[MrBill]

"The lack of an unambiguous population policy reflects a lack of seriousness in promoting long-term economic growth and poverty reduction," said Ernesto Pernia, a professor of economics at the University of the Philippines, and one of the 27 signatories.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')He compares the Philippines to Thailand.

In 1975 both countries had similar population sizes of 41 to 42 million. Then Bangkok launched a major family planning effort.

Now Thailand has a population of around 64 million and is the world's top exporter of rice. Meanwhile, the Philippines with a population of 90 million is the world's top importer of the grain.

Thailand had a gross annual income per capita of $7,880 in 2007, while in the Philippines it was $3,730.

"Our studies show that if the Philippines had followed the (population) growth trajectory of Thailand between 1975 and 2000 the per capita income would have been at least 22 percent higher and there would have been 5 million less poor people," said Pernia. "That is a conservative estimate."

Yet the proposed reproductive health bill will likely never see the light of day as the influential Catholic Church is staunchly opposed to artificial birth control as a violation of its religions tenets.

[criticalmass]

Allow free radiant energy, developed by Tessla and Morrow, to become available to the masses.

Simple: YES
Economical: YES
Negative Social Consequences: NO
Portable: YES
Politacally Acceptable to Everyone: Everyone but our current government and the past 12+ administrations.

[patience]

"Allow free radiant energy...."

It's here now. Sunshine, available to everyone, with no side effects to health and low tech implementation.

[MrBill]

``It used to be said that the business of America was business,'' Phelps says. ``Now the business of America is homeownership.'' To grow optimally, he says, America needs to get beyond its house passion.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')ike an apartment building, the Phelps argument works on multiple levels. The first is obvious. The federal government allocates too many resources to housing. Back in 2005, when the troubles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac weren't yet commanding the front page so regularly, the government was already spending about $41 billion to subsidize housing directly.

Indirect Support

More than triple that amount, or $147 billion, was foregone on indirect tax subsidies to homeowners. That chunk of change might have been used for any number of government projects that would appeal to everyone from Laura Bush to Dennis Kucinich: pounding percentages into fifth-graders' heads, lowering the capital-gains tax, [s]declaring summer gas holidays[/s] (dumb, dumb, idea) -- you name it. There's a certain laziness to the national campaign for homeownership, and it has cost the country a lot.

The real estate obsession is also a private-sector problem. The most important component of U.S. growth is productivity. To put it in schoolbook terms, if Americans find new ways to make more widgets in less time, that translates into higher wages.

Such productivity gains do occur in housing. But larger gains are usually to be had elsewhere: Silicon Valley, for example. Yet those tax incentives suck private funds into the less-efficient housing industry.

[MrBill]

"This year may mark the first time Calgarians will pay more for water than electricity," says environmental consultant Emmanuel Cosgrove. "It's an unthinkable prospect, considering residential water is practically free in most of Canada."
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'G')rey water explained
Grey water, or sullage, is the term given to the cloudy waste water produced by bathing and laundering, as long as it contains no more than negligible amounts of contaminants, such as fecal matter, food particles or toxic chemicals.

Grey water is much cleaner, or at least more diluted, than black water (sewage) from toilet flushing, dishwashing or industrial uses. As a result, treating grey water so that it can be safely reused is a much easier and less complex process than dealing with raw sewage.

[MrBill]

Alabama's new policy is drawing no objection from the lobbying group representing state workers. Mac McArthur, executive director of Alabama State Employees Association, said the plan is not designed to punish employees. "It's a positive," he said.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')labama, pushed to second in national obesity rankings by deep-fried Southern favourites, is cracking down on state workers who are too fat.

The state has given its 37,527 employees a year to start getting fit - or they'll pay $25 a month for insurance that otherwise is free.

Alabama will be the first state to charge overweight state workers who don't work on slimming down, while a handful of other states reward employees who adopt healthy behaviours.

Alabama already charges workers who smoke - and has seen some success in getting them to quit - but now has turned its attention to a problem that plagues many in the Deep South: obesity.

The State Employees' Insurance Board this week approved a plan to charge state workers starting in January 2010 if they don't have free health screenings.

If the screenings turn up serious problems with blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose or obesity, employees will have a year to see a doctor at no cost, enroll in a wellness program, or take steps on their own to improve their health. If they show progress in a follow-up screening, they won't be charged. But if they don't, they must pay starting in January 2011.

[idiom]

Thermal depolymerization.

Instead of using it on compost, you could use it on Terrorists. I think it meets most of the conditions, after all they are unwanted and breed like rabbits. Its like Soylent Green, but for cars.

[MrBill]

"Over a period of a very long time -- many decades -- we have had a policy of burying whatever we can in landfill sites -- so there are valuable resources in those sites," said Steve Whatmore, of Orchid Environmental, a waste and recycling firm.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')rices for high quality plastics such as high-density polyethelenes (HDP) have more than doubled to between 200 and 300 pounds ($370-560) per tonne, from just above 100 pounds a year ago, according to experts in the waste industry.

