Energy Strategy for your Home
Posted on | April 2, 2010 | No Comments
So, my last post was all about the benefits you can get through the real estate credits. These benefits come from the government, which basically means they come from our taxes, or worse yet, they come from our country’s deficit. Rigt?
Well. the point I’d like to make is that Energy saving is another way to save money with your home, but it’s even better than a one-time tax credit for all of the obvious reasons. First, you are saving money as a way to increase your wealth as opposed to taking a hand out from the government. That means it’s something you control, and something you earned. Secondly, no matter how your feel about “global warming” I sure we can all agree that we don’t want to be dependent on other nations to provide us fuel oils. So, this strategy not only puts extra cash in your pocket, but also helps our country become more self-sufficient.
This website that I found helps you understand simple things you can do around your house to save energy costs. For example, do you understand the impact your home appliances have on your energy bills? Do you have strategies to lower the electrical consumption of your appliances? Truth is, I had no idea how many ways there are to save money and the site gives a great amount of detail on the topic!
You are never going to eliminate your consumption of home energy but the fact is, you are better off the more you are able to reduce it. So, when you have a few spare minutes, I would suggest that you check this site out. They will do an audit of your home for free and when it comes to making improvements to you home, when was the last time someone offered you anything for free?
Decent website resource to check out, and since the topic of home ownership is so top of mind, I figured I would share with you what I found! Let me know if you do the free home audit, I’m curious what you learn about your house!
Real Estate Tax Benefit
Posted on | April 2, 2010 | No Comments
All the talk nowadays is about how the government is going to save us from ourselves. I appreciate that everyone should be allowed to have their opinion, so it that light, I suppose this post is nothing more than my opinion on the topic of the real estate tax benefit because this tax credit keeps getting extended and extended, so it makes sense to talk about what it is, and how to apply for it, right?
Well, like many things, I see some pros and cons with this tax credit. And, like it or not, you get the read my opinions! If I start out with the cons. I’d say that I am concerned that this measure will not accomplish the governments stated goals. See, I believe the real estate market is like any other market and it will find the correct values of homes on its own. That means, it will seek the correct value despite efforts to move it one way or the other. The goal of this stimulus is to increased demand for home and as a result maintain or even increase home values across the country. I simply feel that this market is too large to manipulate and that it’s going to go where ever it wants to go.
On the pro side, I do like that this bill focuses in on first time home owners. I believe that the more people in this country that are able and desire to buy the home that they live in, the better off we will be as a country. I think home ownership leads to more pride in our dwellings, which in turn creates happier, and even better looking neighborhoods. Think about how much time you would spend trimming the hedges if you rented you house versus if you owned it. See what I mean?
Like every topic, there are two sides!
Nothing beats a rodeo!
Posted on | March 31, 2010 | No Comments
I was heading down to Texas last week to visit a friend, and he suggest we hit the rodeo. Have you ever been? Well, let me tell you. It’s quite an experience. And, if you have no been before, you have to go. The only bit of warning that I will give you in advance though is that you need to make sure you get good seats. Don’t settle for bad seats and don’t expect to be able to get your tickets at the door. This is a major event in Texas and you need to get your RodeoHouston tickets in advance.
The link above is where I got my tickets and I thought I would include it for your too. They got me some sick seats and they were much less expensive that I expected. The rodeo turned out to be a lot of fun. Not just fun for my friend and me. But, we took our families too and they had a blast. There are kids activities, areas to see the animals and plenty of great food and beer. You really can’t go wrong!
Next time you are thinking about a vacation. If you think you might be anywhere near Texas, then I’d suggest you hit the rodeo and that you use an online resource like the one I found to make sure you get a great deal on your seats!
President Obama was back on the Campaign Trail Today
Posted on | January 20, 2010 | 1 Comment
It appears that is where the man feels most comfortable except today he lost his battle. It looks like the honey moon is over and people are looking for results, not promises, in these tough times. So, what happens? Massachusetts welcomes their first Republican Senator in over 40 years which is a very resounding statement that people are not pleased with the current direction of the nation. Honestly, what was most impressive was the large turnout of people for the election despite the lack luster weather conditions. I applaud the turnout and always believe people should do their talking with their actions. Massachusetts did just that today.
