Martin Lewis: George Zimmerman's Lawyer Prepares His Twinkie Defense Strategy "The Monty Python Defense"

My client George Zimmerman is a very vulnerable individual weighing only 250 pounds. Fragile and delicate like a petite, gamine ballet dancer. His assailant Trayvon Martin was over 100 pounds lighter -- making him much more agile and dangerous. Furthermore Trayvon Martin was armed with a bag of Skittles AND an iced tea. These are lethal weapons. It is no wonder that my client felt so threatened. And quite understandably felt that his life was in danger.

Further, my client was raised on a steady diet of the educational television program "Monty Python's Flying Circus" in which people are taught to use a gun to shoot people armed with such frightening weapons.

2012-03-25-GCfilmattack.png
Assailant armed with a lethal banana


For example in the lesson "Self-Defense Against Fresh Fruit" (Season 1: Episode 4), a man who is attacked by an assailant wielding a banana is only prevented from being murdered by shooting the attacker with a handgun.


2012-03-25-GCfilmshot.png
Dangerous banana-wielding assailant stopped by Stand-Your-Ground gun blast from a Colt 45

The same program makes clear that homicidal maniacs bearing such dangerous weapons as oranges, apples, lemons, grapefruit, pomegranates, grapes, passion-fruit, plums, cherries (both red and black) and mangoes in syrup can ONLY be thwarted by using deadly force.

So my terrified client -- confronted by a teenage boy who was eleven years younger than him and an intimidating one hundred pounds lighter -- dressed in full-military combat hoodie and brandishing an inter-continental ballistic bag of Skittles -- quite naturally flash-backed to the educational TV programs of his youth and the sequence in which vulnerable people can only defend themselves against such dangerous assailants by shooting them stone-dead with a gun at point-blank range.

2012-03-25-SkittlesWildBerryWrapperSmall.jpg
The deadly weapon (over 2,700 calories) facing George Zimmerman that he was forced to defend himself against

Given this, I say that the only possible course of action is for my client to be found not chargeable for any breach of law. Especially not the **NRA-instigated statute enthusiastically signed into law in 2005 by the admirably porcine Florida governor John Ellis Pierce ("Oh just call me 'Jeb'") Bush that guarantees all Floridians the right to blow away anyone they don't like the look of. The so-called "shoot-first-be-exonerated later" law.

Furthermore he deserves to receive profuse and full apologies for any suggestion that just because there is audio of his 911 call in which he clearly mutters the words "fucking coons" immediately before shooting to death a 17-year-old African-American boy -- he was in any way motivated by racist beliefs. He is an American hero in the same vein as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage -- and he fully deserves to be given his own regular prime-time TV show on Fox News.

He is a gentle man who simply tried to protect his neighborhood from the dark side of life. One day -- when George Zimmerman has been exonerated of these fallacious liberal media smears -- he will be seen as a great American hero. In the vein of other patriots such as the great Oliver North... G. Gordon Liddy... Mark Fuhrman, who were all also once willfully accused of misdeeds only to be exonerated and given their own radio and TV shows.

** "NRA" - acronym for Neanderthal Reactionary Agitators

?

Follow Martin Lewis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheMartinLewis

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman_b_1379289.html

cynthia nixon joe biden cspan state of the union drinking game oscar noms capital gains tim thomas

Market Research and Business Consulting Company ...

Web-based-sales-and-marketing-service

International marketplace analysis organization supply consultation and marketplace reviews for different industries ? aerospace, automotive, wind vitality, composite supplies, chemicals, Passenger rail, pipe and tank, banking, health care, construction and client products.
Video Ranking: three / five

Related posts:

Inbound marketing

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Business, Company, Consulting, Market, Research by JohnKrol. Bookmark the permalink.

Source: http://virtual-unified-communications.info/?p=7612&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=market-research-and-business-consulting-company

prime rib ny knicks sound of music green bean casserole prime rib recipe norad santa tracker vince carter

"Cash Mobs" gather to splurge in locally owned stores

[ [ [['entirely respectable way to put off the searing constitutional controversy', 8]], 'http://yhoo.it/GE6jSh', '[RELATED: Obama?s health care law passed 2 years ago, but where are we now?]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['Witnesses said the gunman pulled up on a black scooter', 7]], 'http://yhoo.it/GzwOIW', '[Related: New York police tighten security at Jewish sites]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['test Zimmerman for alcohol or drugs', 11]], 'http://yhoo.it/Gzn6VF', '[Related: White House says Trayvon Martin is local issue]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['entirely respectable way to put off the searing constitutional controversy', 12]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/tea-party-activists-defy-rain-to-rip-obama-health-care-law-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/4/31/431f2f4f7ed388d5bc5557b0a76267fa.jpeg', '450', ' ', 'Reuters/Jonathan Ernst', ], [ [['associated with such a small earthquake', 4]], 'http://yhoo.it/GTco9z', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/0/b4/0b493c1a47b6e3f97f8f48a2b251d7d4.jpeg', '630', ' ', 'AP Photo/Carrie Antlfinger', ], [ [['Fox News host Geraldo Rivera sparked outrage', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/GKMVTk', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/2/7c/27c7367bc512d233ae1790b320a5e92c.jpeg', '630', ' ', 'AP Photo/John Minchillo', ], [ [['The charges signed against Bales include', 1]], 'http://yhoo.it/wZT5zV', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/7/a0/7a07c51b2aa0f39b1a23355046d13870.jpeg', '512', ' ', 'AP Photo/DVIDS\, Spc\. Ryan Hallock\, File', ], [ [['George Zimmerman, if I had a son', 6]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/thousands-protest-fla-teen-death-1332387124-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/os/152/2012/03/22/d761a49f3fcc99080a0f6a70670053cd-jpg_150905.jpg', '500', ' ', 'AP Photo/John Minchillo', ], [ [['Mohamed Merah', 10], ['prosecutor Francois Molins', 5]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/four-dead-in-french-jewish-school-shooting-1332173151-slideshow', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120321/2012_03_21t151508z_425380421_gm1e83l1sqs01_rtrmadp_3_france_shootings_raid.jpg', '630', ' ', 'REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier', ], [ [['Shortly after he wrapped up his victory remarks', 2]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/4-straight-romney-wins-washington-gop-caucus-1330835515-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/3/e9/3e9b0082c3c3111dcc19e3527ae94cc7.jpeg', '500', ' ', 'AP Photo/Steven Senne', ], [ [['best understands the problems of average Americans', 2]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/4-straight-romney-wins-washington-gop-caucus-1330835515-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/3/e9/3e9b0082c3c3111dcc19e3527ae94cc7.jpeg', '500', ' ', 'AP Photo/Steven Senne', ], [ [['Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery', 7]], 'http://yhoo.it/GB2RVy', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/os/152/2012/03/20/photo-1332257995646-4-0-jpg_171722.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AFP', ], [ [['xxxxxxxxxxxx', 11]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/russian-grannies-win-bid-to-sing-at-eurovision-1331223625-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/1/56/156d92f2760dcd3e75bcd649a8b85fcf.jpeg', '500', ' ', 'AP', ] ]

