Yes he paid the 10%. He likes to play with rules I don't like: Free Parking pot, double money for landing on Go, and no even build rule. So he may have been lucky and I may have been unlucky. He took a chance and it could have paid off for him. Either way it was probably going to be a short game.
Shortest game I ever played was less than 3 minutes.
On my first turn I bought St. Charles Place.
On the other player's first turn he bought on of the light blue properties.
On my second turn I bought Virginia.
On the other player's second turn he bought States Ave.
I mortgaged my 2 properties and traded him them for his one property and all his cash.
On his next turn he landed on Community Chest and couldn't pay the school fees.
When talking about Supreme Court nominees it is often repeated that the person has to be a lawyer.
Every possible nominee that is being mentioned is a lawyer.
IANAL, but there is nothing that I can find in the constitution to support this.
Article 2. Section 2.
[the president] "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint... Judges of the supreme Court".
This is the only qualification I can find in the constitution for a member of the Supreme Court.
It would be a good idea to have someone with other knowledge and experience on the court.
How about a governor or a legislator?
What would be good qualifications for a justice who is not a lawyer?
A client of mine wanted to automate her invoicing. As part of that project I used the USPS API to get the postal rate.
First of all, their documentation is just plain wrong. It will not work if you follow their documentation. After a frustrating few hours I googled it and found a site that explained everything that was wrong with it. http://www.marksanborn.net/php/calculating-usps-shipping-rat...
Secondly, my client complains that the USPS should have someone she can contact that gives her all the info she needs to use their services. But instead what she has found is some info from one person, conflicting info from another, and no one who can explain everything.
The USPS does a terrific job of delivering mail at a very reasonable rate, but they need to fix the problems outlined above if they want to compete.
I am someone who is proud to not be blindly partisan and proud to be someone that always votes.
But for many people, if there party tells them something they accept it as truth. My party says it, I believe it, that settles it.
Two things the GOP are very good at is branding and riling up their base. Here are direct quotes from e-mails from "Michael Steele, RNC Chairman" <[email protected]>. I only went back about 1 month)
"socialist health care takeover scheme"
"socialist nightmare"
"past the liberal media filter"
"health care experiment"
"trillion dollar health care gamble"
"the liberal media's biased coverage"
"impose socialism on America's health care"
"Obama Democrat scheme to seize a fifth of our economy"
"put Washington bureaucrats between Americans and their doctors"
"their leftist goal of controlling every facet of American life."
"the American people don't want to surrender their health care freedoms to Big Government."
"Republican senators are on the side of the American people"
When I try to tell people that the proposed reforms have much in common with proposals passed by the house under GOP leadership they don't believe me. It doesn't fit the narrative their party has extolled AND I tried to explain, I don't have a nice easy story to tell.
I argued with those in OFA that they should be selling health care reform as a moral issue. But they don't listen to me either. At least in the e-mails from the Dems there is a textarea where I can express my opinion. GOP e-mails contain push polls and only once did they have a textarea (the form didn't work the first time I tried it).
The Dems believe in governing with PHD's, the GOP in governing with MBA's. MBA's are better at marketing.
I am an avid bicyclist who has been hit twice by motorists. Once when a car pulled out of a driveway right in front of me and once when a car pulled into a driveway right in front of me. But the most interesting incident was when a van almost ran into me. I caught up to the driver and asked if she was trying to hit me and she said "you're on a bicycle, you have to get out of my way". Rather than enlighten as to the law I looked at her two children in the back seat and said "you better hope other drivers are more courteous".
The motherboard on my XP machine died and I dug out my old w2k machine and (amongst other things) I installed OpenOffice. I only use OO for word documents and spreadsheets but it has served my needs without problems. So why can't I convince anyone else to try it? My guess is that they know Microsoft Office, and they feel safer being in the same boat as everyone else. Any problem won't be their fault. The old FUD.
I forgot to mention one more item. It takes a 2/3 vote to pass the budget. 50% + 1 makes much more sense. At this point I'd take 60% as much better solution.
The problem with our legislature is three fold.
1) We have safe political districts.
The political districts are uncompetitive in the general elections.
The only worry they have in getting reelected is if they don't appeal to the core of their party and are opposed in the primary.
This leads to the most active, the most idea logical and the more fringe elements of the party deciding who our representatives will be.
The people being elected are unwilling to compromise and so cannot find practical solutions.
2) We have term limits.
The politicians do not have institutional memory and do not seek long term solutions to the problems.
They are looking to move up to a more powerful position or at least they want to return home with a greater network of connections.
So they spend every dime they can find and borrow as much as they can and are not there when the bills come due.
The lobbyists do have institutional memories and are seeking long term solutions to their problems, not what is in the best interest of the state.
3) Proposition 13
Prop 13 was a tax-cutting measure that took care of the problem of property taxes skyrocketing as home values skyrocketed.
This caused people to not be able to afford their homes any longer, not because they couldn't pay the mortgage, but because they couldn't pay the taxes .
But it hit local governments especially hard. Key budgeting authority devolved from cities and counties up to Sacramento, where they have to compete with the state government for money. You want your streets paved or more teachers for your third grade? Stand in line behind the health department, or the corrections department, or Caltrans.
And then the state borrows (takes?) the money it is supposed to send back to the cities and counties for it's own uses.
California is not ungovernable -- it's just been ungoverned.
It's interesting that in a conversation Charlie Rose had with Marissa Mayer, V.P. of Search Product for Google
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10129
she stated that your credit card company knows you are going to get divorced 2 years before you do.
Maybe Google is harvesting more info than they state.