The first main dark-skinned protagnist i can think of is Cain (Agent Nathaniel Cain) from the computer game "Sanity" my friend had once. Man, i need to get a copy of that. It was one of the few overhead view games (think the original GTA) that i really liked, besides "Syndicate".
As a man who plays a lot of video games across a lot of platforms and genres, I like to think that I have a fairly good understanding of the representation of reality rendered by most games. Riiiight.. Just because a fisherman fishes all day doesn't mean he knows the eating habits and reproduction cycles of the fish he catches.
If everyone is unique, how can you then establish guidelines respecting that while enforcing your "appropriate" parenting techniques? Establishing guidelines for "appropriate" conduct, by no means, would be an easy feat. In reality, there would probably have to be a system in place with a general set of rules to start with then additions, or modules if you will, to cover the individuals characteristics. Something like questionaires would be used to get a feel for the childs and parents needs, then training and assistance would be included to satisfy the needs. Counselors specialized with the modules would see them to check on progress and tweak the module further if needed. To keep from overwhelming the child and parents, i imagine the counselors assigned would need to stagger meeting times. Similar to jury duty, the parent could receive some compensation for lost time.
The argument that there needs to be some agency to tell parents how to raise their children will only serve to infringe on the rights of the minority, while shrinking the majority so that they can be "regulated" also. The system should only go into effect if children aren't doing well in school and/or getting in trouble with the law frequently. This would really be just a reorganizing/recharging of the current system(s) which does this already. I've dealt with it when i was young and it can help but i feel it was severely underpayed, as with other socially-based programs, such as economic welfare. Like any system where abuse could occur, checks and balances would need to be in place.
You haven't explained what proper training should be[..] Well, i'm working on being a QA in computer engineering so i can't properly describe in any great detail what the training would consist of. For the children, some might closely resemble, if not outright be, psychriatric counseling that goes over how to deal with the child's problematic episodes. The parents, if abusive from short tempers, would have training on how to not let the anger get to them and keep calm. It might introduce yoga, physical conditioning, etc. to aid them.
[..]you're quite naive if you don't believe it will be used as a partisan football[..] Politicians will always have their turn at mixing issues and the system would lose and gain modules as time went on. As with any system, you can only hope that they don't sink it through crippling the system to pointlessness. Considering it will seem like a money-sink, the short-sighted politicians will try.
Parents who care about their children want what they think is best for their children. This is always true and forgiving-limitations for child behavor would have to be in place. If a child has an infection and the parents don't want to use contempory methods to have the child cured, they child can't go to school. If the child is endangering other peoples lives then, for varied bursts of time, the child would be out of the parents hands like how it goes now. However, with any breaking of these rules, if agreement was made to follow them again, child and parent would be accepted back.
[..]I'm not sure how you can argue that it's in my children's best interest for you to tell me how to raise them. Day-to-day child raising is yours and yours alone. The point of the initiative isn't to cookie-cut children so they're all the same. It's simply would be a means to steer them to do better in life. It's assistive so if, for example, after some discussion with the parent, they're not sure how to deal with their child's constant need to play video games, counseling with the child would be considered. Point of the counseling would be to first verify if the behavior is healthy or not, then proceed from there. As long as the child isn't catching other people's cats on fire, sabotaging police vehicles, etc., ultimate care of child is the parent's['] responsibility.
At least in parts of California, a lot of these "modules" are in place, they're just under budgeted and/or outdated research-wise. A proposition itself might be to unite these programs to provide structure and add funding where it's needed.
Are they negligent? Depends, like how i'm using the word, it's relative to the point of view. The people you noted can be considered outliers, so obviously exceptions need to be made. At the same time, however, it's not so much "are they doing enough" versus, how is the child doing? Every person is unique in character, genetics, etc. A person that's ADD, for example, needs more attention and assistance to work with it then someone who's considered functionally average. If they're not doing well in school, action should be taken to help them.
Even with editing i came out ranting a bit, which isn't excusable. However, the point is, something needs to be done for the children. Does the state need to be involved? Directly.. no. Indirectly, if need be. Should the state be a crutch, no. The government is in place to serve the people, to do what's best for the people. If that means they provided training or whatever will work with someone, then so be it. At the same time, the parents should do what they can to give their children what they need to grow up to be "responsible" adults. Is this always possible, no. Is anything absolute, like the proposition suggested, no. However, with what we know, we can do better.
Regards to party, i am of no party. I don't need to use party distinction to choose who i want in office. And, if they, the chosen politican, are good at what they do and are charismatic enough, the politician's party standing won't matter. FDR and JFK are notable examples of politicians who could convince majority of all sides to their views. It didn't happen all the time but they could do it. If the proposition, or a variation of, was layed out more clearly, and thoroughly, it could fly. Party aside, parents who care about their children want what's best. Is this not a universal understanding, hateful people aside?
That is the job of the parents, not the government. This is very true. The missing puzzle-piece in a lot of the controls put in place by the government is the parent. The parent is the one who's instilled their values into the child and it's up to them to take blame if the child does something amiss.
