorporating digital photos as part of a patient's record, like dermatologists already do to screen for skin cancers.

5. Find out if your prescriptions could have dangerous interactions, before you start taking them. This year, Medicare starts giving physicians a 2 percent bonus if they use an electronic prescription system, which automatically checks for correct dosage and potential drug interactions. That could finally give E-prescribing the boost it needs; most docs still write scrips by hand. Health plans that have switched to E-prescribing report that it's saved them millions of dollars by helping them shift patients to cheaper generic drugs. Safety advocates add that E-prescribing reduces dangerous errors by doctors and pharmacists.

6. Use your cellphone to tap into your health record from the mall—or from Mali. Cloud computing is the next big thing on the Web: Your data live somewhere up in the ether, and you access them via phone or laptop. Web-based personal health records like Google's are in the vanguard, but more traditional health record providers like Kaiser will probably follow. The big plus: You or a doctor can access your health records anywhere in the world. The obvious big minus: Cloud computing may be less secure than your sock drawer. Last April, health insurer WellPoint disclosed that the health records of about 130,000 customers had become publicly available over the Internet.

My colleague Bernadine Healy discusses the many privacy problems surrounding electronic medical records, and my fellow senior writer Michelle Andrews explains how EMRs can increase the risk of medical identity theft. Dave LaGesse reports on how half of people say they'd use a personal medical record from a third party like Microsoft or Google.

LED lights costly

Money-Saving LED Lighting Is a Tough Sell
May 23, 2008 05:36 PM ET | David LaGesse

A tiny fan in its base helps cool the LED light.The latest wrinkle in LED lighting is a three-way bulb, much like might be used in a living room lamp. The EarthLED EvoLux R gets successively brighter as you hit the switch.

It's not cheap, though, at $100 for a version that's as bright as a 100-watt incandescent bulb.

Of course, maker Advanced Lumonics says the bulb lasts 11 years and touts the money you'd save by not replacing power-hungry incandescents. I'm all for energy savings that equate to dollar savings, but LED bulbs seem a tough sell.

For one, lighting aesthetics (color, for one) make all the difference. Consumers want to try one of these bulbs before committing to a houseful. But a $100 trial is expensive. (Advanced Lumonics does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.)

Cheaper versions include a 100-watt equivalent that doesn't dim at $80 and 60-watt versions at $40. Even the last one is a stiff entry fee. Plus, let's face it, most of us can't think in terms of decade-long savings when the initial cost is so high.

Something like geothermal heat, which also takes years to get payback, costs only about twice as much as a conventional system. And unlike geothermal heat, light bulbs get broken. Fatally. Especially in living room lamps.

Daves Blog

Blog Entry Comments (5) Is geothermal heating worth the cost?
May 21, 2006 12:00 AM ET

When it comes to cheap, renewable energy, nothing seems more reliable than sucking heat from Mother Earth. Geothermal heating and cooling has been around for 20 years or more, but it remains unknown to most people—we didn't know about it until a friend installed it, and neighbors hadn't heard of it until a huge drilling rig began the noisy, two-day process of boring holes in our small back yard.

Closed loops of plastic tubing now fill the four, 200-foot-deep holes. A mix of water and refrigerant (eco-friendly, of course) will soon pump through the tubes, returning to the house at the steady temperature of 55 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the ground temperature in St. Louis, where we live. That's chilly enough to cool our house in the summer, while compression will raise the fluid's temperature to heat our house on cold days. The conditioned air will circulate through conventional, forced-air ducts.

Geothermal should cut our heating and cooling bills in half or so. Another advantage is more subtle, but still attractive: The air moves steadily and quietly, unlike the whooshing of our conventional system kicking in. Additionally, the outside elements of our conventional AC go away; there will be no ugly compressor to hide behind bushes.

The biggest disadvantage is cost—in our case, about $10,000 more than a conventional system. (Most of that difference lies underground in those four holes.) Even with today's inflated energy prices, it will take six or eight years for payback. And the cost might be prohibitive for someone with a system that's working well; we had already planned to replace our aging furnace as part of a major remodeling. Finally, the 32-ton drilling rig turned our backyard into a mud pile. But out of that muck I hope savings will soon flow—dollars in several tints of green.

5 future energy technologies

5 Future Technologies That Will Slash Home Energy Use
Exotic gear will turn homes into energy producers instead of mere consumers
By David LaGesse
Posted March 18, 2009

Consumers have heard for years that solar, wind, and geothermal power might soon cut their monthly energy bills. But things get exciting, even exotic, looking a decade or two ahead. Scientists envision that light bulbs will talk to switches, furnaces to windows, and everything to the Internet. Homes generate their own power in basement plants. Windows and paint change color to harvest sunlight or reject it.


But it's one thing for scientists to talk game and another for builders and homeowners to play. Cutting home energy use means changing consumer behavior and industry practice. "The construction trades are among the most conservative out there," says Leon Glicksman, a professor of building technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It's also a highly fragmented, diffuse industry of mostly small contractors installing separate systems in a home. One does heating, another lighting, a third the electrical system. There often is nobody who integrates the many systems with an eye to energy savings.

So as much as scientists like to talk whiz-bang for the future, what's also needed is training. "It'll be interesting to see 10 or 20 years from now how much progress is technology oriented and how much is education based," says Dariush Arasteh, who studies building technology at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

That said, promising new technologies are emerging in labs, and some in commercial buildings, that in a decade or two could win over even the most skeptical builders and homeowners.

Tunable tints. In most U.S. climates, there is no easy answer when looking for energy-efficient windows. Today's panes tend to be specific to a type of weather—glass can be treated to reflect sunlight for warm-weather areas or not reflect it for colder climes. "If you're in St. Louis, you ideally want one in summer and another in winter," says Arasteh, whose lab studies window energy use.

Intense research is focusing on smarter windows that can change their coating on demand. A tint could block the sun in hot weather but fade on cold days to let in warm rays. Special "electrochromic" coatings darken when a small voltage is applied. A Minnesota company, Sage Electrochromics, already sells early versions that are used in some high-end homes, usually as skylights.

At current high prices, they make more economic sense for commercial buildings. Factories and offices could reduce daytime lighting costs with more windows but can't afford to let in the sun's heating rays. Homes tend to need more of their light at night and benefit less from natural illumination.

