NoCalMike

Owning a house might be put in the proper perspective again. Houses will no longer be treated as sources of credit, but strictly as living spaces. Houses will become affordable again. According to the article I posted above, perhaps houses will become smaller and use less energy. That's about all I can think of right now. But, the point really is that this needs to happen and will happen because the housing bubble cannot be sustained, not necessarily that it ought to happen. I agree with you that it would be nice to continue building new houses and therefore support the people in the industries reliant on that business, but we don't have the money to do that. It would be nice if everyone had all their basic necessities taken care of and didn't need to work, but that's not reality. You bring up a good point here, and I think I mentioned it earlier in this thread. Before the housing bubble burst, housing prices were out of fucking control. Three bedroom houses going for $400,000. Housing prices like that, especially in areas that do not have wages to support it, lead in to people taking out ridiculous loans they cannot afford and the cycle continues. I think one of the problems is that people are looking at houses as a way to make money in the future, rather then simply a place to live. Now, in essence there is nothing wrong with property value going up, as inflation goes up, but the house marking of the early 2000's way out of control, and I don't think enough people are showing enough concern for that situation that is bound to repeat itself.

I just hope he doesn't fight if his knee is all fucked up. The last thing we need is a hobbled Mir to take the fight, and then if he ends up losing, whether it actually has anything to do with the knee or not, it will be a big question mark, and it won't feel kosher that he took a fight so soon after getting his knee scoped. The problem is that besides Brock, the heavyweight division is so devoid of "stars" or anyone that seems head and shoulders above the pack, that it is hard to pick a replacement that will "wow" the masses. Did Arlovsky wake up yet? What's he doing? If they can come up with something else to replace Lesnar/Mir, I'd just do that and hold off the match until 99 or 100, instead of just throwing someone in the slot out of desperation.

I lost track of the series, somewhere during Season 5 and haven't even seen any of Season 6. How do they standup to the first four seasons which were excellent.(Actually I think Season 1 is just good, but 2,3,4 were amazing).

It doesn't seem like Oakland is a major media market or at least the way the A's are treated, I mean they are pretty much totally overshadowed by the Raiders and even the San Francisco teams. The A's struggle to get any type of coverage outside of their home base city, while the Giants seem to have syndication for their games in every city/town/suburb within a 300 mile radius. It just feels like they are treated as "that other team" the local media has to cover, where as in a place like Sacramento they would be the feature during baseball season, especially in a time like now where the Kings are god awful. I always thought Raley Field was pretty sweet for an AAA stadium, what are you basing the "average" label on, the size?facilities?design? It certainly can't be labeled that because of attendance or enthusiasm, which I'd say is one of the tops in the league, of course having the A's farm system team doesn't hurt as they regularly produce excellent prospects. Right now on an average weeknight game of baseball, the A's are barely drawing enough folks to fill up Raley Field as it is.

I would rather pay for Marquez/Diaz then Paq/Hatton. Hatton is going to get torn apart, but I guess that could be worth seeing, eh?

Well not playing to 100 million dollars is not that much of a stretch, but really if he can demand a double-team on the interior line, then he is doing his job. He will be the anchor on the line. Plus we'll wait for the draft to see if any picks go to the DE. I am less confident about DeAngelo Hall, but again he has a very good secondary around him, I mean Carlos Rogers is good, Horton was a breakout rookie, and Laron Landry will be playing over the top most of the time. I don't think Hall is going to be left out on an island with WR's very often. Kind of similar as to how Smoot was used in the defense when he was playing opposite Bailey, some years back.

Well if I remember correctly, the Fremont stadium was going to be the smallest capacity stadium in MLB already, so you wouldn't really have to expand Raley Field THAT much, I think the Fremont stadium maxed out in the mid to upper 30k, and Raley Field, including grass seats can get up to 20k, I believe. Hell I'd definately accept having a smaller stadium capacity if it meant a more intimate die-hard fan atmosphere, over some bloated 60k stadium that is 2/3rd empty every night and has more visting fans attending anytime a big city team comes through. Sacramento has already showed it has a die hard fan base that will support the team, look at the Kings and the Rivercats. It would be nice, but yeah it's probably a pipedream.

