Bank Homes for Sale

Some of the biggest opportunities for energy improvements occur in the building trades.

This program presents an overview of job opportunities in this booming industry where there is a high demand for trained professionals, designers, and workers to help improve the efficiency of commercial and residential buildings through better design of new buildings and smart improvements to existing structures.

Making our homes and offices more energy efficient is an enormous challenge, but the potential cost savings and benefits for the environment are significant. Government mandates, tax credits, and rebates are adding additional incentives. A job in a green construction trade can enable a young person, with a minimal amount of training, to get a foot in the door of the green economy.

Jobs profiled in this program include:
Solar Installer, Lighting Technician, Energy Auditor. Also interviewed are Stephanie Stone and Dr. Frank Alameda of the California Academy of Sciences who discuss some of the key innovations in green buildings developed by architects and engineers. 20 minutes, color.

Grade Levels: 7 to Adult

direct link to purchase the DVD:

http://www.phoenixlearninggroup.com/Products/VideoDetail.aspx?id=5a32eff9-4689-4860-ae53-522ff989bae1&sub=6516bc9d-f8fd-4e94-b702-ab180d939306&cat=

Duration : 0:2:10

(more…)

Technorati Tags: architecture, auditor, Building, careers, efficiency, energy, engineering, green, innovation, Power, solar

The Repo man is on a mission to Doctor Dooms house to take his power

Duration : 0:3:8

(more…)

Technorati Tags: anger, cell, chicks, doctor, doom, energy, episode, fantastic, Girls, hot, man, montage, phone, Power, Repo, sexy, training, verizon

McCain and Sarah Palin’s attack against Obama for advocating “spreading the wealth” and for “socialism” and for pronouncing the civil rights revolution a “tragedy” because it didn’t deal with the distribution of wealth is aimed ultimately at white working class undecided voters who would construe “spreading the wealth” as giving their money to blacks. It’s the latest version of Reagan’s “welfare queen” argument from 1980. It if it works, it won’t be because most white Americans actually oppose a progressive income tax, but because they fear that Obama will inordinately favor blacks over them. I don’t doubt that this argument will have some effect, but I suspect it’s too late and that worries about McCain and Republican handling of the economy will overshadow these concerns.
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/10/29/more-cork-popping.aspx
Not surprisingly, the “debate” centered around the false premise that Obama’s tax cuts are actually welfare. I say that’s false because - as I pointed out on the show - everyone pays some form of taxes, whether it’s income, property, sales or payroll taxes. When you take all those taxes together, most working- and middle-class Americans pay a higher effective tax rate than the Warren Buffetts of the world (as Warren Buffett, by the way, readily acknowledges). So Obama’s plan to pass refundable income tax credits is only a handout if you look exclusively at one slice of taxes - in this case, income taxes. But in the overall tax scheme, those tax credits are aimed at better equalizing the tax structure so as to diminish the gap between Warren Buffett’s very low effective tax rate and Joe Sixpack’s high effective tax rate. Only in the asylums of Fox News and Republican Party politics is reducing that effective tax rate gap billed as theft from the rich to finance “welfare.”

This concept of effective tax rates (ie. the tax rate actually paid and enforced) is key to understanding the most telling part of this Fox News discussion - the part at the end where former Bush-Cheney spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise Dyck parrots McCain campaign talking points about America supposedly having a very high corporate tax rate in relation to the rest of the world. This, says Dyck and fellow Republicans, is driving businesses to move offshore.

It sounds like a credible storyline, especially considering that officially, our corporate tax rate is somewhere between 35 and 39 percent. But, as always, the devil is in the details.

To know how high - or low - the effective tax rate is, you have to go beneath the top-line rate and account for all the loopholes, subsidies and write-offs - and the way to do that is by looking at corporate tax revenues as a percentage of a country’s GDP. That way, you know how much corporations are actually paying as a share of your overall economy - in other words, you know the real corporate tax rate, not the fake one advertised by top-line numbers. And when you look at America’s tax structure through this lens, you see that even the Bush Treasury Department admits we have the second lowest effective corporate tax rate in the industrialized world (see page 42 of this report).

