Any money they can *take* from the government is rightfully theirs? Methinks you have it backwards. The government doesn't have their own money, they have that of taxpayers. How can one take one's own money?
Honest question, and answer with your first, gut instinct: Does the government grant rights to the people, or do the people grant power to the government?

2007: Youtube accounts for 10% of all traffic
2008: Youtube accounts for 35% of all streaming video; Streaming media accounts for 50% of all internet traffic. Doing the math, that puts Youtube around 12-15% of *all* traffic.

There's no good alternative because there's no good alternative.

Not even the same ballpark. That's like needing to drive to Chicago for the weekend and your car has broken down. Your friend pipes up, "Hey, we can take a go-cart!"

I imagine the subset of the population that this will impact is vanishingly small. Your desktop is obviously always connected, so we're looking at laptops. Given that the graphics are fairly modern, we can eliminate vast swaths of the notebook market. RTS games require a mouse - using a touchpad for an RTS is an exercise in frustration and can only sound like a viable option to someone who has never actually tried it. So now we're looking at a gaming laptop with enough flat area to use a mouse - something like a desk or table. Certainly a larger area than, say, the fold-up tray on an airplane; something more like a table at your local coffee shop (which almost assuredly has free wifi). It's not a huge leap to say that the number of people who will play this game on a gaming laptop in an area with no internet connection is miniscule.

And that's not even taking into account that there will likely be an offline mode similar to Steam.

You're so close to really getting it. Just need to take that last step and realize that Democrats do the exact. same. thing.

To wit: Keith Olberman's rant about Scott Brown, who if he were a Texan would be leftist. You say, "And at which point Rush Limbaugh would say the same things Olberman did instead of defending him!" Which is true, but leaves out the bigger picture - Olberman would instantly have jumped to Scott Brown's defense and ripped into Rush.

Ah, so it goes.

Terrorism?

What you call a failure I'd call a great success, showing a robust system that is operating well. A ruler in power for 50 years worries me much more than one that rules for 5 months.

M$? You mean MS - Microsoft?
Wait, oh, I get it -- it's because they like money?
I also like money, I wonder if I can get my /. name changed to regu£ar_gonza£ez.

And let's not forget about Bill and Hillary, who have their own legacy of corruption they left behind.

In other words, all national level politicians are bought and owned, else they wouldn't be able to make it on a nation-wide stage.

They would have to block the sales of the game, or face legal penalties. There is a workaround, however, that is used in every sizeable gaming community where Game A is not available in Region B for whatever reason -- a friend who *is* in Region A can buy the game as a gift, and then gift it to the person in Region B (whereupon B paypals money to A). Inconvenient? Definitely. But not insurmountable, if you're a regular on a gaming forum like Shacknews.

Oh, I agree, and I'm learning guitar right now. But comparing a video game to real life is missing the point. Spending 15 hours in Guitar Hero, I can have fun rocking out to classic songs. After 15 hours on a real guitar, I could play Go Tell Aunt Rhodie.

I've seen people play Crysis. I've never played it. I'm not sure exactly what it is. I think that there are some kind of weapons and enemies displayed on a monitor and you try to use the weapons to shoot them. Allow me to suggest an alternative. Buy a real gun and go to the shooting range. Buy a selection of guns, and practice until you're good. When you feel good and up to it, consider joining the Army so you can shoot real life people in the middle east. I've seen people play Forza. I've never played it. I'm not sure exactly what it is. I think that you take a plastic controller and maneuver a car around a racetrack displayed on a monitor, avoiding other vehicles at the same time. Allow me to suggest an alternative. Buy a sports car and go to your local track. Practice driving a lot, trying to avoid accidents. When you feel good and up to it, consider joining organized races at the racetrack. Wait, that sounds stupid.

Age of Conan does this -- if you gank people more then (iirc) 8 levels lower, you get murder points. The lower their level, the more murder points. If you have any murder points, all city guards will kill you on sight, vendors won't trade with you, etc. You have to work them off via questing. I can count on one hand how many times I've been killed by someone more then 8 levels above my own, due largely to this system.

Would you give, say, me permission to install a rootkit on your machine and monitor everything that you do on it? Yeah, that's how I feel about letting someone else - an individual or company - install a rootkit on *my* machine.