New York -- Tough Times For Automakers
 
You would not want to be in the car or truck business right now. For obvious reasons, the public is clearly not in a car or truck buying mood.

"GM's truck sales are down more than 20% so far this year. Sales of Ford's F-Series pickups, the country's best selling vehicle, plummeted more than 40% in June. Chrysler's car sales crashed nearly 50% last month. Even Toyota hit a major road bump," Anthony Mason, CBS News Correspondent reported.
 
So it's not just the American car makers who are hurting?
 
"It's not a foreign automakers-versus-American automakers problem anymore.  All the automakers are feeling it," Mason said. 

Car makers never imagined that gasoline prices would be where they are today.  If they had known that, surely they wouldn't have produced as many gas guzzlers as they have.
 
"Only about 12% of all vehicles out there get better than 25 miles per gallon," Rebecca Lindland, an auto analyst with Global Insight said. 
 
"We haven't seen a double-digit decline in the automotive industry in decades," Lindland said. 
 
Besides, the American public has loved the SUV's and trucks, until recently. And the industry loved them, too --- because there was more profit in them. Not now, of course, Anthony Mason said.
 
"Basically, anyone who makes trucks or big SUVs is really hurting --- and hurting especially because that's where big money was made, sometimes as much as 10-thousand dollars a vehicle. You can't that kind of a profit off a car, certainly not from an American automaker. And so, they can't replace these losses." 
 
Mason says that electric Hybrid, the Chevy Volt, that GM unveiled a year ago is still at least two years from hitting the road. Looks like the next two years will be rough sledding, says Charlie Vogelheim of JD Power and Associates.
 
"This may not be something that everyone will survive intact. This is going to cause a significant shift in the marketplace," Vogelheim said.

Zimbabwe's Mugabe and His African Neighbors
 
Any hopes for a deal under which Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe might agree to new elections or to peacefully share power with his top opponent have been squelched at a summit meeting of African leaders at Sharm El Sheik in Egypt.
 
The final resolution was disappointing to say the least, says CBS News Foreign Affairs Consultant Pamela Falk.
 
"It is shameful that so many African leaders are failing to take a strong position, but are instead balancing Zimbabwe's history of social injustice against the violence and election-rigging of the government of Robert Mugabe,” Falk reported.
Anybody who thought the other countries of Africa would condemn or do anything about Robert Mugabe's sham election at their summit was sadly mistaken, Falk said.
 
"The moral high ground was lost at the African Union summit, where leaders did not satisfy international calls for new elections or a coalition government," Falk said.
 
So, a very light slap on the wrist was all that was all Mugabe got.
 
"The African Union's final resolution went as far as the leadership felt it could go, but failed to recognize the global calls for an end to the government-sponsored violence and new elections that would reflect the March election that gave opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai the lead in the popular vote," Falk said.
 
So, Mugabe wins this round...
 
"Robert Mugabe and his government representatives continue to point to Zimbabwe's colonial history to justify comments that the West may 'hang' --- as well as the confiscation of family farms and the violence against his opponents," Falk said.
 
"But world opinion is growing --- and the U.S. along with Great Britain and France are circulating a UN resolution which calls for sanctions against the government," Falk said.

Molten Salt Stores Solar Power For Electricity 
 
Electric utilities will be able before long to get power at the times of day when they need it most, from solar energy stored in molten salt. 
 
"Molten salt is a metal that, when you heat it up --- you heat it up to about a thousand degrees --- it then retains the heat from the Sun. And that then is used to heat water to make steam to drive a turbine, which makes electricity,“ Lee Bailey, managing director of US Renewables Group said.
 
And without any emissions whatsoever. 

Hamilton Sundstrand, a subsidiary of United Technologies in Connecticut, has teamed up with a private equity firm called US Renewables Group in Santa Monica to design thermal plants for power companies.  Salt is cheap and abundant.
 
"And it loses about one percent of the heat per day, so it's a very efficient means for storing heat," Bailey said.
 
"By virtue of being able to store it, you'll be able to dispatch the power when the utility needs it,” Bailey said.
 
The fact that molten salt can do this is not something that's just been discovered.
 
"Molten metals and the storage of heat in metals has been known for 40 or 50 years. What's new is that when oil was 20 dollars a barrel, it was not cost-effective,” Bailey said.
 
The thermal plant - able to give a utility the extra heat it needs when the bulk of air conditioners, dishwashers and washing machines are running - will be standard size.
 
"In other words, a comparable size to a coal or a natural gas plant at a similar competitive price, with zero emissions,” Bailey said.
 
That's the great thing. No fossil fuel burning, so...
 
"There are no emissions. We don't use natural gas, we don't use oil. We just use a continuous supply of solar heat --- and generally, you're going to locate these in areas where the solar incidence is high,” Bailey said.
 
"Solar incidence" is engineer talk for the sun being out, to heat up the salt. So, they're focusing right now on the Sun Belt and southern Europe. 

The Best Side To Get Out of Bed

Did you get up this morning on the wrong side of the bed? Is there a wrong side of the bed to get out of bed on?
 
Yes, there is. According to a study undertaken by the Premier Hotel Chain, they consulted sleep scientists, motivation psychologists and Feng Shui experts --- and came to the conclusion that the right side is the left side.
 
Psychology and motivation scholar Pete Cohen says the left side helps us all to think rationally about the day ahead --- the right side is responsible for emotions like fear and stress. And Feng Shui practitioner Jan Cisek says getting out of bed on the left is associated with all that people hold dear: family and health, money and power. 
 
Therefore, and please try to follow me, the Right side is the Wrong side --- and the Left side is the Right side. 
 
Sounds like an Abbott and Costello routine:
 
     "You mean I should get out of bed on the right side?"
     "No, that would be the wrong side."
     "So I should get up on the left side?
     "Yes that would be the right side."
 
I always get up on the left side of the bed since that's the side I sleep on. My wife sleeps on the right side --- and for me to get up on the right side, I would have to wake her up. 
 
My guess is that after I leave, when she gets up, she gets up on the right side, since that's the side she's closest to, anyway. And it has the additional advantage of being closer to the bathroom. 
 
But according to this study, what she should do to get up right is roll over to the left side, get out of bed there and walk around the bed to get to the bathroom. Not the shortest route, but it's the one I take every morning. 
 
And since it's dark when I get up --- and I don't want to turn the light on and disturb her sleep --- it increases the possibility that I will step on a shoe or some other object on the floor.  
 
Nevertheless, I'm too old to switch now, nor will I give her that warning --- or share with my wife that each day of her life, she gets up on the wrong side of bed every morning.