Arkansas’ Senators response to voting on the PATRIOT Act.

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I sent emails via Demand Progress and the EFF to urge my representatives not to vote to extend the PATRIOT Act. The emails were sent to Mark Pryor and John Boozman.

Here is Mark Pryor’s response sent in an email:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act. I appreciate hearing from you.

The USA PATRIOT Act [P.L. 107-56] was specifically enacted to assist the intelligence community with time-critical national security investigations. As you know, certain provisions within the law were set to expire on May 27, 2011.  Allowing them to expire would have left our intelligence officials with fewer tools to continue foreign intelligence, international terrorism, or international espionage investigations. On May 26, 2011, the Senate voted 72-23 to reauthorize these expiring provisions.

While it is critical that our intelligence community has the necessary tools at its disposal to protect us from the threat of terrorism, I share your concerns regarding potential civil liberty violations resulting from abuse of those same laws meant to protect us. I believe that this legislation, with the mandatory procedural safeguards and strong oversight, helps to clarify what is legal and proper for related investigations, while striking a balance between prioritizing our safety and upholding the individual rights guaranteed by our Constitution. In light of this, I voted with the majority of my colleagues to reauthorize expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act.

Again, thank you for contacting me. I value your input. Please do not hesitate to contact me or my office regarding this or any other matter of concern to you.
Sincerely,
Mark Pryor
United States Senate

John Boozman sent me a paper copy of his response and it was written almost verbatim to Pryor’s. So do you think they are listening? And why does Mark Pryor vote with his colleagues and not the American People?
I feel like I got off of my ass and participated in Democracy and all I got was a bad taste left in my mouth.

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Testing My Solar Oven.

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I have recently purchased a solar oven from Amazon.com. The oven is made in the good ol’ USA by Sun Ovens. The manual recommended that I heat a pot of soap and water before cooking anything in the oven so I thought that would be a great chance to test the oven out. It was an overcast day with the sun peaking out every 10 to 15 minutes and the outside temperature was 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Soap, water and sun check!

As soon as I set the oven up the temperature  jumped to 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Awesome! The time was 4:00 p.m.

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4:15 p.m. 230 degrees Fahrenheit.
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4:30 p.m. 240 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Getting very steamy in there!
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I had to open the oven to clean off the condensation in order to read the gauge which dropped the temperature back down to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. 5:00 p.m.
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The sun was setting so I decided to follow it by tilting the oven towards the sun using the included stand.
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Great feature of this oven is the built in adjustable stand.
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Had to open it up to snap the picture due the condensation. 250 degrees Fahrenheit at 5:30 p.m.
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The sun was setting behind some trees by 6:00 p.m. 220 degrees Fahrenheit.
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I am guessing the reason the manual says to heat up a pan of soap and water is to disinfect the oven and it did get rid of the new car smell.  My findings are thus: On an 80 degree day with overcast skies the oven will hold a temp close to 250 degrees Fahrenheit if you don’t open the door very often. What I have here is a free energy slow cooker in these conditions. Which is great because meat and chicken cooked all day slow is really tender and juicy! I also suspect the statements about the moist bake goods that come out of these ovens are true. The manual does recommend that you cover what you are cooking unless it is bake goods. It states you cook those just like you would in a conventional oven. The oven heated up to 150 degrees Fahrenheit very quickly so making noodle dishes or hot tea would be a snap in this little gem.

I am not sure if I could have built one myself for the price ($289). The time and the materials may have been more expensive with the cost of the metal used. I think I am going to enjoy using the oven and since my stove is an electric I hope to save on electricity bills this summer while I am running my A/C unit.

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