Still, commercial sales can help fine-tune production to get costs down. Then the entire window-producing industry must revamp itself for the new tech, an issue that has held up other energy-saving approaches, such as triple-pane windows. "It's like having a factory that's set up to make simple sandwiches," says Arasteh. "Now you're asking them to make club sandwiches. These changes take years."

Smart homes. Existing home heating, cooling, and lighting systems could save energy with some new smarts. Lights typically don't know they can turn off or dim when the sun comes up, and air handlers continue blowing heated or cooled air at open windows. Simple networking that got all of them talking could wring out a third of energy use in a building, says Neil Gershenfeld, an MIT computer science professor: "It's sort of an Internet of things."

Many companies have tried for the smart home. About 20 different families of gear already exist. But they're not made to work with one another, and none can expand to handle complex systems while being cheap enough to work with a simple light bulb. Gershenfeld's lab has developed a simple networking language—think Morse code—that can turn a light bulb into a node on the Internet, sending and receiving data. The same code could control complicated heating and cooling systems that respond to outside temperature changes, or as people come and go.

Prototypes already exist of hardware that a homeowner might install cheaply, even in an existing structure. One attraction: "We don't have to rewire the whole building," says Charlie Catlett, chief information officer at Argonne National Laboratory, which is installing an early test of the system in one of its buildings. Plus, "these things are so cheap and small that we can actually think about putting them into things like chairs and light bulbs."

a look into the energy future

5 Future Technologies That Will Slash Home Energy Use
Exotic gear will turn homes into energy producers instead of mere consumers
By David LaGesse
Posted March 18, 2009

What the Stimulus Package Does for Renewable Energy 22745378
Frozen smoke. Nothing is weirder than the aerogel that might one day keep our homes comfy. One of the lightest solids known to man, the translucent and wispy material looks like a slice of solid smoke. It's about 99 percent gas trapped in nano-size bubbles within a lacelike material, and there is no better insulation for a given thickness. "The problem is that for now it's expensive as heck," says Andre Desjarlais at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

But breaking into the construction industry, which uses nearly two thirds of all insulation produced, is a priority for the few small companies commercially producing the ethereal stuff. "We're focused on those areas where space is at a premium," says Aspen Aerogels CEO Don Young. That means retrofitting existing structures, particularly older masonry walls with no hollows for stuffing conventional insulation. Public partners are helping to pay to install aerogel insulation in more than 250 New York City housing units as an early test. For now, though, aerogel will largely remain a tool for space agencies, the Pentagon, and oil companies that can pay the steep premium.

Desjarlais's lab at Oak Ridge focuses on technology to secure the building "envelope" for energy efficiency. It includes a number of bizarre-sounding technologies, such as paint that's white one minute to reflect sunlight and later darkens to collect it. But nothing can top the weird nature of frozen smoke.

[Read how a geothermal system can cut heating and cooling bills.]

Home hydrogen. Fuel cells have powered space flight for decades, and auto companies hope they'll soon be ready for cars. In a decade or two, they should be commonly available for the basement, says Tom Drennen, an associate professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and coauthor of Pathways to a Hydrogen Future. "There's a lot of efficiency in generating electricity where it is used," he says.

Fuel cells generate electricity through a chemical process that combines hydrogen and oxygen. When the inputs are pure, the only side products are water and heat in a process that's long been perfected. "What's not perfected is getting the fuel, the hydrogen, to them," says Branko Terzic, a Deloitte consultant on energy policy.

A few Japanese companies have installed experimental models in homes that run off natural gas. An added device strips hydrogen from the gas to fuel the cells, which generate electricity and hot water. A smaller slice of American homes have gas service, limiting that approach here. Converting natural gas also produces greenhouse gases. But the process is still less polluting than traditional electrical generation. "And nothing's wasted getting it to the home," Drennen says.

Brighter bulbs. Here's a twist on the old joke: In a few decades, nobody will know what it even means to change a light bulb. "The house will get torn down before a light bulb ever burns out," says Russell Dupuis, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and fan of light-emitting diodes, or LEDs.

The 130-year-old Edison bulbs will first get replaced in the home by compact fluorescents, which use about a third the energy and last years longer. Even more miserly LEDs are expected to later replace fluorescents. LEDs use about 12 percent the energy of incandescents and can last 50 years or more.

They've already become popular in some commercial settings, particularly where lights burn 24-7—such as the freezer at an all-night Wal-Mart. Steep initial costs limit their appeal to U.S. homeowners. People just can't embrace spending $120 or $130 on a bulb. While even that steep price can earn a payback in eight or 10 years, it's too long for the typically nomadic U.S. homeowner. Dupuis dreams that people soon will ask whether a prospective home has LED lights and will pay more for one that does. He should—he built a passel of them into his house.

campaign comments

I voted to get the golf course as a means to preserve the green space for future generations, and have a convenient place for our golfers to play. Although some other candidates may be in favor of developing the golf course, I AM NOT ONE OF THEM. I would have no real problem with an office project across the street from Doc James office tho. It has been an eyesore for our community for the past 20+ years and a 3-story office park with a few retail shops and eating establishments would fit nicely there, in my opinion. The land use plan has been delayed in Tallahassee for months and years and prevents the development of 36th street at the present time. There are plenty of areas amenable to development along 36th street and any proposal to develop ANY areas of the golf course I would object STRENUOUSLY to. Thanks to everyone for their support. We have a grassroots revolution in the works. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

commentary

Over 70% of the people voted no highrises more than 3 stories (72% I believe). Do you actually believe I stopped that plan? Personally? The PEOPLE stopped it! Again, you give me too much credit, and blame. The PEOPLE have the power to change our city for the better, and we will! Dr. Mel P. Johnson

36th street development

"Every part of the construction industry is overbuilt". WHAAAT? That comment makes NO sense!Thousands of construction workers are unemployed now, due to the steep recession. The people have made it crystal clear they dont want buildings higher than three stories in the City, so I would not consider any higher for the old Pino proposed property across from Brysons. The FAA has no problems with tall buildings along 36th street tho, up to 8 stories, and I believe looking at office condos or an office park along there would be a possible solution and add to our tax base, which would reduce our taxes. The annexation people are touting annexation for adding to our tax base, and that is certainly possible. 36th street has no pollution problems, mitigation fees, or zoning problems, unlike annexation, and could put a lot of construction workers back to work, (some of them local) which would help with the recession. For those reasons I would be in favor of taking a good hard look at that option. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

