Project needs spark

Being a lifelong Democrat, I find it hard to give Republicans credit for anything. But John McCain has come close to getting it right. His proposal to pay $300 million to anyone who can invent a workable battery that car buyers will buy is on the right track. However, instead of asking for individual effort to invent a battery, why can't our new president, Obama or McCain, provide leadership in establishing a Manhattan-type project?

In the 1940s the Manhattan Project brought together government and private industry to produce the atom bomb at a time when our country was at great peril. Why can't we undertake this sort of project to produce a battery that will reduce, possibly eliminate, our dependence on foreign oil? Increased offshore drilling will degrade our environment. Ethanol fuels will produce food shortages. But a workable battery could provide our freedom from the Middle East.

C.R. VANTREESE

Marietta

Electricity to run cars won't come from thin air

There is a hue and cry for, among other things, electric cars. Seems logical. It would not only reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but oil in general, thereby cleansing the environment. Good. But I must ask, if all cars were converted to electricity today, where would the electrical capacity required to energize them come from? Not coal-fired plants as they've been deemed too dirty. Not nuclear plants because they've been deemed too dangerous and produce waste materials that no one wants to deal with. Alternatives are being developed. They will be online in the not-too-distant future. Drilling may be a "short term" solution, but we need to fill the gap until the alternatives become available.

CHARLIE ROEBER

Cumming

With all our problems, why does GOP haggle over guns?

State Rep. Tim Bearden: Exhibit No. 50 (100? 1,000?) for why the Republican Party is losing its base. We have international terrorists trying to kill us and Homeland Security trying to protect us; we have serious economic issues, a drought and a Georgia judge ruling with environmentalists against building coal-fired power plants, and unfounded national hysteria about nuclear power plants and drilling anywhere within our own country.

Yet Bearden feels compelled to exploit some asinine right to bear arms and then sues financially ailing Atlanta over it? The Supreme Court decision specifically states that "the court's opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions . . . or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings."

Have Republican leaders ever wondered why they can't raise money to finance our campaign against the Democrats?

STEVE SHELBY

Roswell

Seen enough of Nichols' face

I don't know about the other people in the Atlanta area, but I am getting sick and tired of seeing Brian Nichols' face in the newspaper and on the local news almost on a daily basis.

I can't begin to imagine how much the ridiculous case has cost the taxpayers and how much more it will cost before it is resolved.

More than three years have passed since he killed several people in front of witnesses. He and his lawyers are making a mockery of our justice system, and we have become the laughingstock of the world.

JOHN V. ECONOMY

Decatur

Very expensive off-color comments

The headline on July 2, "DOT to pay for sexual remarks," was not an accurate statement. It is the Georgia taxpayer who will be paying the $144,000 as compensation for the "sexually charged comments" to two female employees by former vice chairman Garland Pinholster. Certainly this conduct should not be tolerated. I fail to see, however, how the one employee was "damaged" to the extent of $100,000 or even to the level of $44,000, as awarded the other employee. If every female in government could collect "damages" for inappropriate comments made to them, our state funds would quickly evaporate.

FRAN JORDAN

Norcross