By Annie B. Bond
A proliferation of mold and mildew can be the hallmark of hot and humid summers. I have a friend who has green mold growing on the shoes in her closet! A humidifier might be the best help for her, but there are also three natural materials that can be used as a spray to kill mold and mildew. They are all an excellent substitute for less environmentally safe bleach.
Learn these three tricks for killing mold and mildew. One of these you most likely already have in your kitchen cupboard.
Over the years I have found three natural ingredients that kill
mold: Tea tree oil (an essential oil found in most health food
stores), grapefruit seed extract and vinegar. There are pros
and cons of each, but all three work. Vinegar is by far the cheapest.
Tea tree oil is expensive, but it is a broad spectrum fungicide
and seems to kill all the mold families it contacts. The problem is
that it has a very strong smell, but that dissipates in a few days.
Grapefruit seed extract is also expensive, but has no smell.
Click here for how to use these three ingredients in your home to
kill mold and mildew.
Mold can be dangerous to your health, even if you aren’t allergic.
Many people react to mold by getting tired and even depressed.
Try to stay on top of moisture and mold as soon as either arises.
Dry out anything that is damp, such as basements (use a
dehumidifier) and carpets. Fix leaks in plumbing and roofs.
Wipe up spills. Make sure water doesn’t escape from shower
curtains. Vigilance will pay off!
Tea Tree Treasure
Nothing natural works for mold and mildew as well as this spray.
I’ve used it successfully on a moldy ceiling from a leaking roof,
on a musty bureau, a musty rug and a moldy shower curtain. Tea
tree oil is expensive, but a little goes a very long way. Note
that the smell of tea tree oil is very strong, but it will
dissipate in a few days.
2 teaspoons tea tree oil
2 cups water
Combine in a spray bottle, shake to blend, and spray on problem
areas. Do not rinse. Makes about 2 cups, lasts indefinitely.
Grapefruit Seed Extract
The advantage of using grapefruit seed extract instead of tea tree
oil for killing mold is that it is odorless.
20 drops grapefruit seed extract
2 cups water
Combine in a spray bottle, shake to blend, and spray on problem
areas. Do not rinse. Makes about 2 cups, lasts indefinitely.
Vinegar Spray
Straight vinegar reportedly kills 82 percent of mold. Pour
some white distilled vinegar straight into a spray bottle,
spray on the moldy area, and let set without rinsing if you
can put up with the smell. It will dissipate in a few hours.
Friday, April 10, 2009
clutter and depression related?
By Melissa Breyer, Senior Editor, Healthy & Green Living
Does clutter cause depression? Does depression cause clutter? At any given moment during a high-clutter period in my household, I may argue the validity of both of these scenarios. Clutter has a special way of inspiring stress and frustration, which, more often than not, abets the inability to combat the mess. It becomes circular–which came first, the chicken or the egg? In the end, it seems to snowball into a tangled mess of tension and depression and it’s hard to tell what’s causing what.
Chronic disorganization is not a medical diagnosis, nor is it a generally specified symptom of depression–but ask just about anyone who suffers from clutter if they feel there is some type of link, and I bet 99 percent will say yes.
According to an article in The New York Times, excessive clutter and disorganization are often symptoms of a bigger health problem. People who have suffered an emotional trauma or a brain injury often find housecleaning an insurmountable task. Attention deficit disorder, depression, chronic pain and grief can prevent people from getting organized or lead to a buildup of clutter. At its most extreme, chronic disorganization is called hoarding, a condition many experts believe is a mental illness in its own right, although psychiatrists have yet to formally recognize it.
Compulsive hoarding is defined, in part, by clutter that so overtakes living, dining and sleeping spaces that it harms the person’s quality of life. A compulsive hoarder finds it impossible, even painful, to part with possessions. It’s not clear how many people suffer from compulsive hoarding, but estimates start at about 1.5 million Americans, according to The Times
Does clutter cause depression? Does depression cause clutter? At any given moment during a high-clutter period in my household, I may argue the validity of both of these scenarios. Clutter has a special way of inspiring stress and frustration, which, more often than not, abets the inability to combat the mess. It becomes circular–which came first, the chicken or the egg? In the end, it seems to snowball into a tangled mess of tension and depression and it’s hard to tell what’s causing what.
Chronic disorganization is not a medical diagnosis, nor is it a generally specified symptom of depression–but ask just about anyone who suffers from clutter if they feel there is some type of link, and I bet 99 percent will say yes.
According to an article in The New York Times, excessive clutter and disorganization are often symptoms of a bigger health problem. People who have suffered an emotional trauma or a brain injury often find housecleaning an insurmountable task. Attention deficit disorder, depression, chronic pain and grief can prevent people from getting organized or lead to a buildup of clutter. At its most extreme, chronic disorganization is called hoarding, a condition many experts believe is a mental illness in its own right, although psychiatrists have yet to formally recognize it.
Compulsive hoarding is defined, in part, by clutter that so overtakes living, dining and sleeping spaces that it harms the person’s quality of life. A compulsive hoarder finds it impossible, even painful, to part with possessions. It’s not clear how many people suffer from compulsive hoarding, but estimates start at about 1.5 million Americans, according to The Times
Thursday, April 9, 2009
the hands of time
'The clock of life is wound but once, and no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop, at late or early hour. Now is the only time you own. Live, love, toil with a will. Place no faith in time. For the clock may soon be still.
commentary
Newman stated in his ad and to the people who he spoke with that his concern with the way police needed take home cars was something that he wanted to help them get. Okay, he was in favor of take-home cars. He also talked about how he wanted to help the police getting a new station and hire the unfilled positions. So he wants to help the police get take-home cars, a new station, and fill the open positions, plus he helps get rid of grafitti in our city, and somehow the police take away from that hes NOT good for the city AND not good for THEM? In WHAT way was his opponent better for the cops and the city? I didnt see anywhere that she even mentioned the cops, unfilled positions, take-home cars, or a new station! She hasnt attended a half dozen council meetings in the past two years! Other than wanting whatever Billy wants, what made the police decide on her? I would really be interested to know. The same case could be made with Lob too, of course. On what basis were those decisions made? Dr. Mel P. Johnson
commentary
I say again- if the cops had an issue with Newman they should have discussed it and tried to find a solution. To endorse the ENTIRE Bain slate WAS a political statement. I had maybe a total of 35 minutes of conversation with Newman and he was relentlessly positive about annexation all three times I spoke with him. He had a few reservations about it, as did I. To use a dispute with one candidate as an excuse to back the entire slate of Billy is hard to understand. How can that NOT be political? Are you sure it wasnt more about promises of take-home cars and a new police station, in addition to all those new career oppurtunities? All are worthwhile projects - the question is whether the taxpayers can afford them. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Economy Falling Years Behind Full Speed pg 2
Economy Falling Years Behind Full Speed
Published: April 6, 2009
(Page 2 of 2)
By V-J Day in 1945, the economy, propelled by war spending, was operating beyond what the experts thought of as full capacity, demonstrating the “squishiness” of the concept, as Mr. Gordon put it. Just the swing from one to three shifts alters capacity, he said, and so does the more intensive use of floor space.
Poll Finds New Optimism on Economy Since Inauguration (April 7, 2009)
Times Topics: United States EconomyCapacity stretched again in the 1950s and ’60s, to feed demand created by the wars in Korea and Vietnam, and then again in the late 1990s, propelled by the dot-com boom. And there were downdrafts as recessions sapped demand, but none as punishing as the current one.
Sixteen months into this recession, the economy is operating at 7 percent below its potential capacity, the Congressional Budget Office reported last month. If that were to continue, today’s $14 trillion economy would be a $13 trillion economy by this time next year.
