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http://www.news4jax.com/politics/3890292/detail.html "The software is not geared to count more than 32,000 votes in a precinct. So what happens when it gets to 32,000 is the software starts counting backward," said Broward County Mayor Ilene Lieberman. The article says that they'd known about the problem for two years and failed to fix it. http://abcnews.go.com/US/comments?type=story&id=2646802 Randy Wooten figured he'd get at least one vote in his bid for mayor of this town of 80 people even if it was just his own. He didn't. Now he has to decide whether to file a formal protest. http://backslash.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/01/191235 The Open Voting Foundation's disclosure that only one switch need be flipped to allow the machine to boot from an unverified external flash drive instead of the built-in, verified EEPROM There has been tons of mishaps with those machines reported on slashdot alone... I certainly don't blame them for throwing the book at them and fining them for all their worth. It certainly sends across the message that the voting system is not to be fucked with and hopefully it can help prevent situations like the above.

Right now a technology is being developed to print organs.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=1603783&page=1
Recently developers had a major breakthrough in actually building a fully (or mostly) functional heart. Combined with a mature form of therapeutic cloning it could allow a fully grown blank to be printed and ready for a brain in far less then 20 years.

In addition there has been interesting research done related to donor organs. If young organ is transplanted in older patient it ages rapidly and (I think) vice versa. I couldn't find a related article unfortunately. What this means though is that older brain transplanted in younger blank would be rejuvenated or at least repaired to a point where it wont have a stroke soon after transplantation.

And presto! Low tech immortality.

This prig exemplifies the legacy of 8 years of Republican paternalism, and the sooner the US is shed of them better off both it and the world will be.

In unrelated news: The Onion reports Kerr is wetting his pants about UN criticiam of the US "owning the internet", not because the US will keep information free, but because it wound render that neat little AT&T ["Your World Delivered®"] room obsolete.

The text-only ABC news page still exists, it's just harder to find.

to follow up - i think the original poster may have confused this with the abc streams, which i have not been able to run on linux, but the nbc player works just fine:

http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/video/episodes.shtml
(this works fine)

vs

http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing ...

"Our new video player is only available for:
Windows 2000/XP/Vista - Internet Explorer, Firefox
Mac - Firefox, Safari
To watch, please download the appropriate browser."

Actually Disney does not allow adult material to be produced in the same plants that press Disney discs. That's a problem because Disney obviously presses a hell of a lot of discs. After the Toy Story Box Set fiasco, I can understand their position.

However, there is a BD plant in Taiwan that does not press Disney discs and is responsible for the large (cough) and (ahem) growing Blu-Ray pr0n market in Japan. Sony admitted themselves they were not being prejudicial on the content providers. HD-DVD was just the easiest format to initially come to - and right now, it probably still is the easiest format for the adult market to distribute.

The question is not, to a small-government conservative, how big the military should be, because the question is obvious: as big as is necessary (and clearly, Reagan was correct on that). The question is about WHAT the government should be involved with in the first place.

You mean, like illegal arms trade to Iran? </cheap_shot>

Yes, but his budgets, if implemented as submitted, would have resulted in a balanced budget by the end of his term. It's Democrats who increased spending. Funny how Reagan critics like to ignore that little fact.

I'm fairly certain it was both parties that increased spending, as I pointed out. Military spending is, indeed, spending. And Republicans who cut taxes.

And Reagan was not even vaguely correct about the size of the military we needed, but that is because no one realized that the Soviet Union would shortly collapse.

You are conflating, and therefore incorrect. I was addressing your incorrect definition of "conservative," which is separate from the Republican party.

And you are quite wrong about the party, as well. You've apparently never heard of Barry Goldwater ... ?

I know about Goldwater, that's what I was talking about. I was arguing that traditional conservative thought didn't show up until him, with it actually peaking in 64 with his Presidential run, and didn't really manage to control the GOP until Reagan. (Ironically right around the point Goldwater became so dissatisfied with the Republicans that he left for the Libertarians.)

Which, incidentally, is almost what you said, also, except you said it reemerged with Reagan after having vanished for the previous 80 years. I say that Goldwater (And the Conservative coalition.) instead invented it while fighting the New Deal, and managed to popularize it within the party around 64, enough for him to run, and the party then somewhat subverted it to get Reagan elected. And that it's not comparable to the anti-progressive thought in the 1890s and before, it didn't exist at all until the New Deal 40 years later.

