Politics Wed -- The Issues: Environment

Yes, I'm a little late. Sorry! First, let's take a look at the different options we have for alternative or renewable energy sources. NOTE: unless otherwise stated, all quotes are from Wikipedia.

Solar Energy
Use of this energy resource has existed since the time of the "early Greeks, Native Americans and Chinese" who positioned their housing to effectively use the sun to warm the interior.

Uses of Solar Energy

Solar Lighting
Light from the sun is collected via specific window types, sizes and orientation to provide lighting within residential or commercial buildings. This is called daylighting. Hybrid Solar Lighting (HSL) collects sunlight using mirrors "that track the sun. The collected light is transmitted via optical fibers into a building's interior to supplement conventional lighting".

Solar Thermal
"Solar thermal applications make up the most widely used category of solar energy technology. These technologies use heat from the sun for water and space heating, ventilation, industrial process heat, cooking, water distillation and disinfection, and many other applications."

Electricity
Electricity is generated in many ways but most commonly using Photovoltaics. This fancy term applies to that solar cell on your calculator as well as those solar panels used at a large plant.

Sunshine to Petrol
From Sandia.gov: "... intended to chemically reenergize carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, which ultimately could become the building block to synthesize a liquid combustible fuel”. Is that enough to make your brain hurt? Try reading the rest of the article. :)

Wind Energy
The most common use of wind to create power are the wind turbines I'm sure everyone has seen at some point or not either in photos, on television or in movies. If not, this link has some examples. This type of energy is used widely in Europe and believe it or not the United States appears to be a large supporter of investing in this technology.

Uses of Wind Energy
Wind power can be used to "crush grain or to pump water" or be "connected to electrical grids, as well as in individual turbines for providing electricity to isolated locations."

Negative Effects
Those who are against using Wind Energy cite the other negative environmental effects it causes. To install a wind farm, you must have a large piece of land due the size of them and the required spacing between them. Apparently, there is some argument as to the number of birds and bats killed by the turbines that lie within their migratory path. In Ireland, the pollution caused construction of a wind farm is attributed to the massive amounts of fish dying in a nearby river. The noise caused by offshore turbines might cause harm to sea mammals especially larger creatures such as whales.

Water Power (Hydropower)
This type of energy resource has also been used for a very long time. Think of one of those old mills where the big wheel outside of the building that used the river next to it. Effective, clean power.

Uses of Hydropower

Hydroelectric
Hydroelectric power is generated from dams, think Hoover Dam. This type of power source is widely used across the globe.

Tidal Power
Using water harnessed from tides, this type of power uses turbines sort of like the wind turbines do to generate energy.

Wave Power
Wave Power is more theory right now than actuality. This theory is being put to test in Australia at Port Kembla. This type of power uses generators to harness energy from surface ocean waves.

BioFuel
I’m simply going to put a link to Wikipedia for this one. There’s a lot for it and I’m running short on time.

Nuclear
I’m simply going to put a link to Wikipedia for this one. There’s a lot for it and I’m running short on time.

CANDIDATES’ VIEW ON THIS TOPIC

This has all been paraphrased from the individual candidate's web site. To find out more, click on their name and it will take you to their Environment or Energy page.

Hillary Clinton
Agenda includes reducing carbon emissions, enacting standards which will reduce electricity consumption by businesses, invest in green industries, and increase appliance efficiency standards. Improve emissions standards for federal buildings. Introduce “Connie Mae” program so low to middle income families can invest and purchase “green” housing.

Barack Obama
Agenda includes reducing carbon emissions, rewarding forest owners/farmers, invest in clean energy industry, and support next generation biofuel such as Ethanol and increase fuel economy standards. Make U.S. at the forefront of clean energy investment and technology and of course, reduce dependence on foreign oil.

John McCain
Agenda includes limiting carbon emissions, investing in nuclear energy, reduce dependence on foreign oil. He didn’t really have that much on his site. There seems to be more for him within the site I mention below (The League of Conservation Voters) that they’ve gathered from speeches and press releases and such.

Mike Huckabee
Agenda includes energy independence, pursuing all venues of alternative energy.

Ron Paul
Agenda includes no subsidizing logging in National Forests, encourage development of sustainable energy sources such as solar and wind power, ending government funded projects that harm the environment.

I didn’t get to read through all of the candidate’s material on this and tried to pick out the highlights of their positions on this issue. However, you can go to each of their sites by clicking on their name or use this really good link which sums up each candidate’s Environmental position: http://www.lcv.org/voterguide/

No soapbox on this one people. I’m still exhausted. Take care!