Labor is contributing hugely to the shortfall. More than 24 million men and women, or 15.6 percent of the labor force, are either hunting for work or working fewer hours than they would like to work, or are too discouraged to seek work, although they would take jobs if offered them, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.
The ranks of this “underutilized” group — the bureau’s label — are up by 10 million since early last year. Generating work for so many people would take several years, even if the nation’s employers stopped shedding more than 600,000 jobs a month, as they have done since December, and began hiring robustly.
“We have rarely been in this deep a hole,” said Nigel Gault, chief domestic economist for IHS Global Insight.
His concern is that nearly every nation — not just the United States — is suffering from idle capacity as the recession that started in America grips Europe and Asia. Struggling for sales in a marketplace swamped with goods and services, companies are cutting prices and shutting down operations, trying to keep supply in line with dwindling demand.
The cutback is particularly severe in the auto industry, which had the capacity, going into the recession, to make nearly twice as many cars in the United States as are now being sold here. Indeed, some of the factories being closed are unlikely to ever reopen.
“Eventually, once this recession is over, we will fill up capacity,” Mr. Gault said. “Not only that, capacity itself will inevitably expand as the labor force grows and innovation kicks in. But the new capacity won’t be as great as it would have been if we had not gone through this terrible experience.”
Published: April 6, 2009
(Page 2 of 2)
By V-J Day in 1945, the economy, propelled by war spending, was operating beyond what the experts thought of as full capacity, demonstrating the “squishiness” of the concept, as Mr. Gordon put it. Just the swing from one to three shifts alters capacity, he said, and so does the more intensive use of floor space.
Poll Finds New Optimism on Economy Since Inauguration (April 7, 2009)
Times Topics: United States EconomyCapacity stretched again in the 1950s and ’60s, to feed demand created by the wars in Korea and Vietnam, and then again in the late 1990s, propelled by the dot-com boom. And there were downdrafts as recessions sapped demand, but none as punishing as the current one.
Sixteen months into this recession, the economy is operating at 7 percent below its potential capacity, the Congressional Budget Office reported last month. If that were to continue, today’s $14 trillion economy would be a $13 trillion economy by this time next year.
Labor is contributing hugely to the shortfall. More than 24 million men and women, or 15.6 percent of the labor force, are either hunting for work or working fewer hours than they would like to work, or are too discouraged to seek work, although they would take jobs if offered them, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.
The ranks of this “underutilized” group — the bureau’s label — are up by 10 million since early last year. Generating work for so many people would take several years, even if the nation’s employers stopped shedding more than 600,000 jobs a month, as they have done since December, and began hiring robustly.
“We have rarely been in this deep a hole,” said Nigel Gault, chief domestic economist for IHS Global Insight.
His concern is that nearly every nation — not just the United States — is suffering from idle capacity as the recession that started in America grips Europe and Asia. Struggling for sales in a marketplace swamped with goods and services, companies are cutting prices and shutting down operations, trying to keep supply in line with dwindling demand.
The cutback is particularly severe in the auto industry, which had the capacity, going into the recession, to make nearly twice as many cars in the United States as are now being sold here. Indeed, some of the factories being closed are unlikely to ever reopen.
“Eventually, once this recession is over, we will fill up capacity,” Mr. Gault said. “Not only that, capacity itself will inevitably expand as the labor force grows and innovation kicks in. But the new capacity won’t be as great as it would have been if we had not gone through this terrible experience.”
Poll Finds New Optimism on Economy
By LOUIS UCHITELLE
Published: April 6, 2009
As the recession grinds on, more and more of the nation’s means of production — its workers, its factories, its retail outlets, its freight lines, its bank lending, even its new inventions — are being mothballed.
Poll Finds New Optimism on Economy Since Inauguration (April 7, 2009)
Times Topics: United States EconomyThis idled capacity, like baseball players after a winter off, takes time to bring back into robust use. So even if the recession miraculously ended tomorrow, economists estimate that at least three years would pass before full employment returned and output rose enough for the economy to operate at full throttle.
While stock market investors have embraced tentative signs of improvement in the mortgage market and elsewhere, even a sharp pickup in demand for products and services will take considerable time to play out.
The mathematics are daunting. The shortfall is running at more than $1 trillion in annual sales and other transactions. Only once since the Great Depression has there been such a severe loss of output — in the 1981-82 recession — and after that downturn, it was seven years before the economy regained the lost production.
Recovery from the current recession could be similarly sluggish. New occupants have to be found for empty stores. Factory owners who are hesitant to ramp up production will wait until they are sure of demand. Hiring the right people for an operation will take time. And imports, entering the country in ever greater quantities, will slow any expansion by siphoning sales from domestic producers.
Then there is the growth rate itself. In the six years of recovery from the 2001 recession to the current one, the economy grew at an average annual rate of only 2.5 percent, adjusted for inflation. If that growth rate were to resume, just $350 billion a year would be added back, requiring three years to restore the $1 trillion in lost capacity. But getting the economy to grow at all after so much output has been lost, and so many jobs, is no easy task.
“Excess capacity, once entrenched, perpetuates itself, and that is what is happening now,” said James Crotty, an economist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “Companies cannot hire workers to make more goods and provide more services until their sales go up. But people can’t buy goods and services until they are hired — so the excess capacity just sits there.”
It shows up everywhere. Lawyers are booking fewer hours. Retail space goes begging. Tourism is down. So is cellphone use, airline bookings, freight traffic and household borrowing, which is less than half what it was on the eve of the recession, the Federal Reserve reports.
With orders dwindling, manufacturers are using less than 68 percent of the nation’s factory capacity, the lowest level since records were first kept in 1948. And while entrepreneurs are as inventive as ever, they may not be able to get venture capitalists to bankroll their creations.
“We and others are funding start-ups as slowly as possible, or not at all,” said Howard Anderson, a founding partner of Battery Ventures in Waltham, Mass., and a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He cites as an example a hand-held device, similar in shape to an iPod, that restaurant diners would use to order food and drink electronically. Waiters would bring the orders, but not take them.
“The prototype just sits there,” Mr. Anderson said, “and maybe the inventors will get funding to produce and market their device — and maybe their company never gets born.”
If there is an upside, it is the absence of inflationary pressure. With so much excess capacity rattling around, shortages do not develop that would push up prices. Indeed, interest rates are kept low to encourage more borrowing and spending. Neither is happening. Instead, demand continues to shrink and idle capacity to build up.
The Obama administration, like the Roosevelt administration 75 years ago, is trying to break this logjam through government spending, using it in effect as a substitute for consumers who are jobless or short of credit. The spending is also a substitute for companies that hesitate to extend themselves or see no profit in doing so.
But the president’s solution, the recently enacted stimulus package, spreads $787 billion over two years. So even if every dollar of spending restored a dollar of output, President Obama would be nearing the end of his first term before output approached the level achieved just before the start of the recession in December 2007.
Or so says Robert J. Gordon, an economist at Northwestern University who specializes in tracking the gap between actual output and potential output, a k a full capacity. The Roosevelt economy also languished well below full capacity, Mr. Gordon said, until the summer of 1940, when France fell to Hitler’s armies.
From then until the attack on Pearl Harbor, 18 months later, a galvanized administration more than doubled federal outlays — soon accounting for $1 of every $4 spent in the country — and the United States entered the war with its economy operating almost at full capacity.
(Government currently accounts for $1 of every $5 spent, barely more than in 2007, and most of that spending is at the state and local levels, the opposite of 1940-41, when federal outlays shot up.)
“What you had was a revolution in the labor force,” Mr. Gordon said. “Women poured into jobs in droves, often replacing men, and every factory went to three shifts.”