Proposition? If a parent is flagged negligent, they're put in a parenting-assist program that starts them off in some counciling/training program that helps them and the child(ren). And the process goes from there until parent and child(ren) seem okay.
Expensive? Probably. I'm aware of programs that do this, or something similar, but obviously the tax dollars are not there. If we want family values AND less controlling by government, something like this needs to go in place or be improved. Where to pull tax dollars from? Suggestion -- military. As much as i love jets and explosions, when we have to use these, that means policy has failed. Politicians, you are the reason thousands of our Americans are dying. We're some of the smoothest-talking people on this planet, a lot of deaths during wars shouldn't have happened. Period.
[Note -- a lot of this is probably redundant but figured a little underlining was needed]
Normal? Have you been in, or seen the effects of, his sphere of influence? The man can convince the greedest schmucks (i.e. RIAA) to relax their grip on their products (iTMS). That's not normal. That's supernatural.
Well, i'm not sure about other artists, but with buying Metallicas last album, St. Anger, you received a DVD which had the band practicing the entire album (pretty funny and intense at times) and a key to their "Vault" which had mp3s ripped from concert recordings (only 3 concerts so far but considering that's 2 hours a set, with each set having different sings usually... it's pretty cool) and some other cool stuff.
Okay, first things first. I don't just think in one state of mind/view or other. Some cases, i'm liberal; other times, i'm as conservative as anyone could sanely be; so, least to say, i don't have a political party preference.
With that out, i think it's hard to say who i'll vote for. One of the more recent articles talking about how all the presidential candidates were doing the usual ignorant "oh, it's the video games, RPGs, movies, TV,..." speeches made me think of how i was going to prepare to vote.
My decision right now is to read up off and on, especially during a couple weeks before election day, on all possible candidates i can vote for and take as many notes as reasonably possible. Being that i don't read mainstream media (due to possible "filtration" of articles; i prefer my slashdot, Wired and Playboy, thank you), i don't have a stand right now, let alone any major notes.
All i can say now is that the article from Yahoo! Internet news (from a very recent post made) opened my eyes to how i thought of Gore. I say this only because the lines of bullshit i normally expect from a politician was down to a minimal. Most can lie there way out of anything, and being i'm a professional B.S. myself (i do phone technical support:) ), i can usually spot it; with Gore, it seemed to be at a minimal. But, hey, it's still early so we'll see which lesser of the evils i'll vote for.
Now, if i don't find anyone i really prefer (who shares most of my ideas), i'll keep my eyes open for that "great hopeful" that might be the next big president who's worth more then ten cents. From what i recall from my history classes (yes, not toooo much, really), we haven't had a great president in at least fifty years. But hey, i'm not up with all the gospel/gossip/... on all the presidents since Kennedy so maybe there was one. In any rate, when i see that next one, i'm going to support that SOB with what i can spare, hoping that he can pass all the B.S. enough to not get corrupt.
We can only hope, no?
Well, there's two things to consider: 1) 500 * 130% is 650 Mhz. I don't expect to see 1 GHZ for a number of months yet. Then again, if IBM provides a chip that Apple prefers, they'll switch to that chip design. 2) A G4 450, with a similar configuration to a 1 GHZ Athlon, beat out the Athlon when working with Photoshop and a 50 meg file (G4, about 53 seconds; Athlon, about 80 seconds; unforturnately the SFGate article that is no longer avaiable, sorry) The G4 processor doesn't need to match the AMD and un-Intel processors in Mhz. The only numbers you can really can compare are the MIPS rating on the chips; which, by the way, is for one reason or other, hard to get. When things rely on the processor alot, the G4 seems to surpass the other two chips. From what an engineering friends says, it's because of the x86 instructions and 8086 emulation that has to be processed. That could be the case; but you know what, Intel and AMD are large enough companies that if they really wanted to get rid of that part of the processor and tell MS to take a hike, they probably could. (alright, a little off track but i thought i was valid)
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The first main dark-skinned protagnist i can think of is Cain (Agent Nathaniel Cain) from the computer game "Sanity" my friend had once. Man, i need to get a copy of that. It was one of the few overhead view games (think the original GTA) that i really liked, besides "Syndicate".
At least in parts of California, a lot of these "modules" are in place, they're just under budgeted and/or outdated research-wise. A proposition itself might be to unite these programs to provide structure and add funding where it's needed.
Are they negligent? Depends, like how i'm using the word, it's relative to the point of view. The people you noted can be considered outliers, so obviously exceptions need to be made. At the same time, however, it's not so much "are they doing enough" versus, how is the child doing? Every person is unique in character, genetics, etc. A person that's ADD, for example, needs more attention and assistance to work with it then someone who's considered functionally average. If they're not doing well in school, action should be taken to help them. .. no. Indirectly, if need be. Should the state be a crutch, no. The government is in place to serve the people, to do what's best for the people. If that means they provided training or whatever will work with someone, then so be it. At the same time, the parents should do what they can to give their children what they need to grow up to be "responsible" adults. Is this always possible, no. Is anything absolute, like the proposition suggested, no. However, with what we know, we can do better.