Forum comments

The $150,000 for the bathrooms, the $1.8 million dollar gym, the losses in the state fund, the breakeven at the golf course, the obvious lies about the pool finances, the $75,000, no make that $80,000 no wait $89,000 a year rec director,etc. This poster has accurately captured some of my thoughts about the City Managers performance, or lack of it, over the past couple years. The Giglio incident was another example of poor judgement and the vetting process was nonexistent prior to the situation growing out of control. One could also add the CC fiasco and the 350k that disappearred there, etc. If elected, and the other Council members wanted to give Gym another chance to redeem himself, I could live with a brief period, say six months, where his performance would be closely monitored and supervised. A re-evaluation would be conducted at that point and some kind of decision made then. regarding mr Stiff, I am not demeaning any contributions he has made to our community in the past. I AM saying that if he WAS elected and had to vote on the new gym issues it could be seen as an obvious conflict of interest if he WAS one of the contractors, no? It is a potential conflict of interest because he isnt officially one of the subs YET. I am merely pointing out that fact. If he is for honesty, transparency and accountability in government, he will address that issue I am sure. For Best to say he believes that due diligence WAS done in deciding on a new gym is an incredulous statement! When, exactly, was the Pistorino option discussed and debated by the Council? I would like to know the exact date that happened so I can get the verbatim transcription, videotape, or CD of that meeting. To me, the best idea to come out of the Forum was the possibility of diverting traffic around the Circle and adding rumble strips to the incoming bridge entrance to slow down traffic. Local traffic only would be allowed to enter our business district, at 20 MPH, and the rest would be diverted around the Circle. It could allow customers for our businesses while protecting the pedestrians from fast traffic cutting thru downtown. It is not necessarily my idea but a synthesis and merger of the ideas presented last night. I would favor a further look at the possibilities in the form of a traffic analysis. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

prostate cancer screens

Approximately 186,000 men in the United States are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year. Most of those diagnoses start with a screening test: either a digital rectal exam, during which a doctor feels the prostate to check for irregularity or enlargement, with a blood test to check the level of prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, in the blood, or both.

INTERACTIVE

Prostate cancer: What you need to know


Tests don't clearly indicate cancer
But these tests, especially the PSA, are indirect markers. The PSA doesn’t check for cancer, it checks for a protein that may signal cancer is present. The higher the PSA, the greater the risk. But because PSA doesn’t prove cancer, invasive tests, like biopsies, are required to diagnose disease. Even then, doctors can’t always be sure what kind of prostate cancer a man has — whether it will be very slow-growing and never cause a problem, or whether it will be life-threateningly aggressive.

comments

Yes, I DID say a 15% pay cut. Yea! You finally got SOMETHING right! Senseless stupidity is always a painful thing to watch, but when its mixed with illiteracy ("were" I am wrong) and hints at mental illness ("Are the lambs calling me?") it becomes sadly excruciating to observe a miserable soul embarrass themselves repeatedly. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

comments

The most eloquent and expressive cheerleader for the "WHATEVER BILLY WANTS" team tonight was Mr. Espino. He spoke of the 2.3 million net gain that might be realized by annexation, IF you believe the Corradino Groups numbers that were compiled in 2008, when property values and taxes everywhere were considerably higher. Is it not true that those numbers do NOT include the mitigation fees of 386k, that would have to be taken off the top? Mr. Espino also made a pertinent observation when he said that, sure, their taxes will be tripled but they require very little in services so we wont be spending any more on them. We are going to be TRIPLING their taxes and NOT giving them ANYTHING for it? WHO would agree to such a deal? There was NO discusion of the possible pollution issues out there, OR the mitigation fees to be negotiated, OR the zoning restrictions by Mr. Espino. It is possible perhaps he forgot, just like the pamphlet did. There WERE time constraints, to be sure, but it is hoped he will address those issues in much more depth in the near future. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

commentary

Mr. Stiff did make a salient point tonight when he said that we "cant overburden the business owners' in the areas proposed to be annexed. It is a very good point, but how do we NOT burden them further when we would be TRIPLING their taxes? THAT would be a HUGE burden to ANY taxpayers, no? Also, when asked if he was in favor of the new gym, he just replied YES, and passed the mike. This was considerably better than the blatant cheerleading he has done in the past, but STILL doesnt identify his conflict of interest, in that he stands to make a lot of money doing the plumbing for the new gym. I wonder if he will recuse himself from voting for any new gym expenditures, if elected? How would he handle that apparent ethical dilemma? Dr. Mel P. Johnson

up your Haldol dosage

Wanting a 15% pay cut for dept heads, administration, and Council is a lie? How so? The "clean" wimp is semi-literate, doesnt usually make any sense, OR have the cojones to sign his name. He is a complete and total waste of my time and energy. He talks about lies but doesnt specify which statements he believes arent true, what HIS version of the truth is, and why his version is accurate and mine isnt. The only lies that can be confirmed are HIS lies about me. Pathetic. Pitiful. Pathological. He isnt looking for discussion, debate, or an exchange of ideas. He is only enthralled with his own off-the-wall and unsubstantiated opinions. Up your Haldol dose again. A couple years of psychotherapy also might help. Its guys like him that confirm for me that I am onto something. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

taxpayers left to wonder the monies went

The City Manager was in charge of both the bathroom and the CC enclosure projects. If HE cant explain where the money went, who CAN? All I know is that 280k of our tax dollars disappeared, over and above the 140k it actually costs to build the bathrooms. When the guy in charge cant offer any rational explanation for the disappearances, the residents are left to wonder if its just total incompetence on his part, or something much worse? Neither is acceptable, or can be tolerated any longer. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

Americans vote on BIG issues

The $125 a square foot number comes from my GC friend AND my insurance company, both of whom say that is what it would cost to rebuild my house should it blow down in a hurricane. The insurance quote was also an itemized and detailed estimate. I am saying that the City Manager has no explanation when I ask where the extra 280k went. Who actually received that money is unclear but its clear it went to SOMEBODY, and is NO LONGER in the City coffers. Literacy and spelling are wonderful things to behold. It would be great if we could have more of it here. We voted on the golf course and things didnt come to a "hault". We voted on NO HIGHRISES over 3 stories and things didnt come to a "hault." We dont need to vote on all the little things, but the BIG issues that will affect us for DECADES we should vote on. That is our history here in the Springs and the American way. Dictators and communists dont allow the people to vote. Americans have that right, and should excercise their voting rights. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Americans vote on BIG issues

