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There has been a recent hullabaloo about Gore’s “carbon footprint.”  You see, his 10,000 square foot mansion in Nashville uses more power in a month than most homes use in a year: his monthly electric bill is about $1,359 (add another $1,080 per month for gas).  He is paying for this indulgence, though: he buys blocks of green power from the local energy company, is having solar panels installed, and drives a Lexus hybrid SUV.

However, a little less known, are facts about George Bush’s home in Crawford:

Is it possible that George Bush is a secret Green? Evidently his Crawford Winter White House has 25,000 gallons of rainwater storage, gray water collection from sinks and showers for irrigation, passive solar, geothermal heating and cooling. “By marketplace standards, the house is startlingly small,” says David Heymann, the architect of the 4,000-square-foot home. “Clients of similar ilk are building 16-to-20,000-square-foot houses.” Furthermore for thermal mass the walls are clad in “discards of a local stone called Leuders limestone, which is quarried in the area. The 12-to-18-inch-thick stone has a mix of colors on the top and bottom, with a cream- colored center that most people want. “They cut the top and bottom of it off because nobody really wants it,” Heymann says. “So we bought all this throwaway stone. It’s fabulous. It’s got great color and it is relatively inexpensive.” 

(Just look at the contrast in pictures of their homes: Gore and Bush.)

The Dow Jones IA fell 500 points today.  I hope someone out there bought some puts.  If this continues, you can be sure I’ll be buying a few.  A major blip?  Or sudden jolt to get us going into that recession Greenspan warned us of?

Just a little fact:  P&G was down $3.19 a share today (4.95%), times 3.16 billion shares, and that’s $10,080,400,000 ($10,08 billion) lost today by P&G shareholders. (Disney is down $4.12 billion.)  It’s a dangerous game.

There is someone out there who believes the Cuban Embargo will end this year, 2007. It is coming from a some-what obscure source: Lew Rothman. You see, Rothman owns/runs JR Cigars, the world’s largest cigar distributor. In this position, he has contact with a lot of tobacco producers/manufacturers/importers. Recently, he has made the decision to liquidate a large portion of his cigar inventory that is either moving too slow, has too thin margins, etc. in order to 1. gather a horde of cash to buy new cigars and 2. make room for inventory.  Rothman is doing this under the assumption that the Embargo will end this year.  I’m not sure what he knows, but he certainly knows the cigar market.  It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.  At the very least, they have some great deals on cigars going on.

Walter E. Williams provides us with some insight into Nonsense Ideas:

How many times have we heard: If it will save just one life, it’s worth it? The “it” could be bike helmet laws, childproof medicine bottles, or formaldehyde and asbestos safety regulations. A good economist cringes hearing such statements because they only consider the benefits of an action while ignoring the cost. Looking at benefits only, just about anything is worth doing because there’s usually a benefit. Let’s look at it.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, some 43,443 people were killed on the nation’s highways in 2005. If Congress were to enact a 10 miles per hour national speed limit, we’d save thousands of lives each year. You say, “Williams, that would be stupid and impractical!” My response to you is: But look at all the lives that would be saved. What you really mean by stupid and impractical is that preventing thousands of highway fatalities is not worth the cost and inconvenience that would result from having to poke along at 10 miles per hour. Of course, calling a 10 miles per hour law stupid and impractical is a more socially acceptable way of saying those saved lives aren’t worth it.

The LA Times claims it has learned the identities of three CIA officers beiing charged in Germany. They don’t release their names, but do provide details about them. For instance:

the pilot who called himself Capt. James Fairing picked up the phone at 2:28 in the afternoon and dialed his tree-shaded home in a subdivision carved out of pine forests here in Clayton, about 15 miles southeast of Raleigh…In real life, the chief pilot is 52, drives a Toyota Previa minivan and keeps a collection of model trains in a glass display case near a large bubbling aquarium in his living room. Federal aviation records show he is rated to fly seven kinds of aircraft as long as he wears his glasses.

Similarly for the two as well. So, if we’re really mad that Novak “outed” Plame, and that’s supposed why Libby is on trial, will there be trials for Bob Drogin and John Goetz? Or even outrage? Or musings about whether they should have published this information?

Or will it be ignored, as the jury deliberates on whether Libby lied to prosecutors? (Not, as the media would have us believe, that he revealed the identity of a covert officer.) Here we have reporters actually revealing information about real covert officers. We’ll see if Diane Sawyer has anything to say about it tomorrow on GMA (no doubt right after a psychologist provides insight into Spears’ mental health).

David Geffen, former friend of the Clintons and now Obama supporter, has had some disparaging remarks regarding Hillary. Such things as “Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”

Well, the Clinton task force has reponded by attacking Obama, demanding he cut ties with Geffen and return his money.

Not to be out-done, Obama’s camp has responded by saying “it is ironic that the Clintons had no problem with David Geffen when was raising them $18 million and sleeping at their invitation in the Lincoln bedroom.” Then takes it a step further and says

“It is also ironic that Senator Clinton lavished praise on Monday and is fully willing to accept today the support of South Carolina State Sen. Robert Ford, who said if Barack Obama were to win the nomination, he would drag down the rest of the Democratic Party because ’he’s black.’”

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Remember playing Life growing up?  Well, now the game has become more…diverse.  Re-live the old'n days, or try out livin' the life you always wanted.

"If we cannot protect the nation's supply of peanut butter, one must ask how prepared we are for a terrorist attack on our nation's food supply."–Rep. Bart Stupack of Michigan

Marjorie Valbrun of the Washington Post asks if Obama is "black enough."  (On a side note, Terry Moran of ABC asks if Giuliani is "white enough.")

Why all this debate about Obama's blackness?  If you think about it for a second, he's just as much white as he is black.  Yeah, I just said that.  Does he not have just as much "right to white" as he does to black? 

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