With this in mind, leaders of the world's waste management industry are planning to come together in London in October for what is being billed as the first "global landfill mining" conference.

"Once plastic is in a landfill site, it pretty much sits there doing nothing -- and the beauty of that is that you're able to go back and recapture it in the future," said Peter Mills, a director of waste and recycling company New Earth Solutions, who is scheduled to speak at the conference.

"There are some really buoyant prices around because plastic is all manufactured from oil, so as the raw price of oil goes up, every commodity derived from it goes up accordingly."

According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the amount of household rubbish thrown out across the world is expected to rise to about 3 billion tonnes a year by 2030 from 1.6 billion tonnes in 2005 -- or about 1 kg (2.2 lbs) per person per day in 2005.

Many of the world's rich countries send about half of that trash to landfill, but the OECD projects that rate will fall to 40 percent by 2030 as governments promote recycling -- of materials such as metals, glass and paper -- or incineration to generate heat or electricity.

"Over a period of a very long time -- many decades -- we have had a policy of burying whatever we can in landfill sites -- so there are valuable resources in those sites," said Steve Whatmore, of Orchid Environmental, a waste and recycling firm.

[MrBill]

Shidax is considering adding more full-time staff. ``We have to increase the knowledge and productivity of our employees, even if it raises our costs in the short term,'' Imamura said. ``This is just the first step.''
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s aging employees retire, Japan's labor market is shrinking, so companies are giving contract workers permanent status to retain staff. This reverses a trend that began in the early 1990s when a stagnating economy prompted businesses to hire more temporary employees and shed permanent jobs, many of which were considered lifetime positions.

``The era of companies just adding temporary workers is probably over,'' said Kotaro Tsuru, a senior fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry in Tokyo and a director of policy planning in the government's Cabinet Office. ``Full-timers are crucial for companies to increase productivity, accumulate knowledge and develop human resources to expand.''

The shift helped average monthly wages climb 18,700 yen, or 0.9 percent, to 311,400 yen ($2,850) in the first half of 2008 from the same period last year, providing some relief to households facing the fastest inflation in a decade. Better pay and job security may encourage consumers to spend more, supporting an economy that shrank an annualized 2.4 percent in the second quarter.

[ReverseEngineer]

Double up the living arrangements and halve the Fat People.

Require all people currently in default on their suburban homes to move in with a neighbor ALSO in default, and share the mortgage and fuel bills. Scrap one of the cars and use the other one in a carpool.

Require all US Fat People to go on an immediate half Calorie Diet, or recycle the fat through Liposuction for vehicle fuel.

Reverse Engineer

[halcyon]

1. Stop heating to 25C during winter time and to 18C during summer time.
You should aim for reverse. Learn to use slippers, pullover and swimming trunks.

2. Bicycle.
Look it up in a dictionary. Buy one used. 60-80% of the trips are 6 miles or less, many of those perfect for cycling. Will help with fitness and weight loss too. Truck will move faster in non-congested traffic.

3. Stop buying and throwing away disposable stuff.
In USA 90% of the stuff bought goes into garbage after only 6 months of use. Don't buy useless stuff, it won't make you happier. Loan expensive things you only use once. Buy second hand. When you have to buy new, buy something that you can fix and which lasts forever. It'll cost you much, you end up buying less, but you can buy locally produced high quality goods instead of Chinese mass-produced cheap crapola. The rest of the money? Pay off debt, buy local non-material services, give it to charity, plant a garden, etc.

4. Grow some of your own food.
You can grow herbs and veggies easily. It won't make you self-sufficient, but it'll teach you things you didn't know, make you be more prepared and perhaps even move part of your food bills over to your skills learning bills. Just having a few herb pots is really easy and anybody can do it. Won't save the world, but it'll get you started.

5. Cut down on your beef, pork, poultry, fish consumption. In that order
18% of world GHGs in CO2 equivalents come from meat production. It takes more than 400 kg of human consumable soy protein to make a single kg of beef protein. The ratio for pork is better, even better for poultry and best for fish (that is, least energy consumed per kg of animal protein). Meat production produces more GHG than driving + shipping + flying all combined. As such, it is also a huge energy and fossil fuels waster. This is the biggest non-radical change you can start doing today. You don't have to become a fascist-vegan overnight. Just start reducing meat intake slowly while introducing more local seasonal fresh vegetables into the diet, and see where your own limit lies. You might be surprised. The downside? You'll probably live healthier and longer, consuming more of the precious resources on earth - but on the average, your extra years will be offset by your savings through your diet.

