Governor revisits solar power promise
SACRAMENTO — Four months after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ambitious pledge of a million solar-powered homes died in a legislative committee, his administration is trying again.
The goal itself has little overt opposition. The rub is how to pay for the incentives that make solar panels affordable.
California already is the world’s third-largest market for solar technology, but advocates say a statewide incentive plan of the sort Schwarzenegger envisions would spur installation on a par with leaders like Japan and Germany.
His Resources and Environmental Protection agencies are gathering ideas at an event Monday, while the proposal’s legislative sponsor says he’d like to see an even broader incentive package that would include businesses and fuel cell technology.
The right incentives could clean California’s dirty air and ease the energy dependence that dimmed lights across the state in 2000 and 2001, says an advocacy group’s report being released Monday. Helping individual homeowners afford solar power would have widespread benefits for the state as a whole, contends the Environment California Research and Policy Center.
Marine sacrifices ring finger for symbol of vows
VICTORVILLE — When Marine Lance Cpl. David Battle learned he’d either have to sacrifice his ring finger or his wedding ring, he didn’t think twice before telling doctors at a field hospital in Iraq to cut off the finger.
The 19-year-old former high school football star had suffered a mangled left hand and serious wounds to his legs in a Nov. 13 firefight in Fallujah, and doctors were preparing to cut off his ring to save as much of his finger as they could.
“But that would mean destroying my wedding ring,” he said he quickly realized. “My wife is the strongest woman I know. She’s basically running two people’s lives since I’ve been gone. I don’t think I could ever repay her or show her how grateful ... how much I love my wife, my soul mate.”
So doctors cut off his finger, but somehow in the chaos that followed, they lost his ring.
Although Battle was disappointed, his wife, Devon, was honored.
“I can’t believe he did that,” she said. “At first I was mad when he told me, but then I realized how lucky I am to have him in my life.”