What happened to this country?

[beenthere]

I read that the French Quarter is reopening now, and that will bring the tourists and their money. That money will get things rolling fast, whether it is in the right direction - who knows  :

[SwampDonkey]

I might be wrong about this, but I'm not so sure the tourists are going to be pouring into the French Quarter as fast as they would like. I think there will be a little wait yet. I don't think out of state tourists want to go down there to see the mess unless they are volunteering for the relief efforts. Maybe I'm totally off the mark, who knows. ;)

[Patty]

I have been following this thread, and a similar string of articles in the WallStreet Journal. One idea circulating in the journal, which I agree with, is to take all the slabs of pork out of the last highway bill, and send all those billions down to the south instead. For example, Montana has suggested donating the few million it was appropriated for a new parking garage to those folks, with the hopes that other states would follow their lead. Iowa was given millions to build a stupid rain forest  : that we certainly don't need. The list goes on & on....like the bridges to nowhere in Alaska for hundreds of millions. Of course the politicians are claiming these ideas are nonsense and ridiculous, but I for one think they are good ideas, and should be pursued.

[WH_Conley]

Careful Patty, the politicians won't like you. :D :D :D

[Texas Ranger]

 Federal Judge Declares Pledge Of Allegiance Unconstitutional
The Pledge of Allegiance is ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge.

MORE DETAILS:  http://treets.click2houston.com/svc/lnk.cfm?l=59749597&t=1

This is another one that will frost you.

[Patty]

" Careful Patty, the politicians won't like you. Cheesy Cheesy Cheesy"



Yea, you've got me worried now! 

[Phorester]

TRANGER, they have a poll on that site about the Pledge of Allegiance decision that asks if you agree with it.

At the time I took it, 50,000 had voted, 91% (45,000) disagree with it.

[redpowerd]

thats more anti-american crap from the 9th court of appeals.
highly doubt it will be signed into law, if roberts leads up the bench, there shouldnt be any more lawmaking going on inside the judicial branch.

[Cedarman]

Roberts is a lawyer.  How much do you trust lawyers?

Rain forest in Iowa????

[crtreedude]

Surely not tropical....  :D

[SwampDonkey]

Sure , construct a huge Biodome. ;D :D

[crtreedude]

Still won't work - trust me, you don't have the sun for it. The direct rays of the sun are what makes the tropics - that and 12 hour days.

[SwampDonkey]

Well we could have it 6 months anyway, where we have well over 12 hours of sun. And with the right engineering you can 'bend the light' as it passes through the glass of the biodome. ;D

[Norm]

Yep a bio dome, can't have one during the dead of winter with 8 hours of sunlight? Well I'm sure they'll run artificial lights. Biggest waste of money I've seen here lately. Republicans came in to power on the pledge to be fiscally responsible, our republican senator is leading the way for this idea.

[Patty]

Yep, they want to put it up over there near Al & Linda.  :D       At first I thought it was a joke, but now that they have decided to spend my money on such a waste, I am not laughing anymore.  >:(

[Gunny]

Good Morning:

Don't know why someone would be wanting to put a rainforest out your way (except that many palms will be getting greased and some academics will continue their "research" careers) but I do know a little about domes, having built several, ranging from 26'-40' in diameter and I'm here to tell you that they work just fine in northern climates, even with 6-8 hour sunlit days and lots of overcast, often.  And, if not vented at the apex properly, you'll be getting a nice warm misty shower all the time down on the main floor of the thing.

We often felt we could heat our places with a 60W bulb most of the time since, with a large ceiling fan re-circulating all that warmth which gathers in the upper 1/3 of the hemisphere, there were few obstructions to air-flow.  Other than sub-terrainian or earth-sheltered homes, the domes seem to offer the best opportunities for energy efficiency.  We're planning on building another next Spring (perhaps two) and are quite excited about it since we hope to "create" just about 80% of all materials we'll be using--even the hubs. 

I assure you, we won't be seeking any of your tax dollars in doing so.

:D

[crtreedude]

There are rainforest in the USA - they just aren't tropical. Just like a forest here isn't always a rainforest, sometimes they are a dry land tropical forest - like Guanacaste where it gets so dry that the trees lose their leaves to conserve water during the 5 month rainy season.

