VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia – Barack Obama loves Virginia; gabapentin medication.Thursday’s rally at Virginia Beach was his 10th visit to the state since he won the Democratic presidential nomination and his third in a little over a week.

And on Friday the Obama camp announced that he will end his campaign with a final rally at Manassas Park in the north of the state.

Obama’s presence here has also had an energizing effect on Virginian politics – gabapentin medication.From the suburbs of Washington D.C.to the seaports of Hampton Roads, Virginia is abuzz with pre-election activity and excitement.

Neighborhoods are dotted with rival lawn signs while campaign offices on both sides are packed with volunteers working phones and examining databases of voter statistics.Historically high turnout is expected Tuesday.

“People have joked that Virginia hasn’t seen this much presidential action since the days when George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (both Virginians) were traipsing around the state,” says Andrew Cain, Political Editor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

With just 13 electoral votes to its name, Virginia is small change compared to the grand prizes of U.S – gabapentin medication.presidential politics: New York with 31 votes, Texas with 34 and California with 55; gabapentin medication.Even among the battleground states its importance is dwarfed by Ohio (20), Pennsylvania (21) and Florida (27).

Not even Bill Clinton and Al Gore or Jimmy Carter — all southerners — could claim the state for the Democrats; gabapentin medication. Gabapentin medication: so why does Virginia appear to matter so much to Obama?

One reason is his friendship with Virginia’s Democratic governor, Tim Kaine.Kaine was the first leading party figure outside of Obama’s political home state of Illinois to endorse his candidacy early in 2007, giving him vital credibility in the south.

Like Obama, Kaine is a Harvard-educated civil rights lawyer who had been talked of as a possible vice-presidential choice; gabapentin medication.”They are very close.They like working together and they actually get on on a personal level,” says Times-Dispatch reporter Jim Nolan.

Virginia also offers Obama an opportunity to land an early blow on election night that would likely render the rest of the evening ceremonial – gabapentin medication.”Obama can be president even if he loses in Virginia but it’s hard to see how McCain could be if he doesn’t win here,” Nolan says.

The symbolism of an Obama victory in Virginia — state capital Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy and a major center of the slave trade — would also be profound, according to John Moeser, a senior fellow at the University of Richmond.

Obama needs to pick up southern states — North Carolina is also considered a battleground state — to lend credibility to his claim to be capable of uniting all Americans under his leadership; gabapentin medication.”The historic nature of an Obama victory would be immensely significant given the history of race in this country — and particularly so in Virginia,” says Moeser.

But Obama has more pragmatic reasons for dedicating so much time and energy to a state he can probably afford to lose.

By forcing Republicans to fight for votes on their own territory — John McCain’s national campaign headquarters is in Arlington in the north of the state — he is tying down Republican resources that could otherwise do more damage elsewhere.

McCain has attempted to take the fight to Pennsylvania — which voted Democrat in 2004 — but, with one eye looking over his shoulder, he will be back in Virginia Saturday in an effort to shore up his campaign here.

Virginia could also be crucial to Democratic hopes of controlling not just the White House but Congress as well; a consolidation of power the party has not enjoyed since the 1960s and which could make or break Obama’s hopes of implementing a program of change.

The Democrats, who currently enjoy a wafer-thin majority in the Senate, have targeted 60 seats — a numerical advantage that would prevent Republicans from blocking any legislation.

One of those gains looks set to come in Virginia where Democrat Mark Warner holds a double-digit poll advantage over his opponent Jim Gilmore.

Obama’s party also has ambitions of extending its control of the House of Representatives – gabapentin medication. Gabapentin medication: democrat Glenn Nye is running a strong campaign against incumbent Thelma Drake in the coastal 2nd District while the retirement of Republican stalwart Tom Davis from the suburban D.C.11th District has raised hopes that Democrat Gerald Connolly can take the seat.

“The fundamentals of this election year could not be more Democratic,” University of Virginia pollster Larry Sabato told CNN; gabapentin medication.”You’ve got a terrible economy, a deeply unpopular president and an unpopular war; gabapentin medication.You put those elements together and it’s going to produce a Democratic victory; gabapentin medication. Gabapentin medication: the only question is, what size?” 

Gabapentin dosage: new YORK – Nearly one in five U.S.mortgage borrowers owe more to lenders than their homes are worth, and the rate may soon approach one in four as housing prices fall and the economy weakens, a report on Friday shows.

About 7.63 million properties, or 18 percent, had negative equity in September, and another 2.1 million will follow if home prices fall another 5 percent, according to a report by First American CoreLogic.

The data, covering 43 states and Washington, D.C., includes borrowers nationwide, even those who took out mortgages before housing prices began to soar early this decade.

Seven hard-hit states — Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Ohio — had 64 percent of all “underwater” borrowers, but just 41 percent of U.S; gabapentin dosage.mortgages.

“This is very much a regional problem, and people tend to forget that,” said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s, who expects home prices nationwide to fall another 10 percent before bottoming late next year.

“Most of the country is not in bad shape,” he continued.”Things seem to be stabilizing in Michigan, but the big bubble states — Florida, California, Arizona and Nevada — are still very overpriced.”

About 68 percent of U.S – gabapentin dosage.adults own their own homes, and about two-thirds of them have mortgages.

JPMorgan Chase & Co, one of the biggest mortgage lenders, on Friday offered to modify $70 billion of mortgages to keep a potential 400,000 homeowners out of foreclosure; gabapentin dosage.Bank of America Corp, which bought Countrywide Financial Corp in July, also has a large loan modification program.

HOME PRICES, ECONOMY UNDER PRESSURE

U.S; gabapentin dosage.home prices fell a record 16.6 percent in August from a year earlier, with declines in all 20 major metropolitan areas measured by the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.

