Pop star Madonna, pictured here in August 2012, revealed more than skin when she pulled off her top at her New York concert Thursday -- showing off black letters on her lower back spelling "OBAMA." AFP - Provocative pop star Madonna revealed more than skin when she pulled off her top at her New York concert Thursday -- showing off black letters on her lower back spelling "OBAMA."
"Tonight I'm not going to show my a**," she said, according to US media."I'm going to show my feelings. How's that for living dangerously?"
Photos of the singer -- standing with her back to the 40,000-strong Yankee Stadium crowd in a black bra with the letters painted below -- were immediately tweeted by concertgoers.............................>>>>....................>>>>..............................http://www.france24.com/en/20120907-madonna-backs-obama-literally
Obama Expands Lead in Three Tracking Polls Despite a mixed reaction to President Obama's convention speech and a mediocre jobs report this week, all three daily tracking polls show Obama expanding his lead in the presidential race over Mitt Romney.
Gallup: Obama 49%, Romney 45%.
Reuters/Ipsos: Obama 47%, Romney 43%.
Rasmussen: Obama 46%, Romney 44%.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
We're now 60 hours or so past the Democratic convention. It is now clear that the Democrats got the better of the convention bounces. Indeed, recent national polls suggest that the Democrats' bounce not only erased some tenuous gains by Romney, but is propelling Obama into a commanding lead. In fact, Obama is now polling stronger than at any time in the last six months.
~ Today's release of Rasmussen's tracking poll showed Obama leading Romney by four points, 49 percent to 45 percent ~Ipsos/Reuters and Gallup are also reporting Obama +4 results over essentially the same field periods.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
~ Today's release of Rasmussen's tracking poll showed Obama leading Romney by four points, 49 percent to 45 percent ~Ipsos/Reuters and Gallup are also reporting Obama +4 results over essentially the same field periods.
By Bernie Woodall and Paul Lienert and Ben Klayman
Mon Sep 10, 2012 12:24am EDT
(Reuters) - General Motors Co sold a record number of Chevrolet Volt sedans in August — but that probably isn't a good thing for the automaker's bottom line.
Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds, according to estimates provided to Reuters by industry analysts and manufacturing experts.
Cheap Volt lease offers meant to drive more customers to Chevy showrooms this summer may have pushed that loss even higher. There are some Americans paying just $5,050 to drive around for two years in a vehicle that cost as much as $89,000 to produce.
And while the loss per vehicle will shrink as more are built and sold, GM is still years away from making money on the Volt, which will soon face new competitors from Ford, Honda and others.
GM's basic problem is that "the Volt is over-engineered and over-priced," said Dennis Virag, president of the Michigan-based Automotive Consulting Group.
And in a sign that there may be a wider market problem, Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi have been struggling to sell their electric and hybrid vehicles, though Toyota's Prius range has been in increasing demand.
GM's quandary is how to increase sales volume so that it can spread its estimated $1.2-billion investment in the Volt over more vehicles while reducing manufacturing and component costs - which will be difficult to bring down until sales increase.
But the Volt's steep $39,995 base price and its complex technology — the car uses expensive lithium-polymer batteries, sophisticated electronics and an electric motor combined with a gasoline engine — have kept many prospective buyers away from Chevy showrooms.
Some are put off by the technical challenges of ownership, mainly related to charging the battery. Plug-in hybrids such as the Volt still take hours to fully charge the batteries - a process that can been speeded up a bit with the installation of a $2,000 commercial-grade charger in the garage.
PLANT SHUTDOWN
The lack of interest in the car has prevented GM from coming close to its early, optimistic sales projections. Discounted leases as low as $199 a month helped propel Volt sales in August to 2,831, pushing year-to-date sales to 13,500, well below the 40,000 cars that GM originally had hoped to sell in 2012.
Out in the trenches, even the cheap leases haven't always been effective.
A Chevrolet dealership that is part of an auto dealer group in Toms River, New Jersey, has sold only one Volt in the last year, said its president Adam Kraushaar. The dealership sells 90 to 100 Chevrolets a month.
The weak sales are forcing GM to idle the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant that makes the Chevrolet Volt for four weeks from September 17, according to plant suppliers and union sources. It is the second time GM has had to call a Volt production halt this year.
GM acknowledges the Volt continues to lose money, and suggests it might not reach break even until the next-generation model is launched in about three years.
"It's true, we're not making money yet" on the Volt, said Doug Parks, GM's vice president of global product programs and the former Volt development chief, in an interview. The car "eventually will make money. As the volume comes up and we get into the Gen 2 car, we're going to turn (the losses) around," Parks said.
"I don't see how General Motors will ever get its money back on that vehicle," countered Sandy Munro, president of Michigan-based Munro & Associates, which performs detailed tear-down analyses of vehicles and components for global manufacturers and the U.S. government.
