As others have pointed out, we in the area have been on alert for this forever. Nothing would be better than having it happen so we can put it in our past. It will be dealt with and then remembered nostalgically - we're in full-blown "remember Mt. St. Helens" anniversary mode right now.

Thanks for the link. Also worth noting:

First violation for illegal immigrants: $500 fine plus jail costs

First violation for employers of illegal immigrants: Fill out some paperwork

This should be the real outrage - employers creating the supply of illegal work are barely punished. We can throw as many people back over the border as we want, but nothing will change until the supply of jobs is cut off.

1. Unless you live in Hong Kong.

2. Adrien Brody was on Ferguson last night talking about taking his parents to the premiere and forgetting that he *spoiler* has sex with the creature.

Your numbers logic is still crap. People drive every day, shoot much less often. Most auto fatalities are unintentional, reverse that for shooting deaths. The ratio of shooting deaths:guns fired is astronomically higher than auto deaths:miles driven.

Also, very few people own more than two cars whereas gun collectors are much more prevalent.

All you have to do to cash in is burn down your house!

Yet another attempt to monetize as an afterthought. Expect several more links to "Premium PSN" to clog up the XMB alongside the multiple redundant store icons, non-hideable ticker, and forced-at-startup "What's New" button. Remember the first issue of Qore, with all the promoted extras which turned out to be one bad (and hidden!) Pong clone and access to exclusive game content that was not realized for several months? That is an idea of to expect here. My guess is that the giveaway games will be of the type that require followup, not-free DLC to be fully realized.

"The average student debt load in 2008 was $23,200 -- a nearly $5,000 increase over five years."

This is fueled mainly by the boom in higher priced private colleges (University of Phoenix, etc.) and their shifty recruitment practices. Exactly in the same way that mortgages were being given to unqualified homeowners, there has been a huge rise in the numbers of students enrolling at colleges who will let anybody in the door. Recruiters are paid per enrollment in many cases. Frontline covered it recently:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/ (you can watch the show online here)

One of the standout statistics was the 10 percent of public university students are in default, while private colleges have a 44 percent default rate.

Proof of concept. The ultimate goal is to put man on other planets, and the best way to get there is to put man on other planets. It is cyclical that in order to convince people to do something we must first do that thing, but that is how the human brain works.

Or the "Sirens of Titan" joke, which took me a while to get and I've read the book.

"at least some of the U.S. still values their freedom"

Freedom to... break the law by speeding? Or did you mean privacy... on a publicly owned roadway? Being in your privately owned car does not change the fact that you are on public property and _everybody_ has the freedom to take your picture. You are also not invisible, so please get your finger out of your nose.

I don't understand the difference between a store camera catching a shoplifter who is then punished by the government or a roadside camera catching a speeder who then is punished the same way. Would you have all the cameras in the banks removed? Of course not. When I ride the bus or light rail I know there are cameras on board and that's fine by me because I've seen criminals brought to justice as a result.

Being an observant passenger/pedestrian also shows me that owning a car turns a lot of people in to assholes with a raging sense of entitlement. Being in a car with those people is even worse. I've discovered that most road rage is self-inflicted anger that the rest of the world isn't driving the way they want them to. Cars make people selfish and stressed out. Take down all the cameras and drivers will find something else to lash out at.

Think of all of the electricity wasted being forced wade through in-game tutorials. Getting rid of those and putting the info in a (preferably recycled paper) manual would be much greener while also improving gameplay. Nothing destroys the fantasy faster than when an NPC instructs you, via your character, to execute some button sequence. And it's even worse on replays when you are repeating pointless missions in order to learn something you already know.

Oblig. old man rant - Think about what it is doing to the youngsters' ability to read a book and then use that knowledge, rather than being conditioned to respond to prompts.

When posters on various sites tried to turn everything into a rant against Obama, I stopped reading comments...

The virtual intoxication in GTA is weak at best. Your eyes never cross, you never black out, etc. Little more than compensating for bad steering. You can drive five MPH on the freeway without attracting police attention if need be.

Don't know about Finland, but I mostly use the mail system for packages and magazines. Wouldn't be very happy if service on those items was cut back to a couple of times per week.

So Obama's numbers are higher in his rookie year than Bush's after eight years of experience? Well, duh. Give the guy a chance to figure out the process. Also, give us all eight years of Bush's numbers to look at.