[ [ [['entirely respectable way to put off the searing constitutional controversy', 7]], '28723797', '0' ], [ [['point of my campaign is that big ideas matter', 9]], '28712293', '0' ], [ [['As the standoff dragged into a second day', 7]], '28687424', '0' ], [ [['French police stepped up the search', 17]], '28667224', '0' ], [ [['Seeking to elevate his candidacy back to a general', 8]], '28660934', '0' ], [ [['The tragic story of Trayvon Martin', 4]], '28647343', '0' ], [ [['Karzai will get a chance soon to express', 8]], '28630306', '0' ], [ [['powerful storms stretching', 8]], '28493546', '0' ], [ [['basic norm that death is private', 6]], '28413590', '0' ], [ [['songwriter also saw a surge in sales for her debut album', 6]], '28413590', '1', 'Watch music videos from Whitney Houston ', 'on Yahoo! Music', 'http://music.yahoo.com' ], [ [['keyword', 99999999999999999999999]], 'videoID', '1', 'overwrite-pre-description', 'overwrite-link-string', 'overwrite-link-url' ] ]

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cash-mobs-gather-splurge-locally-owned-stores-024435921.html

lakers news rachel crow rachel crow steelers browns albert pujols va tech dan gilbert

mulberry outlet Recreation and Sports Archery Arti ? tyamruxcr ...

The basics of traditional archery once theoretical and mastered are never forgotten. I began archery shooting with a traditional wooden longbow and wooden indicators plus it brought to mind some beneficial tips I memorized surrounded my youth and Boy Scout days is I still love and use today plus would prefer to share some of them. The amusement of true traditional archery namely not archery scopes alternatively sights,mulberry outlet, pulleys alternatively cycles alternatively carbon fiber merely just the appealing age eye and native talent of looking over the thumb holding on apt a traditional wooden longbow and wooden arrow.
Related articles?

Tags: mulberry outle

Source: http://vh93nvann.allianceblogger.com/2012/03/23/mulberry-outlet-recreation-and-sports-archery-arti/

photo of whitney houston in casket carrot top george huguely whitney houston casket photo match play championship the national enquirer marie colvin

Source: http://teodorowilliam.typepad.com/blog/2012/03/mulberry-outlet-recreation-and-sports-archery-arti-tyamruxcr.html

chronicle rampart lance armstrong george lopez bedtime stories micron susan g komen

Increase Dick Size 5 Powerful Strategies To Make Money Online ...

penis male enhancement does not need to be expensive. In fact you can attain an enormous member by simply using your hands. One of the breakthroughs in Urology in recent years is the discovery that the penis can be enlarged through repeated exercises. Now more and more medical journals back up this claim and men all over the world are starting to gain more confidence in themselves.

Okay so you have a small erection and you're sick and tired of it. I get that. I had a small erection too. I bought everything on the market including pills pumps and extenders. Sadly I never got any bigger and wasted over a thousand dollars. It made me sick to my stomach to blow money like that and I gave up on making my erection bigger for quite some time. Then by chance I came across a completely natural program that makes the penis bigger without any of the junk on the market. Let me tell you all about it.

You probably haven't heard of hand exercises but they're the ONLY way to make your penis longer and thicker for life. You might wondering if pills and pumps work and the answer is NO. Pills and pumps are scams. They've never made anyone bigger. Hand exercises however have already made thousands of men around the world bigger. You haven't heard about them because the penis pill industry has spent billions on advertising designed to keep you think that their pills are the only way to a bigger penis. Here's how hand exercises work.

Are you happy with your penis size? Most men are not. If you want to enlarge your penis size permanently and see huge gains - read on.. Just 6 minutes per day for a few short weeks will make your penis much longer thicker and healthier and give you permanent gains which you can enjoy for the rest of your life! Get a Bigger penis now >>

What are the dangers of penis extenders? Learn the side effects of using penis extenders.

There are some great tactics you can use for dealing with a small penis. These are very effective and easy to employ.

With so many guys being skeptical about herbal penis male enlargement pills is there actually any method of penis male enlargement that can give men a bigger penis? Find out the answer to that question and more in this article...

penis male enlargement is not a myth. You can make your penis large by a couple of extra inches with the help of some highly effective and natural techniques without even thinking of something as extreme as surgery.


0

Source: http://sundulers.blogspot.com/2012/03/increase-dick-size-5-powerful.html

tommy john surgery colorado weather alcohol poisoning alcohol poisoning mark ingram mark ingram weather colorado springs

Facebook takes steps to address privacy concerns

NEW YORK ? Facebook has taken steps in recent days to address more worries about privacy, warning employers not to ask prospective employees for their passwords and trying to clarify its user "rights and responsibilities" policies.

But the latter effort backfired when tens of thousands of users, mostly in Germany, misunderstood the clarifications and blasted the company. Their discontent showed that, no matter what Facebook does, privacy concerns are still the biggest threat to users' trust and to its growth.

"There is such an incredible level of scrutiny now about anything any company does about privacy," said Jules Polonetsky, director of the Future of Privacy Forum, an industry-backed think tank in Washington. "We are treating every single thing that touches privacy as a five-alarm fire. The risk of all these five-alarm level outbursts is that people will become inured about privacy and miss real privacy issues because of crying wolf when nothing is actually going on."

Users' willingness to share information is a key part of Facebook's business. The site makes the bulk of its money from ads that target users based on their personal information. Last year, the company earned a profit of $668 million and booked $3.7 billion of revenue, and it's preparing for an initial public offering later this spring that could be valued at as much as $100 billion.

Privacy issues have dogged Facebook for years. It settled with the Federal Trade Commission in November over allegations that it misled users about the handling of their personal information. Google Inc., a big rival, agreed to a similar settlement eight months earlier.

The latest ruckus happened when more than 30,000 German users posted that they were rejecting the company's proposed changes to its governing documents. But the changes amounted to nuanced revisions and clarifications of long-standing policies ? not a major overhaul.

The company, for instance, replaced the word "profile" with "timeline," since Facebook users now have a different type of profile. Facebook also changed "hateful" to "hate speech" in its description of prohibited content.

Still, users who read the documents for the first time noticed some things that alarmed them. For example, the document replaced the words "privacy policy" with "data-use policy," seemingly taking privacy out of the picture.

Facebook has been calling it a data-use policy since September, preferring to be more straightforward about its actual purpose. But the company makes so many subtle changes that it's easy to lose track.