Published: April 6, 2009
As the recession grinds on, more and more of the nation’s means of production — its workers, its factories, its retail outlets, its freight lines, its bank lending, even its new inventions — are being mothballed.
Poll Finds New Optimism on Economy Since Inauguration (April 7, 2009)
Times Topics: United States EconomyThis idled capacity, like baseball players after a winter off, takes time to bring back into robust use. So even if the recession miraculously ended tomorrow, economists estimate that at least three years would pass before full employment returned and output rose enough for the economy to operate at full throttle.
While stock market investors have embraced tentative signs of improvement in the mortgage market and elsewhere, even a sharp pickup in demand for products and services will take considerable time to play out.
The mathematics are daunting. The shortfall is running at more than $1 trillion in annual sales and other transactions. Only once since the Great Depression has there been such a severe loss of output — in the 1981-82 recession — and after that downturn, it was seven years before the economy regained the lost production.
Recovery from the current recession could be similarly sluggish. New occupants have to be found for empty stores. Factory owners who are hesitant to ramp up production will wait until they are sure of demand. Hiring the right people for an operation will take time. And imports, entering the country in ever greater quantities, will slow any expansion by siphoning sales from domestic producers.
Then there is the growth rate itself. In the six years of recovery from the 2001 recession to the current one, the economy grew at an average annual rate of only 2.5 percent, adjusted for inflation. If that growth rate were to resume, just $350 billion a year would be added back, requiring three years to restore the $1 trillion in lost capacity. But getting the economy to grow at all after so much output has been lost, and so many jobs, is no easy task.
“Excess capacity, once entrenched, perpetuates itself, and that is what is happening now,” said James Crotty, an economist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “Companies cannot hire workers to make more goods and provide more services until their sales go up. But people can’t buy goods and services until they are hired — so the excess capacity just sits there.”
It shows up everywhere. Lawyers are booking fewer hours. Retail space goes begging. Tourism is down. So is cellphone use, airline bookings, freight traffic and household borrowing, which is less than half what it was on the eve of the recession, the Federal Reserve reports.
With orders dwindling, manufacturers are using less than 68 percent of the nation’s factory capacity, the lowest level since records were first kept in 1948. And while entrepreneurs are as inventive as ever, they may not be able to get venture capitalists to bankroll their creations.
“We and others are funding start-ups as slowly as possible, or not at all,” said Howard Anderson, a founding partner of Battery Ventures in Waltham, Mass., and a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He cites as an example a hand-held device, similar in shape to an iPod, that restaurant diners would use to order food and drink electronically. Waiters would bring the orders, but not take them.
“The prototype just sits there,” Mr. Anderson said, “and maybe the inventors will get funding to produce and market their device — and maybe their company never gets born.”
If there is an upside, it is the absence of inflationary pressure. With so much excess capacity rattling around, shortages do not develop that would push up prices. Indeed, interest rates are kept low to encourage more borrowing and spending. Neither is happening. Instead, demand continues to shrink and idle capacity to build up.
The Obama administration, like the Roosevelt administration 75 years ago, is trying to break this logjam through government spending, using it in effect as a substitute for consumers who are jobless or short of credit. The spending is also a substitute for companies that hesitate to extend themselves or see no profit in doing so.
But the president’s solution, the recently enacted stimulus package, spreads $787 billion over two years. So even if every dollar of spending restored a dollar of output, President Obama would be nearing the end of his first term before output approached the level achieved just before the start of the recession in December 2007.
Or so says Robert J. Gordon, an economist at Northwestern University who specializes in tracking the gap between actual output and potential output, a k a full capacity. The Roosevelt economy also languished well below full capacity, Mr. Gordon said, until the summer of 1940, when France fell to Hitler’s armies.
From then until the attack on Pearl Harbor, 18 months later, a galvanized administration more than doubled federal outlays — soon accounting for $1 of every $4 spent in the country — and the United States entered the war with its economy operating almost at full capacity.
(Government currently accounts for $1 of every $5 spent, barely more than in 2007, and most of that spending is at the state and local levels, the opposite of 1940-41, when federal outlays shot up.)
“What you had was a revolution in the labor force,” Mr. Gordon said. “Women poured into jobs in droves, often replacing men, and every factory went to three shifts.”
Big Oil reluctant pg 2
Oil Companies Loath to Follow Obama’s Green Lead
Published: April 7, 2009
(Page 2 of 2)
Despite Washington’s newfound green enthusiasm, industry executives argue that replacing any significant part of the fossil fuel business will take decades, at best. Just to keep up with growth in demand for conventional sources of energy, producers will need to invest more than $1 trillion each year from now to 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.
Today's Business: Jad Mouawad on Big Oil and Obama's Energy PlansA blog about energy, the environment and the bottom line.
Go to Blog » “Many of these companies see the world is changing,” said Daniel Yergin, the chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and a historian of the industry. “But the challenge for a very large company is to get critical scale. People tend to forget the scale of the energy business.”
The world consumes about 85 million barrels of oil a day. The United States alone would require six times its arable land — and 75 percent of the world’s cultivated land — to supply its needs with ethanol made from corn, according to calculations by Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba.
More realistic, and modest, targets are proving tough to reach. Congress’s ethanol mandate, which requires oil companies to use 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2020, cannot be achieved, experts say, without major technological advances that are still years away.
To increase supplies, most companies are looking to tar sands in Canada or converting coal or natural gas into liquid fuels, technologies that emit far more carbon dioxide than conventional oil does.
Shell, a major investor in Alberta in Canada, says that traditional oil supplies will not be enough to meet the growth in the world’s energy needs over the next half-century. In 2007, BP invested in Canadian tar sands, prompting criticism that it was “recarbonizing” itself.
John M. Deutch, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former director of central intelligence, said there was little point in criticizing oil companies without first establishing federal rules that set a price on carbon dioxide emissions. Once that happens, he said, companies will adapt their strategies.
“What role will oil companies play in the future in alternatives to conventional hydrocarbon? The correct answer is nobody knows,” Mr. Deutch said. “The important thing is for the government to establish a carbon policy. You can be absolutely confident that oil companies will pursue that, as will any other companies.”
One area where companies are increasingly focused is the development of liquid fuels from plants. BP said it would soon build a demonstration plant in Florida for a type of ethanol made from plant material; Shell has worked with several firms since 2002 to develop ethanol from nonfood crops. Last year, it signed agreements with six companies, including one in Brazil, and decided to drop its other renewable efforts to focus solely on biofuels.
“Biofuels feels closest to our core business,” said Darci Sinclair, a company spokeswoman.
Other areas also hold significant promise for the industry, like technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions and store them underground, and energy-efficiency programs, especially in the transportation sector. Exxon, long the most skeptical of the oil companies toward alternative energy investments, is working on long-term programs to improve fuel economy and reduce emissions.
In the end, many analysts say they believe that oil companies are waiting for a winning technology to emerge. Alan Shaw, the chief executive of Codexis, a biotechnology company in Silicon Valley that works with Shell, said oil companies were not blind to the new political reality but they were also in the business of making a profit.
“Don’t lose heart with Big Oil,” Mr. Shaw said. “They aren’t at a point where they are ready to invest yet, but they are getting there. I think in the next 10 years, they will invest hundreds of times more than they have in the past 10 years.”
Published: April 7, 2009
(Page 2 of 2)
Despite Washington’s newfound green enthusiasm, industry executives argue that replacing any significant part of the fossil fuel business will take decades, at best. Just to keep up with growth in demand for conventional sources of energy, producers will need to invest more than $1 trillion each year from now to 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.
Today's Business: Jad Mouawad on Big Oil and Obama's Energy PlansA blog about energy, the environment and the bottom line.