[Fla._Deadheader]

I'd like to know how high this ceiling is projected to be. If them trees start growing, are ya gonna top 'em , to keep from pushing the roof off that dome ???  : :

[SwampDonkey]

 :D :D :D Hire Chet ;)

[wiam]

Gunny, Please tell us more about domes in northern climates.

Will

[redpowerd]

im happy with this "lawrs" stance on r -v- wade, and, im not sad to see someone with a knowledgeable working background in law head that mess up. someone needs to set the bench straight.

if not roberts, who do you suggest?

[Gunny]

Wiam:

Don't quite know where you're located but I've been traveling up to Plainfield the last two years working on my MFA at Goddard.  Taking a break from the writing right now to finish up getting those millions of things I'd neglected taken care of now.  But the domes were/are for real and we lived in and loved them.  My dome years were by far the most "enchanting" of my life.

All the domes I built back in the early-mid-'70s ranged from (2) 26' diameter, (1) 32', and (2) 40-footers.  Both 40s were built on top of full basements and were NO FUN at all!  I'd go with a triad of connected 18-footers if done for a home again.

In this climate--much like yours, I imagine, but with more humidity--we sheathed our domes with 3-in-1 glue tab asphalt shingles, insulated them with 3" fiberglass batts, ran 1" white foam over that, taped the seams (we used silver duct tape) and triangulated our paneling with cull rw/rl pallet boards that'd been scrapped.  I have old and faded pics around here somewhere and the dome(s) were beautiful.  The first one--the project we did while running the fed anti-poverty program in Newaygo County--made the front page of the paper several times and cost us $1,842.00 plus change to complete and move into.  Might even be able to do that again this time, too, since we'll be fabricating most of our materials from our own woodlot. 

A full chapter of one of the books I drafted for the Goddard program describes the journey in detail but I'm not ready to sit and do my final revision so that read will have to wait.  Our domes were all engineered by a fellow named Bill Woods who owned Dyna Dome in Phoenix, AZ.  I think he split for Alaska about 30 years ago.  The ancient "Domebooks One & Two" are a great place to start but the majority of the people featured in those were too stoned to get to the part of sustainable housing and got rained out, blown out, and/or frozen out in their first few months.  A clear head and long-term goals work wonders in all things...

I'd be delighted to provide a detail every now and then and even share the full experience as best I can recall it as we go along.  I'm sure that encroaching government controls would deny you many of the privileges we enjoyed in those days in that region.  But, as always, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Oh, BTW: I took along my senior student (he's now 78 years young) as my navigator last year up to Plainfield since he'd been around the world with the WWII Navy but had never seen your Green Mts.  He was awe-struck and got a crinked neck as I tooled along those two-laned tarmacs from Amsterdam, NY, through Woodstock, Rutland, Barre, etc. into Plainfield.  I even took him to the famous nude swimming hole on the Winooskie (sp?) River.  We have photos.

Love that area but mid-MI is my home.  I truly felt the magic of those mountains!

Best your way.

[wiam]

Gunny,    Thanks for the info.  Barnet is about 25 mile east of Plainfield and a little south.

Will

[treecyclers]

When Katrina hit, my partner and I contacted many Fortune 500 firms to sponsor us, providing a little seed money and supplies to get us into the damaged areas, and get started working removing trees as fast and efficiently as we could.
We specified that we would hire 3-5 local people on to help, and lumber produced would be divided between Habitat for Humanity and us, 40% to them, 60% to us.
Any firm that sponsored us would receive advertising in the form of their logos and icons emblazoned on our trailer, and my truck. We'd also get all the news coverage we could garner, getting their name on the tellyvision, so that we could get hot and get into the zone.
Only 3 companies responded. American Standard Oil, Walmart, and Warn Winch.
American Std offered to offset the costs of diesel and gas for us, Wallyworld offered use of parkinglots for concentration yards, and Warn offered their monster winch 15000XP or something like that.
I almost pulled the trigger, and saddled up the truck and mill, saws and all.
Having only about 8K in cash on hand, I wasn't totally confident that I could pull it off, and make it cash flow before I went broke.
I Thank Walmart, American Standard, and Warn for their willingness to help us help lots of people.
What happened to the other 498 Fortune 500?
Dunno....
Dave