I like the bamboo one and HOUSE because form seems to follow function and the end results don't look like the more silly entries in a clothing fashion show or like mobile homes accessorized with cars on cinder blocks and beer gutted rednecks.

However houses are for suburbia and suburbia is a stupid idea because it increases commute distances and wastes land. The lack of shared walls wastes materials and reduces energy efficiency.

IMO, a contest for high-rise building and urban designs would be more interesting and green. Combine homes and shops in one building surrounded with gardens and recreational areas to form a mini village. Cluster villages around light industrial areas. Layout everything to capture solar power and funnel wind for wind power. Surround the cities with wilderness. Connect cities with high speed rail. If done right, no one would need a car. Since, IIRC, cars end up using more energy than houses, getting rid of cars would save more energy than green houses ever could.

Huge honking load of bullshit in my personal experience. I lived most of my childhood in a "wholesome" rural southern community of about 40 households. By the time I was 13, I had had a shotguns pointed in my face twice by different gun-toting NRA Tea Party types. Once for trying to visit a girl I went to school with. Once for trying to bring my run-away dog back home. Scout's honor, I had done absolutely nothing wrong. As a teen I was again threatened, though more subtly, by a different neighbor because my family took the neighbor's friend to court because the friend built a fence across our driveway. This neighbor also shot my cat with a BB gun and laughed at me for crying when she died.

There are legitimate reasons to own a gun, but as far as I can tell, the people most interested in owning guns are seriously fucked up and should not be trusted with firearms.

By having built a simulator that can reproduce all possible conditions and seeing which kill methods work. If solution does not exist, then do not drill. That is what the oil industry would have done if they were the trustworthy people conservative asshats claim they are. However, the evidence seems to suggest these are sociopathic criminals without regard for life, human or other. They are another perfect example of why free market capitalism does not work.

Shouldn't it be: big .u..... and f.cking? I mean, f*cking could be fucking "fucking" or fucking "flocking," for example.

Fuckin'-A!

I lived in the US south for many years and I think you are on the right trail. Tied in to your second point, when met with failure, a common psychological defense mechanism is to blame that failure on some external factor-- other races, the government, atheists, liberals, gays, Catholics, Jews, the French, the damn yankees, and etc-- instead of blaming oneself. Southern churches capitalize on this human weakness by teaching that gays, atheists and liberals are sick. Republican politicians are capitalizing on the weakness too, they stir up the southern hatred of government and dream up all kinds of enemies to hate. And now, religion and Republican politicians have teamed up to take advantage of the rednecks. I'm pretty sure politicians in WWII Germany and religious leaders in the Middle East today did/do pretty much the same thing to manipulate the masses. How did Germany solve this sort of problem?