"It's clear that some people fundamentally misunderstand our proposed changes. Our data-use policy governs how we use and collect data. That document is not changing at this time," Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said. "That's why we have this unique and transparent process, though ? so have an opportunity to clarify confusion and respond to user concerns. We look forward to doing so in the coming weeks."

Another worrisome discovery might have been the fact that applications that your Facebook friends use can gain access to your data on Facebook, even if you do not use the apps yourself. That's true, but it's been true since at least 2007 and well-documented elsewhere on the site.

The attention focused on Facebook's largely cosmetic changes reflect just how closely people watch the company.

"If they reposted the same privacy policy they had, everyone would be jumping up and down," said Polonetsky, a former chief privacy officer at AOL.

Sarah Downey, senior privacy strategist at an online privacy software provider called Abine, was among those criticizing Facebook this week. She said the company is being more straightforward about its business model and what it does by clarifying its documents. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's heading in the right direction.

"What we once thought of as a social network has really become an advertising network," she said.

On Friday, it was Facebook itself that raised alarms about privacy, warning employers not to ask job applicants for their passwords to the site so they can poke around on their profiles. The company threathened legal action against applications that violate its long-standing policy against sharing passwords.

The company action came after The Associated Press documented cases of job applicants who were asked, at the interview table, to reveal their Facebook passwords so their prospective employers can check their online profiles.

A Facebook executive cautioned that if an employer discovers that a job applicant is a member of a protected group, the employer may be vulnerable to claims of discrimination if it doesn't hire that person.

"As a user, you shouldn't be forced to share your private information and communications just to get a job," Erin Egan, Facebook's chief privacy officer of policy, wrote in a post. "And as the friend of a user, you shouldn't have to worry that your private information or communications will be revealed to someone you don't know and didn't intend to share with just because that user is looking for a job."

The post sparked comments from Facebook users, many of them thankful. But the number totaled only 108 ? a sign that when it comes to online privacy, it's far easier to stir anger than gratitude.

Source: http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsGamecore/~3/-D36BWPirKw/

dick cheney paul ryan jennifer lawrence hunger games arnold palmer baylor liam hemsworth

Forget hoops, NFL has March Madness

By BARRY WILNER

AP Pro Football Writer

Associated Press Sports

updated 1:09 p.m. ET March 24, 2012

March Madness is all about the NFL this year.

From Peyton Manning in Denver to Tim Tebow in New York.

From Sean Payton getting suspended for New Orleans' bounty system to Saints players awaiting possible punishment for participating in it.

Not to mention the other big free agent signings. How did Mario Williams wind up in Buffalo? Answer: There's 100 million reasons.

How about Calvin Johnson's $132 million deal through 2019 with the Lions, merely the richest contract in NFL history, with Megatron getting $60 million guaranteed?

No matter what happens in the NCAA basketball tournament, with the Final Four in the Big Easy of all places, it can't top what the NFL has produced in March.

And that's with the draft, usually the focal point of the offseason, still a month away.

It has become impossible to escape NFL headlines pretty much since the Giants beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl - that was Feb. 5. The next meaningful pro football game is more than five months away.

The past two weeks, in particular, have been off the charts for NFL interest.

"Fans love it and they crave it," said Rich Gannon, the 2002 NFL Most Valuable Player and now a host on SiriusXM NFL Radio. "They don't want an offseason and there hasn't really been one, from the Super Bowl and the one-month buildup to the combine and free agency, and then to everything lately.

"I took my car in for service and three guys there, all they were saying was what about the Saints? And then the Tebow stuff; I am not surprised by that at all. And Peyton in Denver."

In addition to the front-page news, there have been some offseason moves that would be a big deal - in any other year.

Example A: A massive trade of picks between Washington and St. Louis already has spiced up the draft, with the Redskins in position to land Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III (if Indy doesn't take him at No. 1 instead of Andrew Luck).

Example B: The same Redskins and their division-rival Cowboys, each get dinged for huge salary cap reductions by the league.

Rarely does anything in sports push The Big Dance off center stage. But all the NFL action has done just that.

No reason to think it will stop now, with penalties for Saints defensive players sure to come, if not by the end of this unpredictable month then quickly in April.

By then, the Senate Judiciary Committee could be holding a hearing about the bounties that led to Payton being suspended for the 2012 season; former assistant Gregg Williams, who ran the program and now is defensive coordinator in St. Louis, getting barred indefinitely; New Orleans general manager Mickey Loomis suspended for eight games and Saints assistant Joe Vitt for six games; and the team stripped of two second-round draft picks and fined $500,000.

"Let's be real basic about it here," said Sen. Dick Durbin, who is calling the bounty hearing. "If this activity were taking place off of a sporting field, away from a court, nobody would have a second thought (about whether it's wrong). `You mean, someone paid you to go out and hurt someone?'

"It goes way beyond the rules of any sporting contest, at least team contest, to intentionally inflict harm on another person for a financial reward."

It does grab attention; scandals always do. So two of the NFL's transcendent quarterbacks came along to rescue the league's image a bit: Manning and Tebow.

Anytime a four-time MVP changes addresses, it's huge news. When that player never missed a start in 13 seasons before sitting out an entire year after four neck surgeries, interest is piqued a mile high.

"It is a huge plus to have a Peyton Manning on your roster," Broncos boss John Elway said upon signing Manning to a five-year contract worth $96 million if fulfilled.

And a huge plus to have him in the league to deflect some attention from the bad vibes surrounding the Saints.

Ditto for Tebow, whose job disappeared in Denver when Manning joined the Broncos. Where else for him to land but with the Jets, who seem determined to win the back pages of the New York tabloids while their co-inhabitants at the Meadowlands, the Giants, win Super Bowls.

The Jets' swift action - well, swift until there was an eight-hour delay as the Jets discovered a clause in Tebow's contract that would have cost them $5 million before it was renegotiated - shifted the glare away from the Saints, as well.

In the middle of all this, the Cowboys had $10 million of salary cap space stripped and the Redskins lost a whopping $36 million, spread over this year and next. Yet both have found ways to spend enough on free agents to fill some holes.

What chaos could be ahead? Plenty.

- New Orleans star quarterback Drew Brees has yet to reach agreement on a new contract and, given the Saints' precarious situation, imagine how ugly things might get if he ignores the franchise tag the team plunked on him and stays away from offseason workouts.

- With a rookie wage scale limiting financial investments, more blockbuster draft trades could happen. As it is, the Redskins mortgaged much of their future to move up four spots to get RG III. Yet, after his sensational pro day at Baylor, there's thought Griffin has become a challenger to Stanford's Luck as the top overall pick, owned by Indianapolis.