There are those who say I dont give all the facts. What facts are missing? There are those who dont want the people to vote. Voting is an American right, and people have died to give us that right, so we should use it. People dont get to vote in dictatorships and communist countries. THIS is America. We should vote. the numbers on the bathrooms are simple- each bathroom is 558 square feet, making a total of 1116square feet. Times $125 a square foot = 140k. Do the math. Measure them yourselves. If you know anything about construction you know that $125 a square foot is usual and customary construction costs in S Fla. What is it about those basic numbers you dont understand? Dr. Mel P. Johnson

50-year resident foreclosed and evicted

There is a lady in her 70s on Heron Ave who was evicted today after living in the Springs for fifty years. All of her belongings and furniture are in her front yard. This puts a FACE on the foreclosure crisis. Gym says hes only aware of ONE foreclosure in the Springs. The Herald said there are currently 151 foreclosures active here in MS, and 22 in VG. Somebody else said today there have been 400 foreclosures here in the last year or so, but most of those people left before they had to be evicted. The police were very helpful but they are limited in what they can do. There WILL be more of these situations happening as the Mayor and Council continue to raise our taxes to support their legacies. Sure, the rising taxes force our longtime residents into the street, but WE have a new 6.8 million dollar gym! Which is more important? Dr. Mel P. Johnson

Solar - page 2

Harnessing the Sun, With Help From Cities

Published: March 14, 2009
(Page 2 of 2)



Instead of waiting to get financing through third parties as other cities have done, Palm Desert tapped into $7.5 million of its own reserves to run a pilot program. In what is widely seen as a measure of public demand, the program was almost immediately fully subscribed. Already, nearly 100 households have been approved for solar panels, and about half of those have already installed them and have a system up and running, according to Patrick Conlon, director of the city office of energy management.

J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times
Rick and Wendy Clark put solar panels on their guest house through new municipal financing.

Related
Times Topics: Solar EnergyFrom its arid climate to its conservative politics, Palm Desert could not be more different from Berkeley. But with 350 days of sun, the city is making a calculation that has nothing to do with saving the Earth.

“We live in a severe climate,” Mr. Conlon said. “To cool our buildings, we have to be energy gluttons. So renewable energy is important here as an economic choice. It’s bigger than politics.”

For Mr. Clark, that is certainly the case. His monthly energy bill for a 3,400-square-foot home and a guest house routinely surpassed $1,400 in summer months when the air conditioning ran all the time. Now his solar panels are producing more than enough energy in the daytime to power his home. The additional power is sent back to the grid and is credited on his utility bill against night and summer hours, when he might consume more power than he produces.

Mr. Clark estimates that at the rate he is going, his power bill will be at most $500 for this year. The savings will be great enough that, taking into account his investment, he will still save $3,000 a year or more.

The blue panels above his garage and his meter — which also tells him how much of the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide he has avoided creating since the panels were installed (over 2,200 pounds) — have in fact had a kind of viral marketing effect in his upper-middle-class neighborhood. Homes here run well above $1 million, yet solar power was a rarity until the city program started.

“It can seem like a large and intimidating task,” said Valerie Van Winkle, a bank manager and a friend of Mr. Clark, who persuaded him and three other neighbors to take the solar plunge.

Ms. Van Winkle said the environmental cachet has also been fun. “I don’t even know anybody who voted for Obama,” she said.

Still she has become a proselytizer for solar power. “It just makes so much sense,” she said. “And, you know, I am happy it’s also good for the environment.”

Down the street, Debbie and Chris McNicol have a different take. Mr. McNicol used to be part of a professional drag racing crew and still races as a hobby on weekends. Their garage houses its own set of speed mobiles, including a 24-foot-long purple-and-yellow gas-guzzling dragster that goes up to 180 miles an hour. After installing solar panels, their first monthly energy bill dropped to $1.89.

Mr. McNicol is elated: “We can use the money we’ve saved to race new toys.”

N Y Times

Environment Space & Cosmos Harnessing the Sun, With Help From Cities

By LESLIE KAUFMAN
Published: March 14, 2009
PALM DESERT, Calif. — Rick Clark’s garage is loaded with fast toys for playing in the sun. He has a buggy for racing on sand dunes, two sleek power boats for pulling water skiers, and a new favorite: 48 solar panels that send his energy meter whirring backward.


J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times
Debbie and Chris McNicol have had solar panels installed on top of their home in Palm Desert, Calif.

Related
Times Topics: Solar Energy


J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times
Mr. McNicol says he will use the savings for his racing hobby.
Bronzed and deeply lined from decades of life in the desert sun, Mr. Clark is not one to worry about global warming. He suspects that if the planet’s climate is getting hotter, it is part of a natural cycle and will probably correct itself. “Experts have been wrong before,” he said.

But late last year, Mr. Clark decided to install a $62,000 solar power system because of a new municipal financing program that lent him the money and allows him to pay it back with interest over 20 years as part of his property taxes. In so doing, he joined the vanguard of a social experiment that is blossoming in California and a dozen other states.

The goal behind municipal financing is to eliminate perhaps the largest disincentive to installing solar power systems: the enormous initial cost. Although private financing is available through solar companies, homeowners often balk because they worry that they will not stay in the house long enough to have the investment — which runs about $48,000 for an average home and tens of thousands of dollars more for a larger home in a hot climate — pay off.

But cities like Palm Desert lobbied to change state laws so that solar power systems could be financed like gas lines or water lines, covered by a loan from the city and secured by property taxes. The advantage of this system over private borrowing is that any local homeowners are eligible (not just those with good credit), and the obligation to pay the loan attaches to the house and would pass to any future buyers.

The idea of public financing for home solar systems began two years ago in Berkeley. While it took months to untangle the legislative knots at the state level and get banks lined up to back the project, the concept took on a life of it own.

Cisco DeVries, who developed the program for Berkeley but has since moved on to a company that administers and finances similar programs for many towns, said: “I’ve never been part of something like this where the power of an idea has grabbed so many people so quickly. It is viral.”

In California, about a half-dozen cities including San Francisco and San Diego are already committed to their own solar programs. And outside of California, at least a half-dozen states, including Arizona, Texas and Virginia, have introduced bills to allow municipal financing. Colorado has already passed a version of the law, and the City of Boulder is on the verge of beginning a program.

Municipal financing comes on top of other government supports. California residents receive a straight rebate for about 20 percent of the cost of a solar power system. In addition, a federal income tax credit for 30 percent of the cost of installing solar panels was extended to participants in the municipal loan programs as part of the economic stimulus bill passed by Congress. And there are efforts to change the federal tax code further so that cities can borrow the money to lend tax free.

