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POPSSimple Low-Tech Home Wins Prize For Sustainability
Woodruff's house uses just 25% of the energy of a conventional house of the same size. His winter power costs are a $30 electricity bill each month and a cord of wood. In the summer, power is needed only for the hot water heater and appliances. Yet the little 1,100-sq.-ft. house is as straightforward as you can get. No high-tech gizmos. No elaborate contortions. The house relies on simple architectural principles -- windows oriented for sunlight, cross breezes for ventilation, overhangs for shade -- basics that were much lauded in the 1940s and '50s, but less emphasized since. They included large doors that can be opened for cross-breezes. They designed the heating so energy is used and reused within rooms. The living/ dining/kitchen area is one big room heated by a wood stove on rainy days, and the sun on sunny days. "The public rooms face east, the logic being you want those to heat up with the sun first in the winter and in the summer, you want to avoid the hot western sun.
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POPSI Had No Idea I was unaware that we had so many Jewish lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Now I understand why this crisis will continue. And Happy New Year to you too.
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POPS401(k) Debit Danger The creation of the 401(k) debit card makes it even easier for you to tap into your retirement savings. That's not a good thing.
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POPSSocialism for Dummies Any politician who votes to bail out Wall Street titans while simultaneously telling average Americans to suck it up and tighten their belts should be booted from office. Any politician who claims taxes can continue to be cut in the face of the gargantuan debt we are about to take on should be shown the door. The chatter in the business world is that a “new model” of finance must emerge from the ruins left by the shattering of the old. The same must apply to our politics, too.
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POPSMcCain bounce evaporates Obama is now at or above poll levels prior to RNC, and in D, R, and toss-up states. I think the roll is beginning, and I still think it could be a landslide.
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POPSScholar claims to find medieval Jewish capital A Russian archaeologist says he has found the lost capital of the Khazars, a powerful nation that adopted Judaism as its official religion more than 1,000 years ago, only to disappear leaving little trace of its culture.
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POPSExercise and metabolic syndrome Ejercicio moderado puede reducir la tasa de síndrome metabólico. Exercice modéré peut réduire les taux de syndrome métabolique. Moderato esercizio può tagliare tasso di sindrome metabolica.
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POPSWhat is more important the stock market or the economy? The premise here is daytrading (which I do for a living), naked short selling, and other forms of speculation among the wall streeters have created a drag on the economy and the real stock market. I wonder if raising the capital gains tax would shut down some of the unhealthy speculation which helped cause the current mess we're in.
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POPS$500 Billion Federal Budget Deficit On the front page of today's Washington Post, another sobering view of the U.S. government's fiscal situation. Note: eight years ago, with the federal budget in the black, the Post also aired fiscal worries in several stories. This September 2000 story (link unavailable), "Spending Floodgates Open on Hill," had this quote from Senator John McCain: "The deficit used to have some modest braking influence, but now that that's not there, it's just a free-for-all," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) "They're all equal opportunity pork-barrelers . . . This is the worst ever."
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POPSGreen Roofs Offer More Than Color for the Skyline When sunshine hits a blacktop roof, it heats the building beneath it as well as the area nearby. When it hits plants on a roof, in contrast, the plants not only absorb the sunshine, but cool the air when the water in their leaves evaporates. Temperatures on buildings with green roofs are up to 30 percent lower during the daytime in the summer than they are on those with conventional roofs, which means that tenants on the floors below do not have to run their air-conditioning as much. Con Ed has teamed up with Columbia University’s Center for Climate Systems Research to evaluate the benefits, using rooftop sensors to measure the temperature, wind and water runoff. Con Edison said it hoped to use the findings to encourage customers to install green roofs themselves. David Westman, the resource conservation coordinator at Con Edison, said, “It’s not only the right thing to do, but it can make economic sense.”
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POPSA new Swiss park for feeding the bears Until the debut of BearPark, Pedro and Tana can be seen in their more modest open-air enclosure every day from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the summer, during which time they accept gifts of bear food that are available for purchase from bear guards. Bern's relationship to bears can be traced back to the city's birth: The city founder, Berchtold V von Zãhringen, is said to have killed a bear on the peninsula where the city now stands. The capital's name comes from Bãr, which is German for bear, and the animal graces the Bern's coat of arms.
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POPSWar and foreign policy [truly outstanding!] The best lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan are not about Bush failures, nor about a need to change the military, but rather about the nature of foreign policy; challenges the shibboleths of left and right. Andrew Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, retired from the US Army with the rank of colonel. This piece is adapted from his new book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.
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POPSThe Connection Between Sleep Loss and Weight Gain Physiologic studies suggest that sleep constraint has metabolic effects that predispose to weight gain. The authors investigated the association between self-reported usual sleep duration and subsequent weight gain in the Nurses’ Health Study.
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