Calvin Coolidge is most remembered as being pro-business (which, of course, is the same as today's conservatives), but he was also what we would today call a "true conservative."

I didn't say that no one behaved as a conservative, I said that the theories and concept which, today, make up conservativism, entered mainstream Republican thought with Reagan. Although the theory itself goes back further, but not that far, only to opposite to the New Deal. In fact, that's where the words 'conservative' and 'liberal' got somewhat scrambled up in politics.

But I'll compromise with you. Let's date conservative thought to 1933, in opposition to the New Deal, and be done with it. :)

No, it's not.

The CIA may not be waterboarding people anymore, but it was in 2002. 'And current and former CIA officers tell ABC News there is a presidential finding, signed in 2002, by President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft approving the techniques, including water boarding.' And it was in February 2005, after the first fact came out and it had issued a memo at the end of 2004 saying there would be no more torture.

In theory, it's not waterboarding people now. In theory, it wasn't before 2004, either, until the fact it was came out. In theory, it wasn't between 2004 and 2007, until the next memo came out. The white house consistently publically declares it's not doing it, or will stop what it's doing, and then secretly issues memos that say that everything anyone is doing is within the law and they can keep doing it.

In the system you are talking about, there are insured people who are mostly well, and there are uninsured people who are mostly well, and they're

This is evident based on the fact that the Chicago Bears are doing horrible this year. Because the Madden series of games are such an integral part of the EA catalog, it only makes sense that they axe the city of one of the bad teams. If there was a St. Louis branch, that would surely have been closed ahead of the Chicago.

See what happens if you got too many LEDs on your shirt.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3635225&page=1

Are you implying that there is a lot of crap spewing out of major media outlets that doesn't or shouldn't qualify as 'news'? ;)

Printable version: http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3777651

A well-placed source directly involved in the situation confirmed to ABC News that Prince was directly involved in seeking the takedown of Lenz's video.

Anyone know how true is this? It seems like he might have better things to do... such as serving us pancakes.

Texas has some of the loosest gun control laws in the country, according to the Brady Campaign. It also has the 10th highest violent crime rate, according to the DOJ.

Personally, I'm not a fan of gun control laws. As is says on the ABC News site, "The government wants to say regulations and laws like the Brady Gun Control Law are making a difference, but they aren't." Gun control opponents need to acknowledge that that statement works in both directions. Just because gun control laws don't help deter crime doesn't mean they encourage it. Statistics imply the laws have no effect in either direction.

Please, stick to the facts.

Nope, not at all. Then again, I remember that they are, after all, the team that was caught spying on other teams. (Apparently the penalty for cheating in major league sports is to pay a fine and nothing else. You'd think they'd get kicked out of the league, but apparently not.)

I guess they thought the warrantless wiretapping privileges granted via the USA PATRIOT Act applied to them as the Patriots...

In my view, that is precisely why various Fundamentalist Christian Dominionist movements are, for many years now, desperately attempting to take over the Air Force, for they see it as the key deciding factor in any future conflagration.

The joke's going to be on them when Stephen Colbert wins on the Republican ticket.

It was blatantly clear that Rush Limbaugh and his caller were referring to Jesse MacBeth, who made himself a darling of the moonbats by passing himself off as a Ranger and an Iraq vet...never mind that he washed out of boot camp after 44 days

No, it was blatantly clear that Limbaugh and his caller were referring to people such as an earlier caller, a military veteran who was against our continued occupation in Iraq. Limbaugh has already stated "I am going to challenge the patriotism of people who disagree with [Bush] because the people that disagree with him want to lose."

It would sure be nice to have your "-1, Ad Hominem" option to mod him down in the national dialog (such as it is).

And it's also clear to any unbiased observer that despite Limbaugh's claims, Macbeth was never any sort of hero or "darling" to the anti-war movement, though he may have taken in a few suckers on its fringes. A "socialistalternative.org" interview doesn't make one a hero of the anti-war movement. Especially when it was taken down after a few weeks - even this fringe group figured him out. ("Fringe" not meant to agree or disagree with their positions on any issues, only to point out that they are not the mainstream of the anti-war movement. I'd never even heard of them before.)