- Still out there ready to grab attention, if not many passes, is Terrell Owens. So might be Chad Ochocinco if the Patriots, as expected, release him. And Randy Moss, who didn't even play in the NFL in 2011 and was no factor the previous year, landed in San Francisco.

- Tebow vs. Mark Sanchez. Just wait until the incumbent stumbles, even momentarily, and the Big Apple is rocked by screams from Tebow's loyal legions.

- New jersey designs by Nike resemble the Oregon Ducks' varied uniforms, causing a surge to - or away from - the merchandise shelves.

At least there are no labor battles to be waged for 4 1/2 months by America's richest sports league and its players. Last year at this time, we were in the middle of the lockout. No one knew if the 2011 season would even happen.

"I think the NFL is in great shape," Manning said, "with some great owners, great coaches and great people in leadership."

Don't forget plenty of newsmakers.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


advertisement

More news

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46843837/ns/sports-nfl/

drake take care herman cain accuser herman cain accuser election day joe frazier where do i vote wheel of fortune

Republicans offer few details on Afghanistan plans

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney addresses an audience during a campaign stop in Metairie, La., Friday, March 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney addresses an audience during a campaign stop in Metairie, La., Friday, March 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum shakes hands after speaking to USAA employees during a campaign stop at USAA, Thursday, March 22, 2012, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

FILE - In this March 20, 2012 file photo, Marine Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. Allen said Thursday he prefers a robust U.S. combat force of 68,000 in 2013, signaling a potential halt in the drawdown and complicating any effort by President Barack Obama to accelerate the timetable after more than a decade of war. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 23, 2011 file Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System photo, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, 1st platoon sergeant, Blackhorse Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division participates in an exercise at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif. A U.S. official on Thursday, March 22, 2012 said Bales will be charged with 17 counts of murder in the massacre of Afghan villagers. (AP Photo/DVIDS, Spc. Ryan Hallock, File)

Afghan President Hamid Karzai speaks during the graduation ceremony of Afghan military officers in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, March 22, 2012. Afghanistan's president said Thursday that his government is "taking a magnifying glass" to proposals for the country's strategic partnership deal with the United States and scrutinizing every detail. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)

(AP) ? As Afghanistan seizes more of the political spotlight, the Republican presidential candidates are quick to criticize President Barack Obama's handling of the war but struggle to explain how they would change the strategy they would inherit.

GOP front-runner Mitt Romney says Obama has exhibited "failed leadership" and should not have set a timetable for ending the war. But Romney won't say whether he would scrap the president's plans to bring the war to a close by the end of 2014. Rivals Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have questioned whether the U.S. should be in Afghanistan at all, but neither has plans for withdrawing tens of thousands of American troops.

The Republican reluctance to outline specific policy positions is evidence of the complex nature of managing the decade-long war as public support dwindles, and concerns that detailed campaign promises could pigeonhole a candidate if he goes on to win the White House.

It's a role reversal for the parties from 2008, when a Republican president was mired in a long and unpopular war and Democratic candidates, including Obama, tried to convince voters that they should take the reins.

But the political calculus for the current crop of Republicans is more complicated than it was for Obama in 2008. Obama opposed the Iraq war from the start and his election-year promise to bring it to an end put him in lockstep with the rest of his party.

This year's GOP candidates, however, find their party's hawkish tendencies butting up against the public's growing impatience with the Afghan war.

Six in 10 Americans see the war as not worth its costs, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released this month. Opposition to the war is bipartisan, and for the first time, the Post-ABC poll showed more Republicans "strongly" see the war as not worth fighting than say the opposite.

Yet many in the GOP have agreed with some of Obama's aggressiveness in Afghanistan, from increasing U.S. troop levels to ordering the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the attacks that drew the U.S. into the war in the first place.

Defense analyst Michael O'Hanlon said those actions have made it harder for Republican to come up with a distinctive and specific alternative war strategy.

"I think it reflects that this is not an issue that is so simple that reflexively turning to a Republican line of attack is going to be the answer," said O'Hanlon, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

But the recent series of troubling episodes in Afghanistan, including the accidental burning of Qurans by U.S. forces and the alleged killing of 17 Afghan civilians by an American soldier, have focused fresh attention on how the U.S. plans to get out of Afghanistan and whether a Republican president would pursue a different course than Obama.

The president's withdrawal plan, in coordination with NATO allies and Afghanistan, calls for the U.S. to move into a support role in Afghanistan in 2013 and hand over security responsibility to the Afghans by the end of 2014. The administration is negotiating with Afghanistan about a U.S. presence there after 2014 and is trying to reach a political breakthrough with the Taliban.

Republicans have criticized the 2014 benchmark, saying Obama's decision to put a timetable on withdrawal puts U.S. gains in Afghanistan at risk.

"Why in the world do you go to the people that you're fighting with and tell them the date you're pulling out your troops? It makes absolutely no sense," Romney said in February.

Santorum said it "gave them something which you should never give an enemy, which is hope."

But neither candidate has said whether he would abandon the NATO-backed 2014 withdrawal plan, which would be well under way by the time either took office in January. Nor has either said whether his own war strategy would keep the U.S. fighting in Afghanistan past that date.

Romney, who is on track to win the nomination, has been especially vague about how many U.S. forces he would keep in Afghanistan and for how long. He has both pledged to ensure a "force level necessary to secure our gains and complete our mission successfully" while also promising to bring troops home "as soon as humanly possible."

The former Massachusetts governor says he can't get more specific until he gets guidance from the military, and plans to conduct a full interagency war review upon taking office.

Democrats say Romney's lack of clarity on Afghanistan will be a liability in a general election race against Obama.

"What's clear is that he lacking a core set of experiences so he gets pulled back and forth between the 'let's double down' strategy and public opinion polls think that 10 years is enough," said Heather Hurlburt, a foreign policy expert who worked in the Clinton administration and now heads the National Security Network, a progressive organization.

Romney has drawn one clear distinction with the president. He opposes Taliban negotiations and says the U.S. should not hold talks with a group trying to kill American soldiers.

As Romney seeks the right strategy for success in Afghanistan, Santorum and Gingrich have started to question whether there is even a mission in Afghanistan worth completing.

"We have to either make a decision to make a full commitment, which this president has not done, or we have to decide to get out and probably get out sooner" than planned in 2014, Santorum said in a recent interview.

Gingrich has said the U.S. is "risking the lives of young men and women in a mission that may, frankly, not be doable."

Neither candidate, however, has said how those concerns would translate into an actual war strategy or whether he would speed up Obama's withdrawal timetable if elected.

The only Republican contender with a clearly articulated war strategy is Texas Rep. Ron Paul. The Libertarian-leaning Paul long has opposed the war and says he would quickly end the war once in the White House.