Indeed, this explains the dissonance between Republican claims of “highest corporate income tax rate in the world” and the recent Government Accountability report showing that most corporations pay no corporate income taxes at all. The latter is the truth - most corporations don’t pay any taxes because of loopholes, writeoffs and subsidies that allow them to effectively reduce that 35 percent corporate tax rate to zero. In fact, many profitable corporations actually collect tax rebates. But as I told Fox News, we don’t hear criticism of that kind of “corporate welfare” from the Republican mouthpieces deriding Obama’s middle-class tax cuts as welfare.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/memo-to-fox-news-the-gop_b_136557.html

Duration : 0:9:14

(more…)

Technorati Tags: alaska, barack, countdown, energy, Joe, john, Keith, mccain, obama, oil, olbermann, Palin, plumber, sarah, socialism, spread, the, wealth

View these LEED Certified Platinum energy efficient homes located just minutes from downtown and the Railyard area in Santa Fe! These homes qualify for both the New Mexico state and federal energy tax credits, which are sizable.

These energy efficient homes integrate environmentally sustainable building designs — including passive solar, radiant floor heating, and xeriscaping.

Duration : 0:6:16

(more…)

Technorati Tags: anton, arroyo, Building, Certified, energy, FE, green, homes, LEED, platinum, railyard, sale", SAN, santa, sustainable

This episode of i on PA takes a look at the initiatives House Democrats are putting forth to encourage the use of alternative energy sources. First we travel to Erie, where Gov. Rendell speaks about Rep. John Hornaman’s bill, now law, which requires electrical suppliers to utilize alternative energy. Next, Amy Figard talks to Rep. Eugene DePasquale about plans to provide Pennsylvania homes and businesses with smart meters to conserve energy and cut costs. Then Chris Zarek speaks with Rep. Matt Smith about his legislation that would provide tax credits to home and business owners and tenants who go green.

Duration : 0:8:5

(more…)

Technorati Tags: democrats, energy, government, House, I, of, on, PA, politics, Rendell, Representatives

www.VoteSolar.com and www.StandardSolar.com prepare a group of Washington DC Metro Area Solar Integrators to organize in front of the Department of Energy Headquarters during the unveiling of a new 205 kW Solar Electric Array on the Forrestal Building on 9/9/08.

“Inauguration of Headquarters’ Solar Energy System
Remarks As Prepared for Secretary Bodman

Good morning and welcome to you all. This is a great day for the Department of Energy.

As America’s largest energy consumer, the U.S. government has the responsibility and the opportunity to lead the way to a cleaner, more efficient, more affordable and more secure energy future.

In January 2007 President Bush issued an Executive Order calling on all federal agencies to reduce energy intensity, or consumption per square foot, by 30 percent. That order also calls for the percentage of new renewable sources in each agency’s energy supply to be increased and asked agencies to put renewable energy generation projects into operation on their property.

I determined that the Department of Energy should — and would — lead by example. That we would be the first in the federal government to meet or exceed the efficiency, renewable energy, water, transportation, and green building requirements the President outlined.

To ensure we stay on track toward this objective, the Department of Energy has put forward the Transformational Energy Action Management, or TEAM Initiative. TEAM will lead to reductions in our energy intensity across all DOE sites by 30 percent. Our goal is to attain a U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design — or LEED — gold rating for all DOE new construction and major renovation projects.

Moreover, we plan to meet or exceed the Energy Policy Act requirement of having 7.5 percent of DOE’s electricity provided by renewable energy by 2013.

It is one such step forward on this front that brings us here today.