Go to Blog » “Many of these companies see the world is changing,” said Daniel Yergin, the chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and a historian of the industry. “But the challenge for a very large company is to get critical scale. People tend to forget the scale of the energy business.”
The world consumes about 85 million barrels of oil a day. The United States alone would require six times its arable land — and 75 percent of the world’s cultivated land — to supply its needs with ethanol made from corn, according to calculations by Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba.
More realistic, and modest, targets are proving tough to reach. Congress’s ethanol mandate, which requires oil companies to use 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2020, cannot be achieved, experts say, without major technological advances that are still years away.
To increase supplies, most companies are looking to tar sands in Canada or converting coal or natural gas into liquid fuels, technologies that emit far more carbon dioxide than conventional oil does.
Shell, a major investor in Alberta in Canada, says that traditional oil supplies will not be enough to meet the growth in the world’s energy needs over the next half-century. In 2007, BP invested in Canadian tar sands, prompting criticism that it was “recarbonizing” itself.
John M. Deutch, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former director of central intelligence, said there was little point in criticizing oil companies without first establishing federal rules that set a price on carbon dioxide emissions. Once that happens, he said, companies will adapt their strategies.
“What role will oil companies play in the future in alternatives to conventional hydrocarbon? The correct answer is nobody knows,” Mr. Deutch said. “The important thing is for the government to establish a carbon policy. You can be absolutely confident that oil companies will pursue that, as will any other companies.”
One area where companies are increasingly focused is the development of liquid fuels from plants. BP said it would soon build a demonstration plant in Florida for a type of ethanol made from plant material; Shell has worked with several firms since 2002 to develop ethanol from nonfood crops. Last year, it signed agreements with six companies, including one in Brazil, and decided to drop its other renewable efforts to focus solely on biofuels.
“Biofuels feels closest to our core business,” said Darci Sinclair, a company spokeswoman.
Other areas also hold significant promise for the industry, like technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions and store them underground, and energy-efficiency programs, especially in the transportation sector. Exxon, long the most skeptical of the oil companies toward alternative energy investments, is working on long-term programs to improve fuel economy and reduce emissions.
In the end, many analysts say they believe that oil companies are waiting for a winning technology to emerge. Alan Shaw, the chief executive of Codexis, a biotechnology company in Silicon Valley that works with Shell, said oil companies were not blind to the new political reality but they were also in the business of making a profit.
“Don’t lose heart with Big Oil,” Mr. Shaw said. “They aren’t at a point where they are ready to invest yet, but they are getting there. I think in the next 10 years, they will invest hundreds of times more than they have in the past 10 years.”
Oil Companies Loath to Follow Obama’s Green Lead
Oil Companies Loath to Follow Obama’s Green Lead
By JAD MOUAWAD
Published: April 7, 2009
The Obama administration wants to reduce oil consumption, increase renewable energy supplies and cut carbon dioxide emissions in the most ambitious transformation of energy policy in a generation.
Today's Business: Jad Mouawad on Big Oil and Obama's Energy PlansA blog about energy, the environment and the bottom line.
Go to Blog » But the world’s oil giants are not convinced that it will work. Even as Washington goes into a frenzy over energy, many of the oil companies are staying on the sidelines, balking at investing in new technologies favored by the president, or even straying from commitments they had already made.
Royal Dutch Shell said last month that it would freeze its research and investments in wind, solar and hydrogen power, and focus its alternative energy efforts on biofuels. The company had already sold much of its solar business and pulled out of a project last year to build the largest offshore wind farm, near London.
BP, a company that has spent nine years saying it was moving “beyond petroleum,” has been getting back to petroleum since 2007, paring back its renewable program. And American oil companies, which all along have been more skeptical of alternative energy than their European counterparts, are studiously ignoring the new messages coming from Washington.
“In my view, nothing has really changed,” Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, said after the election of President Obama.
“We don’t oppose alternative energy sources and the development of those. But to hang the future of the country’s energy on those alternatives alone belies reality of their size and scale.”
The administration wants to spend $150 billion over the next decade to create what it calls “a clean energy future.” Its plan would aim to diversify the nation’s energy sources by encouraging more renewables, and it would reduce oil consumption and cut carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
The oil companies have frequently run advertisements expressing their interest in new forms of energy, but their actual investments have belied the marketing claims. The great bulk of their investments goes to traditional petroleum resources, including carbon-intensive energy sources like tar sands and natural gas from shale, while alternative investments account for a tiny fraction of their spending. So far, that has changed little under the Obama administration.
“The scale of their alternative investments is so mind-numbingly small that it’s hard to find them,” said Nathanael Greene, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “These companies don’t feel they have to be on the leading edge of this stuff.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, most investments in alternative sources of energy are coming from pockets other than those of the oil companies.
In the last 15 years, the top five oil companies have spent around $5 billion to develop sources of renewable energy, according to Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, an industry trade group. This represents only 10 percent of the roughly $50 billion funneled into the clean-energy sector by venture capital funds and corporate investors during that period, he said.
“Big Oil does not consider renewable energy to be a mainstream business,” Mr. Eckhart said. “It’s a side business for them.”
Shell, for example, said it spent $1.7 billion since 2004 on alternative projects. That amount is dwarfed by the $87 billion it spent over the same period on its oil and gas projects around the world. This year, the company’s overall capital spending is set at $31 billion, most of it for the development of fossil fuels.
Industry executives contend that comparing investments in oil and gas projects with their research efforts in the renewable field is misleading. They say that while renewable fuels are needed, they are still at an early stage of development, and petroleum will remain the dominant source of energy for decades.
In its long-term forecast, Exxon says that by 2050, hydrocarbons — including oil, gas, and coal — will account for 80 percent of the world’s energy supplies, about the same as today.
“Renewable energy is very real,” David J. O’Reilly, the chief executive of Chevron, said in a speech in New York last November. “We need it. It will be an essential part of the future I envision. But it’s not realistic to suppose we can replace conventional energy in a timeframe that some suggest.”
Chevron has spent about $3.2 billion since 2002 on “renewable and alternative energy and energy efficiency services,” according to Alexander Yelland, a spokesman. It plans to spend $2.7 billion in the three years through 2011 on a variety of projects, including a business that helps improve energy efficiency for companies and government agencies, he said.
By JAD MOUAWAD
Published: April 7, 2009
The Obama administration wants to reduce oil consumption, increase renewable energy supplies and cut carbon dioxide emissions in the most ambitious transformation of energy policy in a generation.
Today's Business: Jad Mouawad on Big Oil and Obama's Energy PlansA blog about energy, the environment and the bottom line.
Go to Blog » But the world’s oil giants are not convinced that it will work. Even as Washington goes into a frenzy over energy, many of the oil companies are staying on the sidelines, balking at investing in new technologies favored by the president, or even straying from commitments they had already made.
Royal Dutch Shell said last month that it would freeze its research and investments in wind, solar and hydrogen power, and focus its alternative energy efforts on biofuels. The company had already sold much of its solar business and pulled out of a project last year to build the largest offshore wind farm, near London.
BP, a company that has spent nine years saying it was moving “beyond petroleum,” has been getting back to petroleum since 2007, paring back its renewable program. And American oil companies, which all along have been more skeptical of alternative energy than their European counterparts, are studiously ignoring the new messages coming from Washington.
“In my view, nothing has really changed,” Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, said after the election of President Obama.
“We don’t oppose alternative energy sources and the development of those. But to hang the future of the country’s energy on those alternatives alone belies reality of their size and scale.”
