Parents have the right to rely on the accuracy of the entertainment rating system. We allege that Take-Two and Rockstar's actions undermined the industry's own rating system and deceived consumers
This is crazy. It is not like GTA San Andreas was rated "E for Everyone" and then "unexpectedly" showed some adult-rated content to minors. Even with an "M" rating, how could any reasonable parent buy this game for their child and not thing something inappropriate would be there?
Re:GTA is one of the worst offenders
on
Just Let Me Play!
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· Score: 1
There is so much repetition and boredom hidden in this game it's a real wonder I finished the game twice.
I'm assuming you're talking about GTA San Andreas. If that's the case, you're 100% correct. I got stuck on the stupid "school" missions and haven't played the game since. However, if I can change the attributes of the vehicles similar to how you can do it for GTA3, I might go back to playing it.
I like how in GTA3 and in GTA Vice City there was little emphasis on "training." You got a few on-screen prompts to tell you hints and such and you then had to learn by doing. The "school" missions in San Andreas were a real turn off, and shouldn't have been required to advance the plot in the game.
The inclusion of girlfriends, costume changes, eating and exercise regiments were equally irritating. I come to play a game to get away from problems with those issues, not to have to deal with them again.
As for GTA3, I beat it once without cheats when I got the PC version in 2002. I've gone back to playing it with some cheating (not the in-game cheats, but rather cheats which involve altering vehicle, NPC and weapon attributes) just to see what else I can find there.
Not enough time has passed since the last movie. They need a bigger break because they will still have the same people who have been dragging down the movies for a while.
Didn't they try this with the Crocodile Dundee franchise?
Aside from that, the article is wrong about Wal-Mart pulling GTA: San Andreas from the shelves after the Hot Coffee problem. I know that at the Wal-Mart in West Norriton, PA, and in Exton, PA they had continued to stock the game both during and after the controversy.
Yawn... if you're going to bother replying, try and come up with a more convincing counter-argument than pretending you didn't see the figures from the official US budget web site.
And yes, it would have told you at if you consider the total amount of money the Federal government takes in from every source that military spending is only 20% of the budget. Again, simply choosing to ignore a particular source of money doesn't advance your argument.
What the parent poster also forgot to realize is that part of the reason we have such an enormous military budget is to deal with the global unrest caused by our insatiable thirst for oil.
Again, the military budget is only 20% of all federal spending. It is certainly not enormous when it is compared to the rest of what the government spends our money on.
Don't forget that a significant amount of our military spending is used to keep the peace in places like the former Yugoslavia. Don't forget about our military presences in South Korea, Japan and near Taiwan. What about our military actions in Western Europe that helped to bring about the end of the Cold war? What about our military acting as a humanitarian force after the 2004 tsunami (and nearly every other disaster). Should we stop spending money for these things as well?
As for our "insatiable thirst for oil"... the last time I checked, no one held a gun to peoples' heads and forced them to drive gas-guzzing SUVs or other junkers. If you really want to affect change, you need to go to the people who are part of the problem and stop them instead of trying to deny reality.
You're trying to shift the focus of the discussion altogether with your comment. The gist was that there is money available for these kind of initiatives if the political will is there.
What I have done is help to prove that the "fight" against global warming is inexorably linked to the anti-war (and ultimately anti-American) agenda. I personally don't believe a single word of the article that we are supposedly ready to fight global warming. I might believe it when I see fewer people wasting money on gas guzzling vehicles or buying more energy efficient housing or doing more recycling. The funny part of that is almost none of these things requires government intervention at all.
First of all, DoD spending is indeed massive within the United States. Second of all, neither Social Security nor Medicare revenue is eligible to be spent by Congress. It's not part of the general budget. This was done to keep Congress from raiding the social programs so that they could cut taxes on those who didn't need the social programs.
Again, it doesn't matter what accounting tricks you use to cover up the truth. The money is still collected and spent (and overspent). I could say that all military spending is "off budget" and under your argument, that would mean I spend nothing on the military. The fact is, all money collected by the government through all means of taxation all ends up in the same pot that gets spent anyway. There are no "trust funds" or any other magical lockboxes into which some "secret stash" of money get stored.
Yes, but while you don't have to fight a war (honestly, you don't), you do have to pay for healthcare.
The Constitution clearly states that the government can wage war. The Constitution makes no mention of healthcare spending. Whether or not you agree with the Iraq war, it is pretty naive to say that you don't have to fight a war. There are many situations in history where we had no choice but to fight a war. And whether or not the rest of the people here like the truth or not, the fact still remains that defense spending is small potatoes compared to the rest of the Federal Budget, and linking to all the left wing websites in the world isn't going to change that.