In partnership with the General Services Administration, the Department of Energy has installed this 205 kilowatt photovoltaic solar array here on our main building’s roof. The Forrestal photovoltaic System is 40-to-50 times the size of a typical residential PV system. It is one of the largest in the Washington, D.C. area and will generate approximately 200 megawatt hours of energy each year, producing up to 8 percent of the building’s electricity load. This is equivalent to the energy used in 17 residential homes in a single year.

In addition, the integrated insulation that is part of these photovoltaic modules gives us additional savings by reducing the building’s heating and cooling load.

America’s transition to a clean energy future begins with many small steps like this array because we have reached the point where every savings accrues to our overall benefit. As I often say, the U.S. economy’s most available source of new energy is the energy we lose everyday to waste and inefficiency. When multiplied out across the entire federal government, savings such as these will be considerable: both in the amount of energy and the taxpayer dollars we will save.

The significance of this solar array is both practical and symbolic: It improves the way the Department consumes energy. And it is a symbol of America’s commitment to using the best available new technologies to confront the energy challenges we face today and will face tomorrow.

And now, if you will all join me in cutting the ribbon and taking another step toward America’s energy future.”

Duration : 0:2:25

(more…)

Technorati Tags: "tax, 99, Bodman, credit, dc, department, DOE, energy, ITC, of, PTC, solar, Standard, SunPower, VoteSolar, washington

So called free trade deals and world governmental organizations like the International Criminal Court (ICC), NAFTA, GATT, WTO, and CAFTA are a threat to our independence as a nation. They transfer power from our government to unelected foreign elites.

The ICC wants to try our soldiers as war criminals. Both the WTO and CAFTA could force Americans to get a doctor’s prescription to take herbs and vitamins. Alternative treatments could be banned.

The WTO has forced Congress to change our laws, yet we still face trade wars. Today, France is threatening to have U.S. goods taxed throughout Europe. If anything, the WTO makes trade relations worse by giving foreign competitors a new way to attack U.S. jobs.

NAFTA’s superhighway is just one part of a plan to erase the borders between the U.S. and Mexico, called the North American Union. This spawn of powerful special interests, would create a single nation out of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, with a new unelected bureaucracy and money system. Forget about controlling immigration under this scheme.

And a free America, with limited, constitutional government, would be gone forever.

Let’s not forget the UN. It wants to impose a direct tax on us. I successfully fought this move in Congress last year, but if we are going to stop ongoing attempts of this world government body to tax us, we will need leadership from the White House.

We must withdraw from any organizations and trade deals that infringe upon the freedom and independence of the United States of America.

I share our Founders’ belief that in a free society each citizen must have the right to keep and bear arms. They ratified the Second Amendment knowing that this right is the guardian of every other right, and they all would be horrified by the proliferation of unconstitutional legislation that prevents law-abiding Americans from exercising this right.

I have always supported the Second Amendment and these are some of the bills I have introduced in the current Congress to help restore respect for it:

* H.R. 1096 includes provisions repealing the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and the Federal Firearms License Reform Act of 1993, two invasive and unconstitutional bills.
* H.R. 1897 would end the ban on carrying a firearm in the National Park System, restoring Americans’ ability to protect themselves in potentially hazardous situations.
* H.R. 3305 would allow pilots and specially assigned law enforcement personnel to carry firearms in order to protect airline passengers, possibly preventing future 9/11-style attacks.
* H.R. 1146 would end our membership in the United Nations, protecting us from their attempts to tax our guns or disarm us entirely.

In the past, I introduced legislation to repeal the so-called “assault weapons” ban before its 2004 sunset, and I will oppose any attempts to reinstate it.

I also recently opposed H.R. 2640, which would allow government-appointed psychiatrists to ban U.S. veterans experiencing even mild forms of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome from ever owning a gun.

You have the right to protect your life, liberty, and property. As President, I will continue to guard the liberties stated in the Second Amendment.

