The Root of All Evil

It's interesting to see the candidates trying to bloody each other over who's at fault for this Housing mess. The real root of the Problem is Bill Clinton, the problem however, is that most American's are so short sighted that they can't believe that someone who served so long ago, is still having an impact on our economy. Consider this though, before Bill Clinton's policy changes, if a bank was going to underwrite a loan to you or anyone else, it had to make the vast majority of these loans out to strict policy guidelines set by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Income had to be verified, if there were no W2's there had to be at least 2 years of Tax Returns verifying your income. Credit had to be at least reasonably good and a strong 5 to 10% or better down payment was generally required (depending on Credit). If there was no income verification, and no tax returns, the only way it could be done was with a hefty 25% down payment. The reasons behind this was simple, if the bank could not sell the loan to investors, the bank was stuck with the loan for the life of the loan. Most banks had Community Reinvestment programs where they would allocate possibly 1% of local profits to go to low income families or no doc type loans, but generally these types of loans were very few and far between. Also, if you had a good relationship with the bank, they might do Investment loans for you, since they figured you would sell the home in a fairly short period of time and they would get their cash back. Finally, cities often put together Community Development loans offered to first time home buyers that often required no more than 1 to 3% down and were generally available at reduced interest rates. The vast majority of these "risky" loans though were simply not forwarded to Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and Investors. They knew that these types of loans would undermine confidence in the system.

Clinton Chages the Game:
The Clinton Administration had a goal of making housing affordable to more people and so they made some very basic and fundamental changes at Freddie Mac and Fannie mae that basically said that these two companies could now start taking these types of "No Doc" loans that would usually only be available with a significant down payment The argument was that there were a lot of people that were self employed as Painters, Tile Setters, and other service professions making decent money, but writing off a lot of their personal expenses as Business expenses. These people could definitely afford to keep up with their mortgage payments even if they didn't have w2's. While that may have been the target audience, the abuses that happened when people thought they could buy homes for the sole purpose of flipping them was an unintended consequence. For nearly a decade after these regulation changes were made, they seemed to be working just as intended, but at some point the abuses started and as Wall Street saw money to be made, they jumped in with both feet into the bandwagon.
The last banking crisis 18 years ago (the Savings and Loan Mess) taught investors that the only S&L's that were saved from the mess were the ones who invested most of their cash in Home Mortgages, so they figured that this time would be the same thing. Unfortunately, they didn't realize that the rules had changed and this was now a different game.
The biggest problems came when the very same institutions that were supposed to be monitored by Congress started becoming some of it's biggest campaign contributors. These guys basically started cooking the books to make sure the Companies hit targets required to trigger their Bonuses. McCain began to blow the wistle on this 2 years ago, but of course no one listened, since they were doling out cold hard cash to practically everyone in Congress that had anything to do with thier oversight. Obama was one of the biggest beneficiaries of this money and he now acts as if McCain is somehow to blame, when McCain is the only one on record trying to stop these guys!

There are those who say that the Bible says that Money is the root of all evil, but that's not what it says in the Bible. What it says is that "The Love of money" is the root of all evil. Well this love fest got just a bit out of control didn't it.

Barrack Obama - The Media Love Fest Continues

I was poking around the Internet when I stumbled across this video by 60 Min. and my jaw nearly dropped to the ground. In an interview with Barrack Obama, 60 min. highlighted the fact that Joe Biden hammered on his lack of experience, Hillary Clinton hammered on his lack of experience and now John McCain is hammering on his lack of experience. 60 min. then went on to say "does the fact that he chose someone as his vice president someone who has less experience than you take that weapon out of his arsenal?"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing!! I had to rewind that several times to make sure I heard it correctly! The interviewer is talking to a man who has done absolutely nothing with his life. Well, other than spend about a Million a day of your money on Pork and his trying to get money for his wife's Hospital (where she received a hefty raise thank you very much). He hasn't run any companies, hasn't run a town a city a state, absolutely zero executive experience and the man is actually suggesting that a sitting governor somehow has less experience than he has!?!

