As a matter of fact, yes it did. The Democrats pushed through legislation requiring banks to make "no down payment" loans in order to extend housing to as many low-income Americans as possible, and that idiot Bush signed it.
Thanks, I needed a good laugh. Did the government force banks to encourage lenders to borrow substantially more than the house was worth on origination? Were the banks legally obligated to approve home equity loans that were used to fund vacations or car purchases? Were government regulations responsible for the rash of interest-only loans, or loans with balloon payments?
As much as you want to blame poor people for this crisis, the problem was not that lower income people got loans. The problem was that banks originated loans with irresponsible underwriting. Per the banks own congressional testimony: they would offer an "introductory" rate for a short period. When it expired, I would reset to the normal sub-prime rate. The loan originators would underwrite the applicants for the introductory rate, not the subprime rate!! The banks originated loans that they damn well knew would default once the rate reset. The would pocket the origination fees, bundle the bad loans up with a percentage of good ones, and sell the debt off to some other poor schmuck and wash their hands of the issue.
One guy who was insisting he was up, a ridiculous amount in total, was telling me how he hates people who don't play with perfect basic strategy because they fuck up his game - get cards that were meant to be his and so on...Well, he's obviously delusional about statistics/etc
No, you're delusional about how Blackjack works. A common blackjack noobie mistake is to split 10's, which invariably (and correctly) pisses off experienced players. Tens are the most common card in a blackjack shoe. Arguably, the focus of basic strategy assumes that a 'ten' will be your next card. A shoe loaded with tens keeps the deck 'hot' for the player, increasing his chances against the house.
Now, the dweeb who splits his tens does two bad things. First, he breaks up a hand that, most likely will win or push (a total of 20). His new cards will either make his hand worse (2-9: pretty likely), improve it (Ace: not likely), or tie it (10: pretty likely). But if he draws another 10, he will split the hand again.
This leads into the second cardinal sin of splitting 10's: he often depletes the deck of one of its most powerful cards. This makes the odds of winning smaller for all the players at the table. A deck stripped of its tens favors the dealer. Not only does the noob player increase his chances of losing, he increases the chances of losing for everyone else but the house.
When non-parents give parenting advice. Thank you! Thank you for imparting to us poor parents your infinite wisdom of checking the ESRB ratings on the box. We had no idea such a thing existed. As we know, the only way a child can get their hands on a game is when their parents buy it for them. Children never borrow inappropriate games from their friends to play when their parents aren't looking. Nor do they ever purchase games themselves. Your solution is bullet proof! You are truely a savant among non-parents!
Decriminalization is a bad idea. It will only lead to a flourishing black market. The black market doesn't care whether you're 18 or 21. The black market doesn't pay taxes. The black market has no quality control. The black market exposes nice people to the criminal element. Decriminalization will INCREASE the negative effects of marijuana use, not decrease them.
No, decriminalizing it would mean that people would be able to grow their own without fear of hard time for "possession with intent to distribute".
The Soviets knew that SDI wasn't working, just like we did. What scared the hell out of them was that our economy could absorb the hundreds of billions of dollars pursuing a technology that obviously had a low probability of ever working. Keep in mind that this was at a time when the Russians were having problems making the payroll for their own army.
Also, at the time our bases were put in Japan it was in order to keep China happy. At the time everyone in the region was terrified of a Japan with a large military. In order to have Japan not rebuild a significant military we had to promise to defend them. This in turn kept China mostly happy.
No, it was the opposite. We wanted to keep the newly minted Chinese Red Army out of Japan. The Chinese had no problem fighting proxy wars with us (Korea), but they weren't about to invade a country directly that was under our protection. Japan was our Eastern flank in the Cold War.
I noticed that as well. This was the first computer RPG I've played (going back nearly 20 years) that didn't have any grinding. I'm not sure if I miss it or not...
It's also partly due to the expensive Vista/DX10 upgrades required to play new games. Most people required whole new systems, so before they could buy "new" games, they needed to spend $1000 getting up to date hardware.
O RLY?
Can you name one PC game on the market that requires Vista or DirectX 10? And where the hell do you get that $1000 from? I just upgraded my three year old desktop to an AMD Phenom Quad core with a GeForce 9800 GTX+ for under $400. I haven't found a game on the market that it can't run at or near maximum settings.
you don't need to practice dying - it doesn't accomplish anything positive, can be damaging to morale and crew cohesion, and consumes valuable and scarce training resources.
