Need another reason to live in America's other bastion of social liberalism and homelessness? How about a $1 billion electric vehicle re-charging infrastructure in the Bay Area? Palo Alto's Better Place is finally bringing its ambitious, city-wide electrical grid and battery exchange service home after staking plans to do the same in Israel, Denmark, and Australia. The plan just endorsed by the San Jose, Oakland, and San Francisco Mayors (without coughing up any money), is expected to result in 250,000 charging ports (for topping off charges), 200 battery-swap stations (for trips over 100 miles), and a driver service center by 2012 -- network planing and permitting will begin in 2009 with infrastructure deployment set to kickoff in 2010. Here's how it works, customers will receive a discounted price on electric vehicles when they subscribe to drive a certain number of miles -- Better Place will own the batteries. Besides clearing the way of government bureaucracy, the mayors have agreed to offer incentives for companies that install the plug-in stations. Now get this, Better Place expects to lure electric vehicles from the usual suspects like Toyota, Renault-Nissan, and GM in addition to, get this, Tesla Motors. Oh yes. Almost makes us want to hug an Upper Haight, teenage, poser hippie. Almost.

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Now I'm working on the editing of the Feature Film "Lo Más Importante de la Vida es No Haber Muerto".
The Shooting has just finished today and I will be involved with this until at least Summer 2009. This is one of the most exciting projects that I have been involved in many time!

“Lo Más Importante de la Vida es No Haber Muerto ” is a tragic comedy that grotesquely tells the story of a man who at the age of 65 suddenly experiences the collapse of the essential aspects of his world, and discovers he has been living a lie.

A film by OLPAMAdiversion Films
Produced by Saskia Vischer

Not that electric MINIs are anything new, but unless you were willing to pay for all the mods yourself, procuring one wasn't exactly simple. Now, however, we're hearing that MINI itself will be bringing scads of these buggers to American streets in the summer of 2009. Yeah, like, one year from right now. MINI USA VP Jim McDowell was the source of said statement (so it's pretty much official, yeah?), though he didn't mention whether all of them would be reserved for California or if they would be available sold out nationwide. Hey MINI, we'd say you've got a hit on your hands.

From the word go, amateurs and professionals alike were hot for RED's (relatively) minuscule Scarlet. After all, can you really go wrong with a 3K camera in one hand and a Dairy Queen dipped cone in the other? (No, no you cannot.) Nevertheless, those anxious to see more as the run-up to its early 2009 release continues can feast their eyes on an all new rendering. Oh, and if you're the talkative type, click this link and join in the 8+ page discussion at Scarletuser.com about that image you're eyes are still fixated on above.