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-03-24-Campaign-Afghanistan/id-653b5f4d566247df983eeed09a7905d6

rhodium uppity uppity stuffing brandon mcinerney brandon mcinerney black friday 2011 deals

Info on Eye Care and several Tips for a healthy Vision | ArticleBro.com

The eye is one of the most wrongly used body parts. Lots of people overlook the value of this particular sense organ. These people devote long hours of watching tv or facing computer screens. In addition, they practice poor lifestyles that could impact their eye-sight. No wonder why numerous persons are suffering from diverse eye diseases. Eye care is one thing you mustn?t take for granted and this article can help you realize why.

Different eye conditions often have signs and symptoms. One of the most common is blurred vision. Some sufferers also have difficulties in reading texts despite having glasses on. Many people cannot even recognize someone else from a distance or experience glare even in regular daylight. When you?re encountering even a minor difference on the clarity of your sight, you need to promptly talk to an expert.

An optometrist is an expert dedicated to eye care. They carry out eye testing to find the main cause of the condition. Their service also includes the effective use of the necessary eyewear and contact lenses to cure the ailment.

If you do not get attention from an eye doctor, your condition could possibly aggravate. These problems include double vision and head aches when utilizing a pc or reading a book. There are recorded cases in which sufferers go through confusion when seeing different colours.

Eye care experts suggest a standard eye test for individuals beginning to experience eye troubles. This examination evaluates the patients? vision using various tools and procedures. It will help find eye conditions at their earliest phase to understand what is needed to prevent it from getting worse. Astigmatism, cataract, glaucoma, myopia, hyperopia, and presbyopia are among the disorders specialists can detect by way of a standard eye test.

Eye doctors suggest having this check-up every two years. If you are not going through any slight difference in your vision, be aware that nothing can beat early prevention.

Eye Care Tips

Among the best approaches to keep your eyes healthy is by eating healthy food. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Make certain your diet include food loaded with anti-oxidants and omega oils like blueberries and salmon. These food items will maintain the moisture in your eyes and help prevent macular degeneration.

When you use your pc, let your eyes rest for several minutes every 45-60 minutes. Set your reading resources at the same distance as your screen. In this way, your eyes won?t need to readjust focus constantly. If you are going outside, be sure to protect your eyes with sun shades. Ultraviolet rays are damaging to the eyes. Consult an expert when selecting the glasses to ensure proper protection. Get anti-reflective coating on your sunglasses to avoid lens reflection and glare.

As mentioned, visit your optometrist every two years. Eye medications and treatments can be quite costly. For this reason, you must detect problems at the earliest opportunity. You can find many optometrists offering eye test online. Many online companies even offer a full range of eye care services from standard eyes tests, application of spectacles, and eye health insurance.

Lauren Fitzgerald is an eye care expert who encourages people to get an eye test online.

Source: http://articlebro.com/2012/health-fitness/info-on-eye-care-and-several-tips-for-a-healthy-vision/

susan sarandon susan sarandon tampa weather motorola razr gilad annie hall jon lester

Making the Shift To Electric Vehicles

Copyright ? 2012 National Public Radio?. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. When you fill up, is it regular, premium or high-voltage? When you bought your electric car or hybrid, people laughed at you as a tree-hugger, didn't they? But with the price of gasoline approaching five bucks a gallon, who's laughing now?

In fact, even my local parking garage now has a charging station in it. Still, electric cars have barely made a dent in the total car population. There are several big players in the electric car market now, like the Chevy Volt, the Nissan Leaf, and more EVs from lots of carmakers are on the way. But so far, the Volt and the Leaf haven't really been flying off the lot.

A new smaller version of the Prius sold more vehicles in a couple of days than the Volt and the Leaf did all last month combined. So what would it take to get Americans to shift to electric? Is the time finally right now? How about the new Tesla Model S and the CODA? We'll talk to somebody from the CODA later.

Do you drive an electric car? Are you thinking about it? What's holding you back? Maybe you're ready to give it a try. Give us a call. Our number is 1-800-989-8255, 1-800-989-TALK, and you can tweet us @scifri, @-S-C-I-F-R-I. And you can go to our website at sciencefriday.com and our Facebook page, /scifri.

Seth Fletcher is a senior editor at Popular Science. He's also author of the book "Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy." He joins us here in New York. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

SETH FLETCHER: Thanks for having me.

FLATOW: You're welcome. Don Karner is the chief innovation officer at ECOtality. That's a company that makes charging stations and other infrastructure for electric vehicles. He joins us from KJZZ in Tempe, Arizona. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

DON KARNER: Thanks, Ira, it's great to be here talking to you from sunny Phoenix.

FLATOW: Sunny Phoenix. Seth, the idea of an electric car, reading your book, is really not a new idea, is it?

FLETCHER: No. In fact, you know, at the turn of the 20th century, electric cars competed for space on the road with gas-powered cars and steam-powered cars, and eventually - well, and in fact, electric cars had an early advantage because they were much cleaner, and gas cars in those days were actually quite dangerous and dirty.

But gas cars got better, and then electric cars have been traditionally limited by the range problem, which is just the fact that you can only drive so far on a charge of the batteries, and then it takes a really long time to recharge.

And that has been the - that's been the limiting factor for electric cars ever since, and that's just beginning to be overcome by advances in battery technology.

FLATOW: Well, like what? What is happening to make them go farther?

FLETCHER: It's really the advent of the lithium-ion battery that opened up the possibility of electric cars with performance that would be suitable for sort of mainstream American drivers. And it's just an adaptation of the same battery technology that's in our laptops and cell phones.

And this has been happening for about the past five years, moving into the automotive industry, and the first cars that really fully used these batteries were the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt, which went on sale about, well, about six months ago now.

FLATOW: Doesn't the Tesla have, like, 7,000 little laptop batteries in it, lithium batteries in it?

FLETCHER: Yeah - just under 6,000, and they are almost exactly the same thing that are bundled together in your laptop.

FLATOW: So you can just - what makes lithium such a good substance for a battery?

FLETCHER: It's just the properties of the element itself. It's the lightest metal. It's the third element on the periodic table, and it's also highly reactive. It doesn't even exist in nature in its pure form because it's so reactive. And what that means is that you can build a light chemical system that contains a lot of energy, and that's what you want with batteries.

You want them to be small. You want them to be light. You want them to be as highly energetic as possible. And so, just the nature of the lithium atom makes it the perfect - well, you know, there are challenges with it, but it makes it about the best charge carrier we can possibly get for batteries.

FLATOW: Don Karner, I was - I drive into New York every now and then, and I was shocked to see that there was a spot in the garage that said charging station, right here in midtown Manhattan. You're not shocked, I'll bet.

KARNER: No, no, not at all. In fact, I'm very happy to see that. We're about - at ECOtality, we're about putting those charging stations in and making electric vehicles mainstream, being able to have you charge where you lead the rest of your life, where you work and where you're entertained, where you shop, where you eat and also where you sleep overnight at your home.

