Reactions to story from WorldChanging

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  http://agentofinfluence.typepad.com/agentofinfluence/2008/07...
  91 days ago in Tyler · Authority: 10

  As colleges here and elsewhere in the state jostle for the same pool of top students, one aspect of the competition has taken on a uniquely Houston look. Call it the battle of the billboards. UH and TSU have new billboard campaigns, promoting schools that sit just blocks apart. Rice University, the University of Phoenix and other schools are doing it, too. Much more of what San Antonians rinse and flush from their homes will end up as compost on Central Texas landscapes instead of in landfills as a result of a contract awarded by the board of the San Antonio Water System last week. The utility each year captures from the sewage stream feeding its three treatment plants about 140,000 tons of the nutrient-rich organic materials known as biosolids. That's about 383 tons a day that has to go somewhere, and most of it has been going to a landfill at a cost of $16.94 a ton, said Robert Yrle, director of treatment systems for SAWS. But about 45 percent of the waste stream is being turned into soil-enriching compost under a seven-year-old contract with Garden-Ville. SAWS pays the company $15.85 a ton. This week, the San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department is scheduled to host a pair of meetings to discuss the construction of paved, 10-feet-wide paths that will lead residents to both spots — trails that are planned as part of 17 miles of new hike and bike pathways the city hopes to complete by next summer. Today at 6 p.m., at the Southside Lions Community Center, officials are scheduled to take public comments on the plans for a 2.3-mile trail running from Rigsby Avenue to Southside Lions Park along Salado Creek. On Wednesday, the city is scheduled to meet with contractors to commence construction on a similar trail from Babcock to Bandera roads along Leon Creek. Bobby Lynn's career as a Wilson County Commissioner Pct. 3 has revolved around paving roads in his precinct. Since he was elected in 1997 Lynn estimates he's paved 58 miles of roads and re-topped 14 by paving a few miles every year. The people in his precinct have responded appreciatively, he said, noting that he's never had an opponent. But the rising cost of gasoline and other petroleum-based products like paving oil has put Lynn between a rock and a hard place: if he continues to pave he might go over his budget, but if he doesn't he fears the people in his precinct will suffer.   For decades, the Harris County Sheriff's Office has justified its controversial contract deputy program by saying it puts more officers on the streets to keep everyone safer, not just those who can afford to pay for extra protection. But a Houston Chronicle analysis of Sheriff's Office records shows contract deputy positions are filled immediately while dozens of normal patrol jobs remain vacant. In some cases, deputies who were pulled from the traditional patrols to fill contract spots have not been replaced. Under the department's contract deputy program, civic associations, school districts and municipal utility districts pay the county to have deputies assigned to specific areas or neighborhoods rather than larger patrol districts that may include dozens of subdivisions. With nearly half of the department's 530 patrol deputies assigned to the predominantly middle- and upper-income communities that can afford to sign contracts, lawmen say they are struggling to provide basic services to the rest of unincorporated Harris County. Sales started slowly at Briar Hollow, a low-slung building with arched balconies that debuted without the big views, posh pool and other amenities of its condo competitors in Uptown near the Galleria. After a year on the Houston real estate market, more than half the units remained unsold.But in just one month in 2006, two buyers in their 20s closed on three condos — paying as much as $490,000 for just 1,600 square feet. A succession of similarly bloated sales followed. By the end of the year, many buyers were unable or unwilling to make payments and nine of 24 units had been lost to foreclosure. Many of the sales, it turned out, were part of an alleged $24 million mortgage fraud scheme in which investors and others recruited buyers and supplied them with bogus documents that qualified them for exorbitant loans for Houston homes and condos, according to a recent federal indictment. After obtaining as much as $100,000 per sale above true property values, part of the loan proceeds were then illegally transferred to co-conspirators in the scheme, as well as to buyers themselves, federal records show. The pattern of inflated sales prices, absentee ownership and high foreclosure rates repeated itself at several other visible condo projects in pricey Houston neighborhoods: the Bristol Condominiums near the Galleria, the Rutland Lofts in the Heights and the high-rise Tremont Tower in Montrose. Rising gasoline prices have coincided with a 140 percent increase since April in the number of people using bicycles to link up with Metro buses, causing some to wonder whether the public transit system can handle the two-wheeled load.   Almost three years after Hurricane Katrina drove her from her New Orleans home, Andrea Lee took pleasure recently in writing a letter informing federal housing officials that she no longer needed their help to pay her rent. A week ago, Lee moved into a tidy gray house near Hobby Airport that she helped to build and is purchasing through the local Habitat for Humanity chapter. For the first time in her life, Lee, 48, is a homeowner. There's a Chevrolet Impala in the driveway, a chain-link fence around the backyard and a bedroom fixed up for her 9-year-old granddaughter to visit. She commutes to her job as a nurse's assistant. She's getting to know her neighbors, some of whom are fellow evacuees. Houston, she says, is her permanent home.   It's a sort of gas-station roulette: Thousands of inaccurate pumps every year give Texas motorists either more or less fuel than the amount for which they pay. More than 5 percent of the 109,369 pumps inspected last year in Texas — 5,778 of them — either gave the wrong amount of gasoline or had other problems that put them out of commission until they were fixed. Of those problem pumps, almost 28 percent, or 1,612, shorted customers on gasoline beyond a small variance allowed by the state, according to Texas Department of Agriculture inspection data analyzed by the San Antonio Express-News and the Houston Chronicle.     