Are you sure? Both my debit and credit cards are Visa, and haven't had a problem so far.

I suspect that most cats understand the laser pointer, but play with it anyway. Much the same way that they can tell the difference between a piece of string and a snake and will go after it anyway. I don't think they're being dumb, they're naturally playful and enjoy the hunt.

I had a cat that learned how to open doors. He was a big cat (about 16 lbs, not fat- just long) and would reach the doorknob with two paws and use the pads to turn the knob in the correct direction and lean backwards. He was only strong enough to open interior doors.

We had to lock the pantry because of him. Cats may not be as trainable as dogs, but they've surprised me with their ability to solve problems.

Actually the "Fatal1ty" series were good, since they came with the actual EMU20K1/2 DSP. The X-Fi XtremeMusic and Xtreme Audio were rebranded/tweaked SB Live! chipsets and thus lacked the capabilities of the rest of the X-Fi line.

Many new graphics cards that utilize HDMI actually have audio controllers integrated into them. On my HTPC, I used to require a discrete soundcard that did realtime encoding of lossy 5.1 digital formats (DTS-Connect, DDL). Last year I removed the soundcard and since then my ATI/AMD Radeon 5450 feeds 7.1 digital lossless audio to my receiver via the same cable that carries video. It has a Realtek audio controller onboard and all audio is routed through the Realtek/AMD HDMI audio driver. It not only supports 24bit/192 KHz LPCM, but also bitstreams the HD-audio formats from blu-rays (DTS-MA and Dolby TrueHD). I believe that nvidia's Geforce 400-series supports bitstreaming as well. As long as you're doing HDMI-only (as there are no DACs on graphics card), the video card should be adequate for sound.

Can't comment on gaming performance- 5450 is inadequate for gaming at 1920x1080. For games, I use a different PC (w/ a Radeon 5850) with a dedicated Creative X-Fi titanium connected to headphones.

Descent was a victim of its own success. I think for a small time after Descent I & II, the market for 6DOF shooters got crowded. I remember playing Forsaken (which was a pretty colorful Descent clone with awesome graphics for its time), and at least 2 or 3 other game demos that came on my PC Gamer CDs that had similar gameplay. Then Descent III came out, which, despite being a pretty decent game, flopped. Descent IV was then canceled, and its engine ended up being used in Red Faction. The Freespace spinoffs (space sims seem to have similarly disappeared lately) were pretty successful in their own right, but they're not what I'd consider as groundbreaking. Unfortunately, Interplay eventually went broke, and that was the end of Descent.

Like the Fallout series, I was hoping someone would be willing to buy the IP from Interplay and release a new title. I would definitely love to see a new Descent with current-gen graphics, but other than that, it's hard to improve upon the original.

While this is normally true on matters requiring both the Executive and Legislative branches to work together (ie- anything requiring laws to be changed or more funding to be approved), the executive does have a lot of power to easily change executive policies and appointments. The FBI, Justice Department, Homeland Security, Attorney General, DoD- they're all under the president. While he needs Congressional approval for cabinet appointments, I highly doubt that a Congress controlled by his party would say no.

The first thing a president does after taking the oath of office is appoint cabinet members. If Obama had appointed a DHS director who valued civil liberties (rather than picking Janet Napolitano), you wouldn't be seeing a widespread adoption of body scanners at airports.

Obama could have easily prevented this January 21, 2009. Anyone claiming "he hasn't had enough time" for fixing the DHS/TSA is either lying or ignorant of how the office works.

Here's a small lesson in American government for you: the TSA reports to the Department of Homeland Security, which is a cabinet department of the Executive Branch. For anything under the Executive, the buck stops at the person residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. If the President makes an order not to use full-body scanners, the TSA would have no choice but to obey.

While Bush was responsible during his term, don't pretend that Obama has nothing to do with current policies of TSA/DHS. He's been in charge for the past two years.

There, fixed.

Your arguments are invalid. Under FairTax, necessities such as food, medicine, etc wouldn't be taxed, thus deflating the claim that truly poor people (you know, the ones who can't afford big screen TVs and new cars) will not be taxed much, if at all. The rich will still be paying a much larger portion of their expenses on taxes, since they buy large, luxary items. Stuff like boats, secondary homes, sportscars, will be taxed at a much higher rate, thus forcing them to buy a larger percentage of their income on taxes than the poor, that is, unless rich people will just buy stuff they need, and just sit on rest forever (unlikely).

Money in savings will inevitably be spent. Investments shouldn't be taxed anyway, since they benefit economy as a whole and spur job creation and industry better than any government program.

I think Tim Roth is the only good actor on that show, and some of the acting by his assistants makes the series pretty darn unwatchable. The premise is good though.