FLATOW: But is America, which wants to get out, get up and go quickly, I mean, the charging stations take a half-an-hour to charge your car. Are they willing to hang out wherever they are for a half-an-hour?

KARNER: Well, I think that's part of why we want you to be able to integrate charging your car in with the rest of your lifestyle. Rather than taking your car someplace specifically to charge, we want you to be able to charge where you lead the rest of your life. So if you go to work, and there's a place where you can charge at work, the time that it takes is really irrelevant as long as that vehicle is charged when you're done with work.

If you go to the store, if you go to the restaurant, that type of thing, you're really just dropping your car off. You happen to charge it at the same place that you're leading the rest of your life. We call that leading a Blink lifestyle. Blink is the product name for our chargers, and we really encourage people to learn how to integrate charging their electric vehicle in with the rest of the things they do in their life, much like you did with your cell phone when you first got a cell phone.

You rapidly learned how to integrate that charging in with the rest of the things you do during the day, whether you charge it at night, you charge it on your desk during the day. But everybody started out with a little anxiety about is my cell phone going to die before the end of the day, I'm going to miss a call. But very rapidly you learned how to integrate that in with your life so that you didn't have an issue. We want...

FLATOW: You know, if you go to cold states like Alaska, Minnesota, places like that, where people have, they have warming elements in their cars for the winter, you plug your car in while - overnight. And they're in the parking lots of some universities. Why can't we have something like that, a little charger, wherever - right in the supermarket, you know, in the parking lot there. While you go in and shop, you plug your car in.

KARNER: Well, Ira, I think you'll see exactly that. You're going to see chargers deploy into commercial space: shopping centers, grocery stores, barbershops. Again, where people lead their lives, where they congregate and where there's a concentration of electric vehicles.

Our objective is to create a business model for electric vehicle charging such that those businesses are going to want chargers in their parking lots. Workplaces will want chargers there to support their employees, universities to support their students and that an infrastructure deploys virally to support electric vehicles in the United States.

FLETCHER: You know, Iran, I just wanted to follow up on one thing you said, that it takes a half-hour to charger the car. If only it took a half-hour to charge the cars from a normal wall outlet. This is actually one challenge. And there are three primary different types of charging. There's 110, 220 and 440. 440 volts are the fast-charging stations that can recharge a battery in about a half-hour.

Those are expensive and require more electricity. So from the 220 volt, you know, 220 outlet in your garage when you charge overnight, a car like the Leaf takes about eight hours, which is why most people are going to be charging overnight.

FLATOW: But if you only used up a few, you know, kilowatt hours, whatever we want to call them, of charge when you went to the grocery store, you could sort of top-off your battery.

FLETCHER: Yeah, you could top-off, yeah.

FLATOW: You could sort of top it off while you're going in to, you know, buying some broccoli or something.

FLETCHER: Opportunity charging.

KARNER: And that's precisely why you would want an infrastructure available to people so that they have that choice. Yes, they can charge overnight at home, and that is kind of the preferred place to charge your vehicle, but at times you'll want to top-off at the grocery store using 220, level two charging.

Other times you may want to go to a fast charger and get a much faster charge, to where in 15 minutes, you might be able to get 40 miles or so of additional range on your vehicle.

FLATOW: But, you know, as Edison, who invented the American light bulb - what made him successful is not only did he have a light bulb, but he invented the whole system of delivering the electricity to that light bulb. We now have electric cars. How fast can we get the system to deliver the electricity to them? I mean, that's going to take some sort of statewide or local effort, is it not, Don?

KARNER: Well, again, it goes back to the objective of creating a business model for charger hosts, those businesses, those people that will put chargers in. If there's a return on their investment, then there's a natural tendency, as electric vehicles begin to concentrate in an area, for these chargers to appear, much like any other business appears. Fast food pops up, grocery stores pop up as population builds.

At ECOtality, we're about building that business model and creating a return on investment for the charger hosts so that when they make that investment in a charger, whether it's dollar return, it's people across the threshold of their brick-and-mortar business, it's branding, advertising, that there's value that's returned to them because I don't think we can count on state or federal government to roll out an infrastructure for electric vehicles.

It has to be rolled out on a viral basis because it makes good business sense.

FLATOW: Here's a tweet that came in from Tim Beauchamp(ph), who says: why not inductive chargers under parking spaces and parking lots so that you don't even have to plug in?

KARNER: And certainly that's an option, Ira. It's going to be more expensive because it's a more complicated system, and a decade ago, the General Motors EV-1 and the Toyota RAV-4s used an inductive charger, and that was used very successfully.

Currently, the standard is for what we call a conductive charger, one that you actually plug in. And of course we've been plugging in electrical loads ever since Edison created the first power plant. It works very, very well. It's very safe, and it's inexpensive.

Inductive charging may well be more convenient, And there are a number of companies in both the U.S. and Europe that are looking at coming out with inductive charging that can bring that convenience to the marketplace. And of course, as that rolls out, and if people want that convenience and they're willing to pay for it, certainly ECOtality will, and I'm sure other companies will provide that to them.

FLETCHER: Yeah, I would say, just to follow up on that, in the '90s, the lack of a charging standard was a pretty big mess and a pretty big obstacle to getting these cars deployed, you know, on a large scale. And so the standardization that's happening this time around is a good thing.

FLATOW: Just having - which - we were all going to agree on the plug shape, things like that.

FLETCHER: Exactly.

FLATOW: One will fit into the other. And before we go to the break, battery technology, is it really getting better?

FLETCHER: It is getting better. It is steadily and slowly getting better and cheaper. You know, I think that it wouldn't be wise to wait for a miracle battery to come out of nowhere, but, you know, one hears interesting breakthroughs all the time.

Something interesting recently has come from this company INVIA Systems, which is using two different types of electrodes, which is a steady advance. They say they can double the capacity of batteries today. That may be tall, but it's promising.

FLATOW: All right, 1-800-989-8255 if you want to talk about electric cars, talking with Seth Fletcher, senior editor of Popular Science. "Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy." Don Karner of ECOtality. Stay with us. We'll be right back after this break. I'm Ira Flatow. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FLATOW: You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. We're talking this hour about the future of the electric car. Lots of tweets are coming in. Let me just read a few of them. I park across the street, Travis Polling(ph), says, from my house. So I can't run a cord from my house to my car. What if a passerby unplugs it?

This is something interesting. EVs don't work for me, says Vincent Russell(ph), because I live in an apartment complex, no garage to charge the car while I sleep. So what about renters? And other people, you know, other people talking about the impact. And let me go to one call here on the phone from Ed(ph) in Shasta County, California. Hi, Ed.