Even with editing i came out ranting a bit, which isn't excusable. However, the point is, something needs to be done for the children. Does the state need to be involved? Directly
Regards to party, i am of no party. I don't need to use party distinction to choose who i want in office. And, if they, the chosen politican, are good at what they do and are charismatic enough, the politician's party standing won't matter. FDR and JFK are notable examples of politicians who could convince majority of all sides to their views. It didn't happen all the time but they could do it. If the proposition, or a variation of, was layed out more clearly, and thoroughly, it could fly. Party aside, parents who care about their children want what's best. Is this not a universal understanding, hateful people aside?
Proposition? If a parent is flagged negligent, they're put in a parenting-assist program that starts them off in some counciling/training program that helps them and the child(ren). And the process goes from there until parent and child(ren) seem okay.
Expensive? Probably. I'm aware of programs that do this, or something similar, but obviously the tax dollars are not there. If we want family values AND less controlling by government, something like this needs to go in place or be improved. Where to pull tax dollars from? Suggestion -- military. As much as i love jets and explosions, when we have to use these, that means policy has failed. Politicians, you are the reason thousands of our Americans are dying. We're some of the smoothest-talking people on this planet, a lot of deaths during wars shouldn't have happened. Period.
[Note -- a lot of this is probably redundant but figured a little underlining was needed]
That makes you a man with a little bit too much money laying around, which, BTW, i'm more then happy to help you depart with.
You know you forgot the cost of the monitor, right? :D
Normal? Have you been in, or seen the effects of, his sphere of influence? The man can convince the greedest schmucks (i.e. RIAA) to relax their grip on their products (iTMS). That's not normal. That's supernatural.
Well, i'm not sure about other artists, but with buying Metallicas last album, ... it's pretty cool) and some other cool stuff.
St. Anger, you received a DVD which had the band practicing the entire album (pretty funny and intense at times) and a key to their "Vault" which had mp3s ripped from concert recordings (only 3 concerts so far but considering that's 2 hours a set, with each set having different sings usually
Did you notice the flash of a progress bar just after you installed iTunes? The title was "Microsoft iTunes-Windows Update", wasn't it? :D
Okay, first things first. I don't just think in one state of mind/view or other. Some cases, i'm liberal; other times, i'm as conservative as anyone could sanely be; so, least to say, i don't have a political party preference. With that out, i think it's hard to say who i'll vote for. One of the more recent articles talking about how all the presidential candidates were doing the usual ignorant "oh, it's the video games, RPGs, movies, TV, ..." speeches made me think of how i was going to prepare to vote.
My decision right now is to read up off and on, especially during a couple weeks before election day, on all possible candidates i can vote for and take as many notes as reasonably possible. Being that i don't read mainstream media (due to possible "filtration" of articles; i prefer my slashdot, Wired and Playboy, thank you), i don't have a stand right now, let alone any major notes.
All i can say now is that the article from Yahoo! Internet news (from a very recent post made) opened my eyes to how i thought of Gore. I say this only because the lines of bullshit i normally expect from a politician was down to a minimal. Most can lie there way out of anything, and being i'm a professional B.S. myself (i do phone technical support :) ), i can usually spot it; with Gore, it seemed to be at a minimal. But, hey, it's still early so we'll see which lesser of the evils i'll vote for.
Now, if i don't find anyone i really prefer (who shares most of my ideas), i'll keep my eyes open for that "great hopeful" that might be the next big president who's worth more then ten cents. From what i recall from my history classes (yes, not toooo much, really), we haven't had a great president in at least fifty years. But hey, i'm not up with all the gospel/gossip/... on all the presidents since Kennedy so maybe there was one. In any rate, when i see that next one, i'm going to support that SOB with what i can spare, hoping that he can pass all the B.S. enough to not get corrupt.
We can only hope, no?
Well, there's two things to consider: 1) 500 * 130% is 650 Mhz. I don't expect to see 1 GHZ for a number of months yet. Then again, if IBM provides a chip that Apple prefers, they'll switch to that chip design. 2) A G4 450, with a similar configuration to a 1 GHZ Athlon, beat out the Athlon when working with Photoshop and a 50 meg file (G4, about 53 seconds; Athlon, about 80 seconds; unforturnately the SFGate article that is no longer avaiable, sorry) The G4 processor doesn't need to match the AMD and un-Intel processors in Mhz. The only numbers you can really can compare are the MIPS rating on the chips; which, by the way, is for one reason or other, hard to get. When things rely on the processor alot, the G4 seems to surpass the other two chips. From what an engineering friends says, it's because of the x86 instructions and 8086 emulation that has to be processed. That could be the case; but you know what, Intel and AMD are large enough companies that if they really wanted to get rid of that part of the processor and tell MS to take a hike, they probably could. (alright, a little off track but i thought i was valid)