The winners and the losers

Winner: A New York Times report this week said more and more Americans are adopting the anti-garbage strategy known as "zero waste." The rules are, produce less, shun materials that aren't biodegradable and either recycle or compost whenever possible. For many people, sorting recyclable garbage has become as much a part of routine as plugging in the cell phone to a recharger each night. Americans still produce more garbage than people in other nations, but this is a trend worth encouraging.

Loser: Six top managers of the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration received bonuses of $71,000 each this year — more than double what they would receive normally in a year. State senators rightly took exception to this at a meeting to confirm a lawmaker to SITLA's board this week. Board officials said the managers met their performance goals, so they deserved the money. Well. ... Normally, bonuses are given a year after the performance goals are met, because of the timing of performance reviews, but the board decided to give 2009's bonuses early to avoid a legislative mandate against bonuses in 2010. "Inexcusable," said House Speaker Dave Clark. We like that word.

Winner: It's official now: Utah's Camp Williams will be the site of a new national cybersecurity data center. Camp Williams beat out 38 other sites nationwide. This is a $1.5 billion project that will employ 10,000 construction workers and up to 200 permanent employees once it is finished. That's every state's dream during a recession — far better than a lump of bailout money from Washington.

Winner/Loser? Like many Utahns, we're disgusted with the way the Bowl Championship Series allows only certain privileged schools to compete for the national football championship, regardless of how well one of the outsiders might have played. Division-1 football players are the only collegiate athletes who can begin a season knowing they have no shot at a national title just because of where they play. But we're a little worried about all the energy being put into overthrowing the BCS out in Washington. A new political-action committee has been started for that purpose, and now Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is asking the president to order the Justice Department to investigate whether the BCS is violating antitrust laws. We know how much money is at stake here, but football is, after all, just a game. Washington ought to focus more on weakening the regime of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even if that wouldn't be quite as difficult as overthrowing the BCS.