[MrBill]

Honest to God, the last vegan that told me how healthy she was went down to Africa, got bitten by a mosquito and died of malaria even though she went to the hospital. No reserves or resistance. Some of the strictest dieters I know also have the most fragile of constitutions. They practically faint if they miss a meal by 10-minutes or have to go for an hour without a swig from their ever present water bottle. But they insist how healthy they are (sic). I may not eat a lot of meat, and I try to eat more white meat and fish than red meat, but there is a good reason I am an omnivore. My health. I eat a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables too though. More of a Mediterranean diet. However, I avoid soy. Man, that tofu will shrink your brain and cause Alzheimer's disease!

[BlueGhostNo2]

Soy-based foods lower sperm count (Reuters)

Forget about your brain size! Yikes.

[MrBill]

"People are creating a new asset class," said Anne Valentine Andrews, head of portfolio strategy at Morgan Stanley Infrastructure."You can see and understand the businesses involved - for example, ships come into the port, unload containers, reload containers and leave," she said. "There's no black box."
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')raditionally, the federal government played a significant role in the development of the U.S. transportation backbone: Thomas Jefferson built canals and roads in the 1800s, and Theodore Roosevelt expanded power generation in the early 1900s. In the 1950s, Dwight Eisenhower oversaw the building of the interstate highway system.

But since the early 1990s, the United States has had no comprehensive transportation development, and responsibilities were increasingly pushed off to states, municipalities and millions of metropolitan planning organizations.

"Look at the physical neglect - crumbling bridges, the issue of energy security, environmental concerns," said Robert Puentes, a transportation and metropolitan growth expert at the Brookings Institution. "It's more relevant than ever, and we have no vision."

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that the United States needs to invest at least $1.6 trillion over the next five years to maintain and expand its infrastructure. Last year, the Federal Highway Administration deemed 72,000 bridges, or more than 12 percent of the nation's total, "structurally deficient." But the funds to fix them are melting: By the end of this year, the Highway Trust Fund will have a deficit of several billion dollars.

"We are facing an infrastructure crisis in this country that threatens our status as an economic superpower, and threatens the health and safety of the people we serve," Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York told Congress this year.

[MrBill]

“Compared with nonsurvivors, men with exceptional longevity had a healthier lifestyle, had a lower incidence of chronic diseases and were three to five years older at disease onset,” the Boston team reported in February in The Archives of Internal Medicine. “They had better late-life physical function and mental well-being. More than 68 percent rated their late-life health as excellent or very good, and less than 8 percent reported fair or poor health.”
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition last year, Dr. Rivlin noted that changes in body composition, like loss of bone and muscle and accumulation of body fat, typically accompany aging and can affect health in a variety of ways: poor posture that impairs breathing; falls and fractures; loss of mobility; a reduced metabolic rate; and weight gain that can lead to diabetes, heart and blood vessel disease and some forms of cancer.

But these changes in body composition, he added, “are not an invariable accompaniment of aging.” Much can be done to limit and even reverse them, he said, including restricting calories and following a diet of high-quality protein and limited saturated fat and replacing simple sugars with whole grains rich in fiber.

The Importance of Exercise

A second critical measure for the “young-elderly,” as he calls 70-year-olds, is to “make regular exercise a part of their daily lifestyle,” including aerobic activities that raise the heart rate; weight-bearing activities that strengthen muscles and bones; and stretching exercises that reduce stiffness and improve flexibility and balance.

Another age-related concern is cognitive decline, which is more likely in people with metabolic syndrome, a cluster of modifiable risk factors that includes abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, insulin resistance and abnormal cholesterol levels. Dr. Hall cautioned against therapeutic nihilism in treating older people with such risk factors.

“Chronological age is a very imperfect determinant on which to base medical decision-making,” he wrote.

[MrBill]

[align=center]A Tale of Two Ag Exporters[/align]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')ising food prices mean many farmers around the world are reaping record profits. And South America's agricultural powerhouses, Brazil and Argentina, are responding to the farming windfall in opposite ways.

da Silva's government recently announced record farm credits, a form of indirect subsidy, to encourage Brazil's farmers to produce more while the price of their exports are high on world markets, a move that should improve Brazil's economy. But Argentina, Brazil's economic and political archrival, decided to share the agricultural windfall at home.

Worried about the wave of inflation rippling around the world, the government of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina increased export taxes on some crops, a move meant to keep down domestic food prices by encouraging farmers flush from global profits to sell more at home.

[MrBill]

POLLUTING PEARL FARMERS
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')The massive quantities of pearls produced by China's pearl industry carry a hefty environmental cost.

Lake waters where the pearls are cultivated are greenish, cloudy and often foul-smelling from a mixture of pollution and fertilizers dumped into the water to help the mussels produce pearls faster.

"The disorderly growth of freshwater pearl cultivation in some regions, resulting in the dumping of large quantities of fertilizer into lakes and reservoirs, has seriously damaged those water bodies," said a document on the website of the agriculture department of central China's Hubei Province ( www.hbagri.gov.cn ).

