Throw Me the Statue's debut album, Moonbeams, was largely built by one man, and you can hear it in the synthesized beats, the emphasis on front-loaded keyboards, the occasionally oddball instrumentation, the aggressive processing, and a complete disregard for the concept of "enough."

Patrick J. Buchanan, three times contender for U.S. president ('92, '96, and 2000) and syndicated columnist seen in the Quad-City Times, in his December 2007 book Day of Reckoning identifies the great illusion that is fatally eroding the USA's economic strength and world economic leadership: free trade.

When the City of Rock Island created its "Green Team" last year, one thing it did was initiate an in-house recycling program.

Yes, the City of Rock Island - which likes to consider itself progressive - had no recycling program within city buildings.

Some recycling was done, said Tim Ridder, assistant to the public works director, the city's environmental-services coordinator, and the staff person who leads Green Team efforts. "It just wasn't uniform throughout the city," he said, and it wasn't being collected as a function of city government.

This isn't offered as proof that Rock Island is out-of-step. Rather, it shows how far the Quad Cities have come in the past year. Environmental initiatives range from obvious little things to multi-million-dollar projects, and it's evident that municipal government has gone green.

The Quad Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau (QCCVB) has announced its designation as an accredited convention and visitors bureau from the Destination Marketing Accreditation Program, developed by the Washington, D.C.-based Destination Marketing Association International. The only other destination marketing organizations in Iowa and Illinois to receive this accreditation are the Des Moines Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Greater Woodfield Convention & Visitors Bureau in the Chicago area. For more information on the QCCVB, visit (http://www.visitquadcities.com).