With President Obama desperately trying to force a square peg into a round hole with his health care legislation, I’d like us to take a look overseas to Israel. Last week, they conducted a massive drill named Operation Orange Flame 4. The goal was to prepare the nation for a potential bio-terror attack. There were many experts from many countries brought in to observe the drill. Wouldn’t you know that they brought in a CEO of a US company; the very same one that I posted from the Seman Emanrus article. Dr. Eric Rose was brought on as an advisor because of the countermeasure SIGA Technologies provides against smallpox. According to the company today, the simulation included infection of over 20,000 people and the distribution of Tecovirimat (ST-246) was specifically named as the solution to be used as a countermeasure.
This is mind boggling to me. Here we have a CEO of a United States Company going to Israel to participate in a bio-terror drill and helping Israel be prepared. Ironically, the company is almost entirely funded by the US Government. What doesn’t make sense to me is that the US President is still campaigning while other countries are preparing. Furthermore, if you dig a little deeper into the process, this company is in a long drawn out process to receive a contract. This is a contract which investors seem to deem a higher risk of not achieving simply based on the stocks declining share price over the past 6 weeks. Furthermore, if you look at Barda’s timeline, the contract was supposed to be awarded in September. Barda, the Government Agency in charge of procuring this countermeasure, just recently issued it’s 7th and 8th change to the original Request for Proposal. After reading the entire RFP and the subsequent changes, they are basically inconsequential especially when you consider the relative consequences of being unprepared for a smallpox bio-terror attack.
It just struck me as odd that I found out Israel is out conducting drills and utilizing (what I would expect to be) US resources and meanwhile, the US is sitting on their hands seemingly unprepared for the very same scenario. WHY?
Furthermore, the drug has been used in three compassionate use cases, has proven effective in testing on primates and has proven safe in its FDA safety trials. The fact is that this drug has already been used with individual emergency situations. It would only be used in the event of a very serious emergency. Why wouldn’t we have some on hand to be used as a countermeasure? Why aren’t we training? WHY?
When considering “health care issues”, maybe some consideration should be given to a massive smallpox outbreak instigated by people that revel in the suffering of United States citizens.
Seman Emanrus
Posted on | January 3, 2010 | No Comments
I recently found an obscure article. It’s seems to be well thought out and it got me thinking. The author is Seman Emanrus. There is a reference to the Navy with the 5th Law of the Navy but I also found it interesting that, when spelled backwards, it spells “Names Surname” which is what we all have… 2 names and a surname. Anyway, take a look:
We wanted to take a moment and get serious. It’s a new year and a new decade. This past decade has been a difficult one with 9.11.2001 and the “Great Recession”. I think we need to pause for a moment and consider what we’ve learned.
1. There are terrorists in the world that want to kill Americans. This isn’t a new lesson but it is a challenge that we continue to face.
2. We cannot build a foundation on sand and expect it to last. I’m talking about the credit crisis. Just because the timeline for a bonus is at the end of a fiscal or calendar year doesn’t mean you get to hit the reset button at the beginning of the New Year.
3. Be Prepared. Clearly, the boy scouts have this figured out. It’s important. Think Hurricane Katrina. Consider the fifth law of the Navy for a moment:
“On the strength of one link in the cable dependeth the might of the chain, who knows when thou may’st be tested so live that thou bearest the strain.”
4. You are your own first responder. Think about any emergency whether it be a personal fire, a dramatic ice storm, a hurricane, a flood, an earthquake or any number of possible tragedies. If you are ready to be your own first responder, you’ll only be thankful when emergency help arrives before your supplies have run out. It’s a difference in mentality. Don’t expect someone to bail you out all of the time.
