Top five reasons to go strawbale

5. Conserve energy and reduce heating bills. Strawbale homes have amazing insulative values (somewhere between R30 and R52 for those who understand those numbers).

4. Hug a tree and help save the environment. Straw is the waste product when you grow wheat, barley, rice, etc. - all annually renewable crops - so you're not cutting down more trees.

3. Create a healthy environment with clean air in your home. Straw does not contain all the nasty toxins that are in other conventional materials.

2. Make it beautiful and unique. Aesthetics matter.

1. Build a bullet-proof shelter. Whoaaaa, Nellie. [Cue western movie theme.]

Of course, that doesn't help you if the guns are on the inside, but that's a different topic I won't delve into. Treehugger.com reports that two new police stations are being built in a California city with the benefit of providing "ballistics and blast resistance."

I have a few relatives who may want a test run...