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Electric Cars: You Want 'Em? We've Got 'Em! digg_url = 'http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/07/17-electric-cars-overview-2005-to-2008.php';Over the past 3 years, we've written about many electric cars here on TreeHugger. We think it's time to look in the rearview mirror, so here's an overview. If you see anything you like, just follow the links to see the original articles.

Starting next year, the Rolls-Royce Group and British Airways hope to test up to four airplane fuel alternatives to kerosene.

The companies are asking suppliers to provide fuel samples for testing in 2009. The companies are seeking fuels that perform as well as kerosene but emit fewer greenhouse gases. They are also taking into account if production of the fuels will have detrimental effects on food supplies, land use and water. Suppliers will also need to ensure the fuels can be mass-produced and distributed around the world.

The fuels will be tested on a Rolls-Royce RB211 engine from a British Airways Boeing 747 at an indoor test engine bed. The companies aren't experimenting on actual flights so that outside factors will not affect performance and emissions. Results will be compared to that of an engine running on kerosene, and the tests will include performance while idling, accelerating, taking off and cruising. Testing will finish by March 2009.

1. Real Men Lead They especially lead in times of crisis. Active respect for nature requires it. Will you stand by and shirk your duty out of ignorance, laziness or both? So many males are nothing more than spoiled babies and have forgotten how to be men. It is up to you to safeguard a clean, safe future for your children. It is up to you to be a responsible steward of the natural blessings we take for granted - particularly in America, a place of vast resources and wealth. A true man sets an example through his own lifestyle. That means greening up your act.

2. Real Men Live for Adventure Real men see life's challenges and crises as great adventures. This doesn't mean they're happy about setbacks and problems; just that they don't shirk their responsibility to leave the planet better than they found it. A real man relies on his inner compass to guide him and ignores the jaded attitudes and simplistic jokes of lazy minds. Maybe you can't admit that Al Gore actually has pretty big cojones. Maybe you think Matt Damon looks ridiculous in his new hybrid. That's fine. It's easy to make fun of other men who are taking action when you're not, but this isn't about organic cotton towels. This is about living as if life were a challenge - because it is, now more than ever.

So start that green website. Sign up for a beach cleanup. Hell, organize your own event. Just start, man. Theodore Roosevelt - easily one of our nation's baddest daddies - started with Yellowstone (along with pioneering Americans Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett) and went on to become one of the most important figures in conserving nature in American history. Being a "man of green" doesn't require political action, however. It could simply mean trading in the SUV and discovering parts of town on your bike that you never knew existed. In future posts we will offer suggestions for adventurous green living (hint: this includes hunting).

CINCINNATI — Democrat Barack Obama received a prideful welcome from the annual NAACP convention Monday night, but in a stirring speech to the nation's oldest civil rights organization, he nonetheless insisted blacks must show greater responsibility for improving their own lives.

The man who could become the first black president urged Washington to provide more education and economic assistance. He called on corporate America to exercise greater social responsibility. But he also received his most lusty applause as he urged blacks to demand more of themselves.

"If we're serious about reclaiming that dream, we have to do more in our own lives. There's nothing wrong with saying that," Obama told a crowd estimated at 3,000. "But with providing the guidance our children need, turning off the TV set and putting away the video games; attending those parent-teacher conferences, helping our children with their homework, setting a good example. That's what everybody's got to do."

He added: "I know some say I've been too tough on folks talking about responsibility. NAACP, I'm here to report, I'm not going to stop talking about it. Because as much I'm out there to fight to make sure that government's doing its job and the marketplace is doing its job, ... none of it will make a difference _ at least not enough of a difference _ if we also don't at the same time seize more responsibility in our own lives."

Amid building cheers, Obama declared: "When we are taking care of our own stuff, then a lot of other folks are going to be interested in joining up and working with us and taking care of America's stuff. We can lead by example, as we did in the civil rights movement. Because the problems that plague our community are not unique to us. We just have them a little worse, but they're not unique to us."

Obama, who grew up without his father, has spoken and written at length about issues of parental responsibility and fathers participating in their children's lives. Yet a similar speech by the Illinois senator on Father's Day prompted an awkward rebuke from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Democratic presidential contender in 1984 and 1988, a protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and a fellow Chicago political activist.

Jackson apologized last week after being caught saying on an open microphone that he wanted to castrate Obama for speaking down to blacks.

Republican candidate John McCain is scheduled to address the NAACP's 99th meeting on Wednesday. President Bush was criticized for not speaking at the convention until 2006 _ his fifth year in office.