Aren't military test pilots given this *exact* training? In the event of catastrophe, aren't they trained to continue to communicate with ground control to let them know what they are attempting to do, and how their vehicle is responding?
The NASA report stated that the Astronauts passed out nearly immediately from the decompression, as their suits weren't pressurized. The blunt force trauma apparently killed them before asphyxiation.
The fact that we're even arguing weather or not a scene from the Simpsons can be legally considered "Child Porn" just shows how ridiculous the statute is.
"The exhibition starts with the juxtaposition of the Millennium Falcon, which can travel between galaxies effortlessly,... "
Effortlessly??!!? Did these pinheads ever see The Empire Strikes Back? Half the film's storyline was spent just trying to get the damn ship to jump into hyperspace.
I've been saying this for years. Record labels exist for four reasons: 1) To discover profitable talent. 2) To front the cash for their artists to record their albums. 3) To package and distribute their product to retail outlets. 4)To market the product.
For decades, they held a stranglehold on distribution. An independent artist could scrap up enough money to buy some recording studio time, but then what? In order to reach the mass market - and actually make some money - they would *need* a label to produce, market, and distribute the finished product.
The Internet and modern PC's changed all of that. An artist can now record and mix a decent product at home. But now, their recording can instantly be available to *millions*. And best of all, they can pocket nearly 100% of the profit. *THIS* is what has the Major Labels terrified. They see a future where their entire business model goes the way of buggy whip manufacturing.
Even yanking the cable out of the wall won't work, just slow it down a bit. Think burned discs and portable drives and laptops.
Well, then you just go to how things were prior to broadband. Music has been 'pirated' since the creation of home-recordable media. Go back to the 80s/early 90s and half of every kid's music collection was made up of copied cassettes. The difference is volume. If I loaned out my cassette of Appetite for Destruction to ten people, that's 10 copies made. If I put the album on Limewire, that's potentially millions of copies.
I'm also surprised. Every java-program I've run on both windows and Linux was slower on Linux. For instance I made a program which fetched the contents of the clipboard. On windows it took 33ms, and on Linux about 800ms.
On Linux, do you tell the JVM to run in '-client' mode? Linux JVM's, unlike those on Windows, default to run as '-server'. This can lead to a less-responsive feeling GUI application.
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Isn't the RIAA still offering a bounty for turning in Pirates? You're goin' DOWN, Ulrich!
Thanks, I needed a good laugh. Did the government force banks to encourage lenders to borrow substantially more than the house was worth on origination? Were the banks legally obligated to approve home equity loans that were used to fund vacations or car purchases? Were government regulations responsible for the rash of interest-only loans, or loans with balloon payments?
As much as you want to blame poor people for this crisis, the problem was not that lower income people got loans. The problem was that banks originated loans with irresponsible underwriting. Per the banks own congressional testimony: they would offer an "introductory" rate for a short period. When it expired, I would reset to the normal sub-prime rate. The loan originators would underwrite the applicants for the introductory rate, not the subprime rate!! The banks originated loans that they damn well knew would default once the rate reset. The would pocket the origination fees, bundle the bad loans up with a percentage of good ones, and sell the debt off to some other poor schmuck and wash their hands of the issue.
No, you're delusional about how Blackjack works. A common blackjack noobie mistake is to split 10's, which invariably (and correctly) pisses off experienced players. Tens are the most common card in a blackjack shoe. Arguably, the focus of basic strategy assumes that a 'ten' will be your next card. A shoe loaded with tens keeps the deck 'hot' for the player, increasing his chances against the house. Now, the dweeb who splits his tens does two bad things. First, he breaks up a hand that, most likely will win or push (a total of 20). His new cards will either make his hand worse (2-9: pretty likely), improve it (Ace: not likely), or tie it (10: pretty likely). But if he draws another 10, he will split the hand again.
This leads into the second cardinal sin of splitting 10's: he often depletes the deck of one of its most powerful cards. This makes the odds of winning smaller for all the players at the table . A deck stripped of its tens favors the dealer. Not only does the noob player increase his chances of losing, he increases the chances of losing for everyone else but the house.
