Wasteful Wendy's

When going through the drive-thru at Wendy's to pick up some dope Chili, I always ask for NO crackers. I don't eat crackers with my chili. So, they always comply by giving me 7 packets of crackers.  Lovely.  Think about how many thousands of times per day this happens.  That's a lot of wasted money for Wendy's and a lot of unnecessary trash headed to the landfill.

Green Building Tips from the Dilbert Blog

A pretty good primer on basic energy-saving building techniques from the Dilbert blog:

"Twelve Rules of Energy Efficient Building"

These principles are so easy for a builder to follow.  It's a shame that homes aren't built this way by default, as a standard.  Maybe some day soon.

Houston Bush Airport Still Sucks

Yeah, I pretty much hate going through Houston's Bush Intercontinental
Airport, but at least they have recycling bins. That should cancel out
about one second worth of air travel-caused pollution.

Cap and Trade

In an effort as much to get things going again around here as to make you all aware of this article, I have posted an article from the Wall Street Journal (I trust you have no objection to this as a credible news source, Mike) regarding the president's plan to put a price on carbon and the early resistance it is encountering. Without flying too far off the handle in expressing my extreme distaste for the socialist agenda being forced down our throats right now, I have to say that this "cap and trade" crap is just an absolutely awful idea. I'm all for the setting aside of millions of acres for wildlife preserves (and was disappointed but not surprised when that got shot down), but this strikes me as just another tax to pay for other changes. Climate change laws and taxes need to be fully debated and examined piece by piece, not forced on the environment and economy by an inexperienced team with an agenda. We all know I am extremely skeptical regarding man-made global warming, due to the fact that the long-range computer models used to prove man-made global warming are consistently proven to be inaccurate; among other reasons, but the idea of "ramming this through" aka "shoving it up the taxpayers' asses" is insanity regardless of what side of the isle you're on. Matt, I can hear your wheels spinning from here and I'm glad because this needs to be debated and then debated some more by all sides as this is something that will effect every one of us.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123679042118496965.html
P.S. For some reason, I can't get this link to work the way I want it to. Sorry for the inconvenience. I'll work on dealing with this issue for future posts, but I'm tired of fighting it right now.

A bank with a community first "green" agenda.

So it has been several weeks since I was willing much less able to post a green investment blog entry. The market in general has been so decidedly bad that unless you have been sitting on the sidelines in all cash you have most certainly been hurt by this downward movement.

I feel like I have finally found a company, a bank no less, worth keeping an eye on. Not only for it's stance on green but also as a potential future investment.

ShoreBank is the name, "Let's Change the World" is the motto.

If you click on the motto above it links you to the page on how ShoreBank is helping its customers become more enviromentally sound. This is done mainly through education of customers and providing loans aimed at renovating existing buildings to bring them up to "green speed."

ShoreBank is currently a privately head company operating mainly in the midwest and parts of the northwest. The company shows revenue of 97.1 million for 2007. It will be interesting to keep an eye on them to see if the business model is viable going forward.

(*as a side note I have been telling anyone who asks to move their 401k or other investment dollars into a money market and wait until we see some relief before jumping back into stocks. This bear market is not done with the punishment as we could very easily dip down to the 6000 level on the Dow.)