Macbeth's main goal was scamming VA benefits; other scammers rounded up in Operation Stolen Valor claimed service in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Their phoniness has nothing to do with Iraq, it's all about the Benjamins.

What ever happened to innovation, and sticking to a core business model? What is Microsoft thinking, they're not a hardware company. So there advanced technologies R&D lab thinks up something they can throw a patent application up for. They won't execute on it. They'll just litigate on it if someone does actually try to deliver something to the market.

Oh wait... I guess this is Microsoft's core business model, never mind my bad.

Hey, it's been done ...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92525

-b.

Al Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth'?

This man spends almost as much on electricity as the average American makes in a year. Al Gore receiving this award is a sign of how irrelivant it has become.

I still disagree with his position based on the precedent Congress allowed with the MPAA and what they push at children. As a column by Gregg Easterbrook pointed out this week, we have an interesting hypocrisy when it comes to our media (Do a find for "MPAA" to skip to the relevant part). The example he used is that movie studios are making an effort to remove on-screen smoking, while retaining the grisly and horrific on-screen torture/death of teenage girls. So the message we seem to be saying is if you want to torture a human being, that's fine...but don't you dare smoke while doing it! Similar issue in terms of video games...it's okay to see someone get shot...but pressing X to do it rather than watching it is simply too much!

The problem is much deeper than videogames and their "interactivity", the problem is that the government has allowed parents to abdicate their responsibilities as parents by attempting to protect the children FOR the parents. In the long-term, this encourages lazy parenting where they DON'T pay attention to what their kids are exposed to because "the government will decide what's safe and what isn't" which inevitably causes "Innocent Little Johnny" to see boobs somewhere and the parents throw a hissyfit. This in turn drives a further "need" for government regulation and you end up in a slippery slope further and further down the line.

Another blog by Mr. Wil Wheaton (Hi CleverNickname!) points out that he got carded trying to buy Dead Rising. Now, I'd bet his not ever carded going into an R rated movie, or at a bar, or if he was to buy cigarettes...any of these activities arguably being as "dangerous" to kids as anything else, but they card him to buy a video game?

This is what it boils down to for me: No state or national government has any business trying to legislate morality, period. That is a responsibility for the local communities to decide upon for themselves, not have crammed down its throat from on high. Our country would be a lot better off if the people in Washington, D.C. worried about what is happening to our economy and foreign relations rather than worrying about what videogames people are playing and where people go on the Internet.

Of course, that's based on the silly ideal that our government is there to serve anyone but itself...but one can dream, can't they?

The words "futuristic" and "head band" do not belong together.

Yes, he would be a chimera at least for the time being. He has multiple DNA sources in his body and since both types of DNA can be obtained through blood, he could show up as two separate individuals if DNA testing were performed.

The Lydia Fairchild story is an interesting read. It's rare but it does happen.

> Further, I have read the Qur'an in chronological order and understand
> what Islam is about by reading the words of your prophet Mohammed.

Had you actually read it, you would have known that Qur'an are the words of God, not of the Prophet. Nice try though.

> I am also witness to the insanity that is Islam over such trifles as
> the Mohammad comics.

Way way way over-the-top reaction in some parts. However, it does show that we respect our religion, unlike the west which tollerates such disgusting works as the "Piss Christ" etc.

> I am also witness to the hypocracy that is Islam in the Middle East

The world is full of hyprocracy, none more so than in some parts of the Middle East.

> I like how you indoctrinate your children to hate and murder.

Hahaha. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2455343&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

> I don't believe what you are saying because it is part of Islam to
> lie to infidels if it is for the purpose of furthering the cause of Islam.

And this, children, is what we call a circular argument.

> I am not a Christian.

Good for you.

> I am an infidel by your standards.

Sorry.

> Islam is the religion of hate.

If you say so.

> I won't be seeing you 'on the day'.

Scared?

We're not imprisoning dissidents and journalists yet

It's apparently not for lack of trying, though. This couple was arrested for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts at a speech on public property. The police had trouble coming up with charges, and eventually tried "trespassing". They were later released, and successfully sued with the help of the ACLU.

There was a study on rhesus monkeys that basically found that they like looking at high status monkeys. The study was a bit subtler than my summery suggests but...Here it is:abcnews.

