The Queen skips olympic ceremony - Queen praises athletes but will not be there -

The Queen skips olympic ceremony - Queen praises athletes but will not be there - 



In a message to British and Commonwealth athletes released by Buckingham Palace, the sovereign also thanked the volunteers who have given such a “warm welcome” to people from around the world.
The Queen will not attend tonight’s closing ceremony, as Buckingham Palace said there was no official role for a Head of State in the ceremony.
Instead, she is expected to watch it at Balmoral, where she and the Duke of Edinburgh are spending their traditional summer break before returning to London for the start of the Paralympic Games later this month.
Prince Harry, the Duchess of Cambridge and the Princess Royal will represent the Royal family at the Olympic Stadium.
The Queen wrote: “As the 2012 London Olympic Games come to a close, I offer my congratulations to the athletes of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, whose efforts across the range of Olympic disciplines have truly captured the public's imagination and earned their admiration.

Read more -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/queen-elizabeth-II/9470902/Olympics-closing-ceremony-Queen-praises-athletes-but-will-not-be-there.html

Paul Ryan: Former Wienermobile Driver, Future Vice President? -

Paul Ryan: Former Wienermobile Driver, Future Vice President? - 



With November's presidential election drawing close, the tickets are now set, with President Obama and Vice President Biden set to take on Gov. Mitt Romney and newly named Vice President nominee, Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan.

According to a report last year by National Public Radio, the 42-year-old Representative from Wisconsin has a few ties to the automotive world.

Ryan hails from Janesville, Wisconsin, the former home of a GM assembly plant that once built big trucks and SUVs. The plant, which had been assembling machinery of some kind since the early part of the 20th century, was closed at the end of 2008 as GM prepared to enter bankruptcy.

Earlier in that year, Ryan had voted in favor of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, a $700 billion spending program authorized by Congress to stabilize the banking industry as the nation plunged into financial crisis in the same year. Some of the TARP monies were used to invest in General Motors and Chrysler--and much of that money remains locked up in GM shares today. At current share prices, the GM shares would represent a loss of more than $17 billion--and some pundits credit the TARP program with creating the Tea Party conservative movement within Ryan's own Republican party.

But Ryan's deepest connection to the world of cars could be from his teenage years, when the Republican nominee for Vice President worked for Oscar Meyer. Ryan drove the Wienermobile--and as only NPR could observe from that remote province of America called Washington, D.C., "for those who've never seen it, it's a car shaped like a hot dog on a bun."

Read more -
http://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1078422_paul-ryan-former-wienermobile-driver-future-vice-president