Civic-minded techies are increasingly bringing Web 2.0 to political activism, developing new watchdog tools that open up Congressional machinery for ordinary citizens to scrutinize and critique    In a surprising twist to historical settlement patterns, growing numbers of Asian Americans are beginning to bail from the places that have long been their main gateways to the West: California and Washington. Wearied by the same crushing home prices, poor schools, jammed freeways and persistent crime that have sent millions of other Californians packing, Asian Americans are moving to spots in the West they hope will produce better lifestyles — namely Las Vegas and Phoenix.    When there's no aircraft overhead, they are among the quietest places in the continental U.S.," said Kurt Fristrup, a scientist in the Park Service's "natural sounds" office in Fort Collins, Colo. Established eight years ago, the department's main job is preserving "soundscapes." Those sounds — from hissing geysers and bugling elk to jazz music and battlefield artillery — are integral to the parks' character and worthy of protection like any other natural resource, said Karen Trevino, the program's director. Several years ago, Mace conducted an experiment to gauge visitors' reactions to the sound of helicopters at Grand Canyon National Park, where there are a more than 86,000 commercial air tours a year. In the experiment, it didn't matter whether the helicopters were for tours, medical rescues or in aid of endangered species, Mace said. Mace said many participants had a negative emotional reaction to the sounds. "The engine sounds seem to be bothering people more than anything else," he said. That means airplanes, helicopters, cars, RVs, motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles and even Park Service vehicles, Mace said.   In the six-and-a-half years that the U.S. government has been fingerprinting insurgents, detainees and ordinary people in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa, hundreds have turned out to share an unexpected background, FBI and military officials said. They have criminal arrest records in the United States.    "Under the U.S. Constitution, a warrant is needed to search a physical space, such as an office," said Susan Gurley, a spokeswoman for the Association of Corporate Travel Executives. "Yet, the warrantless and unanticipated seizure of one's mobile office has been allowed."   Say it on the Internet, and you'll find that free speech and other constitutional rights are anything but guaranteed. Companies in charge of seemingly public spaces online wipe out content that's controversial but otherwise legal. Service providers write their own rules for users worldwide and set foreign policy when they cooperate with regimes like China. They serve as prosecutor, judge and jury in handling disputes behind closed doors.   One coffee drinker's bad news is another coffee drinker's good news, it seems. Financial woes at Starbucks Corp, which is planning to close 600 underperforming U.S. stores, is evoking glee and little sympathy from aficionados who say they resent the coffee shop giant and favor small independent cafes.   U.S. store closings and cutbacks turned the second quarter into the worst for strip mall owners in 30 years, as budget-conscious consumers flocked to low-cost warehouse-style grocery centers, according to a report by real estate research firm Reis.      As Las Vegas sees its hotel and casino businesses sputter and office, apartment and retail real estate markets flag, the rest of the country is hoping what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Despite its crushing housing market, one of the worst in the nation, Las Vegas' economy has been held up on the shoulders of tourists ready to imbibe giant drinks, shop, see shows, and, of course, gamble. But there are growing signs that the higher cost of gas, food and airline travel is trumping the gold and glitter.   Toyota Motor Corp plans to install solar panels on some Prius hybrids in its next remodeling, responding to growing demand for "green" cars amid record-high oil prices, a source briefed on the matter said on Monday. The panels, supplied by Kyocera Corp would be able to power part of the air-conditioning on high-end versions of the gasoline-electric Prius, the source said. "It's more of a symbolic gesture," said the source, who asked not to be identified. "It's very difficult to power much more than that with solar energy." Solar power is not seen as a viable solution to power cars. Solar panels are expensive due to rising silicon prices and storing energy is difficult, the source said. It was unknown how much the solar panels on the new Prius cars would cost, or how many solar-mounted versions Toyota would build.   Due to high gas prices, the Lockhart City Council will soon be considering whether or not to allow golf carts on city streets with speed limits of 35 mph or less    Beloved by Mexicans for his dim wits, street smarts and playful disposition, long-running comic book character Memín Pinguín — a little black boy whose face resembles a monkey — is at it again. His zany adventures chronicled in a hugely popular book series for decades are up for sale at your neighborhood Wal-Mart store in the Libros en Español section, right next to the store's cadre of African-American books. The latest issue: Memín para presidente. By Shawnedria McGinty's American standards, the image was shocking. The African-American woman who was shopping at the store on South Post Oak over the weekend immediately asked a store manager to remove the books from the shelves. A manager told her he would comply. "I said, wait a minute: Is this a monkey or a little black boy?" said McGinty, 34, of Meyerland. "I was so upset. This is 2008." But as of Monday afternoon, the books were still on the shelves at many Houston stores, prompting community activist Quanell X to demand that Wal-Mart apologize for selling the racially charged books. "The floodwaters are starting to ebb in the swollen Mississippi, which in the past few weeks has seen its worst flooding in 15 years. Since May, at least 24 people have died from the torrential rains and flooding, more than 38,000 people have evacuated their homes and an estimated 5 million acres of corn and soybean have been waterlogged. But as the great mop-up begins, some scientists contend this is one natural disaster that is by no means just natural: It is the dramatic result of more than 100 years of narrowing and constricting the river.