5. Failure is a necessary path to success; however, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is still insanity. Failing means come back stronger, faster and smarter the next time. I’m talking about the mass bailouts in the US economy. The bailout has happened. It’s time for us to come back stronger, faster and smarter.
Honestly, all of the lessons tie together but I really would like to focus on us being prepared. We’re in financial hard times and money isn’t free flowing but let’s take a look at some of the huge catastrophes that can happen and it will bring us full circle to the title of this article.
What events can happen that could be catastrophic for the entire nation? Clearly, there are natural disasters even though those evens are usually regional. Every region should prepare for the likely natural disasters in their area. For the most part, the United States does a great job with this preparedness. Earthquakes happen in California all of the time and do minimal damage. Their homes are built to specification for seismic activity. That’s preparation! The people in Alaska, Colorado, Montana and other cold areas are always prepared for massive power outages. The Southeast is usually prepared for Hurricanes (New Orleans being the exception to that rule).
Other devasting threats would be a coordinated nuclear strike. To the best of my knowledge, our intelligence agencies are actively monitoring nuclear activity. It’s an issue that makes world news regularly with Iran and North Korea. Clearly, we’re nervous about a dirty bomb being smuggled into the country and we monitor large suspicious financial transactions, likely suspects and arms dealers. We’ve been well versed in the nuclear arena for over fifty years.
So, where does that leave us with Bio-defense? How are we doing on protecting our country against Bio-weapons. It was July 21, 2004 when President Bush signed the Project Bioshield Act of 2004.
From the HHS Website: “The purpose of Project BioShield is to accelerate the research, development, purchase, and availability of effective medical countermeasures against biological, chemical, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) agents. HHS provides Congress with an annual report on its progress in the implementation of Project BioShield.”
So, I will ask, what have we learned? Where are we with this project?
The 2008 Bioshield Annual Report to Congress:
https://www.medicalcountermeasures.gov/BARDA/documents/bioshieldannualreport2008.pdf
Biological Threat Priorities
Anthrax – the countermeasure is doxycycline hyclate tablet emergency kits which is also used for prevention of malaria and is a general antibiotic. It’s not a result of the efforts of Project Bioshield. However, Emergent Biosolutions was awarded a 404.7 Million Dollar contract for 14.5 Million doses. This contract was awarded by the CDC. However, just recently Barda canceled an RFP: “Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE:EBS) announced today that it has been advised by the Office of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) that the Request for Proposal (RFP) for the procurement of rPA vaccines has been cancelled in favor of a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for rPA vaccine development. According to BARDA officials, BARDA took this action after a technical evaluation panel determined that none of the vaccine developers submitting proposals could meet the Project BioShield statutory requirement of having a product ready for licensure within 8 years.” The conclusion here is that we don’t have much in the way of a countermeasure for anthrax.
Botulism - We seem to be making progress on the Botulism front. “Cangene Corporation completed all of the FDA-mandated product requirements to support the submission of pre-EUA documentation, and made an initial delivery of h-BAT to the SNS in September 2007. hhS/NIAID also continues to support research and development for next-generation medical countermeasures for the treatment of botulism.
