OK so the big news has been the shenanigans on the whole 30/30 issue. Now for me, the first time I heard 30/30 I thought it was a baseball term. Turns out the 30/30 was a sneakily put provision that made its way into the stimulus bill calling for residential windows to have less than a .30 U Factor and .30 Solar Heat Gain. If people “comply” with this, they can get up to a $1500 tax incentive or rebate. The problem is that years of work and organization on Energy Star for residential may have went up in smoke by doing a provision like this. See as you may be aware the weather and Low E and window needs are a weeeee bit different in many parts of our country- so doing a “once size fits all” makes no sense. There’s been lots of speculation on who was behind it (possibly a female Senator from the upper Northeast) and why and right now supposedly the DOE is saying they knew nothing of it. Believe what you want but I think this issue is not over and the shame is that someone maliciously got this thing in there and obviously made whichever sponsoring Senator look like an idiot since it simply does not make sense. By the way, Guardian has a great breakdown of what this thing is on their website and you can find it HERE.
Elsewhere…
-- I love the DOE… well not really…. And aside from the above (which I have a hard time believing that a Senator would just willy-nilly put this provision in WITHOUT discussing with the “so called” experts- then again we don’t have a lot of great Senators these days so this could’ve happened) the other issue was something I ran into this week. I met a person who went to the DOE for a grant… they asked for $130,000…. And the DOE gave them….. $170,000! Yep gotta love that department folks… they blindly support one of the most unbalanced and unfair groups ever created (NFRC) and they give out money like drunken sailors. I swear I was born with the wrong genes.
-- I loved the USGNN story on the slowing of the communist Chinese imports… and not because I was in it. The story itself is great and its proof that people are catching on… hey buy at your own risk… now the focus needs to be on the material coming into this country from Colombia. A lot of the same rules and hazards apply so beware…
-- Do you sometimes get depressed when reading or watching the news anymore? Man I know we have lived through a few of these times, but doesn’t this one seem more severe? Or is it just me… and the media that makes it seem worse? Then again I was not driving in the 1970’s when gas lines stretched around the block…
-- Don’t forget about GANA’s education and technical conference coming up in April. For your tech guys and project managers it really is a strong event. Check out the details on glasswebsite.com.
-- I feel bad for the good people that live in California… not only do you get the honor of having two NFRC Board members from the CEC (ooooooh sorry – just one and one … ahem… ‘consultant’) but your also stuck with the “Octomom”…. That whole story makes me ill and now that she has now moved into a 500K house thanks to “contributors” and will have nanny’s at the willing, I am furious… So she went from food stamps to a ½ mil house? Yep the taxpayers of California you get the honor of paying for that nightmare for a long time. Who’s gonna pay that hospital bill? Somehow I think its gonna be you… but that makes sense in a way… as a state you wanted the NFRC CMA and that makes no sense so why not pay off the Octomom….
-- Yes even I can somehow connect two things as far apart as the Octomom and the NFRC… crazy eh?
To the LINKS we go…
The awesome as always “Link Chick” is back this week… evidently instead of being the diplomat to Cuba she’s now going to work the Global Warming angle after having 8 inches of snow one day and 81 degrees the next…
-- Tempered Glass strikes back! Well not exactly… a backboard explodes after a pregame dunk and there’s long lasting consequences…
-- Like noting of bad news above… how’s this.. Sesame Street now laying off… yeesh.
-- A cool building with glass like a crossword puzzle… neat stuff….
Video of the week:
I got this from a few people… THANK YOU… for the 50th birthday of the Barbie doll… it’s been updated for today’s times… classic stuff!
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