Yawn... if you're going to link to a site, try not to use one which contradicts itself further down the page. The War Resistor's page itself states very clearly that Defense spending is only 20% of all Federal spending and that social programs are a far greater percentage.
And don't give me the BS that it is only income taxes collected that should count. Every source of government income, whether it is on or off budget, gets spent, and it is from that total spending pool from which any figures should be derived.
I could say that out of $1, 99 cents goes to fund the Iraq War, if I don't count the other $2.8 trillion the government spends.
end the war in Iraq to free up the funds for the above initiatives
The cost of the Iraq War, along with all other DoD-related expenses (including funding the entire military) is small potatoes compared to spending on social programs. If you really want to free up money in the Federal budget, make real cuts to programs like corporate subsidies, personal welfare, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other such programs.
We won't see any of these things happen though, given how elected Republicans have become indistinguishable from Socialists with regards to reckless, unending and out-of-control Federal spending.
Socialize pharma companies today so we can have aids cures instead of impotancy drugs for baby boomers trying to recapture their youth...
You're absolutely correct about how Big Pharma spends way too much money on marketing. However, you don't see any pharmaceutical innovations coming out of countries which don't have tough patent laws. In most of the third world for example, all the pharma companies there do is make knock offs of drugs that were invented here. While this isn't a bad thing for the people there, someone still has to invent the drugs in the first place. You'll find that in most third world countries, there is absolutely no money spent on R&D for new "important" drugs.
Registering your pr0n site as a.com, etc would always be the preffered method, since you site would have a better chance of getting around filters.
Most adult websites though do not want to bypass Internet content filters that parents set up for their children. Many voluntarily list themselves with filtering companies expressly for the purpose of trying to keep porn away from those who should not be seeing it. Of course, they don't do this out of moral reasons but rather to save themselves. Anyone who complains about "too much porn" on the Internet can be directed to use the latest available filtering technology to their heart's content with no government involvement needed.
isn't this Iranian crack down on blogs in the same realm as the US Government illegally spying on its citizens?
So by your inferred premise, this guy should be punished more severely for leaking an illegally recorded private phone conversation involving 2 US citizens, right?
Amazing how government officials get away with this BS. If any private citizen tape recorded someone else's phone conversations without the consent of the parties involved, they might be staring at jail time. Hopefully, Congress will do the right thing and remove this dangerous, power-hungry madman from power immediately.
Homeland Security was created by Bush and his crew.
The Department of Homeland Security at the Federal level was created by Congress at the request of President Bush. Montgomery County, Maryland has its own Homeland Security department under its own jurisdiction which may work with, but is not under the jurisdiction of the Federal DHS.
Do I really need to use a big fat black marker to connect the dots for you?
You might want to go read up on the topic of Federalism before making a comment like that.
We forget so often that the chinese government isn't stupid, and maybe not even evil.
Maybe not evil? Are you serious? Pleasegolearnaboutsomeofthethings the "warm and fuzzy" Chinese government has done before posting such BS.
They have reasons for why they do what they do.
And they are all wrong.
3 mio.? 4 mio.? maybe 5 mio. people could die during an all-china civil unrest.
Is it better to die that to live as a slave? How many millions of people has the Chinese regime already killed in the 50+ years that it has been in power?
Bad bosses cause bad working environments. You do not want to be around either. Move up or move out. It's that simple. The job market is better than you think.
Amen to that. Another thing to consider though is if you're putting in 60-80 hours a week at a job that you hate, quitting and taking a new job may provide you with quite a bit of free time that you probably never knew you had as well.
Their ISP, or a particular content provider, say Google. I see 2 potential outcomes here:
BS users will not notice any significant degradation in connections to websites like Google, Yahoo, or in using VoIP services or the like. In which case, these content providers will not pay extortion fees to BS. BS retaliates by blocking access to these sites and users leave BS as a result.
Content providers actively solicit BS customers away from BS. For example, a BS customer loads up Google and sees a message on the page like "Don't like the way this page loads? It's because your ISP, BS, stinks! Switch to ISP XYZ today!" Google is seen by many people as an entity which can "do no evil" and as a result it might be able to get away with such a move. A VoIP provider might put a pre-recorded message prior to each call which could say "Your ISP, BS is purposefully degrading the quality of this call. If you don't like this, switch to ISP XYZ today!"
What needs to happen here is that word needs to get out that BS is not offering better service to those who pay, but is rather offering crippled service to those who don't pay. Both statements are true because granting one group of traffic priority over the other reduces the quality of the connection available to the other groups of traffic.
