We've seen a few "how to save money and energy on home heating this winter" roundups this year, and they mostly boil down to the same thing -- weatherstrip your windows and put some damn socks on. We can't argue with that advice, but isn't anyone thinking outside the box? Assuming you already know to wear layers, draft-proof your house, close off rooms you're not using, and turn on a fan, here are some other chill-banning tips you can try.
Stoke that woodstove, Half-Pint: It's time to put your money where your tweed vest, handlebar mustache, and penny-farthing bicycle are: Turn off the central heating and get yourself a wood-burning stove. Wood pellets are cheaper and more efficient than gas or fuel oil, plus they're renewable. For maximum hipster cred, burn wood you grew yourself in your community rooftop garden. (If you're lucky enough to have a fireplace, go ahead and burn wood there -- we're not dictators. But check out these tips for making your fireplace maximally efficient.)
Buy a Heatball, for art: For passively heated homes and apartments, the radiation from incandescent lightbulbs is an important source of warmth (along with sunlight, body heat, and whatever other heat generators can be trapped inside). But the E.U. has passed a law phasing out traditional lightbulbs in favor of compact fluorescents, thus throwing a cold wet blanket on passive heating -- and leading two German engineers to remarket incandescents as perfectly legal home heating elements called "Heatballs." They're calling this mild protest "action art," and their guiding "theses" include such Denglish gems as "Heatball is the enlightened view of what is essential," "Heatball has become satire through the absurdity of reality," and (my favorite) "Heatball is like Hamlet, who presents a mirror to his cynical stepfather."
Engage in some creative architecture: Maybe for the time being you're stuck in your apartment, huddled around your space heater. (Mother Jones has some tips for making sure that space heater isn't wasting money and energy, by the way.) But a girl can dream, and here's what she can dream about: Building beautiful homes and outbuildings heated by compost, thermal mass, and the good old greenhouse effect. Is one of these going to be the affordable, efficient home of the future? We don't know yet, but we like that folks are thinking. Meanwhile, you can also retrofit an existing house to take advantage of thermal mass and other sources of passive heating (like heatballs!) -- our own Umbra gave some stellar advice on that a few years ago.
Weatherstrip your windows and put some damn socks on: OK, yes. Making your home more air-tight and layering up are actually really good ways to save on energy costs. Fine, Mother Earth News, FINE. But you can still have fun with this one, not to mention engaging in a little recreational upcycling: Try insulating with bubble wrap, or making your own self-heating long johns.
After Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison announced her retirement after she was declared a top target of Tea Party activists, the race for the Republican nomination became even more crowded and contentious. Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams immediately became a Tea Party sensation and last week resigned from the Railroad Commission in order to be a full-time candidate.
The American Spectator today features a glowing profile of Williams, saying that “something about him says ‘Don’t mess with Texas.’”
Williams even won the endorsement of Tea Party leader Sen. Jim DeMint, who’s Senate Conservatives Fund lifted a number of far-right candidates like Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell to victory in GOP primary contests.
But Williams first garnered the support of the Party’s far-right when he unsuccessfully tried to block scholarships for minority students when he worked at the Department of Education under President George H. W. Bush. The New York Times reported in 1990 that Williams caused uproar when he tried to prohibit “colleges and universities that receive Federal funds from offering scholarships designated for minority students.”
Michael L. Williams, the Education Department's Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, said yesterday that "race-exclusive" scholarships, or those based on ethnic origin, were discriminatory and therefore illegal.
College administrators and scholarship fund directors reacted with alarm, saying the decision could reverse decades of efforts to increase the enrollment of members of racial and ethnic minorities who have been historically underrepresented in colleges.
"We were shocked by this decision," said Richard F. Rosser, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, which represents 815 institutions. "We have been making enormous efforts to increase the numbers of minority students in our colleges and universities, and this has necessarily required a great deal of financial aid."
Neither Rosser nor anyone else contacted yesterday could say how many institutions, or what percentage of total financial aid to minority students, might be affected by the new enforcement policy. But the practice of setting aside money to attract qualified minority students and make college more affordable for them has been widespread for at least 20 years.
Ultimately, then-Secretary Lamar Alexander (now a Republican Senator from Tennessee) stopped Williams from implementing his policy, including his attempt to block the Fiesta Bowl from setting “aside $100,000 for a fund for minority scholarships.” As Williams happily notes in his campaign’s biography, he succeeded Clarence Thomas in his position at the Education Department.
In a Republican primary in Texas where each candidate has to demonstrate their right-wing credentials, Williams may try to use this case to his advantage.
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