Foreclosure filings rose 71 percent in the third quarter to a record 765,558, according to RealtyTrac.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said gross domestic product fell at a 0.3 percent rate in the third quarter.Some experts expect the worst U.S.recession since the early 1980s.

Yet despite a series of expensive government programs to spur lending, mortgage rates are rising, making it tougher to borrow or refinance – gabapentin dosage.The rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage jumped this week to 6.46 percent from 6.04 percent a week earlier gabapentin dosage, Freddie Mac said.

Meanwhile, borrowing costs on hundreds of thousands of adjustable-rate mortgages are expected to reset higher in the coming months. Gabapentin dosage: the problem may be particularly serious for borrowers with rates tied to the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor, which is abnormally high relative to benchmark U.S.rates.

Last week, Wachovia Corp said borrowers with its “Pick-a-Pay” ARMs and living in or near Stockton and Merced, California, owed at least 55 percent more on their mortgages, on average, than their homes were worth; gabapentin dosage.Wells Fargo & Co is buying Wachovia.

NEVADA HARD HIT gabapentin dosage, NEW YORK AT RISK

First American CoreLogic, an affiliate of title insurance and real estate services company First American Corp, said states with large numbers of homes with negative equity either had rapid price appreciation, many homes bought with subprime mortgages or as speculative investments, steep manufacturing declines, or a combination.

Nevada was hardest hit, where mortgage borrowers on average owed 89 percent of what their homes were worth, and 48 percent had negative equity.Michigan was second, with an 85 percent loan-to-value ratio and 39 percent of borrowers underwater.

New York fared best, with an average 48 percent loan-to-value ratio and just 4.4 percent of mortgage borrowers with negative equity.

But Wyss said this could change as financial market upheaval transforms Wall Street.This month, New York City Comptroller William Thompson estimated that the city alone might lose 165,000 jobs over two years.

“We’re going to see home prices coming down pretty significantly in New York,” Wyss said – gabapentin dosage.” Gabapentin dosage: a lot of people are losing jobs, and won’t be getting their usual bonuses, and that leaves less money for housing.”

Dosage nexium: motorola, shaking up its wireless handset business, plans to ship its first phones based on Google‘s Android software late next year.

The company also delayed a proposed spinoff of that wireless unit as a separate business.That move, planned for the third quarter of next year, has been postponed due to both internal organizational issues and the down economy; dosage nexium.Sales fell 31 percent to $3.1 billion in that unit during the quarter.

In its quarterly report, Motorola blamed that fall in sales on “product portfolio gaps in critical market segments” — particularly 3G devices.It plans to lay off 1,500 people from that business, taking a charge of $104 million.

Motorola (NYSE: MOT), based in Schaumburg, Ill., is treading the path beaten by other mobile phone makers, who have simplified the number of different software platforms they use in their products.

In the past, Motorola has used operating software from multiple sources, but will now focus on Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android system.

Sanjay Jha is the new boss of that handset business — he started work in August; dosage nexium.He hopes to have Motorola’s Android phone on sale by the holidays in 2009.

Motorola lost $397 million in the quarter ended Sept; dosage nexium.27, compared with a profit of $40 million in the same quarter a year earlier.

Sales fell to $7.5 billion in the quarter, down from $8.8 billion a year earlier.

Motorola has laid off 4,800 workers — some 2,500 of them direct employees — in the nine months ended Sept.27.

FROM MTV.COM How bad can the world economy be if people are still giving Guy Ritchie money to make movies? On the 10th anniversary of his breakthrough with “Lock nexium capsule, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” — a film about the near-incomprehensible doings of a group of London toughies with names like Dog, Plank, and Barry the Baptist — Ritchie is back with “RocknRolla,” a film about the almost entirely incomprehensible doings of a group of London toughies with names like Waster, Tank and Fred the Head.Given the crash-and-burn of his last mob job, the utterly incomprehensible “Revolver” (with French Paul, Fat Dan and Lord John), the time would seem to have come for Ritchie to stop making this movie.

The plot of “RocknRolla” can be suggested in only the most impressionistic terms – nexium capsule. Nexium capsule: there’s an old-school bad guy named Lenny (Tom Wilkinson, channeling Bob Hoskins in “The Long Good Friday”) and a new-school Russian bad guy named Uri (Karel Roden, revisiting the shady Russki he played in “The Bourne Supremacy”).There are also a pair of low-level gangsters named One Two and Handsome Bob (Gerard Butler and Tom Hardy), and a pair of unlikely club owners named Mickey and Roman (Jeremy Piven and Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), and a nest of gamblers called the Wild Bunch, and a crafty accountant named Stella (Thandie Newton), and a drugged-out rock star called Johnny Quid (Toby Kebbell), who happens to be Lenny’s stepson (not that it matters); nexium capsule.Suave Mark Strong plays Lenny’s enforcer, Archie, and gives the only really interesting performance in the movie.

– nexium generic

A prominent Democratic fundraiser, who recently made headlines by obtainingBiogen Idec Inc.’s drug Tysabri in defiance of the company’s wishes, has died of cancer in Texas.

A spokeswoman for Fred Baron’s law firm says the 61-year-old died Thursday afternoon – generic for nexium.Baron obtained Tysabri earlier this month through his doctors in hopes of treating his multiple myeloma when other treatments failed.

But while Biogen Idec generic for nexium, based in Cambridge, has started clinical trials to test whether Tysabri is effective as a treatment for multiple myeloma, it has not been formally approved for the disease.

Biogen Idec rejected Baron’s request for the drug, saying it wanted to avoid problems that could lead to further restrictions for other patients taking the therapy.A small number of patients taking Tysabri have contracted a potentially deadly brain disease.

Tysabri has so far been approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat severe forms of multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease.
(AP)