Hubei, one of China's biggest pearl producers, last year banned pearl cultivation in lakes and reservoirs, and restricted pearl-producing mussels to ponds.

Several cities and regions in southern China have also banned or restricted pearl cultivation in recent years.

But experts said mussels, used to produce the gems in freshwater, while oysters produce pearls in saltwater, should not pollute the environment if they are raised properly.

"Mussels eat plankton in the water and can therefore actually purify it," said Pan Jianlin, secretary-general of the Jiangsu Province Pearl Industry Association.

"But some farmers are not raising pearls properly. They use fertilizer to feed the plankton," he said.

Overly dense mussel populations compound the pollution, experts said.

"If mussels are raised in an enclosed body of water, it can easily lead to eutriphication," or a rise in chemical nutrients that causes a severe deterioration of water quality, said Cheng Wen, a professor at Xi'an University of Science and Technology.

LESS IS MORE

Environmental damage from pearl culture is minor compared with industrial emissions, heavy fertilizer runoff and untreated sewage that have fouled many Chinese rivers and lakes over three decades of break-neck economic growth.

Local governments are now under pressure to attack all sources of pollution.

[MrBill]

Following the agreement, more than 90 percent of materials flushed down the toilets and sinks of San Antonio will be recycled, he said. Liquid is now used for irrigation, many of the solids are made into compost, and now the methane gas will be recycled for power generation.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')an Antonio unveiled a deal on Tuesday that will make it the first U.S. city to harvest methane gas from human waste on a commercial scale and turn it into clean-burning fuel.

San Antonio residents produce about 140,000 tons a year of a substance gently referred to as "biosolids," which can be reprocessed into natural gas, said Steve Clouse, chief operating officer of the city's water system.

"You may call it something else," Clouse said, but for area utilities, the main byproduct of human waste - methane gas - will soon be converted into natural gas to burn in their power plants.

The city approved a deal where Massachusetts-based Ameresco Inc will convert the city's biosolids into natural gas, which could generate about 1.5 million cubic feet per day, he said.

Methane gas, which is a byproduct of human and organic waste, is a principal component of the natural gas used to fuel furnaces, power plants, and other combustion-based generators.

"The private vendor will come onto the facility, construct some gas cleaning systems, remove the moisture, remove the carbon dioxide content, and then sell that gas on the open market," Clouse said.

The gas will be sold to power generators, he said.

Some communities are using methane gas harvested from solid waste to power smaller facilities like sewage treatment plants, but San Antonio is the first to see large-scale conversion of methane gas from sewage into fuel for power generation, he said.

[MrBill]

[align=center]The Real Cost of BIC Syndrome[/align]
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')ransparency International (TI) chair Huguette Labelle called the high levels of corruption in low-income countries a "humanitarian disaster."

"Stemming corruption requires strong oversight through parliaments, law enforcement, independent media and a vibrant civil society," Labelle said in a statement.

"When these institutions are weak, corruption spirals out of control with horrendous consequences for ordinary people, and for justice and equality in societies more broadly."

The Berlin-based watchdog estimated that unchecked levels of corruption would add $50 billion -- or nearly half of annual global aid outlays -- to the cost of achieving the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals on combating poverty.

It urged a more focused and coordinated approach by the global donor community to ensure assistance strengthens institutions of governance and oversight in recipient countries.

TI also singled out the performance of some wealthy exporting countries which saw their scores decline from 2007, saying continued evidence of foreign bribery scandals suggested a broader failure by developed nations.

[MrBill]

“There are those things that would irritate perfectionists,” he continued, “but it was the only way to get something so comprehensive and with enforcement enacted in all of the states and provinces. That’s an amazing accomplishment, and a very important one as we’re looking at greater demands for water and threats that climate change will bring.”
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')o House backing for the measure, known as the Great Lakes Compact, is regarded by its many advocates across the Midwest and in New York and Pennsylvania as a long-sought final piece to a complicated puzzle whose solution started taking shape a decade ago in an effort to give the region control over its water. The fear was that without strict, consistent rules on who is entitled to that water, it might start disappearing.

“People realized that Great Lakes water is a finite resource and that death by a thousand straws is a real threat,” said Jordan Lubetkin, a spokesman for the National Wildlife Federation. “There is a perception that because the Great Lakes are so vast, they are immune from harm. That is not the case.”

Before the legislation even reached Congress, the states bordering the lakes had to approve the compact individually, agreeing — in a contentious process that itself took years — to certain common goals. The last state to approve, Michigan, did so only in July, following Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

(The Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, which also border the lakes, have adopted a nearly identical document.)

Though passage in the House is foreseen, support there is not unanimous. Some members say the pact is not strong enough to protect the lakes, which together account for 20 percent of the world’s fresh surface water.