ED: Good morning, how you doing?

FLATOW: Hi there.

ED: Hey, my main point would be, I guess, that I think - I own a Leaf. I've been driving it pretty much exclusively, my only driving for the last 10 months. And my perception is that there's a lot of confusion between the use and different charging needs of electric cars and hybrid or PHEV cars like the Volt.

And my main point is that for electric cars, slow public charging, which is the vast majority of public - of chargers out there, aren't very useful, to contradict what your guest from Blink said. What you need for an electric car, because to have a significant amount of range from your home at night, from wherever you charge it at night, you just have to be able to charge it occasionally on highways and freeways at a fast rate of speed to use it as your everyday driving vehicle. Completely different than a hybrid.

FLATOW: But if you had a - is this your only car that you have?

ED: I actually have another car, and I've only driven it once to go to town to fill up the gas tank, literally. But yeah, to do longer trips, you need a car if there are no charge stations on the freeways.

FLATOW: All right, thanks for calling. An interesting point there...

KARNER: And Ira, I wouldn't disagree with that. There's a combination of both, really, fast charge and the level two charging that's required to support battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles like the Volt, to support those in commercial space.

And again, some people are going to be perfectly fine with level two charging, charging at work, charging at movie theaters, that type of thing. Others are going to require a faster charge, particularly along transportation routes, where you may be going from one city to another and people like Ed that are really dedicated to using their electric vehicle almost exclusively.

And we are, at ECOtality, rolling out fast charging infrastructure, as well as the level two infrastructure so that we can support both those kinds of drivers.

FLATOW: Let me bring on Chris Paulson, he's senior vice president, corporate strategy and business development at CODA Automotive. That's a start-up EV manufacturer based in L.A., and today marks one week since the launch of their electric sedan. Welcome to the program.

CHRIS PAULSON: Thanks, Ira, it's great to be here.

FLATOW: How have sales been going?

PAULSON: Well, since we just launched last week, we're just starting, but we have a lot of excitement. Our customers have lined up. We have reservations on the (unintelligible) right now, and we're working to fill them.

FLATOW: And describe your car for us. What makes your car different than the other electric cars?

PAULSON: We're a five-passenger sedan. So we're the only all-electric sedan on the market today. We have a range of up to 125 miles. So that's quite a bit farther than some of the other cars on the road. That's an 88 mile EPA range. The EPA range is the standard that the Environmental Protection Agency uses to define how far a car goes.

The - in our case, we expect that most drivers will exceed that 88 miles on a charge.

FLATOW: And how many cars do you expect to sell in a year?

PAULSON: Well, you know, it depends a lot on our ability to ramp-up and our demand. We, in the long term, want to be a 10,000-unit-plus car company, which makes us a very small car company in the grand scheme of things. But because of the way that we've designed our company, we can sell cars profitably at a much lower number than some of the other car companies out there.

FLATOW: Do you have a lot experience making electric cars?

PAULSON: Well, we are filled with EV people. One of our - the head of our battery division actually worked on the EV-1, GM's EV-1 program, and we've been working on EVs ever since. We have now - we're a small company, only 325 people, but the majority of those people are engineers and have been working on our EV now for four years and EVs in general for decades.

FLATOW: And how long does it take to charge your car, and will your car charge at a normal quote-unquote charge station?

PAULSON: Yes, the - we, actually, along with the car, for most consumers will install what we call an EVSC similar to the product that ECOtality makes, in each garage. And in that charger, you'll be able to recharge your car from empty to full in just under six hours.

But for the average 40-mile commute, you can do that in just two hours.

FLATOW: How are you going to compete with the other car companies, such a small company, 325 employees, especially with the GMs of the world?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

PAULSON: First, we're going to continue to grow. So, 325 is where we are today, but we'll have to be bigger to be able to compete in the long term. We have technology at our core. We're really a clean-tech battery company first and a car company second. We understand how batteries work, how they integrate with electric vehicles in a way that, honestly, the big car companies are still developing in the capabilities to do.

We will be able to launch cars quicker that are more efficient and work better with longer range. We think that is a real differentiator in the market. And once we have cars out there, and people realize, hey, these cars are great, they're fun to drive, it's a totally different experience from an internal combustion engine car, and it's from a cool new brand called CODA Automotive, we think we can compete in the market.

FLATOW: Oh yeah, and much - many parts of your car are made in China, and then you assemble them in California?

PAULSON: Yeah, the parts of the car are built all over the world. Our final assembly is in Northern California, by the Port of Oakland. We have partners in China that help us develop the battery system. We have joint venture there for the battery. And we also have a contract manufacturing relationship with a car company to do a lot of the assembly and then final assembly in the U.S.

FLATOW: But do you need a new kind of battery? I mean, or we're talking about lithium batteries with Seth Fletcher, and that seems to be the state of the art now.

ED: That's right, and as Seth would tell you, it takes a really long time to develop batteries and get them into cars. The lithium batteries have been in consumer electronics for 10 years or more, and now we're just starting to see them come into play for - in vehicles. It takes, you know, five to seven years to get a product from a consumer product to an auto grade, lots of validation and proving that the batteries are safe and that they'll last the life of the car.

FLATOW: Now, electric cars cost more than gasoline-powered cars. How do you talk somebody into saying, you know, this is better for you in the long run?

PAULSON: Well, the - the first thing I would say is most of the consumers that are buying cars this year or next year and the year after have been wanting EVs for years, just like our caller a few minutes ago. He was waiting in line for his Leaf. The - that will sustain the launch of the industry.

Then what we have to do is drive down price to get it closer to the cost of an internal combustion engine car. Our car, after the federal tax subsidies, is under $30,000. It's $37,000 MSRP, remove the $7,500 federal tax credit gives you an under-$30,000 car. And that car is at cost parity with equivalent IC cars in three years.

We think to really go from the early adopters to the mass adopters that we need to be able to get to that total cost of ownership point within one year. When that happens, and consumers are deciding should I buy this IC car that costs me about 20 cents a mile to drive, or should buy an EV which is close to the same price that costs me 2 cents a mile to drive and is quiet and clean, and guess what, it's actually a lot of fun.

Driving EV is a different experience. It has instant torque off the line. So, you know, when you get into the car, and you hit the accelerator pedal, you feel like you're driving, in a lot of ways, a sports car.

FLATOW: Yeah, yeah. 1-800-989-8255. Let's go to Eric(ph) in San Francisco. Hi Eric.

ERIC: Hi. I'm on the air?

FLATOW: Yes, you are.

ERIC: Yeah, I work for a Northern California utility, in the service planning department, and I see that we're getting a lot of information with new EV vehicles. And so my question to you is: How are the car companies working with the local utilities to develop rates to help incentivize people to buy electric vehicles?