The administration wants to spend $150 billion over the next decade to create what it calls “a clean energy future.” Its plan would aim to diversify the nation’s energy sources by encouraging more renewables, and it would reduce oil consumption and cut carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
The oil companies have frequently run advertisements expressing their interest in new forms of energy, but their actual investments have belied the marketing claims. The great bulk of their investments goes to traditional petroleum resources, including carbon-intensive energy sources like tar sands and natural gas from shale, while alternative investments account for a tiny fraction of their spending. So far, that has changed little under the Obama administration.
“The scale of their alternative investments is so mind-numbingly small that it’s hard to find them,” said Nathanael Greene, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “These companies don’t feel they have to be on the leading edge of this stuff.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, most investments in alternative sources of energy are coming from pockets other than those of the oil companies.
In the last 15 years, the top five oil companies have spent around $5 billion to develop sources of renewable energy, according to Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, an industry trade group. This represents only 10 percent of the roughly $50 billion funneled into the clean-energy sector by venture capital funds and corporate investors during that period, he said.
“Big Oil does not consider renewable energy to be a mainstream business,” Mr. Eckhart said. “It’s a side business for them.”
Shell, for example, said it spent $1.7 billion since 2004 on alternative projects. That amount is dwarfed by the $87 billion it spent over the same period on its oil and gas projects around the world. This year, the company’s overall capital spending is set at $31 billion, most of it for the development of fossil fuels.
Industry executives contend that comparing investments in oil and gas projects with their research efforts in the renewable field is misleading. They say that while renewable fuels are needed, they are still at an early stage of development, and petroleum will remain the dominant source of energy for decades.
In its long-term forecast, Exxon says that by 2050, hydrocarbons — including oil, gas, and coal — will account for 80 percent of the world’s energy supplies, about the same as today.
“Renewable energy is very real,” David J. O’Reilly, the chief executive of Chevron, said in a speech in New York last November. “We need it. It will be an essential part of the future I envision. But it’s not realistic to suppose we can replace conventional energy in a timeframe that some suggest.”
Chevron has spent about $3.2 billion since 2002 on “renewable and alternative energy and energy efficiency services,” according to Alexander Yelland, a spokesman. It plans to spend $2.7 billion in the three years through 2011 on a variety of projects, including a business that helps improve energy efficiency for companies and government agencies, he said.
Travel tips
While there's no way to completely avoid accidents or on-the-road emergencies, these simple travel tips can help keep your travel plans on track.
Make copies of your driver's license, credit cards and passport before you leave on your trip. Then make sure they're tucked safely in a carry-on bag.
If possible, travel with only one or two credit cards. Plan to use one for most of your travel expenses and keep the second one for emergencies only. (Carrying more credit cards will mean more headaches if your wallet is lost or stolen.)
Never list your home address on your luggage tags. Use a business address to avoid alerting others that your home may be unoccupied for an extended period of time.
Pack a small flashlight to keep by your bed while travelling. You never know when you may find yourself suddenly "in the dark" due to a power outage or because you're simply not familiar with the light switches.
Make copies of your driver's license, credit cards and passport before you leave on your trip. Then make sure they're tucked safely in a carry-on bag.
If possible, travel with only one or two credit cards. Plan to use one for most of your travel expenses and keep the second one for emergencies only. (Carrying more credit cards will mean more headaches if your wallet is lost or stolen.)
Never list your home address on your luggage tags. Use a business address to avoid alerting others that your home may be unoccupied for an extended period of time.
Pack a small flashlight to keep by your bed while travelling. You never know when you may find yourself suddenly "in the dark" due to a power outage or because you're simply not familiar with the light switches.
solar car
updated 12:14 p.m. ET, Tues., April. 7, 2009
BOSTON - In a dingy basement in Boston, some young scientists are putting the finish touches to Eleanor, one of the most advanced solar cars yet designed.
The technology-packed, environmentally friendly, solar racing car can hit speeds of 80 mph and drive up to 200 miles in the pitch dark — all good traits for a car getting ready for a long race across the Australian outback.
Eleanor is the invention of the solar vehicle team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the universities now preparing for this year's World Solar Challenge in Australia in October.
"Eleanor is definitely pushing the limits of what can be done with solar panels and solar power," said Fiona Hughes, a senior at the school of mechanical engineering at MIT.
Eleanor, ironically named after the gas-guzzling 1967 Ford Mustang showcased in the movie "Gone in 60 Seconds," has 20 square feet of silicon solar panels that put out 1,200 watts — about the same as a hair dryer.
While it doesn't seem like much power, Eleanor's weight of less than 500 pounds and aerodynamic design allow her to speed down a highway as fast as many traditional cars.
"Using just power from the sun, Eleanor can cruise without draining power from her battery pack at about 50 miles per hour. If we were draining power out of the pack we would be able to reach higher speeds, possibly 70-80 miles an hour," said Hughes.
Eleanor will compete in the 10th World Solar Challenge — a grueling 7-day, nearly 1,900-mile race from Darwin to Adelaide across the Australian Outback that is a testing event for the latest in efficient solar-powered car design.
MIT has been competing in the World Solar Challenge since its inaugural event in 1987, and Eleanor is the 10th design that students at MIT will race in the Australian contest.
George Hansel, a physics major at MIT, says the real beauty of Eleanor is her battery pack.
Solar rollers: Universities compete with cars
Under the hood of solar-powered cars
MSNBC.com test drives a solar-powered car
"Our battery pack is composed of more than 600 cells from laptop batteries. They are lithium-ion cells and they give us an equivalent of about 6 to 7 times that of a normal car battery but is only twice to three times as heavy," said Hansel.
The team says their biggest obstacle between now and race day is putting some miles on Eleanor's tires to ensure their design can perform on the highway and that it will go farther, faster and more efficiently than the competition.
The last World Solar Challenge, held in 2007, attracted 41 participants.
BOSTON - In a dingy basement in Boston, some young scientists are putting the finish touches to Eleanor, one of the most advanced solar cars yet designed.
The technology-packed, environmentally friendly, solar racing car can hit speeds of 80 mph and drive up to 200 miles in the pitch dark — all good traits for a car getting ready for a long race across the Australian outback.
Eleanor is the invention of the solar vehicle team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the universities now preparing for this year's World Solar Challenge in Australia in October.
"Eleanor is definitely pushing the limits of what can be done with solar panels and solar power," said Fiona Hughes, a senior at the school of mechanical engineering at MIT.
Eleanor, ironically named after the gas-guzzling 1967 Ford Mustang showcased in the movie "Gone in 60 Seconds," has 20 square feet of silicon solar panels that put out 1,200 watts — about the same as a hair dryer.
While it doesn't seem like much power, Eleanor's weight of less than 500 pounds and aerodynamic design allow her to speed down a highway as fast as many traditional cars.
"Using just power from the sun, Eleanor can cruise without draining power from her battery pack at about 50 miles per hour. If we were draining power out of the pack we would be able to reach higher speeds, possibly 70-80 miles an hour," said Hughes.
Eleanor will compete in the 10th World Solar Challenge — a grueling 7-day, nearly 1,900-mile race from Darwin to Adelaide across the Australian Outback that is a testing event for the latest in efficient solar-powered car design.
MIT has been competing in the World Solar Challenge since its inaugural event in 1987, and Eleanor is the 10th design that students at MIT will race in the Australian contest.
George Hansel, a physics major at MIT, says the real beauty of Eleanor is her battery pack.
Solar rollers: Universities compete with cars
Under the hood of solar-powered cars
MSNBC.com test drives a solar-powered car
"Our battery pack is composed of more than 600 cells from laptop batteries. They are lithium-ion cells and they give us an equivalent of about 6 to 7 times that of a normal car battery but is only twice to three times as heavy," said Hansel.
The team says their biggest obstacle between now and race day is putting some miles on Eleanor's tires to ensure their design can perform on the highway and that it will go farther, faster and more efficiently than the competition.