But public financing of solar power also has critics, who say government is essentially subsidizing and encouraging a form of energy production that would otherwise not be cost effective. Severin Borenstein, director of the University of California Energy Institute in Berkeley, who is concerned about the proliferation of the programs, said, “It would be better for local governments to do energy efficiency and skip the solar panels.

“If you count the full-interest cost without the tax subsidy, residential solar panels never pay for themselves,” he said. “We shouldn’t be making it a major public priority.”

However, cities, which are charging 7 percent for the guaranteed loans, do not have the same financial risk as the consumers. And for cities like those in California that are required by state laws to reduce their carbon emissions, officials have to make calculations other than costs and are going ahead anyway.

No city is as far along as Palm Desert.
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: March 14, 2009
San Francisco

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Thomas L. Friedman

Times Topics: Fusion (Nuclear Reaction) | Alternative Fuel VehiclesIf you hang around the renewable-energy business for long, you’ll hear a lot of tall tales. You’ll hear about someone who’s invented a process to convert coal into vegetable oil in his garage and someone else who has a duck in his basement that paddles a wheel, blows up a balloon, turns a turbine and creates enough electricity to power his doghouse.

Hang around long enough and you’ll even hear that in another 10 or 20 years hydrogen-powered cars or fusion energy will be a commercial reality. If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard one of those stories, I could buy my own space shuttle. No wonder cynics often say that viable fusion energy or hydrogen-powered cars are “20 years away and always will be.”

But what if this time is different? What if a laser-powered fusion energy power plant that would have all the reliability of coal, without the carbon dioxide, all the cleanliness of wind and solar, without having to worry about the sun not shining or the wind not blowing, and all the scale of nuclear, without all the waste, was indeed just 10 years away or less? That would be a holy cow game-changer.

Are we there?

That is the tantalizing question I was left with after visiting the recently completed National Ignition Facility, or N.I.F., at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 50 miles east of San Francisco. The government-funded N.I.F. consists of 192 giant lasers — which can deliver 50 times more energy than any previous fusion laser system. They’re all housed in a 10-story building the size of three football fields — the rather dull cover to a vast internal steel forest of laser beams that must be what the engine room of Star Trek’s U.S.S. Enterprise space ship looked like.

I began my tour there with the N.I.F. director, Edward Moses. He was holding up a tiny gold can the size of a Tylenol tablet, and inside it was plastic pellet, the size of a single peppercorn, that would be filled with frozen hydrogen.

The way the N.I.F. works is that all 192 lasers pour their energy into a target chamber, which looks like a giant, spherical, steel bathysphere that you would normally use for deep-sea exploration. At the center of this target chamber is that gold can with its frozen hydrogen pellet. Once one of those pellets is heated and compressed by the lasers, it reaches temperatures over 800 million degrees Fahrenheit, “far greater than exists at the center of our sun,” said Moses.

More importantly, each crushed pellet gives off a burst of energy that can then be harnessed to heat up liquid salt and produce massive amounts of steam to drive a turbine and create electricity for your home — just like coal does today. Only this energy would be carbon-free, globally available, safe and secure and could be integrated seamlessly into our current electric grid.

Last Monday at 3 a.m., for the first time, all 192 lasers were fired at high energy precisely at once — no small feat — at the target chamber’s empty core. That was a major step toward “ignition” — turning that hydrogen pellet into a miniature sun on earth. The next step — which the N.I.F. expects to achieve some time in the next two to three years — is to prove that it can, under lab conditions, repeatedly fire its 192 lasers at multiple hydrogen pellets and produce more energy from the pellets than the laser energy that is injected. That’s called “energy gain.”

“That,” explained Moses, “is what Einstein meant when he declared that E=mc2. By using lasers, we can unleash tremendous amounts of energy from tiny amounts of mass.”

Once the lab proves that it can get energy gain from this laser-driven process, the next step (if it can secure government and private funding) would be to set up a pilot fusion energy power plant that would prove that any local power utility could have its own miniature sun — on a commercial basis. A pilot would cost about $10 billion — the same as a new nuclear power plant.

I don’t know if they can pull this off; some scientists are skeptical. Laboratory-scale nuclear fusion and energy gain is really hard. But here’s what I do know: President Obama’s stimulus package has given a terrific boost to renewable energy. It will pay lasting benefits. And we need to keep working on all forms of solar, geothermal and wind power. They work. And the more they get deployed, the more their costs will go down.

But, in addition, we need to make a few big bets on potential game-changers. I am talking about systems that could give us abundant, clean, reliable electrons and drive massive innovation in big lasers, materials science, nuclear physics and chemistry that would benefit, energize and renew many U.S. industries.

At the pace we’re going with the technologies we have, without some game-changers, climate change is going to have its way with us. Yes, we’ll still need coal for some time. But let’s make sure that we aren’t just chasing the fantasy that we can “clean up” coal, when our real future depends on birthing new technologies that can replace it.

N Y Times

The Children of Asadabad
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By KRISTEN L. ROUSE
Published: March 16, 2009
ONE afternoon in April 2006, my Army unit got word that the hospital at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, might need help carrying possibly dozens of litters from medevac helicopters into the emergency room.

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Op-Ed Contributor: Touting Religion, Grabbing Land (March 17, 2009)
Times Topics: TalibanThe story gradually filtered in: the Taliban had attacked a primary school just east of us in Asadabad. The school taught young boys and girls together in an open courtyard outside a mosque. One rocket made a direct hit on the children as they sat in class. A second rocket exploded nearby. Seven children were killed. Thirty-four were wounded.

We had arrived in Afghanistan only a few months before and it hadn’t occurred to us that schoolchildren would be among the Taliban’s targets. But we soon learned that the Taliban routinely burned school buildings, assassinated teachers, and even singled out the children themselves for maiming, dismemberment and attack. As the Taliban see it, boys should not be educated beyond rote learning of narrow theology, and girls must not be educated at all. The Asadabad attack — although one of the most severe to date — was hardly unique.

In the end, only a half-dozen of the children were flown from Asadabad to Bagram for advanced care, and we weren’t needed to carry litters after all. But we still wanted to help. We made paper toys and took them to the few who were awake and able to move around. Some of the boys and girls were fine, but it seemed most of them weren’t. We smiled and visited with them for a few minutes, but ultimately I found it hard to look.

