Volkswagen is going head-to-head with Smart ForTwo
Posted By RichC on November 7, 2008
The engineers at Volkswagen are working on a smaller version of their “UP!” which intends to be marketed against the Smart ForTwo mentioned in yesterday’s post — the single gas entry for 2009’s Greeen Car of the Year at the LA Auto Show. The new up will be the smallest VW model and will seat 2 people and is being called the ‘2-Liter’ and be based on the UP! platform. They plan on equiping the small fry with a 50 horsepower 1.0L three cylinder diesel. Reports have suggested that this small vehicle will return over 100 mpg, in fact VW is targeting 117 mpg. This should be interesting!
With two of the five cars competing for the “2009 Green Car of the Year” award at this years 
According to FoxNews at 9:15 PM, they have announced that Ohio has gone to Obama with 9% of the vote counted. The projection is early, but after watching a significant number of other states fall, the election looks to be over. Unless something freaky happens, the next President of the United States is Barack Obama. (time to take an Advil)
This Bush administration legacy has created an uphill battle for every Republican candidate, including the realistically moderate Republican John McCain. Unfortunately the last 8 years have made it nearly impossible for a good man like John McCain to be seen without the baggage, even though he has spent his life focused on cutting government waste, its inefficiencies and the corrupt lobbyist driven Washington DC insiders. Unfortunately for Senator McCain, the final hurdles of high energy prices zapping money from consumers this past summer and the years of excessive borrowing by Americans (encourage by both Democrats in congress and Republicans fatcats on Wall Street) have combine to rock the world into an economic crisis. Republicans have received much of the blame and they are tainted with the public’s disgust, leaving the road far easier to travel for an unknown and untested Democrat Barack Obama. I’m not sure all the votes being cast for him are in favor of Senator Obamas’ positions on foriegn policy, or his more government and income redistribution approach, or more a loss in confidence the Republican administration that, besides national security, did little to prevent the recent economic collapse or improve life for the average American — and the poll have been pretty reflective.
Early voting problems are already being noticed in Ohio, at least in my precinct — or perhaps I’m just being hypersensitive? I haven’t cast my ballot yet (waiting for line to shorten), but my wife needed to arrive at the polls early this morning before work — 7:00 AM. She stood in line for a little longer than an hour and noticed that their was a shortage of access cards and that three of the electronic voting machine were down. Poll workers have already made calls to get them back and running and also commented that the line was already formed at the door about 5:30 AM when they arrived. It could get testy if the vote is close in Ohio; expect to hear “
One of the advantages to carrying a full featured PDA Smartphone (eg. Treo 700p) is that messages are sorted into threads. This makes receiving them a bit more welcoming, although I still respond like 