Yes, and of course, us parents all have the abilities to keep our eyes on our teens 24 hours a day.
And of course, if there's one thing that teens EXCEL at, it's respecting boundaries set by their parents.
Apology accepted. You're still wrong, though.
When non-parents give parenting advice. Thank you! Thank you for imparting to us poor parents your infinite wisdom of checking the ESRB ratings on the box. We had no idea such a thing existed. As we know, the only way a child can get their hands on a game is when their parents buy it for them. Children never borrow inappropriate games from their friends to play when their parents aren't looking. Nor do they ever purchase games themselves. Your solution is bullet proof! You are truely a savant among non-parents!
I could be wrong, but I think that the 'private club' fee only applies to Utah residents.
I bet for every one person you name, I can name twenty that have been hurt or killed by people impaired by alcohol.
No, decriminalizing it would mean that people would be able to grow their own without fear of hard time for "possession with intent to distribute".
Kellogg's screwed the pooch on this one. Have you ever seen how a stoner's eyes light up when he sees a box of Frosted Flakes?
Um. No, we don't. ICE only inspects about 5% of the shipping containers that enter the US. This number has not changed since before 9/11.
The Soviets knew that SDI wasn't working, just like we did. What scared the hell out of them was that our economy could absorb the hundreds of billions of dollars pursuing a technology that obviously had a low probability of ever working. Keep in mind that this was at a time when the Russians were having problems making the payroll for their own army.
It was the oil embargo against Japan that was the big issue.
No, it was the opposite. We wanted to keep the newly minted Chinese Red Army out of Japan. The Chinese had no problem fighting proxy wars with us (Korea), but they weren't about to invade a country directly that was under our protection. Japan was our Eastern flank in the Cold War.
Nope. The DEA is enforcing the interstate commerce clause exactly as it has been interpreted by the Supreme Court. (Gonzales v. Raich).
See: Johnson, Lyndon B.
I noticed that as well. This was the first computer RPG I've played (going back nearly 20 years) that didn't have any grinding. I'm not sure if I miss it or not...
O RLY?
Can you name one PC game on the market that requires Vista or DirectX 10? And where the hell do you get that $1000 from? I just upgraded my three year old desktop to an AMD Phenom Quad core with a GeForce 9800 GTX+ for under $400. I haven't found a game on the market that it can't run at or near maximum settings.
Aren't military test pilots given this *exact* training? In the event of catastrophe, aren't they trained to continue to communicate with ground control to let them know what they are attempting to do, and how their vehicle is responding?
The NASA report stated that the Astronauts passed out nearly immediately from the decompression, as their suits weren't pressurized. The blunt force trauma apparently killed them before asphyxiation.
Why don't Republicans believe in Evolution?
Because the first generation in their sample was Abraham Lincoln. The last was George W. Bush.
The fact that we're even arguing weather or not a scene from the Simpsons can be legally considered "Child Porn" just shows how ridiculous the statute is.
Effortlessly??!!? Did these pinheads ever see The Empire Strikes Back? Half the film's storyline was spent just trying to get the damn ship to jump into hyperspace.
MOD PARENT UP!!!
I've been saying this for years. Record labels exist for four reasons: 1) To discover profitable talent. 2) To front the cash for their artists to record their albums. 3) To package and distribute their product to retail outlets. 4)To market the product.
For decades, they held a stranglehold on distribution. An independent artist could scrap up enough money to buy some recording studio time, but then what? In order to reach the mass market - and actually make some money - they would *need* a label to produce, market, and distribute the finished product.
The Internet and modern PC's changed all of that. An artist can now record and mix a decent product at home. But now, their recording can instantly be available to *millions*. And best of all, they can pocket nearly 100% of the profit. *THIS* is what has the Major Labels terrified. They see a future where their entire business model goes the way of buggy whip manufacturing.
Well, then you just go to how things were prior to broadband. Music has been 'pirated' since the creation of home-recordable media. Go back to the 80s/early 90s and half of every kid's music collection was made up of copied cassettes. The difference is volume. If I loaned out my cassette of Appetite for Destruction to ten people, that's 10 copies made. If I put the album on Limewire, that's potentially millions of copies.
On Linux, do you tell the JVM to run in '-client' mode? Linux JVM's, unlike those on Windows, default to run as '-server'. This can lead to a less-responsive feeling GUI application.