It has been two years and one month since I returned from Afghanistan, and I hadn’t thought of those children in a while. But the news last month that Pakistan conceded the Swat Valley to the Taliban, and with little apparent objection from American officials — it’s been getting to me. The valley’s a mere 70 miles or so east of Asadabad. And when I heard that the Taliban proceeded to shut down nearly 200 Swat Valley schools — well, it’s been keeping me up at night.

It’s also made me get back in touch with many of the soldiers I deployed with, sharing stories and talking about Afghanistan’s future. We hold diverse views about the war and about what should happen next. But I can tell you this much: many of the veterans I know are outraged at the possibility of the United States negotiating with the Taliban as if they were just another Afghan political party and not a criminal gang that inflicts and enforces the most extreme ignorance, poverty and violence upon innocent people — upon schoolchildren.

It was actually Jeanette Martinez who reminded me about the children in Asadabad. She was a medic from my unit assigned to support combat troops in the eastern mountains bordering Pakistan, and she was on the scene in Asadabad right after the attack happened. Jeanette said that at first she thought the call on the radio was a drill. But she soon found herself with other medics and corpsmen amid dozens of injured children, organizing their limited medical resources and triaging the children who might make it from those who wouldn’t.

Jeanette remembers handing a ventilation bag to a Marine who had helped to carry a little boy to a shaded spot in the yard. She remembers showing him how to place the mask over the boy’s mouth and use the bag to keep him breathing. She knew the boy wouldn’t make it. When she checked in on them later, she found the Marine overwhelmed with tears, dutifully squeezing the bag as he watched the boy die.

Jeanette also told me about a little girl she helped to take from the yard into a mud-brick building they used as an impromptu clinic. The girl had an open head wound. Jeanette began treating the girl but quickly realized the magnitude of her injury.

She told me: “They wanted me to fix her, suture or staple her closed. But I could see her brain, and had no idea how to properly close that wound. She was the toughest little girl I’ve ever seen. Didn’t cry or anything; she was awake, just looking around. Victim of the Taliban’s way of thinking.”

Kristen L. Rouse, a first lieutenant in the Army National Guard, served in the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2007.

Drones, continued

Drones Are Weapons of Choice in Fighting Qaeda

Published: March 16, 2009
(Page 2 of 2)

The strains of these growing demands were evident on a recent visit to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz., one of four bases where Air National Guard units have been ordered to full-time duty to help alleviate crew shortages.

Ijaz Muhammad/Associated Press
Villagers in Chota Janikhel, Pakistan, gathered Monday at the site of a missile attack believed to have come from a remote-controlled American drone aircraft. At least four people were killed.

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Times Topics: Predator Drones and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)The Guard members, along with Air Force crews at a base in the Nevada desert, are 7,000 to 8,000 miles away from the planes they are flying. Most of the crews sit at 1990s-style computer banks filled with screens, inside dimly lit trailers. Many fly missions in both Iraq and Afghanistan on the same day.

On a recent day, at 1:15 p.m. in Tucson — 1:15 the next morning in Afghanistan — a pilot and sensor operator were staring at gray-toned video from the Predator’s infrared camera, which can make even the darkest night scene surprisingly clear.

The crew was scanning a road, looking for — but not finding — signs of anyone planting improvised explosive devices or lying in wait for a convoy.

As the Predator circled at 16,000 feet, the dark band of a river and craggy hills came into view, along with ribbons of farmland.

“We spend 70 to 80 percent of our time doing this, just scanning roads,” said the pilot, Matthew Morrison.

At other times, the crews monitor insurgent compounds and watch over troops in battle. “When you’re on the radio with a guy on the ground, and he is out of breath and you can hear the weapons fire in the background, you are every bit as engaged as if you were actually there,” Major Morrison said.

When Predators spot possible targets, officers monitoring video at command centers in Iraq and Afghanistan decide whether to order an attack.

Col. Gregg A. Davies, commander of the group that flies Predators for the Arizona Guard, said fighter planes with bigger bombs are often sent in to make the strikes. In all, the Air Force says, Predators and Reapers shot missiles on 244 of the 10,949 missions in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007 and 2008.

Air Force officials said a few crew members have had a difficult time watching the strikes. And some pilots said it can be hard to transition from being a computer-screen warrior to dinner at home or their children’s soccer games.

Another problem has been that few pilots wanted to give up flying fighter jets to operate drones. Given the shortages, the Air Force has temporarily blocked transfers out of the program. It also has begun training officers as drone pilots who have had little or no experience flying conventional planes.

Colonel Mathewson, director of the Air Force’s task force on unmanned aerial systems, said that while upgrades have been made to control stations, the service plans to eventually shift to simpler and more intuitive ground systems that could allow one remote pilot to control several drones. Now, pilots say, it takes up to 17 steps — including entering data into pull-down windows — to fire a missile.

And even though 13 of the 70 Predator crashes have occurred over the last 18 months, officials said the accident rate has fallen as flying hours have shot up.

All told, 55 have been lost because of equipment failure, operator errors or weather. Four were shot down in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq; 11 were lost in combat situations, like running out of fuel while protecting troops under fire.

Given the demand for video intelligence, the Air Force is equipping 50 manned turbo-prop planes with similar cameras.

And it is developing new camera systems for Reapers that could vastly expand the intelligence each plane can collect.

P. W. Singer, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, said the Predators have already had “an incredible effect,” though the remote control raised obvious questions about whether the military could become “more cavalier” about using force.

Still, he said, “these systems today are very much Model T Fords. These things will only get more advanced.”

Drones are weapons of choice vs al Quida

Drones Are Weapons of Choice in Fighting Qaeda

Jim Wilson/The New York TimesA predator drone like those used in missions over Afghanistan and Iraq prepared to be shipped from a General Atomics plant in Poway, Calif., where it was built.


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By CHRISTOPHER DREW
Published: March 16, 2009

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Times Topics: Predator Drones and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)
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Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Flying drones over Iraq and Afghanistan from Arizona.
A missile fired by an American drone killed at least four people late Sunday at the house of a militant commander in northwest Pakistan, the latest use of what intelligence officials have called their most effective weapon against Al Qaeda.

And Pentagon officials say the remotely piloted planes, which can beam back live video for up to 22 hours, have done more than any other weapons system to track down insurgents and save American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The planes have become one of the military’s favorite weapons despite many shortcomings resulting from the rush to get them into the field.

