Saturday, August 20th, 2011
Stephan: I couldn't believe this report when I first saw it, but then realized it was an extraordinary datapoint on the trend of moving wealth to the top. You may be having trouble making your car payment but 12 -- yes 12 -- car companies now offer cars costing more than a MILLION DOLLARS. Some cost two million. It's not just the price tag that stopped me; it's that there are 12 companies making these things. And they wouldn't be doing it if there wasn't a market of buyers. Click through to see what you'll never own.
When vintage car collectors go to auctions, they’re used to seeing price tags exceeding $1 million. They may not necessarily buy any of the immaculately preserved specimens on display, but they’re happy to have to opportunity to note the technical specifications and observe the details that make each car a piece of living history.
Then there are cars with million-dollar price tags, where that number represents what you have to pay just to drive them off the lot. These are the luxury cars at the highest of price points, produced in limited edition runs of fewer than 100 and purchased only by the wealthiest clients.
These cars are not available to everybody, nor should they be. They’re not ideal for grocery shopping, picking up the kids from soccer practice or visits to the Taco Bell drive-thru. However, many of them have twin turbo engines that allow them to go faster than 200 miles per hour, so what they are ideal for is going from parked to speeding in less than five seconds.
What are some of the cars with prices exceeding $1 million?
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Saturday, August 20th, 2011
ERIC W. DOLAN, - The Raw Story/Agence France-Presse
Stephan: Thanks to the corrupted Supreme Court there isn't even any need to hide the bribery anymore -- it's all perfectly legal. Do you want to make a guess as to how this story ends, and who's going to take it in the shorts? This is not a good time to be a granny, or a little kid.
he bipartisan ‘super committee’ created by the debt ceiling deal is comprised of lawmakers who have received big bucks from special interest groups, according to a report by MapLight.
The committee is tasked with finding at least $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts over ten years.
In total, the twelve members appointed to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction got nearly $64.5 million from special interests groups over the past decade, with legal firms donating about $31.5 million and Wall Street firms donating about $11.2 million.
Of that $11.2 million, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase donated approximately $2 million combined.
The members appointed to the committee are Sens. Pat Toomey (R-PA), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Rob Portman (R-OH), Patty Murray (D-WA), John Kerry (D-MA), and Max Baucus (D-MT) and Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Fred Upton (R-MI), Dave Camp (R-MI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Xavier Becerra (D-CA), and Jim Clyburn (D-SC).
Democratic and liberal groups donated the third most amount of money, with about $9.6 million in political contributions, and the health industry donated the fourth most, with about $9.3 million.
Club for Growth, a conservative free market group, donated more money than any other organization, contributing a combined $990,066 to the twelve lawmakers. […]
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Saturday, August 20th, 2011
Stephan: Rick Perry, and the rest of the Republican Party, may not believe in climate change but the animals and insects do. You have to ask how can anyone vote for a Presidential candidate who is dumber than your average squirrel? The people behind the anti-climate change disinformation campaign are no better than war criminals in my estimation, and history is going to treat them that way, and wonder at the sheeple who brought them to power.
WASHINGTON - Animals and plants across the world are fleeing global warming by heading north much faster than they were less than a decade ago, a new study says.
About 2,000 species examined are moving away from the equator at an average rate of more than 15 feet per day, about a mile per year, according to new research published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Science that analyzed previous studies. Species are also moving up mountains to escape the heat, but more slowly, averaging about 4 feet a year.
The species - mostly from the Northern Hemisphere due to the available data - moved in fits and starts, but over several decades it averages to about 8 inches an hour away from the equator.
‘The speed is an important issue,’ said study main author Chris Thomas of the University of York. ‘It is faster than we thought.’
The study ‘indicates that many species may indeed be heading rapidly towards extinction, where climatic conditions are deteriorating,’ he said. ‘On the other hand, other species are moving to new areas where the climate has become suitable; so there will be some winners as well as many losers.’
The authors said the study is also the first showing […]
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Saturday, August 20th, 2011
Stephan:
In October 2005, three Citigroup analysts released a report describing the pattern of growth in the U.S. economy. To really understand the future of the economy and the stock market, they wrote, you first needed to recognize that there was ‘no such animal as the U.S. consumer,
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Friday, August 19th, 2011
DAVID EDWARDS, - The Raw Story
Stephan: The growth of the trend of willful ignorance should be a matter of concern to everyone still interested in facts. The Right has a contempt for science believing its research constitutes just another political argument. Part of the process used by deniers is the false equivalency argument which the corporate media likes because it creates sensoids and conflict. We are better than this, and I ask you to contact one least one of your local media outlets and demand they stop using false equivalent debates.
Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry suggested Wednesday that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by scientists who are motivated by cash.
‘There are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects,
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