While I was reading this Washington Post article about Congress fighting over how to re-do the lights at the Capitol I was reminded that we need to do something about our outside lighting at our house too.

Several years ago we had a new garden done by a landscaper and lighting was included. The lights were put among the newly planted shrubs of various types: in front of the Japanese maple tree and in the front and back of the pear tree and oak trees, including the one in the back yard.

The trees are spotlights and look very nice, but the other lighting is not as good as it should be now that the shrubery and plants have grown.

I’ve been thinking of putting spot lights on two sides of the American flag we fly 24/7 in good weather, because the lights we have are not really bright enough to fully illuminate the flag.

Anyway, as I was reading the referenced article I was thinking of all these things that need to be done when I came across a statement that gave me an idea of starting a business.

Here’s the quote:

The project is part of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s environmentally friendly “Green the Capitol” initiative, which includes using more recycled paper, distributing more documents electronically, purchasing carbon offsets for the House’s greenhouse-gas emissions, and developing a plan to use wind power and other renewable energy sources.

Excuse the unintended pun, but when I read this paragraph a light (energy efficient, of course) went off in my head. I immediately knew what kind of business I was going to start that would not require a lot of work and would make a lot of money.

I’m going to start a carbon off-set company. I’ll charge less than Al Gore and I’ll buy the offsets from poor Africans or other third-world people who don’t have electricity and don’t know what it is. They have no carbon footprint, and since they don’t know about it I’ll just use their credits to sell to the gullible public and not pay the people whose carbon credits I’m using.

This will satisfy the people who want to feel guilty about the environment and yet not really do anything to fix it other than pay money to someone to buy another someone’s carbon credits.

I’ll get the checks (certified of course), cash them and send a nice certificate designed on my computer to send back to my customers, telling them they have offset their carbon footprint for one month and a tree has been planted in their honor.

Heck, for a few more bucks I’ll even have a tree planted and tell them exactly where it is. You know, kind of like buying stars and having them named for a friend or loved one when all you have to do is send some silly map with the location of the star (you’ll never find it) and tell them this is named for your friend or loved one who has everything and will just love having a star named after them.

On second thought, maybe I should just have a business that names stars after people and then I won’t have any overhead except for the certificate.

What do you think? Should I do one of these businesses or both?

If someone can give a better business idea to me, why, I’ll even name a star for them and I won’t charge for it.

Was it P.T. Barnum who said, “There’s a sucker born every minute”? He was right, you know.

Two Vermont towns, Brattleboro and Marlboro have voted to instruct their police to arrest President Bush and Vice President Cheney for “crimes against the constitution.”

I’d like to see how they get through the Secret Service to do it and wish the president and vice-president would go there just to make a scene, but they’d probably be assassinated by one of those nuts.

I propose we take all the sane people in Vermont and move them close to New Hampshire, Massachusetts or New York (not much better, but what the hay?)and then let the rest of the people live in the other part of Vermont and become their own country or a part of Canada. Marlboro will have to relocate.

We won’t need to upset the lives of too many sane people because there aren’t that many in comparison to the nuts there.

As many have probably guessed I am a chronic insomniac. I don’t stay awake because I’m worrying about something. A lot of times I just ponder the greatness of the universe and wonder how anyone can think it’s made randomly.

Other times I think silly thoughts such as:

What silly things do you think about while trying to go to sleep?