March 20, 2008 by vortmax.

In an interview with ABC News concerning the Iraq war, Vice President Cheney was told that polls  indicate 2/3rds of Americans believe the effort in Iraq is not worth it.

Cheney’s response:  “So?”

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March 9, 2008 by vortmax.

From the blog “The Nation:”

Seven years later, who is running McCain’s South Carolina campaign? Charlie Condon, the former State Attorney General who in 2000 helped spread the innuendo targeting (McCain’s adopted daughter from Bangladesh) Bridget. If you can’t beat them, hire them–even if they’ve launched racist attacks against your own daughter.

I was a fervent supporter of McCain in the 2000 election.  I thought he could provide a real conservative outlook on our future (less government, strong defense, anti-establishment).  Now he appears to believe that he can’t win unless he adopts the tactics (and people) the sleazebag that our current president did.

Politics as usual.

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March 6, 2008 by vortmax.

Paulina, our Nanday Conure, passed away today. She’s the one that started our love affair with birds.

We acquired Paulina after the death of a friend in September of 2001. Our friend’s husband didn’t want to deal with “that noisy bird,” as he said it reminded him too much of his departed wife (though we believe it was because he didn’t know how to care for her). We retrieved her from his house, where her cage was against a wall with two pieces of furniture on either side. We took her home and placed her cage in front of a huge window so she could see the outside world.

For the next three weeks she seemed in mourning, as all she would do was eat and sit next to her fuzzy cozy inside her cage, not making a sound. Slowly she came out of her slump and became one of the most gentle birds we’ve seen.

During her time with us, we acquired Ducky, Sugar (departed last April), Melody, Pepper, Blue, Snowflake, Lucky, and Tweety. She acclimated to these additions quite well. Ducky became quite attached to Paulina, even going so far as to become aggressive to us whenever we would approach her. He’s since calmed down a bit, but I know he will miss her.

I know I will miss Paulina waddling out to the kitchen, chasing the cats around, drinking from the cat’s water bowl, and sitting quietly on my shoulder every weekend morning.

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March 4, 2008 by vortmax.

Indiana had long been a hold-out on the switch to Daylight Savings Time (DST), an issue which bothered some of Indiana’s residents. They were tired of not being on the same time as their neighbors in other states. Some counties opted to adopt DST before the state legislature considered it, thus providing a chance for the local electricity provider, Duke Energy, to perform a study.

The result? Here’s the direct quote from a Wall Street Journal article:

Having the entire state switch to daylight-saving time each year, rather than stay on standard time, costs Indiana households an additional $8.6 million in electricity bills. They conclude that the reduced cost of lighting in afternoons during daylight-saving time is more than offset by the higher air-conditioning costs on hot afternoons and increased heating costs on cool mornings.

There you go. Daylight Time, once thought to save electricity, doesn’t. The reason appears to be the proliferation of air conditioning and electric heat units in modern homes.

Unfortunately, those who still rely on studies from the 70’s refuse to accept these facts:

“One study of the situation in Indiana cannot accurately asses the impact of [daylight-saving time] changes across the nation, especially when it does not include more northern, colder regions,” (Rep. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts) notes.

Mr. Markey, there are more states south of Indiana than there are north of Indiana. In regards to population, New York, Boston, and Pennsylvania are around the same latitude (i.e. roughly the same climate zone). Thus your argument only singles out the few states north of Indiana.

The bottom line is that when DST was first implemented during World War II, the main power consumption was for electric lighting. At that time it made sense to use sunlight as a primary lighting source for our homes. Since then, almost every single home has an air conditioning unit which uses a huge amount of power. Now throw in the recent use of compact fluorescent lighting, the lighting load will only continue to decrease. Implementing DST causes people who come home early to crank down their thermostats for cooling, or for those that wake up in the dark to crank up their thermostats. Thus, in my opinion, the energy argument for DST is no longer valid.

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