It currently costs GM "at least" $75,000 to build the Volt, including development costs, Munro said. That's nearly twice the base price of the Volt before a $7,500 federal tax credit provided as part of President Barack Obama's green energy policy. Other estimates range from $76,000 to $88,000, according to four industry consultants contacted by Reuters. The consultants' companies all have performed work for GM and are familiar with the Volt's development and production. They requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of their auto industry ties.
Parks declined to comment on specific costs related to the Volt.
The independent cost estimates obtained by Reuters factor in GM's initial investment in development of the Volt and its key components, as well as new tooling for battery, stamping, assembly and supplier plants — a price tag that totals "a little over" $1 billion, Parks said. Independent estimates put it at $1.2 billion, a figure that does not include sales, marketing and related corporate costs.
Spread out over the 21,500 Volts that GM has sold since the car's introduction in December 2010, the development and tooling costs average just under $56,000 per car. That figure will, of course, come down as more Volts are sold.
The actual cost to build the Volt is estimated to be an additional $20,000 to $32,000 per vehicle, according to Munro and the other industry consultants.
The production cost estimates are considerably higher than those for the Chevrolet Cruze, the Volt's conventional gasoline-engine sister car, which Munro estimates at $12,000 to $15,000 per vehicle.
Production costs typically include such items as parts, material, labor and the cost to run the factory, according to manufacturing expert Ron Harbour, who heads the North American Automotive Practice at Michigan-based consultant Oliver Wyman.
The Quote of the Decade: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America 's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that, "the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better." ~ Senator Barack H. Obama, March 2006
The Quote of the Decade: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America 's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that, "the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better." ~ Senator Barack H. Obama, March 2006
That remark was made during a relatively good economy, with an administration that took over with a surplus. Quite the opposite from the first 4 Bush years to the situation which began the first 4 Obama years.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
That remark was made during a relatively good economy, with an administration that took over with a surplus. Quite the opposite from the first 4 Bush years to the situation which began the first 4 Obama years.
all the while he was fattening up the teachers over there
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Why did Obama use the N-word to describe his grandfather? By Dinesh D'Souza Published September 11, 2012 FoxNews.com
“My image of Onyango, faint as it was, had always been of an autocratic man—a cruel man, perhaps. But I had also imagined him an independent man, a man of his people, opposed to white rule… What Granny had told us scrambled that image completely, causing ugly words to flash across my mind. Uncle Tom. Collaborator. House black person.” In one of the most remarkable passages in Barack Obama's "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," he uses the terms "collaborator," "Uncle Tom," and "House black person" to describe someone he detests. That someone, it turns out, is his own grandfather! We have a striking phenomenon here: the first African American president using the N-word, and to refer to his own grandfather! Ordinarily this would be occasion for massive comment and analysis, but if there has been any, I am not aware of it. So what could possibly cause the president to describe his own grandfather in this appalling way? The answer, it turns out, provides an important insight into Obama’s character. The president is not the healer and unifier that he said he was four years ago. Rather, he views people who disagree with him—including members of his own family—in terms of ideological kinship or betrayal. And by Obama’s standard, even his own grandfather is an ideological sellout deserving of insults and abuse....................>>>>.................>>>>................Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion.....ather/#ixzz26FxozxzH
A new Pew Research poll finds that substantially more Democrats than Republicans view the campaign as interesting and informative in the wake of the party conventions.
Key findings: 66% of Democrats say the presidential campaign is interesting while just 27% say it is dull. Among Republicans 50% say it is interesting while 45% describe it as dull. The gap is about as wide in opinions about whether the presidential campaign is informative - 68% of Democrats say it is informative, compared with 49% of Republicans.
Four years ago, nearly identical percentages of Republicans (75%) and Democrats (74%) said the campaign was interesting. And similar majorities of both groups viewed the campaign as informative (62% of Republicans and 59% of Democrats).
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows President Obama attracting support from 46% of voters nationwide, while Mitt Romney earns 45% of the vote. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided.
The president received a modest convention bounce, but that's now gone. On the day the conventions began, Obama was up by two points. Now the numbers are essentially back to that starting point with the president leading by a point. See daily tracking history.
When “leaners” are included, it’s Romney 48% and Obama 47%. Leaners are those who initially indicate no preference for either candidate but express a preference for one of them in a follow-up question.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows Mitt Romney attracting support from 47% of voters nationwide, while President Obama earns 46% of the vote. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided.
This is the first time in a week that Romney has held even a single-point advantage. See daily tracking history. Romney is now supported by 18% of white Democrats.
Romney has solidified the GOP vote and holds a 77-point lead among Republicans. That’s slightly larger than Obama’s 72-point advantage among Democrats.
New Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist polls show President Obama building leads over Mitt Romney in Ohio, Florida and Virginia among likely voters.
Florida: Obama 49%, Romney 44%
Ohio: Obama 50%, Romney 43%
Virginia: Obama 49%, Romney 44%
"These states - all of which Obama carried in 2008 but which George W. Bush won in 2004 - represent three of the most crucial battlegrounds in the 2012 presidential election. And according to NBC's electoral map, Romney likely needs to capture at least two of these states, if not all three, to secure the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the presidency."
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
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