I also remember a while back a study that found there are health benefits to men that look at pretty women or something - can't find the study. I imagine both hold true for both sexes. Seems to me that it's more about status than looks. I bet that most people will perceive higher status people(or monkeys) as prettier/more desirable. Take a look at Nicole Kidman. I wouldn't; even if she begged me; if I didn't already know she was famous. As it is I'd want the lights out.

I also bet that the pretty and more desirable are perceived as higher status too.

I also imagine these tropes to hold true for any social animals, even quite simple creatures like antelope and LUG members. *ducks*

The more I think about it....well I wouldn't touch her with yours...

There was a study a while ago which I can't find right now. In a monkey tribe where food was scarce, the researchers taught certain low-status monkeys how to get food. Soon the whole tribe knew that these monkeys could bring them precious food.

The interesting thing is that their status didn't change. They remained at the bottom of the totem pole.

Sound familiar? No amount of cleverness will raise your status.

While searching for this study, I saw quite a few monkey studies. Almost all made similar, depressing points. Like this story about monkey celebrity fever.

Yeah, you do dump your poor on the street: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?id=5588413&section=local Only one of many stories. Real Clear Politics? try a reputable news source and not a front organization

Science never have and never will prove or disprove God. Science and Religion are entirely separate concepts and the "pro science/anti-religion" crowd is just as arrogant and ignorant as the "pro religion/anti-science crowd". Quite frankly it stuns me that these two groups don't get along better since they share so many traits. Both of these groups rely on an overly simplistic "angry 4yr old with a bucket of playdoh and crayons he used for creation" interpretation of God to prove their point.

I'm just gunna throw this out there...but...do you think...that maybe...just MAYBE...that anything that us humans are capable of figuring out (you know DNA, dark matter, gravity, etc) that "God" probably has a pretty intimate working knowledge of? Quite frankly I think the Anti-religion group are just weak minded anti-scientists trying to blend in with the crowd. To think...once upon a time someone said "I'm still waiting on the slightest shred of evidence that suggest that DNA/Atoms/Cells/etc actually exist".

That having been said maybe you can learn something from Francis S. Collins talking about God and DNA.

The Video Professor is a total jerkwad, an asshole, an asshat and an asstunnel. And just an ass. And his ads are garbage, and his "course" surely is as well.

-mcgrew

PS- Fuck you and the pig you rode in on, professor!

PPS- Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha sued God Almighty, and apparently God responded to his lawsuit. I guess you really CAN sue anybody! God should countersue, for slander.

I know you were kidding, but there was a study a while ago that found having a TV in the bedroom halved the amount of sex one has. I've found the same to be true for the computer. There's just something about being able to go directly from watching or browsing to sleeping that interferes with getting it on. One would think that being right there in the bedroom would lower the barriers to sex and lead to having it more but it doesn't seem to work that way. I suppose there's some sort of conditioning going on. Without electronics, if we're awake and in the bedroom then we're having sex. With electronics there's plenty of other things to do so the association isn't as strong.

In the obvious run up to the war with Iran, it seems like the media is all too happy to paint them with the bigot, sexist, and totalitarian brushes. We are doing this with China. We did this with Iraq. Now, with Iran in our sights, they also get the black tar treatment.

Oddly enough, I find it hard to be sympathetic toward a country that hosts a Holocaust Denial seminar. Maybe I really am part of the problem.

But I don't see any reasonableness in prosecuting an inherently reasonable law. Like that (black) high school student who had the book thrown at him for having sex with his (white) girlfriend because she was a couple years younger than him and broke an asinine law in Georgia.

People throw around the word fascist to describe any policy they don't like (that core observation is the heart of Godwin's law). Excepting the geographical accident that places both of them in Germany, there is NOTHING analagous between Nazism and the actions of the government in this case.

So what? Was Mussolini German?

That is complete BS for the ATSC standard in the US, in fact its the complete opposite (random google hit) "Another serious problem with digital television is a reflection or ghost signal. A reflection signal can cause a digital signal not to display." http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=ontv&id=4520006. Reflections are generally at the same frequency and incredibly difficult to remove in _ALL_ digital systems because traditional analog filtering does not work. BTW.. do you know what a terminator does?