YAY, Yoga!

I finally made it back to my yoga. Today I went for the first time since lil' Monkey was born. It felt really good to go back and I SURVIVED my first class. I was really scared that I wouldn't. For those who don't know (I'm guessing everyone that reads this blog already knows this), I practice Bikram Yoga. It's the crazy hot yoga where the room is 100 degrees that most people think is completely, well, crazy. But it fits my personality perfectly. I am, afterall, the crazy mama. ;)

You see, I can't stand doing the "gym thing". You know, walk on a treadmill for a half-hour, then do some weight training, yada, yada. It bores me to tears. I've tried watching the televisions to make the time pass or bringing a magazine to keep me going. But in the end, I'm just not satisfied and never ready to go back. I've also tried what I call "incense yoga" and what Bikram calls "frou frou" or "furniture" yoga (or so said one of the teachers who had met him personally). Those types of yoga classes are just too ostentatious for me. Maybe I just don't think singing Kum Ba Yah with a bunch of strangers and burning incense is going make me feel better or to put me in touch with anything except the need to run out of there screaming.

Also, I guess you could say I've never been very sporty. I was on a bowling league when I was really young (6 until I was 9, maybe 10?) and that was okay. My cousin got involved in softball and my mom thought it might be a good thing for me to do as well. I hated the pressure of being at bat or trying to catch the ball in the outfield. I prayed at each game that they'd sit me. Then the nail in the coffin for softball -- while at bat, I hit the ball very far and was so excited that I threw the bat straight into the catcher's stomach. She was on the ground for a very long time but recovered. I felt horrible. I begged my parents to take me out of the league. It was close to the end of the season so they convinced me to finish it. I guessed they were hoping I'd get over it. I still haven't really. Then I went to ONE team sport try-out in high school (field hockey) and immediately decided that I wasn't fond of doing sit-ups in the mud at 7:30 on a Saturday morning. So that was that for team sports.

However, I am somewhat competitive. Inwardly competitive. Usually, I'm just competing with myself and thinking I should be as good as someone else. I couldn't see myself talking smack or trying to compete for team position or ranking. I'd just fester inside. Therefore, Bikram Yoga is that perfect balance between of being challenging enough to keep me interested and not so competitive that I just implode due to the pressure of being good enough. I have only me to answer to and I'm learning not to be so hard on myself.

So today was a good day. And it's true what the instructors say about muscle memory! I've done this type of yoga off and on since 2001 but thought because I took 15 months off from it, I might not be able to do it any longer. However, I did pretty well. I couldn't get to the same point in the poses that I could prior to taking my hiatus but overall, I'm satisfied with myself. AND I didn't sit half of the class out due to the heat (this had happened previously when returning from a couple months break)! Now I just need to figure out a way to fit this into my schedule.

YAY, yoga!

Politics Wed -- Postponed

Due to work obligations and lil' Monkey coming down with a cold (Where is this kid getting all of these germs?! At least, it's just a head cold and no diarrhea this time!), Politics Wednesday will be postponed until next week.

In the meantime, I said last week that I was going to cover Education this week. However, from our poll, it looks like I'm the only one that voted for it. So should I cover the Environment or Tax Reform next week, or keep on with the Education?

Strange Bedfellows

We just recently started the lovey concept with lil' Monkey, just prior to him getting sick as a matter of fact. We allowed one soft rattle shaped like a monkey (go figure) to be in his crib starting around Christmastime. But his monkey rattle was one of the first causalties during his illness. It along with a few other toys were quarantined in the to-be-washed bag which took me a long time to go through! He's been endowed with so many toys!

So Monkey has replaced his monkey with a new lovey or shall I say loveys (is that the plural form of lovey?). And they're kinda strange really. He's decided that his toy hammer is a source of comfort as well as the rubber ducky we usually have in the bathtub. Seems like two very strange bedfellows, if you ask me. But whatever works, right?

I was wondering, how many parents out there let their child take a lovey with them to sleep? And if so, what kind of lovey do they prefer? And for those with older children, did the lovey become an issue later?

Miss Pissy Pants, would you like some more whine?

Lately, as anyone who has read this blog has probably noticed, I've been more than a little whiny. I've been whiny, needy, tired, angry, pissy and not just on this blog, at home and in life in general. Needless to say, DH hasn't been a happy camper either living with Miss Pissy Pants 24-7.

I think I've gone into a mental and emotional downward spiral and I've been trying to figure out what to do.