Obama spokeswoman Linda Douglass denied the candidate was trying to boost support among white voters with his own "Sister Souljah" moment. Addressing a black audience in 1992, Democrat presidential candidate Bill Clinton accused the hip-hop artist of inciting violence against whites. Some black leaders, including Jackson, criticized Clinton, but it helped reinforce his image as a politician who refused to pander.

"It's not just a speech aimed at black audiences. It's aimed at all parents," Douglass said. Noting Obama also called for more corporate and government responsibility, she added: "This is a larger theme of responsibility."

While Jackson complained about such Obama speechmaking, other civil rights activists from the NAACP disagreed. They think Obama is doing a good job balancing his role as a black candidate with the need to speak to all races.

"He can't be totally focused on the black community," said Kelvin Shaw, of Shreveport, La. Shaw said he is most interested in what Obama plans on nationwide economic issues like rising oil prices, household costs and jobs. "We need to be talking about not one race, but what affects all people."

Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory, the city's first directly elected black mayor, disputed Jackson's argument that Obama is ignoring other important issues for blacks such as unemployment, mortgage foreclosures and the number of blacks in prison.

"I think he absolutely has," Mallory said. Besides his messages about responsibility, Mallory said Obama has talked about jobs, health care, education and other "areas where black people are disproportionately affected."

Civil rights veteran Julian Bond, the NACCP board chairman, drew loud applause in a speech Sunday night when he described Obama's candidacy as a milestone.

"The country seems proud, and I know all of us here are, that a candidate campaigning in cities where he could not have stayed in a hotel 40 years ago has won his party's nomination for the nation's highest office," Bond said.

What if "eating local" in Shanghai or New York meant getting your fresh produce from five blocks away? And what if skyscrapers grew off the grid, as verdant, self-sustaining towers where city slickers cultivated their own food?

Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University, hopes to make these zucchini-in-the-sky visions a reality. Dr. Despommier's pet project is the "vertical farm," a concept he created in 1999 with graduate students in his class on medical ecology, the study of how the environment and human health interact.

The idea, which has captured the imagination of several architects in the United States and Europe in the past several years, just caught the eye of another big city dreamer: Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president.

When Mr. Stringer heard about the concept in June, he said he immediately pictured a "food farm" addition to the New York City skyline. "Obviously we don't have vast amounts of vacant land," he said in a phone interview. "But the sky is the limit in Manhattan." Mr. Stringer's office is "sketching out what it would take to pilot a vertical farm," and plans to pitch a feasibility study to the mayor's office within the next couple of months, he said.

"I think we can really do this," he added. "We could get the funding."

Spectators will not be allowed to take banners, musical instruments and soft drink containers into Olympic venues, according to a set of rules released Monday.

The Olympic venue rules, promulgated by BOCOG, 25 days ahead of the Games, advise spectators not to bring into the venues support banners or leaflets of commercial publicity, religion, politics, military, human rights or environmental and animal protection.

Huang Keying, a BOCOG official, said the rules, including 22 restrictions and four prohibitions, are completely in line with the Olympic Charter.

"Each spectator is subject to the rules aimed at maintaining security and order of the venue," he said.

Li Yong, a BOCOG volunteer, told the Xinhua News Agency people with banners will be stopped at the entrance security check.

Barack Obama's endorsement of a white incumbent facing a black primary challenger has disappointed some members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who are wondering whether he will support them in their primaries.

Last month, the Illinois senator surprised many political observers by endorsing centrist Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.) in Tuesday's primary against state Sen. Regina Thomas.

A House committee today announced that it had hit a dead end after months of investigating the mishandling of the death of Cpl. Pat Tillman, the N.F.L. player-turned soldier.

According to the draft report, the inquiry was "frustrated by a near universal lack of recall" from senior officials. "Not a single one could recall when he learned about the fratricide or what he did in response," the report said just before noting Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's testimony: "I don't recall when I was told and I don't recall who told me."

Indeed, Mr. Rumsfeld and other military officials used some variation of "I don't recall" at least 82 times in three hours, according to one count from the committee's hearing on the subject last year.

Even as the Bush administration moved to rescue the nation's largest two mortgage companies, confidence in the banking sector spiraled downward Monday.

In the Los Angeles area, lines snaked around IndyMac Bancorp branches for blocks, as customers made withdrawals from the bank, which failed last week. In Cleveland, National City Corporation denied a rumor that its customers were also demanding their money.

In Washington, federal regulators tried to broadcast the message that plummeting stock prices should not cause consumers to panic about the safety of their savings. And on Wall Street, analysts began circulating lists of regional and local banks that might be next to fall.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Relations Committee, is wasting no time, and has announced that he will investigate Stephen Payne, a GOP lobbyist with ties to the Bush administration who allegedly solicit donations for the library in return for meeting with top administration officials.