Not only is Sarah Palin a sitting Governor, but in the short time she's been running Alaska, (a state with a population fairly equal to Joe Biden's State) she's cut wasteful spending in Alaska even though the state's awash in Petro Dollars. The type of fiscal conservative needed in Washington. In addition, Palin has eliminated fraud, busted up scams and hasn't been afraid to take anyone on, including members of her own party. What has Obama done? Nothing, absolutely nothing, other than his ethics bill of course. However, let's examine Mr. Obama on Ethics. Did his ethics bill stop him from taking massive amounts of Cash from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae? Is that why he didn't want to go along with John McCain when McCain called for their reform 2 years ago? Apparently Obama talks about ethics reform, while McCain actually tries to make it happen. McCain's bill was defeated, but apparently he was right.

Woopie Goldberg - A Slave To Her Ignorance

It amazes me that people accept the one sided bias of the media with their usual sheepishness, such as how Michelle Obama goes on to The View with a list of topics she won't discuss, and gets the soft ball treatment from them. McCain on the other hand goes on the view and he gets the Major League treatment, but not only that, gets downright outrageous comments and accusations lobbed at him.

In response to McCain asserting that he would appoint judges that would not "legislate from the bench", in other words make up their own laws and instead stick to interpreting our constitution, Ms. Goldberg asked the question, "Do I have to worry about the return of Slavery". What?!?! Is she really that dim?

First, let's explore the history of slavery a bit. Slavery was not an institution suffered only by blacks, throughout the history of mankind, many societies such as Greece, the Baghdad Caliphate (Iraq) and Rome were constantly invading their neighbors to fill an unending appetite for slave labor. Just like the spectacle of the Colosseum, with it's "to the death" battles, is no longer considered a civilized event that no civilized society would partake in any longer, slavery as well is a barbaric thing of the past.

Next, let's go on to the conditions that allowed slavery. In the early days of the Colonies, slavery was allowed by our British masters and so land owners especially in the South utilized these rules as a way to farm their vast land holdings. When the colonies wanted to break away from the rule of England, they needed the South to help out in the effort, so as a compromise, in order to bring everyone together, slavery was basically put off by the constitution for 20 years, to give states time to transition their societies away from slavery, this is what happened in the North where slavery was officially ended without federal intervention in most states. The South however, saw things differently and wanted slavery to continue. Clearly, Democrats were not up to the task of ending slavery and it took a Republican and the religious right to make it happen. The first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln ended slavery, while the Democrats fought to keep it alive. Ms. Goldberg, why do you think the Civil War happened? There are the revisionist out there that say that it was fought over some other issue, but let's take a look at the facts shall we? Lincoln's major campaign theme was the campaign against the expansion of Slavery, he claimed that Slavery was unconstitutional and that Science had taught us that Blacks were not "Three Fifths" of a person as we were told by the Democrats (it took another Republican law to end Democrat Primaries counting "Negro" votes as Three Fifths a vote too), upon the Republican victory, seven souther states declared their succession and independence from the U.S. After the south attacked the north at Fort Sumter, 4 more slave holding states declared their independence. Any student of history will tell you that Slavery was the ONLY issue that the Civil War was fought over, all other issues were nothing but peripheral instances that could have easily been resolved without a war.

So the short answer is, No Whoopi, you don't have to worry about the return of Slavery, Slavery is unconstitutional. The definition of rights, true rights, basically ends at the beginning of another person's rights. Science has also shown us that people of color are every bit as human as the rest of us and therefore not subject to the Democrats "Three Fifth's" rules where they could be enslaved, deprived of voting rights and so on.

Why Star Wars Galaxies Online SuX!