Haynesworth is a pretty damn good upgrade to the middle of the line. An interior lineman that can demand a double team consistantly is a hard commodity to find. Also this was a great signing because the Skins didn't just sign him because he was a big name, it is actually what their defense was missing last season. Redskins DE's often beat their men on one-on-one coverage, but because the middle of the D-line had absolutely no push, the QB could just step forward and avoid the rushers Now with Haynesworth in the middle, the pocket is going to be pushed backwards, which leaves the QB a lot more vunerable to the pash rush. Also, with the resigning of DeAngelo Hall, the secondary will be pretty strong, allowing even more time for Pass Rushers.

The Democrats don't have to own anything. Republicans were in charge of the war when that went bad, so they got blamed. Republicans were in charge of economic policy when the economy went bad, so they got blamed. If things don't get better, the Democrats just need to claim "things are worse than we thought, we need more time to undo all the damage the Republicans did." They don't have to own anything, but the voters have entrusted the Democrats to fix the problems. Like one journalist noted, "Obama voted against the war, but he's inheriting the responsibility to end it." It's not about owning anything, it's about whose responsibility it is to fix it. And if things don't improve, we will reach the point where no one will want to hear about how it's the Republicans' fault. The way things are right now, Obama pretty much has enough votes in Congress and enough political capital right now to get things done. Blaming the Reps might work for a little while, but in the long run we need to see progress or things will get ugly. True to a certain extent. The only frustration is that, take the stimulus package for instance. The version that was signed into law is very different from the one originally proposed. Now, some would say "hey that's compromise" but others would say that the version signed into law is not enough and that in order to really help the economy, we needed the bill in it's original form. I can respect bi-partisanship on some level, but the last two elections kind of served as a mandate in my opinion that the american people were not happy with the economic polices that led to the current situation(among other things such as the war in iraq) and when it comes to things like economic policy, the fact is that both parties have a completely different philosophy on what makes the economy go. If the last two elections said anything, it was that the american people wanted a big change from the policies that were in place, and compromising on something as essential as the plan for economic recovery is not something the new majority should be willing to compromise on so much that it renders the bill a lot less effective if not completely useless. Of course with how poor republicans are polling overall, I also call into question why the Dems weren't willing to fight it out a little more to keep the original bill intact.

Well couldn't you argue that our military, police force, firestations etc etc are socialist organizations? So in some regards you could argue we are a mixed economy, and maybe one in which more "commons" such as healthcare should be more socialist then for-profit. Oh and Thom Hartman does his show from CPAC every year and he had that 13 year old kid on, and the kid basically repeated that speech, but then starting going on a tangent about terrorist cells in america that Obama is letting happen, and he claimed because he read a website about it, it was true. Needless to say that was a slip-up and he was destroyed for it. The kid is going places though, I agree with whoever said, he will probably turn out to be a speechwriter.

The guy's ability is decent, but the content sounds like a best of Michael Savage show, rather then thought-out personal experience related to why he believes the policies he does. And what is with the "socialist" term being thrown around. Is this just the latest(well it has been going on since the campaign) desperate attempt from a party that has no ideas on how to fix the problems we are facing? Isn't Obama just looking to restore tax rates to what they were under the Clinton years? I mean I hardly see/hear anyone, including conservatives looking back on the 90's as a sad socialistic period in our history.

Did you miss the part where I said it was a conspiracy theory? I never said I BELIEVED it. It was just the ying to the right's yang.