The last World Solar Challenge, held in 2007, attracted 41 participants.
A Better Way to Prevent Cervical Cancer
DNA Test Outperforms Pap Smear
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By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: April 6, 2009
A new DNA test for the virus that causes cervical cancer does so much better than current methods that some gynecologists hope it will eventually replace the Pap smear in wealthy countries and cruder tests in poor ones.
From India to the World — A Better Way to Prevent Cervical Cancer (The New England Journal of Medicine)
HPV Screening for Cervical Cancer in Rural India (The New England Journal of Medicine) Not only could the new test for human papillomavirus, or HPV, save lives; scientists say that women over 30 could drop annual Pap smears and instead have the DNA test just once every 3, 5 or even 10 years, depending on which expert is asked.
Their optimism is based on an eight-year study of 130,000 women in India financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine. It is the first to show that a single screening with the DNA test beats all other methods at preventing advanced cancer and death.
The study is “another nail in the coffin” for Pap smears, which will “soon be of mainly historical interest,” said Dr. Paul D. Blumenthal, a professor of gynecology at Stanford medical school who has tested screening techniques in Africa and Asia and was not involved in the study.
But whether the new test is adopted will depend on many factors, including hesitation by gynecologists to abandon Pap smears, which have been remarkably effective. Cervical cancer was a leading cause of death for American women in the 1950s; it now kills fewer than 4,000 a year.
In poor and middle-income countries, where the cancer kills more than 250,000 women a year, cost is a factor, but the test’s maker, Qiagen, with financing from the Gates Foundation, has developed a $5 version and the price could go lower with enough orders, the company said.
“The implications of the findings of this trial are immediate and global,” Dr. Mark Schiffman of the National Cancer Institute wrote in an editorial accompanying the study. “International experts in cervical cancer prevention should now adopt HPV testing.”
At the moment, there are huge gaps in how rich and poor countries screen.
In the West, women get smears named for their inventor, Dr. Georgios Papanikolaou. Cells are scraped from the cervix and sent to a laboratory, where they are stained and inspected under a microscope by a pathologist looking for abnormalities. Results may take several days.
The DNA screen also needs a cervical scraping, but it is mixed with re-agents and read by a machine.
In poor countries, most women get no routine screening. Pain sends them to a hospital, by which time it is often too late.
But in some countries, women get “visualization,” pioneered in the last decade, also with Gates Foundation support: a health worker looks at the cervix with a flashlight and swabs it with vinegar. Spots that turn white may be precancerous lesions, and are immediately frozen off. Diagnosis and treatment take only one visit.
Pap smears fail in the third world because there are too few trained pathologists and because women told to return often cannot.
The Indian study, begun in 1999, divided 131,746 healthy women ages 30 to 59 from 497 villages into four groups. One group, the control, got typical rural clinic care: advice to go to a hospital if they wanted screening. The second got Pap smears, the third got flashlight-vinegar visualization, and the fourth got a DNA test, then made by Digene, which is now owned by Qiagen. The company did not pay for or donate to the study, its authors said.
After eight years, the visualization group had about the same rates of advanced cancer and death as the control group. The Pap-smear group had about three-fourths the rates, and the DNA test had about half.
Significantly, none of the women who were negative on their DNA test died of cervical cancer. “So if you have a negative test, you’re good to go for several years,” Dr. Blumenthal said.
The study’s chief author, Dr. Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan of the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, said, “With this test, you could start screening women at 30 and do it once every 10 years.”
Asked whether that advice would apply in the United States, Debbie Saslow, director of gynecologic cancer for the American Cancer Society, replied, “Absolutely no.”
“A negative test would mean a woman’s chances of developing cancer are small, but not zero,” she added. “But if he’d said five years, I wouldn’t have a strong reaction.”
Since 1987, she said, the cancer society and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have recommended Pap smears only every three years after initial negative ones. In 2002, they recommended the HPV test too, and evidence is mounting that the Pap smear can be dropped.
“But we haven’t been able to get doctors to go along,” Dr. Saslow said. “The average gynecologist, especially the older ones, says, ‘Women come in for their Pap smear, and that’s how we get them in here to get other care.’ We’re totally overscreening, but when you’ve been telling everyone for 40 years to get an annual Pap smear, it’s hard to change.”
Dr. Sankaranarayanan said most European countries screen every three to five years, and many do not start before age 30.
Cervical cancer is caused by a few of the 150 strains of the human papillomavirus. Women pick strains up as soon as they start having intercourse, but more than 90 percent of cases clear up spontaneously within two years. Early DNA tests would find these, but lead to useless overtreatment. So in women ages 20 to 30, doctors often order repeat Pap tests, which is expensive but may catch the tiny minority of cancers that develop in less than 15 years.
“The U.S. has high resources and low risk-tolerance,” Dr. Schiffman explained, while countries like India have little money and are forced to tolerate risk.
Dr. Jan Agosti, the Gates Foundation officer overseeing its third world screening, said Qiagen’s new $5 test — which proved itself in a two-year study in China — runs on batteries without water or refrigeration, and takes less than three hours. In countries where women are “shyer about pelvic exams,” she added, it even works “acceptably well” on vaginal swabs they can take themselves.
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By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: April 6, 2009
A new DNA test for the virus that causes cervical cancer does so much better than current methods that some gynecologists hope it will eventually replace the Pap smear in wealthy countries and cruder tests in poor ones.
From India to the World — A Better Way to Prevent Cervical Cancer (The New England Journal of Medicine)
HPV Screening for Cervical Cancer in Rural India (The New England Journal of Medicine) Not only could the new test for human papillomavirus, or HPV, save lives; scientists say that women over 30 could drop annual Pap smears and instead have the DNA test just once every 3, 5 or even 10 years, depending on which expert is asked.
Their optimism is based on an eight-year study of 130,000 women in India financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine. It is the first to show that a single screening with the DNA test beats all other methods at preventing advanced cancer and death.
The study is “another nail in the coffin” for Pap smears, which will “soon be of mainly historical interest,” said Dr. Paul D. Blumenthal, a professor of gynecology at Stanford medical school who has tested screening techniques in Africa and Asia and was not involved in the study.
But whether the new test is adopted will depend on many factors, including hesitation by gynecologists to abandon Pap smears, which have been remarkably effective. Cervical cancer was a leading cause of death for American women in the 1950s; it now kills fewer than 4,000 a year.
In poor and middle-income countries, where the cancer kills more than 250,000 women a year, cost is a factor, but the test’s maker, Qiagen, with financing from the Gates Foundation, has developed a $5 version and the price could go lower with enough orders, the company said.
“The implications of the findings of this trial are immediate and global,” Dr. Mark Schiffman of the National Cancer Institute wrote in an editorial accompanying the study. “International experts in cervical cancer prevention should now adopt HPV testing.”
At the moment, there are huge gaps in how rich and poor countries screen.
In the West, women get smears named for their inventor, Dr. Georgios Papanikolaou. Cells are scraped from the cervix and sent to a laboratory, where they are stained and inspected under a microscope by a pathologist looking for abnormalities. Results may take several days.
The DNA screen also needs a cervical scraping, but it is mixed with re-agents and read by a machine.
In poor countries, most women get no routine screening. Pain sends them to a hospital, by which time it is often too late.
But in some countries, women get “visualization,” pioneered in the last decade, also with Gates Foundation support: a health worker looks at the cervix with a flashlight and swabs it with vinegar. Spots that turn white may be precancerous lesions, and are immediately frozen off. Diagnosis and treatment take only one visit.
Pap smears fail in the third world because there are too few trained pathologists and because women told to return often cannot.