Smallpox – “A contract awarded to Bavarian-Nordic in june 2007 for 20 million doses of MVA vaccine to treat ten million people was the first to use the Project BioShield authorities as amended under PAhPA to allow milestone payments, as well as the original Project BioShield authorities allowing advance payments before delivery if they are deemed necessary to complete the acquisition. In awarding these payments the USG is now sharing with its industry stakeholders the risk associated with developing medical countermeasures. In october 2007 hhS approved the payment of an initial ten percent advance payment to Bavarian Nordic. In November and December 2007 hhS approved non-refundable milestone payments, each of five percent of the total contract award, to Bavarian Nordic for achieving significant programmatic milestones stipulated by the U.S. Government.” According to this report, there has been no progress made on any therapeutic for smallpox. Meanwhile, please take a look at Barda 09-35. (https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=79914e06d0a013ae7714488df881291b&tab=core&_cview=1) Originally, a contract was supposed to be awarded in September of 2009 to a single contract winner. The candidate most likely to receive the award was ST-246 which is being developed by a small biotech company (Siga Technologies). According to Siga, their drug was used under the Emergency Use Authorization Act as recently as September 2009 yet it has not been purchased for the Strategic National Stockpile. If you dig deeper, the drug has been used 3 times for emergency use situations. Also, take a look at this article published in 2008: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2346641/ On this front, I feel compelled to ask: why didn’t this make the 2008 report to Congress and what is the status of this situation. If you consider a smallpox scenario, it’s not pretty. Fortunately the incubation period is 10-14 days but it wouldn’t take much for an infected terrorist to start hopping planes. Frankly, the scenario is unthinkable and I’ll leave it at that. I’m curious to see how this recent change with the RFP develops. I know there was a recent safety trial but it’s not public. I feel like the delay is more of a major government shift in procedure in the way they award contracts. That would be incredibly ironic considering the wording they use to explain the lack of progress in the Radiological and Nuclear Threat protection so moving on.
Radiological and Nuclear Threats
On this front, it looks like we’ve made some progress with Therapies for Hematopoietic Syndrome, Bone Marrow Stromal Cell Loss and Vascular Injury Resulting From Acute Exposure to Ionizing Radiation as 1 Non-Profit, 3 Universities and 3 biotech companies are in contention for contracts. However, on many fronts the verbage reads: “Although the threat of radiological/nuclear attacks or incidents continues, few medical countermeasures exist. THE REGULAR REVIEW PROCESS TAKES TOO LONG.”
Chemical Threats
For chemical threats, it seems that there isn’t much progress but grants are ongoing for research and development.
“To date, Project BioShield authorities have not been used to acquire medical countermeasures for chemical threats, and DhS has issued no material threat determinations for chemical threat agents. Population threat assessments (PTAs) have been completed by DhS for volatile nerve agents, low-volatility nerve agents, pulmonary agents, vesicants, and blood agents.22 Based on the PTAs, the hhS PhEMCE has established requirements for medical countermeasures for volatile nerve agents and low-volatility nerve agents and is evaluating possible requirements for the other chemical threat categories.”
CONCLUSION:
Some things concern me as a taxpayer. I don’t understand phrases like “the regular review process takes too long.” That sounds a lot like a problem. The spirit of being prepared is about presenting solutions. To be clear, we’re only in the sixth year of “Project Bioshield”. It does take time to develop new solutions. It’s a lot of money in research and development. However, this money is rarely lost. Putting money into research and development has kept this nation on the cutting edge of technology. Our journey to the moon, the nuclear arms race, and the challenge for production of green energy all further our expertise and give us a global economic advantage. These investments produce jobs for us in the long run and inevitably, the funding will likely benefit other areas in society. There’s no question that space exploration and the development of nuclear power benefits our society for energy, technology, networking and pride of the nation. Take a further look at that company, SIGA Technologies. They’re producing all kinds of potential antiviral drugs. That’s an antiviral drug. Nothing like that is on the market on a broad spectrum basis. Preparation, invention, innovation and hard work are going to pull this country out of this Great Recession and keep us a strong and competitive nation. Please start asking your elected officials questions. Hold them accountable to their own statements and timelines. Ask them to reward hard working and innovative companies and hold their feet to the fire when it comes to keeping our nation prepared.
- Seman Emanrus
Group Costume Ideas
Posted on | October 7, 2009 | No Comments
Are you and your friends stuck trying to figure out what to be this Halloween? Well, it’s already October so you should check out this great site that has a ton of group costume ideas. There’s nothing better on Halloween that showing up at your party dressed in a themed costume with all of your buddies. Not only will you guys be having fun together, but everyone will love the group theme. The only tricky part is finding the idea that’s perfect for your group. This website has lots of ideas for every possible group of friends no matter what size or budget you may be on. So you only have a few weeks left so start finding that great idea today!