Duration : 0:9:8

(more…)

Technorati Tags: amendment, defense, education, energy, fiscal, freedom, home, liberty, policy, schooling, second, sovereignty, taxes

JOIN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION!!!
Today, the federal government burdens us with one of the most dangerous taxes it can impose — the inflation tax. When the federal government finds that it cannot afford its out-of-control spending, and is unwilling to directly tax the public, it resorts simply to creating the money out of thin air.

Inflating the money supply is the easiest form of financing the government. The Federal Reserve, an unelected and unaccountable private organization, pumps more dollars into the economy whenever it chooses. Because the public is forced to accept these bills, the Fed essentially gets away with legally counterfeiting. We cannot possibly expect the government to control spending when it has a blank checkbook.

This greatly benefits the politicians and special interests — they are able to finance the massive welfare-warfare state. But how does this inflation affect you?

Basic economics tells us that the more there is of a good, the less valuable it becomes. This is also true of money. The dollar is worth four cents of what it was when the Federal Reserve was created in 1913.

Day by day, every dollar you have is being devalued. You pay an inflation tax without even realizing it because you are forced by a falling dollar to pay more for goods and services.

The disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation, are some of the greatest threats facing our nation today. It is this one-two punch — Congress spending more than it can tax or borrow, and the Treasury printing money to make up the difference — that threatens to impoverish us by further destroying the value of our dollars.

By legalizing competing currencies, we can end the Federal Reserve’s stranglehold on our money supply and begin to restore value to the dollar. But Congress will continue to spend extravagantly until we the people make our views known at the ballot box.

Duration : 0:4:17

(more…)

Technorati Tags: amendment, defense, education, energy, fiscal, freedom, home, liberty, policy, schooling, second, sovereignty, taxes

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents. During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign. Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%.

This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents. The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing. While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once. These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state. In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today’s surplus, borrow for needs. She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness. Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to. As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects–which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance–but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”. She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.
http://www.washingtonindependent.com/3671/the-reform-candidate

Duration : 0:7:44

(more…)

Technorati Tags: "tax, barack, Biden, cut, Debate, economy, energy, gas, interview, iraq, Joe, john, mccain, obama, oil, Palin, president, sarah, speech, war

Between the multibillion dollar bank bail-outs, the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac federal take-over and this new surprise we now are funding most private banks, the entire auto industry, paying defaulted student loans, defaulted mortgages 2 or 3 wars and oh yeah, the billion dollars we are giving away to Georgia for the war they started with Russia.

Anyone else need money? I have plenty to give away, how about you?

I just love giving my hard earned tax-dollars to Georgians, General Motors, college drop-outs, private banks and other home owners.

The Outstanding Public Debt as of 05 Sep 2008 at 10:59:25 PM GMT is:
$9,670,205,221,595.89 ($9.7 Trillion)

The estimated population of the United States is 304,674,390

So each citizen’s share of this debt is $31,739.48.

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of
$1.93 billion per day since September 28, 2007! The majority of this money is owed by us the tax payers and our children and their children’s children to the Tyrannical Communist Chinese Government.

The cost of the Iraqi of the Iraqi Occupation has cost us:
$551,541,863,677.00 which is broken down like this: $4,681 per household.
$1,721 per person.
$341.4 million per day.

The Afghanistan Occupation is almost equal this.

Concerned? Then tell Congress and the White House!

Duration : 0:3:45

(more…)

Technorati Tags: "stop, alex, alternative, amero, barack, barr, berkeley, bill, bin, blackwater, bob, brimstone, bugliosi, bush, cafta, cheney, china, clinton, cnn, dennis, dick, dnc, dobbs, efficient, energy, euro, fema, fox, george, Georgia, gravel, halliburton, hannity, hho, ira, iran, iraq, ivaw, john, jones, karl, kbr, kucinich, laden, loss, lou, marine, marines, mccain, mike, nader, nafta, nau, NWO, obama, olympics, operation, oreilly, organic, paul, ralph, recruiter, rnc, robert, ron, rove, russia, sheehan, solar, spp, support, the, tibet, tool, troops, vincent, war, wexler, WWIII