The Indian study, begun in 1999, divided 131,746 healthy women ages 30 to 59 from 497 villages into four groups. One group, the control, got typical rural clinic care: advice to go to a hospital if they wanted screening. The second got Pap smears, the third got flashlight-vinegar visualization, and the fourth got a DNA test, then made by Digene, which is now owned by Qiagen. The company did not pay for or donate to the study, its authors said.
After eight years, the visualization group had about the same rates of advanced cancer and death as the control group. The Pap-smear group had about three-fourths the rates, and the DNA test had about half.
Significantly, none of the women who were negative on their DNA test died of cervical cancer. “So if you have a negative test, you’re good to go for several years,” Dr. Blumenthal said.
The study’s chief author, Dr. Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan of the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, said, “With this test, you could start screening women at 30 and do it once every 10 years.”
Asked whether that advice would apply in the United States, Debbie Saslow, director of gynecologic cancer for the American Cancer Society, replied, “Absolutely no.”
“A negative test would mean a woman’s chances of developing cancer are small, but not zero,” she added. “But if he’d said five years, I wouldn’t have a strong reaction.”
Since 1987, she said, the cancer society and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have recommended Pap smears only every three years after initial negative ones. In 2002, they recommended the HPV test too, and evidence is mounting that the Pap smear can be dropped.
“But we haven’t been able to get doctors to go along,” Dr. Saslow said. “The average gynecologist, especially the older ones, says, ‘Women come in for their Pap smear, and that’s how we get them in here to get other care.’ We’re totally overscreening, but when you’ve been telling everyone for 40 years to get an annual Pap smear, it’s hard to change.”
Dr. Sankaranarayanan said most European countries screen every three to five years, and many do not start before age 30.
Cervical cancer is caused by a few of the 150 strains of the human papillomavirus. Women pick strains up as soon as they start having intercourse, but more than 90 percent of cases clear up spontaneously within two years. Early DNA tests would find these, but lead to useless overtreatment. So in women ages 20 to 30, doctors often order repeat Pap tests, which is expensive but may catch the tiny minority of cancers that develop in less than 15 years.
“The U.S. has high resources and low risk-tolerance,” Dr. Schiffman explained, while countries like India have little money and are forced to tolerate risk.
Dr. Jan Agosti, the Gates Foundation officer overseeing its third world screening, said Qiagen’s new $5 test — which proved itself in a two-year study in China — runs on batteries without water or refrigeration, and takes less than three hours. In countries where women are “shyer about pelvic exams,” she added, it even works “acceptably well” on vaginal swabs they can take themselves.
a rational post
The major complaint with regards to annexation has been that the residents were not initially involved in the decision making process AND that the information be given out to the residents was sadly lacking in current data. It took a petition to allow the residents to be able to vote. What will it take to get accurate and current information to be released? The history of this current council and most definitely the manager, is proof positive that residents remain uninformed with regards to potentially negative reports. Simply put, if the information might shed a bad light or a negative on the issue, it is not released or hidden away until too late. Then we pay the price. I will vote for annexation IF the new council and mayor will guarantee that I will be given all of the picture.... both good and bad... so that I can make an informed decision. But since they don-t make informed decisions right now, it is pretty difficult to go along with the same old slate
Monday, April 6, 2009
commentary
Is the FOP aware that Billy and Best believe that "costs are immaterial and irrelvent". The evidence of that attitude is found in their approval to pay 415k for bathrooms that SHOULD have cost 140k, and the CC enclosure that SHOULD have cost 100k, tops, but cost us almost 500k instead! When the money disappears like that there is none left for other projects or causes, like maybe take-home cars, or a new police station. Who knows? Those things may have even been promised to the FOP by Billy or Gym, or both, but wont be possible without raising our taxes and fees AGAIN. The FOP may not be concerned if the residents pay more taxes and fees, but rest assured the residents are! Costs ARE relevent and material to us! Bain and Best stopped listening to us long ago. We are hoping you are still listening. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
Actually the bathrooms cost us 415k. We have the ONLY 207k+ bathrooms in the COUNTRY! I do NOT believe that Donald Trump has 207k bathrooms! WE DO! You can buy a very nice condo here in town for 207k- we got a bathroom. You can buy a nice 4-3 HOME here in town for 415k- we got 2 bathrooms. What is wrong with THAT picture? Tomorrow the people will have their say. Its the American Way. We have given them a choice. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
"when the city has no more money,and taxes are through the roof, what do you think will go first. for sure the service. no more miami springs police." We are disbanding the police? WHAT? this is one of the more ridiculous posts this year, in vast expanse of ridiculous posts. If the taxes go thru the roof it will be because city officials have disappeared all of our tax dollars, instead of just a LOT of them now. We wont be able to underrstand the fireworks because it will be in Spanish?! Spanish fireworks? WHAT? Ridiculous. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
comments
Eric and Jaime must be twin brothers, at least, if NOT the exact same person! They use the same terms, capitalize the exact same way, and have the same way of expressing themselves. Its almost like they are the SAME PERSON! Wait! They ARE! How pathetic is THAT?! Its probably the same pathetic person who signed some posts as me too. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
commentary
Jaime Garcia misused the term FOWL on purpose, now he says. What purpose might that be? And how did misusing that term demonstrate your supposed purpose? He has been exposed as a fraud. Next case. Do NOT believe for a minute that Garcia is NOT running. He is running HARD for his slate that has NO CLUE about city issues but excels at agreeing with Billy! He is also running hard for election two years from now. Is this the kind of unscrupulous, childish, underhanded, and self-serving person we want in such a position? I think not. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
commentary
"..has saved us alot of money in extra premiums over the years .." This makes NO sense of course. Paying extra premiums is a SAVINGS? Dotson isnt an insurance agent. He is an accountant. This is more of Garcias nonsensical BS, making up a story about people in different businesses. Even IF this person really exists, and I really doubt it, it would be a comparison of two people in two different businesses. A truly pathetic attempt to discredit Dotson. THESE are the candidates, or supporters of candidates, that MS wants or needs in office? Dotson has more class and cool than all of them together! Dr. Mel P. Johnson
a poseur
"You are the first candidate in our city to publicly use fowl language in a campaign." FOWL language! THIS from somebody who supposedly has completed high school, went 4 years for a Bachelors degree, another 2-3 for a Masters degree, and then finished with a DOCTORATE!!???? You, Dr. Jaime Garcia, or whoever you are, are an imposter. What are your academic qualifications? I have posted mine here- lets see what actual qualifications you really possess! This is amusing- fowl language. This academic wannabe doesnt know the difference between fowl and foul language, yet wants us to believe he has an advanced degree. There is significant doubt he ever attended college - maybe scraped by high school, maybe not. Pathetic imposter are the words that immediately come to mind. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
commentary
Of course I did NOT make the post about any City Manager choices, etc. Its just more ridiculous BS from Garcia, or his crew. I might respond if the brave poster had signed their name, but they obviously dont have the cojones to do that STILL. We expect women to not have a pair, but guys, we hope will eventually grow some. Some NEVER do, and they show up here every day. Its hard to take them seriously when they bring neither cojones nor contributions that make any rational sense to this site. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
Sunday, April 5, 2009
a discussion continues
"when the rec center project was investigated they determined that it was better to build new that fix old." My question here would be WHO decided this, and HOW did they do it? It certainly wasnt discussed in any detail. It WASNT a result of the Pistorino report, which said there were VERY GOOD options available that didnt entail a new gym, footprint, or variances, and for a LOT less money. To have had a town meeting and brought Pistorino in to discuss his findings would have been due diligence. To ignore his report and bury it DEEP is not doing due diligence, as it ISNT looking at ALL the options. To say otherwise does not make it so. Are you saying it WAS thoroughly discussed and debated at some point? If so, when? I would like a copy of the verbatim discussion of that meeting. Perhaps it was done at the ONE Council meeting I missed in the past two years. If so, I would like to catch up on that debate. Thank you for the oppurtunity to explain. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