An explosion in demand for the drones is contributing to new thinking inside the Pentagon about how to develop and deploy new weapons systems.

Air Force officials acknowledge that more than a third of their unmanned Predator spy planes — which are 27 feet long, powered by a high-performance snowmobile engine, and cost $4.5 million apiece — have crashed, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pilots, who fly them from trailers halfway around the world using joysticks and computer screens, say some of the controls are clunky. For example, the missile-firing button sits dangerously close to the switch that shuts off the plane’s engines. Pilots are also in such short supply that the service recently put out a call for retirees to help.

But military leaders say they can easily live with all that.

Since the height of the cold war, the military has tended to chase the boldest and most technologically advanced solution to every threat, leading to long delays and cost overruns that result in rarely used fighter jets that cost $143 million apiece, and plans for a $3 billion destroyer that the Navy says it can no longer afford.

Now the Pentagon appears to be warming up to Voltaire’s saying, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”

In speeches, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has urged his weapons buyers to rush out “75 percent solutions over a period of months” rather than waiting for “gold-plated” solutions.

And as the Obama administration prepares its first budget, officials say they plan to free up more money for simpler systems like drones that can pay dividends now, especially as fighting intensifies in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A rare behind-the-scenes look at the use of the Predator shows both the difficulties and the rewards in pushing out weapons more quickly.

“I’ll be really candid,” said Col. Eric Mathewson, who directs the Air Force’s task force on unmanned aerial systems. “We’re on the ragged edge.”

He said the service has been scrambling to train more pilots, who fly the drones via satellite links from the western United States, to keep up with a near-tripling of daily missions in the last two years.

Field commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the Air Force is in charge of the Predators, say their ability to linger over an area for hours, streaming instant video warnings of insurgent activity, has been crucial to reducing threats from roadside bombs and identifying terrorist compounds. The C.I.A. is in charge of drone flights in Pakistan, where more than three dozen missiles strikes have been launched against Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders in recent months.

Considered a novelty a few years ago, the Air Force’s fleet has grown to 195 Predators and 28 Reapers, a new and more heavily armed cousin of the Predator. Both models are made by General Atomics, a contractor based in San Diego. Including drones that the Army has used to counter roadside bombs and tiny hand-launched models that can help soldiers to peer past the next hill or building, the total number of military drones has soared to 5,500, from 167 in 2001.

The urgent need for more drones has meant bypassing usual procedures. Some of the 70 Predator crashes, for example, stemmed from decisions to deploy the planes before they had completed testing and to hold off replacing control stations to avoid interrupting the supply of intelligence.

“The context was to do just the absolute minimum needed to sustain the fight now, and accept the risks, while making fixes as you go along,” Colonel Mathewson said.

It is easier, of course, for the military to take more risks with unmanned planes.

Complaints about civilian casualties, particularly from strikes in Pakistan, have stirred some concerns among human rights advocates. Military officials say the ability of drones to observe targets for lengthy periods makes strikes more accurate. They also said they do not fire if they think civilians are nearby.

The Predators were still undergoing basic testing when they were rushed into use in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s and then hastily armed with missiles after the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

But it was only after the military turned to new counterinsurgency techniques in early 2007, that demand for drones became almost insatiable. Since then, Air Force Lt. Gen. Gary North, the air-component commander for the combined forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the service has gone to “amazing lengths” to increase their use.

The Predators and Reapers are now flying 34 surveillance patrols each day in Iraq and Afghanistan, up from 12 in 2006. They are also transmitting 16,000 hours of video each month, some of it directly to troops on the ground.

China to emerge even stronger?

GUANGZHOU, China — The global economic downturn, and efforts to reverse it, will probably make China an even stronger economic competitor than it was before the crisis.

Reuters
Workers at job fair in Changzhi on Sunday. China is providing subsidies for large-scale vocational training programs.

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Times Topics: Credit Crisis — The EssentialsChina, the world’s third-largest economy behind the United States and Japan, had already become more assertive; now it is exploiting its unusual position as a country with piles of cash and a strong banking system, at a time when many countries have neither, to acquire natural resources and make new friends.

Last week, China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, even reminded Washington that as one of the United States’ biggest creditors, China expects Washington to safeguard its investment.

China’s leaders are turning economic crisis to competitive advantage, said economic analysts.

The country is using its nearly $600 billion economic stimulus package to make its companies better able to compete in markets at home and abroad, to retrain migrant workers on an immense scale and to rapidly expand subsidies for research and development.

Construction has already begun on new highways and rail lines that are likely to permanently reduce transportation costs.

And while American leaders struggle to revive lending — in the latest effort with a $15 billion program to help small businesses — Chinese banks lent more in the last three months than in the preceding 12 months.

“The recent tweaks to the stimulus package indicate a sharper focus on the long-term competitiveness of Chinese industry,” said Eswar S. Prasad, a former China division chief at the International Monetary Fund. “Higher expenditures on education and research and development, along with amounts already committed to infrastructure investment, will boost the economy’s productivity.”

The international economic slowdown is also doing some things that Chinese authorities had tried and failed to do for four years: slow inflation, reverse what had been an ever-growing dependence on exports and pop a real estate bubble before it could grow even bigger.

The recession in most of the large economies in the world is inflicting real pain here — causing a record plunge in Chinese exports, putting 20 million migrant workers from within China out of their jobs and raising the potential for increased and sustained social unrest. But as President Hu Jintao told the National People’s Congress last week, “Challenge and opportunity always come together — under certain conditions, one could be transformed into the other.”

To that end, Chinese companies are shopping for foreign businesses to acquire. The commerce ministry announced late Monday that it was greatly easing the government approval process for Chinese companies seeking permission to make foreign acquisitions.

The ministry is now leading its first mergers and acquisitions delegation of corporate executives to Europe; the executives are looking at companies in the automotive, textiles, food, energy, machinery, electronics and environmental protection sectors.

The government initiatives coincide with some immediate benefits of the slowdown for China. For instance, air freight and ocean shipping costs have plunged by as much as two-thirds since last summer as demand has fallen.

Blue-collar wages, which had doubled in four years in some coastal cities, have fallen for many workers this winter, causing personal pain but reviving China’s advantage in labor costs.

Unemployment has pushed down the piece rates that factories pay for each garment sewn or toy assembled. Overtime has practically disappeared.

Lao Shu-jen, a migrant worker from Jiangxi province who works at a blue jeans factory here, said that he earned $350 a month late last year but would be lucky to earn $220 a month this spring.

