While people seem to be quick to blame the Bush administration for the current mortgage crisis, history does not support this claim. I found a interesting, though 2 months old now, article that has some choice tidbits of information that are widely unreported.
“Spurred by worries that Fannie and Freddie were cooking their books and taking too many risks, Treasury Secretary John Snow proposed placing the companies under Treasury oversight with strict controls over risk and capital reserves.”
This proposal was back in 2003! So what became of Snow’s plan for strict oversight? It was blocked, of course, by none other than Democrat Barney Frank.
“These two entities—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. “The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
But it’s so much easier to blame the Bush administration, isn’t it?
Jon Economy
While traveling in Hawaii for my honeymoon, I discovered a new feature that hotels have added to save on energy costs: motion activated air conditioning. Simply put, you must be in the room and moving around for the air conditioning to run. It’s the second part that is a real gotcha, while you’re up and moving around things are fine. Then at 2am you wake up sweating because you weren’t moving in front of the motion detector. Grrr…
The first night this happened I got up a few times to walk over to the thermostat but the A/C clicked on even before I got there (motion detection). Needless to say I didn’t sleep well that night. The next day I took advantage of the hotels free internet to do some research. As it turns out some folks over at FlyerTalk.com have been experiencing this new feature for several months. Fortunately for me, they had some workarounds.
The first workaround suggested was a mylar balloon positioned near the motion detector. While I’m sure this would work great, I didn’t bother to pack one in my luggage???? So, I continue reading. Apparently the trick is to put the thermostat in “bypass” mode. To do this you press the on/off switch and the down arrow at the same time. So I tried it. Sure enough the thermostat displayed “bp” and from that point on ran constantly for 48 hours until I had to repeat the trick.
So it sounds like motion detection A/C is a good idea that is not quite ready for prime time. They need to figure out a way to keep it running while you sleep. Until then, I expect there will be backlash.
Jon Travel