a discussion ensues
Part of my objections to the Corradino Group is that they used 2008 property figures, which were considerably higher than todays current values. The property in the Springs had dropped 28.6% in the past year, according to Zillow, and is anticipated to drop another 14.5 % by the end of this year. Those figures and projections must be considered when figuring the taxable values and revenues of the properties under consideration; plus the mitigation fees are also based on the higher figures. I am not at all sure about this pressure to do it NOW. I have not seen or heard anything from the County that would indicate there is any deadline involved here. I am all for increasing our commercial tax base, but NOT at the expense of inadequate diligence having been done, and additional risks for us entailed. A poster a couple days ago detailed a 2 million dollar cleanup that Doral had to do AFTER they had annexed. I would hate for US to incur such a cleanup too. Doral even had a lot more pollution info than we currently have, KNEW it was a risk, and still they rolled the dice- and lost. We should learn from their mistakes. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
a discussion ensues
"often you express your doubt about things that are proven fact. that kind of thinking is not productive in public office. there is a saying that goes well with high scale leaders even Lincoln was said to quote it" if you make the "best decision you can with what you know now, no one can judge you negatively later". the fact is decisions must be made. when you have leaders that are always in the "what if" mode. the rest suffer from lack of leadership skills." While I appreciate the rational approach over the rude approach, I am not clear about that which you are speaking of. When I bought my house I did DUE DILIGENCE. I looked at ALL the possible things that could affect my decision - is there termites? is the area low and possibly prone to flooding? is there structural damage? what about the schools in the area? What about financing? can I afford this house? what are the interest rates? etc etc. Anytime anybody makes a major decision, due diligence should be done to minimize current and future risks. Once all the potentials have been addressed, an informed decision can be made, but NOT before. I would be glad to sit down and discuss the issues or we can just address them here, for all to see and participate. I would have no problem with that. Thank you for your kind offer. I will look forward to hearing from you. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
comments
I obviously DIDNT write that post but, if it DOESNT mean anything, why isnt everybody doing it? No big deal, right? Anybody who has a pair wont mind, right? Those without a pair, and the women (Margie, etc.) can continue to hide behind the anonymity of this site. You KNOW who you are, and so do we, now. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
commentary
"You are really dumb.. How old are you? You must be Zaviers little boy." Mikey, do yourself and everybody else a favor and leave this forum to the adults, okay? It IS true- I do NOT want a gym that we cant afford AND I dont want annexation that has pollution potentials, mitigation fees based on bogus numbers, tax revenues based on inflated 2008 numbers, or a lack of zoning controls in the areas proposed for annexation. Once those issues have been addressed and resolved to our benefit, then I would vote for annexation. Until those items are explored and favorably resolved we havent done the DUE DILIGENCE a move of this magnitude, and the residents of this city, deserve. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
commentary
Ask Lob about ANY of these aforementioned issues and see what he says (bathrooms, pollution, zoning, accurate property values,etc.). I have serious doubts he even knows about most of those issues. He is also NOT on record as having any position regarding the bathrooms or the CC disasters. It is very likely he doesnt even know those projects existed. He can form NO OPINION of anybody until he works with them. Lob DID say there was room for improvement in the City Manager office, but didnt mention any details about what he meant, in what areas, how much improvement is needed, how he might evaluate his performance, etc. Perhaps Billy hasnt explained the details to him yet. He admits his job takes up a lot of his time, so when is he going to find time for City business? He wants to eliminate the City Boards. He doesnt say what he means when he says who or what the RIGHT PEOPLE for the City Boards might be. That is a position VERY close to Billy again, as Billy allowed the Ecology Board seat to be vacant for over 2 1/2 years before filling it. Three years later oungs STILL hasnt filled HIS seat there, although he continues to promise. Lob believes the golf course is "going good". Does that mean he believes continuing and escalating losses are "going good?" He needs to check with Billy again, as thats not MY definition of "doing good". He seems like a decent guy personally, but not all that current or conversant with the issues that face our city.
commentary
"I cannot beleive the degree of knowledge you hav??? " THIS is the sentence structure and spelling of somebody with advanced degrees????? Please. This is probably Garcia or one of his gang, from what my friends say. Calling people names was not a communication technique that was encouraged in graduate school either. Perhaps in kindergarten or elementary school but one is supposed to outgrow that as one grows older. It is unfortunate, but some people NEVER outgrow it, and there is plenty of evidence to be found of that sad fact here. While I disagree with Marquez on a lot of things, I do not believe he would place his professional reputation as an architect in jeopardy by releasing a half-baked slanted, or inaccurate report on the gym. He lives on Hunting Lodge, and is probably in the phone book, if anybody wants to get the info directly from him. Whatever other doubts other people may have about him, I know of nobody who doubts his architectural competency. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
A coral rock foundation has been fine for the past 50 years. I frequently disagree with Martin Marquez but I believe he performed a public service when he had a remote controlled vehicle go under the building and take pictures of the pilings and general foundation. It is my recollection that his pictures showed the foundation was in excellent shape, and that was reflected in the Pistorino report. The pool had a leak, and the chlorine did some damage to the support beams, etc. there, but it is repairable and WAS included in the LINK contract. Ask Martin Marquez, the local architect, about the results of his community service providing those pictures. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
P[istorino
I talked to a guy yesterday who has a nice sized lot and wanted to put a significant addition to his home 15 months ago. The best offer he could get was 100k. He went back to those very same companies last month and got a bid of 40k for the VERY SAME addition. The Pistorino report is easily obtained if one makes a Freedom of Information request at the City Clerks office. It probably SHOULD be online but it WAS buried DEEP! Pistorino and Elam is the name of the company, and I believe they are structural engineers who have done work for the state, county, Tri-rail, etc. It would be cool if THEY had a copy of their report on THEIR website, as it may save a lot of time and effort. It HAS been a couple years since that report was made tho. New roof, floors, walls, plumbing, electric, sprinklers and insulation is "lipstick on a pig"? Get real. No variances required. Its a new building THAT WE CAN AFFORD, with no new debt. Some of our local builders and contractors would obviously be involved in the renovation, so we would be supporting our own. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
Pistorino report commentary
The Pistorino report DID say a new roof, new floor, new walls, new plumbing, new electricity, and a new sprinkler system was needed and all of that was included in the price he quoted. It also included some reinforcement of some of the roof structure but overall, said the huge pilings that are buried 22-feet deep into coral rock are in excellent shape. There is over 1.5 million dollars in foundation and structural supports that can easily and safely be used as a framework for a renovated, and essentially new, building at a price we can easily afford, with no new debt. Dr. Mel P. Johnson
commentary
"the foundation is old, the structure is out dated and it would cost more in the long run." This poster obviously has never read the Pistorino report because he said the foundation is in excellent shape and we could refurbish for 1.6-1.8 million. Add 300k if we wanted it air-conditioned. The Pistorino report was buried DEEP, even tho the city paid Pistorino 17k for it a couple years ago. It was NEVER discussed and/or debated as a serious option. There are a lot of out-of-work construction workers now and I believe we could renovate it for considerably less now. Why not ask Pistorino to come back and update his report with the most current data and estimates? Then let the people vote whether they want to have a 2 million dollar new gym with NO NEW DEBT or a 6.8 million dollar new gym with 2.5 million (at least) in new debt? Whichever way the people decided would be fine with me. I just believe this is a major multi-million dollar project, and like the golf course and the highrises, the people should vote, and let their voices be heard because in the end we will be the ones paying for it! Dr. Mel P. Johnson
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