Temptations Abound! (or, the worst advertising script, ever!)

This past New Years, sometime in between mixing champagne and beer and recovering from the aftermath, I decided to let loose all my inhibitions and renounce meat for 2008. That went really well...for about 4 days when I happily scarfed two chicken Caesar salads in a single weekend. After that, I decided to allow myself the following exceptions:

1. Fish and eggs--I figured I'd re-evaluate these for 2009
   
2. Mom's cooking--she was NOT happy when she found out
   
3. Philly Cheesesteaks--giving up some things would just be un-American
4. Avoiding commotion--for example, avoiding a Jewish mother's concern for her guests' diet

So with these ground rules laid, I've done pretty well; no fainting spells yet, anyway. I'm still bad at cooking and thus frequent recipe websites for good vegetarian recipes. The following screen shot was so good that it revived me from my hibernation in the blogosphere:


Gee! That steak would go great with my vegetarian tofu stir fry!

I'll leave the reasons behind my new-found religion (not really) later, but this quote"Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days." in this article ("Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler") sums it up neatly for a solar engineer driving 30 miles to work every day...

In other news, two extensions of the Solar Investment Tax Credits are floating around in Congress ("SEIA Breaking News"). Hopefully the House and Senate can resolve their differences quickly!