Waste

DID anyone besides me see the irony in the president's visit to DuPont last week? He traveled from D.C. to Wilmington, barely 100 miles. A motorcade could have made the trip in maybe 90 minutes and only cost the taxpayers 150 to 200 gallons of gas. But he flew Air Force One. The irony: He went there to talk about energy conservation! Bob Johnson Warminster

SHRINKING the state Legislature? That's an idea whose time came long ago. Philadelphia is covered by a total of 35 state reps and senators, yet only 17 City Council members. Take the state population, 11 million, divide by 203 state reps and 50 state senators. That's one legislator for each 43,000 residents. Now take the city population of 1.5 million and divide by 16 council members. You get about 94,000. Why not eliminate 15-20 folks from the Harrisburg trough and turn that money back to us in the city?

By Pranav Merchant The University of Pennsylvania's first home football game is this weekend, and it will no doubt feature the traditional singing of "Drink a Highball" at the end of the third quarter. At one time, it was also tradition to take a swig of beer upon reaching the line of the song that calls for "a toast to dear old Penn. " After alcohol was banned from the stadium in the 1970s, students began marking that line by throwing toast onto the field instead. This tradition came to be known as the Toast Toss, and it continues to this day. Innocent, alcohol-free college fun, right?

I fully appreciate Emily Mendell's problem with forgetting to bring environmentally friendly bags to the store ("If green is to be ingrained, we need better role models," Sunday).  In Taiwan, you simply pay for the plastic bag if you want one. Are Americans ready for even such a mild solution? I think Mendell and others want to blame  the government, BP, and just about anyone but themselves. Americans are  willing to ask for solutions from others and, yet, fail to ask the tough questions of themselves.

It's nice to see that the City of Philadelphia is wasting tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayers' money to rid the streets of the dangerous and dreaded "johns. " It is hard to comprehend that several police officers are involved in a type of crime where there are no victims and no assailants, only two people who are conducting a business transaction that is legal in some parts of our country. The only real crime is that the john involved in the transactions does not pay the standard 6 percent sales tax for the service.

"Waste not, want not. " - Anonymous It has been abundantly clear from the beginning of spring training that the Phillies were not the sort of team that could spill chances to win, toss them casually out the window like candy wrappers, otherwise fritter them away. Specifically, strong outings by starting pitchers were to be savored like a fine cognac. That is a commandment, however, that has been routinely disobeyed by the local nine to this point of the season. Seven times in the first 36 games the Phillies have gotten a quality start - at least six innings, three or fewer earned runs allowed - and still lost.

With reluctance, the Whitpain Board of Supervisors has approved the first aerial waste-disposal system in the township for a two-lot subdivision at 600 Morris Rd. Last month, property owner Donald Brady asked for permission to subdivide his six-acre tract. Because the property could not support a septic system and there was no public sewer on the site, he also asked for permission to install an aerial spray waste system. The spray waste system would use chemicals to treat the waste.

It's always in season for people to seethe at the waste of their hard- earned dollars. Right now there is the federal probe into an alleged black market in inside dope about fat Pentagon contracts. There's the new agreement that for safety reasons a $5 billion nuclear plant on Long Island will never operate. And, no matter when, "welfare cheats" always make some taxpayers grind their teeth. Although even ill-gotten gains are cycled through the economy, "waste" is a fair label any time the public's money gets spent without producing the intended benefit.

America's No. 1 trash picker has a few things to say about the holidays. Loosely translated, they add up to something like, "Bah, humbug!" William Rathje, an archaeologist who specializes in garbage, looks on the time from now until New Year's as the season to be wasteful. "You wrap all these things, and you put all these gewgaws and froufrous all over them," he says. "You buy people all these presents that they don't want. " And those cards. "There are literally hundreds of millions, if not billions, of Christmas cards that are mailed every year - and everything that you can do to cut down that list is significant.

In the quest to green Philadelphia, officials are turning to the city's kitchen sinks. At an event Thursday, the city will unveil a pilot program to install garbage disposals in 200 Point Breeze and West Oak Lane homes. The goal is to reduce the food waste going to the landfill, which costs the city $68 a ton just for the tipping fee. Instead, residents will be encouraged to pulverize their veggie trimmings, orange rinds, and leftovers in the disposal, sending it to the city's treatment plants, where it will provide fuel for electricity generation and be transformed into fertilizer.

