The North American Weasel It is difficult to recognize the rare, but not rare enough, North American Weasel. This sly animal hides his true self among the ranks of hard- working, honest animals. I am constantly on the lookout for the Weasel. Particularly among our advertisers in Home Power. We carefully check out each and every display advertiser. Every so often some scum-sucking weasel sneaks by us and finds refuge in our pages. Recently, one of our advertisers (don't look for him in this issue because we don't accept his ads anymore), burned us, burned some of his customers, and worst of all Ð the maggot left a large environmental mess at his place of business. While we originally vetted this character and his company checked out fine, he turned out to be the worst kind of opportunistic low-life. I am not mentioning his name, or his company's name, because he is possessed by demons of litigation and we ain't into lawyers. I can only feel sorry about accepting his advertising, and will redouble my efforts to check out all advertisers. I can maybe (on a good day, after several beers) forgive financial stupidity and even greed. What I can't forgive is a crime against our environment. The slimy scumbag left a big enough mess behind to make me ashamed to have ever known him. I apologise to anyone who was burned by this company (Karen and I personally own some of his unwarranteed product). If any of you have problems with a dishonest Home Power advertiser, please let Karen or me know. We are a growing industry with startup companies appearing daily. We want renewable energy to grow as fast as possible. We can't wait for years for a company to establish its reputation. We just have to look the human in the eye and decide if he's Weasel or Wizard. Sometimes we goof. Please take this message as it is intended. Help us police the businesses in the RE industry. In our experiences over the last twenty years, you won't find a more honest and hard-working group in any other industry. Let's not let a Weasel steal the light and the future from the Wizards who are working so hard to make it real. Richard Perez