Cows are among the top contributers to global warming

A single moose contributes the equivalent of over 2 tons of CO2 each year - more than my car does.

So unless you are a strict vegan who does not eat any dairy or red meat, and you do not enjoy wildlife, you too add to the global warming problem. Thanks buddy.

A bee can't fly according to the theory.

hmmm... maybe but how does it explain the study that republicans(conservatives) have better sex http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/News/story?id=180291 I guess small feeble brain equals raging hormones! HA!

Athletic scholarships used to be exactly for that reason. And they really weren't a bad idea.

But long ago, college sports (OK, college football and basketball specifically) stopped being about attracting the scholastically able, and started being entirely about fundraising and boosting a college's reputation. It's now basically a competition to attract the best athletes, regardless of academic ability, and then hand-holding and babysitting them through the absolute minimum number of academically-worthless courses, to satisfy NCAA requirements.

Any self respecting college should be acutely embarassed to confer degrees on some "scholar-athletes", given their level of education at graduation. But they're not, because they helped win "The Big Game".

And -- even if that weren't the case -- if you're trying to attract under-privileged, college capable people, why not just give out more academic scholarships? Find the smartest kids who'd otherwise miss out. That should be the sole criteria for higher education -- how much will it benefit your mind?

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3576072& page=1

No, unfortunately they don't look for them just as hard.

If you haven't seen the IMAX movie on the rovers I highly recommend it. I saw it last year out at the Dulles Air and Space Museum. It was awesome.

Anyone else feel like some sort of Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged stuff is going on?

First Jim Gray, now Steve Fossett. I'm wondering when Carmack is going to "try" his rocket and disappear as well.

I would imagine they have in mind a system that would charge you maybe .50 for an episode of B.J. and the Bear, but $4.99 for last night's episode of... well, whatever crap has the piddling ratings that broadcast has these days.

Note: if they wanted to show for free, with commercials, as ABC seems poised to do, http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing

and THEN sell their episodes on iTunes or wherever they want -- nobody would have any objections. Or put up hulu.com with their new pricing models, and compete with iTunes fair and square. What cheeses me off entirely is they charge Apple with attempted monopoly. That's just the complete reverse of what's true. Think hulu.com will have copy restrictions? Uh-huh. Whose? Apple's? Why, no. That would leave? Microsoft, no? Then Mac users have NO legal alternative. Watch the broadcast, get a TiVo, or the thing that seems to get the uptight here so uptight, but which is simply the market enforcing discipline among the producers. Demanding $5 to watch an episode of Wacky Family Wisecracks? You got to be kidding. Um, isn't that using the monopoly of your intellectual property to charge what the market will bear, while meanwhile cutting off the already profitable alternative?

They could offer cheap, protected, legal access to their content, but instead they're daring users to circumvent the law.

You are mischaracterizing what I wrote. I said that the Administration promoted torture, which it did (although I probably should have linked to this Bybee memo to Gonzales instead of the other one, which was my error). As for Gonzales, you did not quote the full language; before the part about commissary privileges, he wrote, "The nature of the new war [on terrorism] places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians, and the need to try terrorists for war crimes such as wantonly killing civilians. In my judgment, this new paradign renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners...." What could that mean other than that he felt formerly prohibited methods of interrogation, meaning torture, were now allowable?

The need to absolutely renounce torture as a methodology is not grounded in law but in common sense. Not only doesn't it work as a means of getting reliable information (just ask Porter Goss), but it removes any moral arguments to having Americans (both soldiers and civilians) tortured in return. Even Gonzales' memo points out that "[t]he United States could not invoke the [Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war] if enemy forces threatened to mistreat or mistreated U.S. or colation [sic] forces captured during operations in Afghanistan, or if they denied Red Cross access or other POW privileges." For the White House counsel to advocate this is bad enough. When that same official becomes the Attorney General, the *symbol* of justice and respect for law, it goes beyond the pale.

As for Guantanamo, I don't think we should have a facility like that at all. If these people are criminals, try them with the full strictures of our military or civilian legal systems. If they are not, release them. If we think they're terrorists, release them and follow them. If they have been in our custody more than a few weeks or months, any information they have is stale and useless anyway.