A positive pendulum swing is what the Phillies need more than anything right now, and for most of his career Roy Halladay was the man you'd want on the mound to gain some momentum. Now, the righthander with two Cy Young Awards and the nickname Doc cannot even cure the last-place Phillies' ills. Not that the latest loss, a lackluster 2-1 setback against the lowly San Diego Padres on Saturday night at Citizens Bank Park, was Halladay's fault. But it did send the soon-to-be-35-year-old righthander into some 21st-century uncharted territory.

AT THE START of this postseason, Ilya Bryzgalov was the question with no answer. Was he good enough to steal you a game or two or three? Was he flaky enough to sabotage one all by himself? It was a debate that seemed endless, and turned even the more rational Flyers fans into schizophrenics. So what to make of Tuesday night? Bryzgalov played one of those steal-it-for-you games, and the Flyers still lost. For two periods, he stopped shots, and rebounds of shots, and sprawled all over the place.

The Delaware River Port Authority has wasted millions of dollars of toll payers' money through mismanagement and political cronyism, the New Jersey state comptroller said in a report issued Thursday. Comptroller Matthew Boxer chastised the DRPA for practices such as its much-criticized "economic development" spending and its now-ended free E-ZPass benefits for DRPA executives and their families and friends. Boxer also exposed an insurance payback deal allegedly orchestrated by George E. Norcross III, the South Jersey insurance executive and Democratic Party power broker who is chairman of the board of Cooper University Hospital in Camden.

The Delaware River Port Authority has wasted millions of dollars of toll payers' money through mismanagement and political cronyism, the New Jersey state comptroller said in a damning report issued Thursday. Comptroller Matthew Boxer chastised the DRPA for practices such as its much-criticized "economic development" spending and its now-halted free E-ZPass benefits for DRPA executives and their families and friends. Boxer also exposed an insurance payback deal allegedly orchestrated by George E. Norcross III, the South Jersey insurance executive and Democratic Party power broker who is chairman of the board of Cooper University Hospital in Camden.

A Trainer, Delaware County, industrial-waste site near the Delaware River was added Tuesday to the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund list, making it eligible for a federal cleanup. EPA said that the main source of contamination at the Metro Container Corp. facility, formerly a steel-drum reconditioning plant, is a half-acre toxic disposal lagoon. Contaminants, including PCBs, have been detected at the property, now occupied by an industrial painting company. Metro Container filed for bankruptcy in 1987, and it is not clear who would be responsible for paying any cleanup bill.

The Bristol Township man accused in a fatal hit-and-run over the weekend was "wasted" and driving with a suspended license when he illegally passed a car on the right, hitting a pedestrian with such force that he flew over the car's roof, according to police. Charles Horrocks, 23, of Hatfield Street, was charged by police this morning with vehicular homicide and a litany of offenses relating to the Sunday morning accident on New Falls Road near Holly Drive. He was being held at the Bucks County prison on 10 percent of $1 million bail after an arraignment last night before Magisterial Court Judge Michael J. Burns.

A dispute over dog waste in the city's Tacony section Tuesday afternoon culminated in the fatal shooting of a man and the arrest of a neighbor, police said. The shooting occurred at 4:08 p.m. outside a home on the 6500 block of Torresdale Avenue, police said. The 47-year-old victim, who lived on the block, was pronounced dead at the scene, and a 27-year-old man was taken into custody. Residents said the two were next-door neighbors. The men were "involved in an ongoing dispute over dog feces," Chief Inspector Scott Small said.

A 27-year-old man was arrested this morning and charged with shooting and killing a neighbor over dog droppings Tuesday afternoon in Tacony. Police said Tyrirk Harris fired his 9mm pistol at least six times, killing Franklin Manuel Santana, 47. Both men lived just doors apart on the 6500 block of Torresdale Avenue. Neighbors said Harris allowed his Chihuahua and a German shepherd to defecate on lawns on the street and did not clean up after his pets. Sometime after 4 p.m. Tuesday, Santana confronted Harris over the dog droppings, police said.

Philadelphia's latest regulatory idea is to require the modification of all Philadelphia taxis to make them wheelchair accessible. Our taxi companies will have to retrofit existing cabs, making all 1,600 Philadelphia cabs wheelchair accessible over the next few years. While a few people will benefit, a basic analysis shows why this is wrongheaded. It spends wildly to achieve a "social" aim, while imposing onerous costs on small businesses that make it harder to grow and create jobs.