[Scientists] charge that structures built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to aid the shipping industry are contributing to the flooding. They're calling for the National Academy of Sciences to have oversight over Army Corps river projects, and for the federal agency to refrain from building structures that exacerbate the floods. Recycled windpower. Our energy situation is too much in need of immediate change to let the pursuit of perfection stand in the way of doing the best we can with the technology available now, whether new or old    Urban Biogeography Through The Sewers   Consume, Produce, and Share Your Cognitive Surplus    Its got to be embarrassing when the agency charged with capturing spies can't meet federal standards for the handling and storage of classified information...   Is this fearmongering?  I think I'd be at least as equally concerned with hardening/securing the ground based facilities that these satellites up/downlink to   Pentagon monitoring Whiskey of Mass Destruction    Enterprise Rent-a-Car is seeking a nearly $1 million contract to lease vehicles to Harris County, despite owing the county about twice that in fees, fines and court costs related to tolls its customers failed to pay   Texas motorists seem to be reining in their driving after months of bucking the national trend. State gasoline tax collections reported in June fell for the second month in a row, following a streak of gains earlier this year even as gas prices inched toward $4 a gallon, according to data from the Texas Comptroller's office. That bolsters the case that the recent tax downturn suggests higher fuel prices are beginning to weigh more heavily on Texas drivers   The local Habitat for Humanity chapter on Monday announced it had reached an agreement with the worldwide organization — allowing it to continue using its own name and logo after a 11/2 -year-long spat between the two that culminated in a federal lawsuit the local group filed this year. In the lawsuit filed in January, the group claimed Habitat for Humanity International was trying to strong-arm the chapter into a "franchise agreement" that would divest it of its money and autonomy. The chapter claims a history as long as the Georgia-based international group, dating its founding as the San Antonio Fund for Humanity to 1976, and was, in fact, the group's first affiliate. The lawsuit came amid a push by the international group to secure updated affiliation agreements with the 1,700 groups that bear the Habitat for Humanity name. At issue were the local chapter's independence and a 10 percent tithe all affiliates would be required to pay.   The Federal Emergency Management Agency is still not ready to respond to a Gulf Coast natural disaster akin to Hurricane Katrina despite its success in flooded Midwestern states. That's the conclusion of an independent disaster researcher and key Texas officials who have monitored FEMA's far-flung response to flooding across Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri over the past few weeks.   A large part of the state's historic legacy – thousands of archaeological sites and old cemeteries – is under attack by vandals, urban growth and development, state officials said. But the biggest threat is indifference.   The remote town of Musiri in the Tamil Nadu state has hit upon a unique idea to teach its residents proper hygiene: Pay them money each time they use the toilet.Users can make up to $0.14 a month to relieve themselves in a specially constructed toilet. Not a princely sum, but it's extra cash flow that low-income residents can make just for answering nature's call.The government-backed program serves two purposes: It encourages people to discard age-old practices of urinating and defecating in the open, leading to diseases. And the waste products go into research to test their effectiveness as fertilizers.   DOE is offering $10 billion in loan guarantees for projects involving energy efficiency, renewable energy, and advanced transmission and distribution. The agency is seeking projects relating to biomass, geothermal, solar, and wind energy, as well as projects involving hydropower, alternative fuel vehicles, and energy efficiency.     The new "Freedom Prize" will provide awards of $500,000 to $1 million for the innovative deployment of existing technologies in each of five broad categories: industry, K-12 schools, the military, state and local governments, and communities to efforts that reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil while enhancing the nation's security, economic prosperity, and health.   The tenth-anniversary running of the Petit Le Mans endurance race in Braselton, Georgia, will feature an added twist, as the racers will also compete to achieve the smallest environmental impact. The American Le Mans Series announced on June 24 that its signature event will feature the first ever "Green Challenge," a race within a race that will score each car based on its total energy use, the greenhouse gases emitted, and the petroleum fuels displaced during its running of the 1,000-mile, 10-hour race.    The Building Technologies Program partners with states, industry, and manufacturers to improve the energy efficiency of new and existing buildings. On this site you'll find information about the program's research and development of innovative new technologies. Discover energy-efficient building practices and resources for designing, building, and operating commercial and residential buildings.      The Prius is by no means a perfect car, but it's certainly tough to beat in terms of cradle-to-grave, pound-for-pound energy consumption  
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  Older wind turbines cheaper for smaller communities

  http://eclipsenow.blogspot.com/2008/07/older-wind-turbines-c...
  93 days ago in Eclipse Now · Authority: 2

  This means 2nd hand or outdated technologies are cheaper and spread faster in poor communities. From worldchanging

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