Payne was the subject of an article in the Sunday Times of London this past weekend, including video. Payne, a major fundraiser for the Bush campaign in 2000 and 2004, is seen telling "Eric Dos," a Kazakh politician whose full name is Yerzhan Dosmukhamedov, that he can help arrange meetings with top Bush officials for Askar Akayev, the former president of Kyrgyzstan, who is now in exile in Moscow in return for donation to the yet-to-be-built Bush library. Payne suggested Dos get Akayev, or more precisely his children, kick in "maybe a couple of hundred thousand dollars, or something like that, not a huge amount but enough to show that they're serious." And Payne's firm would also pocket several hundred thousand dollars for its help.

Unfortunately for Payne, the Sunday Times had a reporter secretly videotaping his meeting with Dos, and now Waxman is looking into the matter.

From Australia to South Africa, from the Bosporus to northern France, American fans of Barack Obama have been staging rallies abroad at world-famous bridges to show support for the Democratic presidential candidate and his pledge to span old political divisions.

As Obama prepares his first overseas trip as a presidential candidate in the next week, with stops in the Middle East as well as Berlin, Paris and London, Democrats abroad are looking to him to refurbish the reputation of the United States after the tarnishing of the Iraq war and Guantanamo.

Europeans as well see him as the odds-on favorite over Republican rival John McCain. A poll in London's Guardian newspaper Monday showed Obama winning over 53 percent of the British public, compared with 11 percent for McCain, with 36 percent undecided. Similar polls in Germany and France also show overwhelming support for Obama.

The "Obama bridge" project was the brainchild of Meredith Wheeler, an American expatriate who's living in a small village in the south of France, but it's been embraced across Europe and well beyond. There have been at least nine bridge rallies in France -- from the Pont Neuf in Paris to an ultramodern viaduct at Millau in southern France -- and multiple events in Germany and Britain.

Sen. John McCain addressed a conference of the National Council of La Raza in San Diego a day after his opponent, Sen. Barack Obama appeared before the nation's largest Latino civil rights group.

Less than a minute into his speech protesters shouted repeatedly, "Bring our sons home."

McCain was in the middle of a sentence talking about respect for Hispanic heritage when the small protest in the back of the room caused him to stop abruptly and say, "this happens every once in a while."

Christopher Knight says he's "hurt deeply" that his Brady Bunch mom, Florence Henderson, publicly called his marriage to reality-TV costar Adrianne Curry a mistake.

"It hurts me deeply that someone that I have loved and respected for so many years ... would discuss overtly negative personal opinions about my marriage in a public forum," the My Fair Brady star writes on his MySpace page. "I can only hope these recent comments are an aberration."

HANOI, Vietnam — Miss USA has learned a simple lesson from her humiliating tumble during the Miss Universe pageant _ the second year in a row the American contestant has taken a spill.

"I think I'm going to have to take some walking classes," Crystle Stewart told The Associated Press during a telephone interview Monday, just hours after her mishap was broadcast live across the globe.

"I would never have thought in a million years that I would fall down at the Miss Universe pageant _ right after Miss USA fell last year," Stewart said. "I always wondered: My God, if that happened to me, what would I do?"

Stewart is taking the episode with equal parts humor and philosophy, determined to move on.

"Things happen," said Stewart, 26. "I"m perfectly fine. I'm going to move back to New York and get on with my life."

Stewart's fall came as she walked on stage for the evening gown competition.

"My dress has beautiful beads on the bottom of it, and I stepped on my gown and they made me slip. It was like I was on Rollerblades. There was no conspiracy or anything. Nobody left marbles on the floor. It was just me."

Miss Venezuela, who won the contest, will now become Stewart's roommate in New York, where Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA share an apartment provided by the company that owns all three pageants.

Stewart and the other contestants attended a coronation party for the new Miss Universe, Dayana Mendoza, on Monday night in Nha Trang, where the pageant was held.

Stewart is a motivational speaker and has developed a character education program which she teaches in a New York City school. She plans to turn her mishap into a lesson.

"I'll be talking to my students about it when I get back," she said. "Sometimes you fall in life, not just in the pageant but financially or emotionally. It's not about the fall but how you pick yourself up."

After she fell down, Stewart stood up, gave herself a round of applause, and kept on walking.

During the 2007 Miss Universe contest in Mexico City, Miss USA Rachel Smith also tumbled during the evening gown competition and became an unintended star on YouTube, where the video was shown over and over again.

Now Stewart has become an Internet sensation, drawing thousands of hits on YouTube and lighting up the conversation in Internet chatrooms.

Stewart is determined not to let the ridicule bring her down.

"I know I'll get through it and that there are bigger and better things to come," she said.

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