“There are a lot of blue jeans” piling up in the back of the factory with no sign of buyers, he said.

Highly qualified middle managers, in acutely short supply a year ago, are now widely available because of layoffs. They are likely to stay that way — although white-collar unemployment could pose a threat of social unrest. Limited job opportunities contributed to the Tiananmen Square protests 20 years ago.

Some jobs are still available now. Four days after a shoe factory closed here for lack of orders, laying off several hundred workers, there were four ads on the factory’s front gate from other shoe factories seeking to hire skilled workers.

Unskilled laborers face the greatest difficulty finding jobs. But with subsidies from Beijing, provincial governments have embarked on large-scale vocational training programs of the sort that the United States has discussed but not actually tried.

Guangdong province alone, here in southeastern China, is quadrupling its vocational training program this year to teach four million workers engaged in three-month or six-month programs.

The main comparable program in the United States, under the Workforce Investment Act, has been training fewer than 250,000 a year, although President Obama’s stimulus program provides funding that could double the number of American workers in training programs.

The Guangdong training programs are half in the classroom and half in the factory, usually the business that plans to employ the trainees. By increasing productivity, training programs can hold down corporate labor costs per unit of production for years to come.

China’s huge training programs may also help preserve social stability by keeping the unemployed off the streets, although Chinese officials deny that is their intention.

Multinationals are cutting back less in China than elsewhere — and some are even expanding.

Intel is shutting down semiconductor production lines sooner than previously planned at older, smaller operations in Malaysia and the Philippines as it opens a large, new factory in Chengdu in western China.

IMI Plc., the big British manufacturer of items as diverse as power plant valves and brewery equipment, has just announced an accelerated shift of operations to China, India and the Czech Republic, after cutting its global work force by 10 percent since December.

And Hon Hai, the 600,000-employee Taiwanese company that is one of the world’s largest contract manufacturers of products like the Apple iPhone and Nintendo Wii game console, has just increased employment by nearly 5 percent in China even as it cuts overall employment by 3 to 5 percent.

Yet China’s economy still has weaknesses. Little is being done to shift the economy away from a heavy reliance on capital spending and toward greater consumption. The social safety net of pensions, health care and education barely exists, so Chinese families save heavily.

Strict government policies on labor and the environment, intended to address serious shortfalls in both and imposed a year ago when China felt more confident of its economic strength, are prompting low-tech industries like toy manufacturing to move to other, less stringent countries.

Top labor officials insisted during the National People’s Congress that they would resist suggestions from some Chinese executives that the new standards be relaxed.

Monday, March 16, 2009

commentary

As much as I would like to reply to the adolescent and senseless comments here all day, I am spending most of the day out talking to residents for this campaign. When the people hear the message they listen because it has to do with their taxes and money disappearing out of their pockets. Most are pretty busy with their lives, kids, job, house, car, etc., but when they take the time and listen, they are infuriated to learn their hard earned taxes are disappearing by the truckloads. I dont blame them. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

comments

Does anybody know if the Corradino Group has been on the City payroll for the past 4-5 years? If so, they are certainly NOT an unbiased source of information, as there is a direct conflict of interest. That would explain why they have been cheerleading the annexation project all along. Mr Corradino said he didnt THINK that pollution is a problem out there. It is not clear what his environmental qualifications for making that determination would be. IF he is now on the City payroll, and has been for YEARS, it would be hard to give his conclusions much credence, especially in an arena where his credentials are questionable to start with, no? Dr. Mel P. Johnson

commentary

There are those in the community who want to know what contributions I have mede recently. I have been active in the River Cities Festival Committee, the Historical Society, and the Ecology Board Acting Chairman for the past ten months. My plan is to let the people vote on the big issues, as is their right as Americans, and their history in the past on golf course and highrise votes. My plan is to implement changes in our government that will insure that accountability and transparency are present. No more $375 a square foot and $600 a square foot construction projects. I believe the City should take a leadership position on efficient Green and environmental issues. I believe that DUE DILIGENCE should be done before considering any major issues, which entails indepth examinations and discussions of ALL the pros and cons of each and every issue, and ultimately results in the people voting after all is said and done. Those are the things I believe have been missing from our city government in the past, and the things that I intend to get straightened out, if elected. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

commentary

I love it when the all-knowing soothe-sayers assure us that" it may get a little tighter but nothing drastic". Would you say that losing your house is a pretty drastic outcome for most people? What would this smug one who knows the future say to those 151 homeowners? Is this the same guy who assured us six months ago that we werent REALLY in a recession, just a correction and maybe a little inflation? How did THAT prediction turn out? What cuts have already been made? Is this the clown who believes this whole economic situation is caused by a lack of Happy Talk? Is this the guy who believes that we should instead focus on all the money that the contractors in the new gym project will be making, because that is surely Happy Talk to them? He simply FORGETS to mention that the scores of change orders result in cost overruns that run the costs up to TRIPLE what it should cost (if the city's previous history in the past 2 construction projects holds true), and that is certainly NOT Happy Talk to the struggling residents because it comes straight out of their pocket. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

151 foreclosures in MS

Sundays edition of The Herald indicates that there are currently 151 houses in foreclosure in Miami Springs. These are people who have lost their jobs and are now losing their homes. They are resorting to multiple garage sales to sell any and all of their possessions to keep the lights on and food on the table in a struggle to survive. When the choices come down to food for your family or paying property taxes, which obligation would YOU meet? Property taxes wont be paid and tax revenues will go down significantly. The City Manager projects a 1.3 million deficit for next year. Is this REALLY a good time to add to the tax burden of the residents with payments on a new gym? especially when there is an excellent option that adds NOTHING to our tax burdens? It makes NO sense to me. NONE. BTW, for the 45th time, if I dont sign my name its not me. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

Sunday, March 15, 2009

tax monies disappear

The City has admitted paying 414k+ for the bathrooms. Those numbers are from a Freedom of Information request. The itemized and detailed take out on from the GC for 140k is in my possession and and available to anyone who wants to see it. I have shown it to dozens of residents already, some of them contractors themselves, and will continue to do so. This much is clear- we spent 414k+ on two bathrooms that can easily be built for 140k. Where did the additional 280k go? No answers or rational explanations are forthcoming from the City. So I guess everybody can decide for themselves where that extra 280k finally ended up, as we KNOW it didnt go for costs. I know I have my ideas about that where that money disappeared to. Dr. Mel P. Johnson