Patented Family Energy Saving Tactics

So my mom either hates the air conditioning or is trying to save money or is trying to save the environment. It's actually unclear. But whatever the case may be, the high for today is 96, I'm sweating so much it's making me break out, and even she's complaining (which seems a little unfair or unbalanced - opposite of Fox News - but whatever).
For what it's worth, here are the things that she believes will improve the temperature in the house enough to stave off heat stroke or homicide for another day.

#1 When it's hotter inside than it is outside, open the windows. Makes sense. Slight variation on what some people refer to as "a cross draft," basically meaning "moving air feels good."

#2 When it's hotter outside than it is inside, close the windows and the blinds. Makes a sort of rudimentary sense, until you acknowledge that it completely contradicts the idea that simply the movement of air will improve the comfort level (if not the actual temperature). Unfortunate side effect: I have to have my lights on or resign myself to sitting in the dark, and at night the house looks like a miserable fortress.

#3 Turning off the lights will cool the house. Probably true, but since we're in fortress-black-out-curtain mode I can't reasonably sit in the dark so my lights stay on or my windows end up open, rendering strategies two and three mutually exclusive.

#4 Other places will use their air conditioners whether or not we do, so why not go there? Completely and totally valid (and how I survived last summer when I didn't have the option of A/C). BUT since the places that tend to heavily air condition (malls and restaurants, also the car) also encourage, if not mandate, spending ones money, you inevitably end up spending money on something at the location you've visited in search of A/C, thus combatting any possible financial benefits of not using the A/C in the first place (note: based on the fact that you can easily spend more at a mall per hour than you would on air conditioning, though this is fuzzy math).

#5 Standing in front of the refrigerator will make you feel cooler. Yes. Again. Obviously. Unlike the rest of my house, the inside of the refrigerator is COLD. But four months ago, she was saying "Decide what you want from the fridge before you open it so you don't waste energy standing there with the door open while you decide." So standing in front of the refrigerator - while tempting - also wastes energy - which, if you recall, was one of the reasons we were not using the air conditioner in the first place.

It's not that I'm so pro-A/C, or that I don't care about the environment, or that I don't think there's probably some kernal of truth in all these concepts. But I'm hot. And it makes me resentful. And also skeptical. Like I'd like to have an energy specialist come in - after they're done curing global warming and the war in Iraq - to see how much money (and how much environment, quantitatively) we're actually saving, so we can make a rational, well-informed decision. Instead of an irrational, under-hydrated one. But then again, energy specialists cost money - and so the cycle continues.