By that logic, if all you need is 'trust,' why have trials? Can't we 'trust' that the police got the right man? Can't we 'trust' that the DA has his facts in order?

could verify your statement

Seriously? He's talking about a video game, not nuclear disarmament treaties.

read more about Double Fine's plans.

The Googles are broken for you, are they?

Go find an early printing of D&D, and look for halfings. You won't find them. You'll find hobbits, though.

Nothing GPL'd is free. They expect payment in the form of new code, and word-of-mouth advertising (you must make available the code, leave the GPL boilerplate on, yadda yadda).

You state that there is no 'center,' extreme, liberal, conservative, left, right, etc etc.

I find this odd, as 'left,' 'right,' 'liberal' and 'conservative' are political definitions. It's like saying there's no such thing as 'sweet' versus 'sour.'

The American system, of course, boils lib and con down to absurd extremes, and assumes an all-or-nothing take; pro choice? you're also pro gun control, etc etc.

Then you categorize some choices as 'evil.' Can you expound on that a bit?

Yes, straight-ticket voting is horrid. But again, in a multi-party system, things tend to balance out towards the center. In a first-past-the-post system, the two sides are encouraged to move to the extremes.

Actually, I'm a proud socialist of Canuckistan. And our system certainly has it's quirks and foibles (and outright stupidities) as well, don't get me wrong.

It's better principles, maybe, but it also guarantees that your vote is tossed away.

The system, as is, is designed to not allow third parties to win. Therefore, by voting third-party, you're implicitly not voting for a candidate that could actually win.

Like I said in another post, change the system. Somehow.

Well, America kinda half-asses it. One one hand, it's a republic, whereby you elect representatives. On the other hand, you vote directly on various propositions and what not. It's bloody weird.

No, see, that's the problem. You, as a voter, are presented with a choice. Do you vote for the candidate you actually want, knowing full well that the American system, as currently implemented, is specifically geared against third-party candidates? Or do you game the system, and aim for the best realistic outcome?

It's a democracy.

Given that the American government setup was SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED to avoid 'too much democracy,' I'd have to disagree with you, champ.

Nonsense. For example, if you voted for Ross Perot, you're directly responsible for the Republicans losing the White House. If you voted for Nader, you're directly responsible for the Democrats losing the White House.

Either go back to your government as intended; that is to say, without political parties, or accept the fact that there are, in fact, political parties, and change your government setup to work with that.

Microsoft isn't static. Take their utter dismissal, followed by 180 degree turn around and headlong rush into TCP/IP and the Internet. They're surprisingly agile, for such a large company. If they weren't, they'd have been eaten long ago.

The only reason Microsoft still has it's 'monopoly' is it's ability to change and refocus, thus preventing it's competition from disrupting them.

Were Microsoft static, it would have been supplanted long long ago. When is the last time, for example, you saw a piece of software which advertised, as a system requirement, "IBM PC or 100 percent compatible?"

Progress is what allows one to maintain a monopoly. History has demonstrated that static monopolies die quick, natural deaths.