FLATOW: Yeah, can you get - in other words, can you get a cheaper rate charging it overnight, if you plug your car in? And actually your car, if you have enough of them, becomes storage for electricity for around the country, you get enough electric cars with batteries in them.

KARNER: So, Ira...

FLATOW: Yes, go ahead.

KARNER: Definitely, as an infrastructure provider, ECOtality is working with utilities to try to figure out the best way to make electric transportation an asset to the grid rather than any kind of a liability. We generate a great deal of data from our chargers, which are all network-connected, and gather data on 15-minute intervals on power and energy that's being used to charge.

That information is available to utilities. In fact, we print quarterly reports that are posted to our website, TheEVProject.com. And it shows the low-duration curves and how these chargers are being used and how much energy they're using, how much power they're using. And we are participating with the investor-owned utilities in California and the California Public Utilities Commission looking at a number of aspects of charging, including charger ownership, charger rates, how to meter charging energy and how to do that at the lowest possible cost for the ratepayers and the EV owners. So, it is a very active topic with the utilities, with their rate commissions and with infrastructure providers, like ECOtality.

FLATOW: Ronda(ph) in Hendry County, Florida. Hi, Ronda.

RONDA: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I have a 5.2 kilowatt rooftop PV system. And we have lots more roof space. And I want to know how much more do I need in order to plug a car in and charge it during the day? I sell back about 10 kilowatt hours every day. I don't really know the magnitude. I do worry about transferring the pollution from my tailpipe to the power plant. Our power is actually generated by coal where I live. And I don't want to transfer that pollution to where the coal plant has to make the power to charge my car. So I'd like to do it off my rooftop. But I'd like to know how much power do I need to do that?

FLATOW: Let me ask our guy from CODA. Chris, can he do that?

PAULSON: Yeah. The - our car is a 31-kilowatt hour battery car. The - some of the other cars in the market go as low as 24-kilowatt hours, Ronda. The - one thing I would say about EVs versus internal-combustion-engine cars is they're actually a much more efficient usage of the power. So although you are transferring some of your emissions from the tailpipe to the source of coal, an electric motor is 95 percent-plus efficient. So even if you do do that, your overall emission is lower, and it gives the utilities a chance to put renewable energy in place over time and slowly shift the mix to a better mix. In California, we have a very high proportion of renewable energy and the - your - immediately, your emissions are significantly better.

FLATOW: Good luck to you, Ronda.

RONDA: So what capacity do I need on my house in order to do it, though?

FLATOW: Does she have enough excess?

RONDA: As long as I have 24?

PAULSON: So the...

RONDA: OK. Thank you very much.

PAULSON: Ronda, yeah, OK.

FLATOW: All right. She's ahead of the curve. She's off the grid and...

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

PAULSON: That's right.

FLATOW: ...ahead of the curve. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR. I'm Ira Flatow, talking with Chris Paulson, Seth Fletcher, Don Karner. Seth is author of the book "Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy." In the few minutes left, Seth, let me ask you about the conspiracy-type theories rumbling around that, you know, you hear that, oh, there aren't electric vehicles everywhere because the oil industry is stamping them out. But you write that one of the early innovators in lithium battery technology was at Exxon.

FLETCHER: That's correct. You know, in the late-'60s and '70s, faced with the smog crisis in L.A. and then the various oil crises, everybody was into alternative energy, including Exxon. Exxon was diversifying. They were going into office equipment and all kinds of things. And a guy named Stan Whittingham working at an Exxon lab in New Jersey actually developed the first usable rechargeable lithium battery, and that kind of set the, you know, a bunch of other researchers on course to make it practical. So, you know, I don't think that the conspiracy theories are correct. I...

FLATOW: Do you think that it's good that gasoline is going up to $5 a gallon to get more people thinking about electric vehicles?

FLETCHER: Well, I mean, let me put it this way, I think this is - successive electric vehicles depends on two things. One is the cost of batteries, and one is the price of oil. The higher the price of oil and the lower the cost of batteries, the more likely electric vehicles are to become attractive to a lot of people. And where those two numbers cross, I'm not exactly sure. But I don't really see oil getting any cheaper. Every time this year, we seemed shock that oil prices go up anew, as if it's never happened before. And now, we actually have the technology that should allow us to displace some oil if we can get the price of the batteries down.

FLATOW: Don, you agree?

KARNER: Yes, I do. There's obviously a number of other positive benefits from electric transportation, you know, pollution, energy security, that type of thing. But I don't think anyone likes the fact that the price of oil is going up. Certainly, it puts more of a focus on trying to provide alternatives to that. But, you know, we believe that electric transportation provides a whole variety of benefits that will provide that market pull that's going to make them successful.

FLATOW: Chris Paulson, you must be rooting for gas prices to be going up?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

PAULSON: Well, I'm actually, you know, I think that gas prices are an important part of the economy and really do affect people. So it's hard for me to root for gas prices to go up too high.

FLATOW: Yeah.

PAULSON: But, you know, the reality of that - long term, the price of oil will only go up. And we believe that even creating a - call it a hybrid garage, where you have an EV in your garage, and you have a car that you use for longer trips - will substantially reduce the oil usage in America. And we - our goal is to have an EV in every garage in America.

FLATOW: Do you think that's practical? Do you think that's actually - that actually might happen, Seth?

PAULSON: Oh, I'm convinced it will.

FLATOW: Yeah.

PAULSON: It's not a - this is not a next-year thing. And, you know, the - it seems like there's been a small number of EVs sold so far. And compared to the overall - the economy, that's true. But if you compare it to the launch of hybrids 10 years ago, it's right on line with that. And I think you'll see slowly that growth expand. And at a point in the future, I believe that EVs will be a common decision that people make.

FLATOW: Seth, will the batteries we have now make that possible, or are we going to need newer batteries?

FLETCHER: We're going to need better batteries. But, you know, one important thing to note here is that the term lithium ion battery or lithium battery, that's a big umbrella covering a lot of different substrains of batteries. And so, what scientists are working on right now in addition to coming up with new blue-sky breakthroughs is to just squeeze every bit of capability out of the basic lithium battery configuration we can.

FLATOW: Well, we've ran out of time. We'll always keep following this topic. Chris Paulson is senior vice president of corporate strategy and business development at CODA Automotive. Seth Fletcher, senior editor of Popular Science, author of "Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy." Don Karner, chief innovation officer at ECOtality. Thank you, gentlemen...

FLETCHER: Thank you.

FLATOW: ...taking time to be with us today.

KARNER: Thank you, Ira.

Copyright ? 2012 National Public Radio?. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/03/23/149231674/making-the-shift-to-electric-vehicles?ft=1&f=1007

ashley greene mukesh ambani mukesh ambani bob harper x factor judges x factor judges raiders news