Slashdot Mirror
Parents have the right to rely on the accuracy of the entertainment rating system. We allege that Take-Two and Rockstar's actions undermined the industry's own rating system and deceived consumers
This is crazy. It is not like GTA San Andreas was rated "E for Everyone" and then "unexpectedly" showed some adult-rated content to minors. Even with an "M" rating, how could any reasonable parent buy this game for their child and not thing something inappropriate would be there?
There is so much repetition and boredom hidden in this game it's a real wonder I finished the game twice.
I'm assuming you're talking about GTA San Andreas. If that's the case, you're 100% correct. I got stuck on the stupid "school" missions and haven't played the game since. However, if I can change the attributes of the vehicles similar to how you can do it for GTA3, I might go back to playing it.
I like how in GTA3 and in GTA Vice City there was little emphasis on "training." You got a few on-screen prompts to tell you hints and such and you then had to learn by doing. The "school" missions in San Andreas were a real turn off, and shouldn't have been required to advance the plot in the game.
The inclusion of girlfriends, costume changes, eating and exercise regiments were equally irritating. I come to play a game to get away from problems with those issues, not to have to deal with them again.
As for GTA3, I beat it once without cheats when I got the PC version in 2002. I've gone back to playing it with some cheating (not the in-game cheats, but rather cheats which involve altering vehicle, NPC and weapon attributes) just to see what else I can find there.
bah weep graaagnah wheep ni ni bong
Let's see...
Is it just me, or does this guy sound like the Ted McGinley of the tech industry?
Not enough time has passed since the last movie. They need a bigger break because they will still have the same people who have been dragging down the movies for a while.
Didn't they try this with the Crocodile Dundee franchise?
since China nowadays allows foreign privately owned corporations to operate in the country, it is a modern globalized capitalist dictatorship
That just makes it a fascist dictatorship!
Aside from that, the article is wrong about Wal-Mart pulling GTA: San Andreas from the shelves after the Hot Coffee problem. I know that at the Wal-Mart in West Norriton, PA, and in Exton, PA they had continued to stock the game both during and after the controversy.
There is proof, right?
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Yawn... if you're going to bother replying, try and come up with a more convincing counter-argument than pretending you didn't see the figures from the official US budget web site.
And yes, it would have told you at if you consider the total amount of money the Federal government takes in from every source that military spending is only 20% of the budget. Again, simply choosing to ignore a particular source of money doesn't advance your argument.
The Federal government will spend nearly $439.3 billion on defense.
The Federal government took in around $2.3 trillion (based on the graph).
If you calculate 439,300,000,000 / 2,300,000,000,000 * 100 you get 19.1%.
What the parent poster also forgot to realize is that part of the reason we have such an enormous military budget is to deal with the global unrest caused by our insatiable thirst for oil.
Again, the military budget is only 20% of all federal spending. It is certainly not enormous when it is compared to the rest of what the government spends our money on.
Don't forget that a significant amount of our military spending is used to keep the peace in places like the former Yugoslavia. Don't forget about our military presences in South Korea, Japan and near Taiwan. What about our military actions in Western Europe that helped to bring about the end of the Cold war? What about our military acting as a humanitarian force after the 2004 tsunami (and nearly every other disaster). Should we stop spending money for these things as well?
As for our "insatiable thirst for oil"... the last time I checked, no one held a gun to peoples' heads and forced them to drive gas-guzzing SUVs or other junkers. If you really want to affect change, you need to go to the people who are part of the problem and stop them instead of trying to deny reality.
You're trying to shift the focus of the discussion altogether with your comment. The gist was that there is money available for these kind of initiatives if the political will is there.
What I have done is help to prove that the "fight" against global warming is inexorably linked to the anti-war (and ultimately anti-American) agenda. I personally don't believe a single word of the article that we are supposedly ready to fight global warming. I might believe it when I see fewer people wasting money on gas guzzling vehicles or buying more energy efficient housing or doing more recycling. The funny part of that is almost none of these things requires government intervention at all.
First of all, DoD spending is indeed massive within the United States. Second of all, neither Social Security nor Medicare revenue is eligible to be spent by Congress. It's not part of the general budget. This was done to keep Congress from raiding the social programs so that they could cut taxes on those who didn't need the social programs.
Again, it doesn't matter what accounting tricks you use to cover up the truth. The money is still collected and spent (and overspent). I could say that all military spending is "off budget" and under your argument, that would mean I spend nothing on the military. The fact is, all money collected by the government through all means of taxation all ends up in the same pot that gets spent anyway. There are no "trust funds" or any other magical lockboxes into which some "secret stash" of money get stored.