I've been playing Star Wars Galaxies on and off for the past 3 years or so. Ever since the Combat Upgrade or "CU" and New Game Experience or "NGE", they've just REALLY fouled up the game. I tend to jump in for a month or two, reminisce about how the game used to be and then cancel my account for another 6 months to a year.
First of all, let me go over what made the game interesting to begin with. For me, I like not only the Combat aspect of games, but also the ability to build things online, so SWG was like a gift from the gaming Gods. It had (and still has) one of the best crafting systems out of practically any MMO out there. Eve Online comes pretty close, but SWG has the ability to create truly unique versions of in game items that Eve doesn't have. By utilizing raw materials with Superior qualities, you could craft components that work in a superior fashion to those made by other less discerning crafters. Therefore, you could truly make a name for yourself in the game as someone who makes superior products. As an example, by utilizing high conductivity metals in crafting certain weapons, their energy output could be markedly improved. So the quest was on for Crafters to get the best materials to work with, and the fighters to find the best crafters to buy from.
In addition, there were mind expanding "Illegal drugs" that could be made in the game by characters who were part chef, part medic that would give the user temporary abilities that made them fighting machines. However, once they wore off, that person would drop and throw up leaving them vulnerable to attack and death. They had to run quick to a Doc to heal the battle wounds and an Entertainer to heal the Battle Fatigue. For this reason, all the cantina's or Bars in all the cities in SWG, were always filled with Entertainers and Medics. While death was easily overcome with a decent clone, it did take it's toll on your goods to where they decayed faster and had to be replaced or repaired to stay in good working order. Keeping your clone up to date made this less of a problem.
What made the game interesting was the unique interdependency's that the game relied upon so that each of the 33 professions had something to contribute to the game. Each was an integral part of a greater machine that made life in the game very interesting and fulfilling.
Additionally, factional warfare was a daily part of life and if you wanted to take part in the Rush that it was to be part of the Galactic Civil War (GCW), then you could Ally yourself with either the Rebel Army or the Imperials and engage in Player VS Player combat at any time and at any place.

Then the Socialist Took Over.

As usual and just like every other game, especially EVE, War is expensive. Swords break, blasters fall apart, armor gets holes in it and people lose things. The ones who complained the most were the ones who simply wanted to jump in, get a good fight then jump out. Those people however, already had a game, it's called Planetside.
Some at Sony started thinking that it wasn't fair that some people actually lost their precious weapons or armor, so they removed decay from the game. Things no longer broke, ruining the economy for the crafters.
Additionally, since those greedy Doctors had to heal battle wounds from those who went out to fight, they removed Battle wounds from the game and simply made it to where people would heal automatically after being away from combat for a few minutes.
To top it off, the game originally had 3 bars for your character's health. Health, Action and Mind or HAM for short. To keep greedy entertainers from making a buck off healing your Battle Fatique on your mind, they basically eliminated the Mind bar, which fits in perfectly with how the new design team at Sony thought about their pllayer base, they thought we didn't have a mind, so why reflect that in the game. Of course this also meant that our drugs would no longer work, since they were Mind Expanding drugs, so those were eliminated from the game, along with the Chefs that used to make them.
Additionally, since the Game Masters figured that us Artisans and Crafters were making too much cash, they simply started giving away all the best stuff on quests that most players could complete on their own.
Now the game is a boring little utopia, where you obviously can't win, because you can't lose either. Anything that you lose in the game is automagically respawned so you never lose anything. I could jump into one of the worst battles in my life and if my wife calls me for dinner, I can just drop everything and go, which makes it very convenient, but at the same time, very boring. You can't ahve an adrenaline rush over the possibility of a loss, when you can't lose anything.

Even participating in PVP is no longer the RUSH that it used to be. While you can still align yourself to the Imperials or Rebels, it's now much easier to be part of either group, while staying out of Combat, so people have to give "consent" to be attacked!! Yes I can see it now:

Imperial - Halt Rebel Scum, or I'll shoot.
Rebel - See ya, ***Climbs on his Swoop Bike and takes off
Imperial - Please Click Accept to Duel
Rebel - Sorry, maybe you can kick my butt some other time

Unfortunately, the Socialists have destroyed the game and most people have left it because of this. Only 2 servers remain popular in the game, Bria and Bloodfin, and even those two don't have anywhere near the populations they used to have before all the changes. You would think that this alone would be enough for Sony to demand their game designers go back to the old system, but in typical Socialist fashion they'd rather have their little group in shared equal Misery then go back to a system were some prospered, some got ripped off, some got hurt and most did OK but everyone had fun.