The year didn't get off to a great start with Monkey's illness, then my semi-vacation to my cousin's wedding was good but getting there was a nightmare (I missed my flight) and then this latest resolve that we're hunkering down to wait out the housing market didn't help.

Plus, we've come to the conclusion that in order to use what space we have to its maximum potential we'll need to get rid of some cats (we have 4, contemplating dwindling that number to 1). The cats, or the "Girls" as I used to so affectionately call them, were my babies prior to my son's birth but with lil' Monkey in the picture, I haven't been a very good cat mommy. With that in mind and the fact that we're just not comfortable with Monkey crawling around in the massive amounts of hair deposited in our basement by the Girls, we're going to have to make the hard decision to give some of them up. I dread this decision but I understand it's necessary. I'm just going to have to DO IT and never give another thought to where they might be or what happened to them. Or else I'll just drive myself insane.

So I feel somewhat justified in my pissy demeanor. But I've GOT to get out of this somehow. I think I'll have some wine with my whine tonight and go to bed early.

Bitter about clutter and the housing market

Feeling a little bitter tonight. Yet grateful for what we DO have.

My bitterness comes from the reality that has slowly set in recently about our housing situation. You see, DH and I bought our home at the peak of the housing market when seller's were still raping buyers and taking the highest bidder. Now the prices in our neighborhood have slumped far past what we can afford to pay out in order to move.

This realization of not being able to sell our house and move into a bigger one any time soon makes me bitter. I'm talking 5 years possibly if things keep getting worse with the housing market. Which means having a second child will cramp our living situation severely. That just plain sucks. Sure, we could manage and most likely will have to manage. There are plenty of people out there with less than what we have and they have more than one child -- some of them managing quite well, others not so much.

However, I'm a complete clutter-phobe so space is really important to me. After having lil' Monkey, our house has been invaded with the tons of stuff required to raise a little one (and some things not so much required but loved by him). So space in our home is at a premium now. My once sparse home with lots of visible floor, cabinet and wall space is no longer.

Plus, working from home, I need one area of the house to be a home office. Both DH and I are accustomed to using our computers simultaneously (I work while he plays WoW -- or sometimes works as well). So really we need an entire room for our home office, not just a desk tucked away somewhere like the kitchen or family room (plus that would set off my clutter alarm). Therefore, our office eliminates one of the rooms in our house. Luckily for us, the previous owners finished the basement and there's technically a bedroom down there (which used to be our office). This room will probably become our office again when/if child number two comes along and we need to give up the bedroom next to lil' Monkey's bedroom. This means I'll need to run up two flights of stairs if our little ones wake up screaming into the baby monitor and I'm working downstairs! This also means we'll need to put the guest bed and my sewing machine/table into storage. Which means during the Holidays, our relatives will either need to use an Aerobed or get a hotel room. It all just seems to snowball -- all because of the housing market!

Now I've re-read what is written above and here is where the grateful part comes in ...

At least, we HAVE a house, we HAVE jobs, we HAVE cars, we HAVE a computer for each of us, we HAVE a sewing machine, we HAVE all the furniture and clothes we could ask for ... we have EVERYTHING we truly need (and plenty of nice-to-haves). I can't in good conscious act like a "have not" when in fact we have a lot.

So after watching part of that 20/20 special on t.v. last night about anger, instead of just being bitter and angry about our housing/clutter situation, I'm trying to refocus my angst to what I CAN do. So for the next few months, I'll be spending some time weeding through my closets, cabinets, etc. to see where I can make space so at the very least, the clutter won't feel like it's closing in on me. I can take my bitter butt to Goodwill and give the things I don't appreciate anymore or no longer need or can't wear to those who truly are in need.

Anyone a size 10 in need of business suit pants, jackets or shirts?

Funny Quote -- Week of 1/21/08

From the Mom-101 blog post about what each presidential candidate has on their sites about families specifically (the entire post is great, well, unless as the author points out "Skip This One if You've Got an Elephant Bumper Sticker on the SUV")

The funny quote for this week:

"Because as we all know, Jesus said, 'Ignore the mothers for they are not as important as the gun lobby.'"

LOL! I apologize to my Republican friends but as an Independent who leans to the left, this is hilarious.

She did go on to say: "Now I'm not saying that everyone is going to be pro-choice. But man, shouldn't everyone be pro-family? I mean they didn't even mention the FMLA. Try googling any GOP candidate with FMLA."

Any working mother should really read this post and the references she makes to the sites she researched. It may have just changed my mind about this race. We'll see.

In effort not to offend anymore, I will try to keep the rest of the posts apolitical until next Wednesday. :)