Yes, but while you don't have to fight a war (honestly, you don't), you do have to pay for healthcare.
The Constitution clearly states that the government can wage war. The Constitution makes no mention of healthcare spending. Whether or not you agree with the Iraq war, it is pretty naive to say that you don't have to fight a war. There are many situations in history where we had no choice but to fight a war. And whether or not the rest of the people here like the truth or not, the fact still remains that defense spending is small potatoes compared to the rest of the Federal Budget, and linking to all the left wing websites in the world isn't going to change that.
Yawn... if you're going to link to a site, try not to use one which contradicts itself further down the page. The War Resistor's page itself states very clearly that Defense spending is only 20% of all Federal spending and that social programs are a far greater percentage. And don't give me the BS that it is only income taxes collected that should count. Every source of government income, whether it is on or off budget, gets spent, and it is from that total spending pool from which any figures should be derived. I could say that out of $1, 99 cents goes to fund the Iraq War, if I don't count the other $2.8 trillion the government spends.
end the war in Iraq to free up the funds for the above initiatives
The cost of the Iraq War, along with all other DoD-related expenses (including funding the entire military) is small potatoes compared to spending on social programs. If you really want to free up money in the Federal budget, make real cuts to programs like corporate subsidies, personal welfare, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other such programs.
We won't see any of these things happen though, given how elected Republicans have become indistinguishable from Socialists with regards to reckless, unending and out-of-control Federal spending.
Socialize pharma companies today so we can have aids cures instead of impotancy drugs for baby boomers trying to recapture their youth...
You're absolutely correct about how Big Pharma spends way too much money on marketing. However, you don't see any pharmaceutical innovations coming out of countries which don't have tough patent laws. In most of the third world for example, all the pharma companies there do is make knock offs of drugs that were invented here. While this isn't a bad thing for the people there, someone still has to invent the drugs in the first place. You'll find that in most third world countries, there is absolutely no money spent on R&D for new "important" drugs.
Registering your pr0n site as a .com, etc would always be the preffered method, since you site would have a better chance of getting around filters.
Most adult websites though do not want to bypass Internet content filters that parents set up for their children. Many voluntarily list themselves with filtering companies expressly for the purpose of trying to keep porn away from those who should not be seeing it. Of course, they don't do this out of moral reasons but rather to save themselves. Anyone who complains about "too much porn" on the Internet can be directed to use the latest available filtering technology to their heart's content with no government involvement needed.
isn't this Iranian crack down on blogs in the same realm as the US Government illegally spying on its citizens?
So by your inferred premise, this guy should be punished more severely for leaking an illegally recorded private phone conversation involving 2 US citizens, right?
Amazing how government officials get away with this BS. If any private citizen tape recorded someone else's phone conversations without the consent of the parties involved, they might be staring at jail time. Hopefully, Congress will do the right thing and remove this dangerous, power-hungry madman from power immediately.
How about allah@vtext.com?
Homeland Security was created by Bush and his crew.
The Department of Homeland Security at the Federal level was created by Congress at the request of President Bush. Montgomery County, Maryland has its own Homeland Security department under its own jurisdiction which may work with, but is not under the jurisdiction of the Federal DHS.
Do I really need to use a big fat black marker to connect the dots for you?
You might want to go read up on the topic of Federalism before making a comment like that.
We forget so often that the chinese government isn't stupid, and maybe not even evil.
Maybe not evil? Are you serious? Please go learn about some of the things the "warm and fuzzy" Chinese government has done before posting such BS.
They have reasons for why they do what they do.
And they are all wrong.
3 mio.? 4 mio.? maybe 5 mio. people could die during an all-china civil unrest.
Is it better to die that to live as a slave? How many millions of people has the Chinese regime already killed in the 50+ years that it has been in power?
For example like USA that always wins the WORLD Series of Baseball, right?
Wrong.
For example like USA that always wins the WORLD Series of Baseball, right?
Wrong.
Bad bosses cause bad working environments. You do not want to be around either. Move up or move out. It's that simple. The job market is better than you think.
Amen to that. Another thing to consider though is if you're putting in 60-80 hours a week at a job that you hate, quitting and taking a new job may provide you with quite a bit of free time that you probably never knew you had as well.
Their ISP, or a particular content provider, say Google. I see 2 potential outcomes here:
What needs to happen here is that word needs to get out that BS is not offering better service to those who pay, but is rather offering crippled service to those who don't pay. Both statements are true because granting one group of traffic priority over the other reduces the quality of the connection available to the other groups of traffic.