Ours is a nation founded on principles of law rather than royal caprice, of fundamental rights of all people rather than those we like (or who are like us). Remember? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The rest of that Declaration is worth reading as well, particularly when it enumerates the offenses of the king. "He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:" Warrantless wiretaps, anyone? "He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation." Hmm, contractors managing the interrogation at Abu Ghraib and serving among our troops in Iraq? And as for Guantanamo, how about this pair? "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences."

This is not America, or at least, not the America to which we should be aspiring. Secret prisons, indefinite confinement without trial or even charge, wiretapping citizens without warrants, finding "legal" justification for torture, invasions of non-belligerent nations? That's Stalin's U.S.S.R., not the country whose Constitution our president, vice president, attorney general and elected officials swear to uphold. {Prof. Jonathan}

Neither, he actually meant a real torch. Yet again, pissing off the cavemen!

Its amazing how "PC" we think we are/try to be, but somehow neanderthals still don't get the treatment they deserve.

In light of many of your previous posts as well as your condescending attitude, perhaps, you would do better here.

I thought Fox, ABC, CBS, and NBC were the (mostly) White Family Channels.

The Black Family Channel just happens to reveal their target demographic in their name.

Hooray, 14 dreary, watered-down, condescending children's movies to look forward to! Hu-fucking-zah! Willy Deppa and the Gratutious Edginess Factory just wasn't edutainment enough! Who needs new ideas, anyway - children and families alike love recycled shit!

Please, if any major film producers are reading this message - could you guys desecrate Alice in Wonderland next? It could really benefit from being "hipped up" for a contemporary audience (I'm thinking Raven as Alice), and since test audiences are likely to be confused or irritated by all those puns, it'd probably be best to cut them all out. Oh, and I'm thinking Linkin Park for the Very Happy Unbirthday number.

Very nice game indeed, but I am not going to get the full game...

I also got to play it tonight (I actually had free time and not in crunch mode?) for about 40 minutes (yes, it is short). The previews, screen shots, video clips, and trailers didn't excite me for this game. I kept hearing and reading very high scores from Xbox 360 port (demo and the full game that was sold earlier). Everyone was raving how scary, addicting, and pretty the game was. Now, I know why. The audio, graphic, special effects, etc. were very nice.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS: This 3D surrealistic first perspective shooter (FPS) game and story theme was an issue for me since it didn't hit me to excite me. It takes place in 1960 in an underwater city (it reminds me of Atlantis, Titanic, Blade Runner movie, etc.). The demo started out with an introduction that reminded me of Lost's Oceanic Flight 815 jetliner crash in the sea/ocean, but at night time. Wow, looking at the water was LOVELY and seeing the water splashes and droplets on my screen! While swimming to the lighthouse near by, I heard the flames, explosions, me coughing out water and breathing, etc.

The fun start begins in the lighthouse when I travel down to the underwater city named Rupture. At the same time, I met a guy helping me over the radio. You can hack robots to be on your side and protect you, security cameras, sentry guns, etc. There are various life spawn spots if you die. If you played System Shock 2, then you would recognize that this is the same people who worked on this game. The whole game system is based on it, but on a different game engine. The game still had scary parts, beautiful graphics and effects, objectives/missions, etc. It also reminded me of American McGee's Alice 3D FPS game for the surrealism and weirdness.

Check out the game if you have a decent gaming system or a Xbox 360 (heard it was good on the console as well and there's a free demo). Enjoy the graphics, special effects (check out those neat water falls, leaks, etc.), cutscenes, sounds, music, and horror. I was surprised it ran well on my not super fast system even without the beta NVIDIA driver that is supposed to be supported for this game.

Circuit City weekly ad/advertisement shows it for $39.99 for this week. So one extra copy for you to buy since I am not buying it due to above reasons and lack of free time (got other games to play and finish). If it was a sequel to System Shock 2 game, then I would be all over it just for SHODAN (I miss her harassing me like saying "Look at you, hacker: a pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?")!

Nah, Bait and Switch is what the big-box stores (Best Buy, Circuit City, et al) try to do without getting caught. There's no threat there, nor is there the counter-offer when you complain.

This is a classic technique used by lawmakers. They introduce some horrible bill, then "back down" to their original goals. The objective is to appear to be negotiating with your opponent when you are not.