Tags: costume ideas > group costume ideas > group costumes > Halloween Costumes
Following diy concept is the easiest way of starting chicken coops
Posted on | September 24, 2009 | No Comments
If anyone think that there are various kinds of difficulties in starting chicken coops, then it is a wrong thought because if they follow the do it yourself concept, they can start a coop without any difficulty. The great news for those who wish to start their own chicken coop is that diy chicken coops plans or blueprints are available free of cost. So if someone likes to grab those free of cost plans or blueprints, then they can do the same by following the links offered here. If you follow the links here, then you will reach the correct website from where you can collect very useful information regarding chicken coop and these information will help you while starting your own coop.
Nowadays lots of projects are introduced in websites using diy concept and chicken coop projects are one of the leading projects using this concept. There are plenty of advantages if you follow this method and the first among them is that you can save some of your hard earned money if you pursue this concept not only for starting chicken coops but also for starting many other projects, diy concept is the best method to achieve maximum advantage.
Getting unhygienic chicken from the market? Build your own chicken coop
Posted on | September 12, 2009 | No Comments
Few days back my ten year old daughter had some stomach problem and when I noticed her suffering, I took her to a doctor nearby. The doctor, a famous gastroenterologist who attended my daughter told me that the suffering was due to some food poisoning and advised my daughter to undergo blood test in their laboratory. When I told the doctor that my daughter consumed chicken for her dinner, the doctor confirmed that the reason was because of consuming unhygienic chicken. When I heard this from the doctor, I remembered my close friend who offered me not only the easy chicken coop plans but also compelled me to start a coop of my own.
Now my preeminent opinion or suggestion to those who eat eggs and chicken frequently is that it is better to start a chicken coop of your own and consume hygienic eggs and chicken. If you start your own chicken coops, then there will not be any more rotten eggs and chicken and there is no need for you to suffer stomach diseases because of consuming unhygienic chicken. Those who are interested in starting chicken coops can collect very useful information if they follow the links provided here.
Optimistic women ‘live longer’
Posted on | August 21, 2009 | No Comments
Optimistic women are seen to live longer than others, notes a recent American study. The study closely reflects the findings of yet another work undertaken by a Dutch team earlier that talks of optimism reducing heart risks in men. The recent research that involved about 100,000 women has found that pessimists reported higher rates of blood pressure and cholesterol. The conclusion suggests that the risk of getting a heart disease is about 9% lower among optimistic women while following about eight years of follow-up, it is said that they have a 14% lower risk of dying from a number of causes.
In contrast, the study shows that cynical women troubled with lingering hostile thoughts regarding others and those women reported with mistrusting of others were 16% more prone to die over the same time limit. Further it is discovered that optimistic women are better able to cope with adverse situations and are able to take care of themselves better while they fall ill. The study has also reported that optimistic women were seen exercising more than the other group and were found to be leaner than their peers who were pessimistic.
Talking about the findings of the study, Dr Hilary Tindle, lead researcher and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, remarked, “The majority of evidence suggests that sustained, high degrees of negativity are hazardous to health.”
A British Heart Foundation spokeswoman observed, “We know that hostile emotions can release certain chemicals in the body which may increase the risk of heart disease, but we don’t fully understand how and why.”
Raise chicken with care and avoid all diseases
Posted on | August 13, 2009 | No Comments
There is a lot of flu flying about and people have to be real careful about whatever you do. Intake of the wrong or unhygienic food could even prove to be fatal and you should avoid that at all costs. There are many people who raise chicken in chicken coops in farms or their own backyards and they have to take more interest into chicken raising and care as these chickens are also susceptible to diseases and you wouldn’t want a bird flu infestation among your chickens.
It is good to visit this website which tells you clearly with examples and detailed explanation on how to raise chickens and how to care for them. It is very important that the chicken coops should be cleared free of all the litter in a regular basis otherwise it would lead to an infection and that might affect the chicken as well as the people consuming the meat. Consulting a vet would really make it safe and it is truly said that it was better to be safe than sorry. But before you do anything, just visit this website and take good care of the birds as they are really important for your health and good food.
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