I did RTFA...and let me explain something to you....NONE OF THAT MATTERS. Nintendo is a huge company. Lawyer wants payday. Family is distraught and wants to blame somebody (except themselves). Lawyer capitalizes on this and goes to sue Nintendo, hoping that Nintendo will settle for a few million (which the layer gets 50% of).

WRONG! It is clearly Nintendo's fault for making their contoller look "similar" to a gun and obviously the family should sue Nintendo for negligible homicide and reap millions.

What...you don't believe me? Just wait until the family gets a lawyer telling them practically the same thing and how the family was wronged by Nintendo.

Wait the French didn't surrender? Are you sure it was the French?

It gets to the point "Your body contemplates to take a breath of air....you get kicked" ;) BTW, later in your post you said "screams out in pain"...how does one scream out in pain in a text based mmo?

Really? You are trying to compare muds of the early 90s (which I also played) to todays games? You are comparing "You are in a room, your exists are up, down, north, west". I played majormud, telearena, tradewars2002, and a bunch of others. They were great, but nothing compared to today. After playing Doom 1 I said "wow one day we will have a merger of this and muds" and we do.

I think your dislike of MMOS today (which is just a large graphical mud) is that you are comparing today to your youth...that's a mistake...about as much of a mistake when I rented the original transformers series, and battlestar galactica series...what a way to kill my childhood memories. Things seem better from when you were a kid because your brain fantasizes and makes it better then what it was...plus as a kid we have beeter imaginations and are more easily impressed then when we are adults.

BTW - it did cost money to play muds back in the day depending on where you played (just like today). I had to pay $20/month so I could have a monthly account with the local BBS. It did cost the guy time/money to keep the computers/phone lines up and running and he was limited to 15-25 people at a time. He paid $10/line so charging users $20/month was fair.

Really? Buying a car is that complex?

"How much is the car sales person? X you say? Ok I will give you Y. Great now that we agree on Z let's move on.
I would like to finance, what's your rates? Q you say? Well that's better then my bank, so great let's move on.
I want to sell you my car, how much are you offering? M you say? Well, M is a bit low, how about N? Great now that we agree on O let's move on.
"Finally, the warranty, how much? S you say? Ok I will give you T. Great we have a deal"


It's four fairly simple steps...if a person finds that difficult then I'd imagine Linux involves solving the mystery of the universe. At any point in the process if you are unhappy with one of the rates you can decline. If your car purchase is anymore complex then that (other then inspecting the car) then you are doing something entirely wrong.

Too late...SS has already transformed (many many years ago) into a national ID. It's how you get a job (legally), get benefits (until they run out), pay your taxes, get loans, track your criminal record, track your passport, etc. It's a very good way of tracking people because it's a huge freakin number that is used on a 1:1 ratio.

However, social security has a major flaw...our cards have absolutely ZERO ways of gauranteeing the person holding the ID is actually the person using the ID (except age....i don't think I could pass for a 75 year old person...since I am 33).

Giving this card a method to be used as an ID will help.

BTW - jsut in thought. By law we are all required to have social security numbers from birth. We are not all required to have drivers license's, but many states require people have some kind of gov't id card by the age of 18. That means if you live in one of those states you have to get a drivers license, non-drivers license, passport, military id or welfare card by the age of 18...that is an extra ID (and some would say tracking) form. By putting a picture on your social card then people who would prefer not to be tracked can live their entire lives with only ONE form of ID (social)...anyhow I digress.

My point is this id will help prevent fraud, amongst other things. I am down for a bit less fraud

Illegal immigrants use stolen socials to get said jobs...yes it happens, and yes it is significant. Those socials are also used by criminals who are trying to avoid detection, used by people trying to steal benefits, used by people trying to get loans and defaulting on them, etc. It's a huge issue. SS theft is extremely bad - it hurts the person who had their information stolen (getting your SS changed is next to impossible). It hurts the businesses who got screwed out of loan money (which in turn raises the prices for the general public).

The problem is that illegal immigrants are using this - and they are not supposed to be here. Criminals use this to avoid being tracked...I am sure we would like to continue to track pedo's...or escaped criminals. What if the person who is using this for work decides to then take grandma's SS benefits? Or take a loan out on her name and default on the loan now ruining grandmas credit? What if you are working, and someone else is working on your social....now your income tax bracket went up. If the person didn't pay any taxes on the money they made...guess who has to pay it...yup you do.

I'll prefer to keep my social private and I'll earn my own retirement benefits.

The gov't tracks you prett well actually. You think the gov't doesn't know your employment status, criminal record, fbi record, IRS payment status, bank account data, credit card bill, mortgage bill, car payment, phone bill, electricity usage, etc? You really honestly believe they don't already have this information on you tracking down to when you got your last parking ticket, or used EZ-pass the last time or went to an ATM machine in 2001? If you really think that then you are 110% naive.

All this bill is saying 1) Put some kind of biometric (whichi includes a picture) on your social security ID, 2) require employers to check this. Good, I have always wanted a picture on my social...that way I can worry less about it getting stolen. If they happen to put my drivers license information (probably a checkbox saying "he can drive a car"), put my passport information (probably a checkbox saying "he can leave the country") then I am all for it.

The information itself is not stored on the card (maybe my name/birthday), but an ID number on the card is linked to a database which *ALREADY* has the information.

So Lawrence, please stop with the scare tactics. The gov't knows this information about us...and as far as where you are concerned...don't worry as long as you pay your taxes the gov't couldn't care less about you.