As ab A's fan they have definately done enough on paper to make them at least fun to watch again. Last season was difficult to get though, especially post-trade deadline. Lets hope they can get the most out of the FA signings, and the young pitching comes along like it always seems to. Also, I read a story saying any move to Fremont is officially dead. Lets hope this opens the door for a move to Sacramento, (yeah right, but *crosses fingers* anyway)

I still don't understand why the Dems have to "own the bad economy" It wasn't their policies that put us here. Now, an argument can be made in four years (if nothing is better or it is worse) that they couldn't do anything to fix the problems, but to say they must own the bad economy after being in office for a month seems kind of a stretch.

Jardinomics states that he will. Beats Griffin -----> KO'd by Houston ------> Beats Chuck ------> KO'd by Wand -------> Beats Vera ------> KO'd by Rampage. It's hard to argue with such an advanced level of MMAth. The fact that part of the advertisement for this PPV is that Rampage gets a title shot with a win, but Jardine gets umm...a high five for a win(!?!) could mean that the natural order of things is once again thrown out of whack and Jardine wins with a devastating KO, hahaha. If for nothing else but to screw up Dana White's plans. How does it screw up Dana's plans? If Rampage loses, he has match already in place with Machida/Evans. Jardine wouldn't fight Evans anyway. They are close friends, and training partners. I hadn't heard that Machida gets a title shot if Rampage loses. Is that official? I mean I know technically that would be the right thing to do, but this is the UFC.

Michelle Williams is putting in some work in her new flick Incendiary

THAT, and "oh we got away from our TRUE VALUES and spent money" as if that is ever going to change from either party. Both parties spend a lot, it is just what they choose to spend it on.

Hell if there is any conspiracy out there to be believed, it is that the GOP wanted to keep the news of how bad the economy was under wraps until Obama was sworn in, so he could be looked at as a big cause of it(typical stupid thinking) but it got so bad that the GOP leadership couldn't continue to say everythinhg is fine.

Jardinomics states that he will. Beats Griffin -----> KO'd by Houston ------> Beats Chuck ------> KO'd by Wand -------> Beats Vera ------> KO'd by Rampage. It's hard to argue with such an advanced level of MMAth. The fact that part of the advertisement for this PPV is that Rampage gets a title shot with a win, but Jardine gets umm...a high five for a win(!?!) could mean that the natural order of things is once again thrown out of whack and Jardine wins with a devastating KO, hahaha. If for nothing else but to screw up Dana White's plans.

The aiming takes a little time to get used to, also since headshots don't necessarily kill enemies in a single shot, sometimes it is hard to determine if you killed a guy or he just ducked down to hide for a second. The enemy AI in this game is pretty smart, they run for cover, try to flank you, follow you, throw grenades, and you have to be pretty slick throwing grenades at them because when you do, the enemy usually sees it and announces it to his squad and they scatter. The best thing to do is get them in a corner and then throw a grenade, or try to look around corners and not be spotted, and then throw one. Pretty badass action and chaotic, it just takes time getting used to for me because I just got done with Resistance 2 in which the aiming is very lax, and pretty easy to shoot anything moving.

Anyone else picking the game up tonight? I'm excited the game looks magnificent and has been getting lots of love from every game outlet I've seen/read.

Are the Guitar Hero World Tour periphrials compatible with Rock Band 2 as well, including the drums? I wouldn't mind owning both games, but not if I have to buy two sets of instruments.

Well look at the GOP's response to Obama running/winning. First it was Palin, then Michael Steele, then Jindal....see a pattern here? Problem is it doesn't change the fact that their policies remain way out of whack with the American people. Jindal supports a ban on all abortion, no exceptions. There's his ticket to the whitehouse!?!

So the Republican response is the highly expected, "Only way to fix things is with more tax cuts" ignoring that this rhetoric has been going on for the last 30 years and has helped get us to the current problem. Also ignoring that the super wealther actually prospered quite well under Bush, and it didn't translate to jobs jobs jobs as promised.

I pre-ordered mine, the other day. Gamestop is having a midnight launch. I'm excited. Now that I work a swing shift, getting a game at midnight and playing it for a little while, isn't going to make me a zombie at work the next day.