Nostradumbass on the other hand is, surprisingly, available.

Well yes, companies and governments only hire consultants to tell them what they want to hear or what their employees have been telling them basically for free. Any case where consultation does not agree with the stated position needs to be thrown out and redone by a group that understands how consultation works.

Right but without the R18+ label they can defacto ban all games that would fall into this category.

Here in the U.S. (and perhaps elsewhere) we had something kinda similar happen recently the movie Kick Ass was released with a very well earned R rating and not really marketed to children but it still received negative press because it was "targeted towards children". Even with an industry self censorship system with a very conservative track record in this country the "conservative moment" (really just fundamentalists) won't rest until they can ban anything simply by objecting to it.

When will the world realize that all religious fundamentalists (of all religions, they all want pretty much the same things) need to be fought?

That's kind of what I always figured.
CSI is guilty of this too... all of their IP addresses start with a first octet in the 400s but I guess that is one of the least of their many tech sins.

I should mod you into oblivion for trying to curse more people with MSPA addictions... good call on posting AC. In all seriousness it's one of the best forms of web entertainment I've seen in a while.

Why would anyone want to be Megan Fox? For the Transformers money?

While you aren't wrong there is one thing that Wall Street did that made this situation worse: When they saw that the emperor had no clothes they quietly made bets against their customers. I would never recommend something that I wouldn't buy myself and that is exactly what they and the rating firms where doing. I won't even get into the fact that all this fiddling and contorting the market turned a relatively small problem into a huge invisible economy crushing one... no one ever asked them to do that.

The way the world is perceived by the consumerist an it's community is a bit odd.

To be fair that's only like two years away according to most books, movies and video games.

You should be able to sue for the damages to your house and what you spent to have the tree trimmed back. A judge may also grant an injunction against your neighbor to keep plants from growing onto your property (technically this is how property works but people need reminding sometimes). However you neighbor could sue you for damaging her tree or at least modifying it without here permission.

Seems like something hard to justify in a standardized testing world. Having said that, I agree wholeheartedly.

But changing is hard. I think it's funny that you can say you want to reduce dependence on oil and that is fine but then say that you might as well do something cleaner if we are going to invest the money anyway and everyone freaks out.

I know at least 3 people who believe this. Also, there was a Tea Party spokesman on NPR a few weeks ago implying that armed rebellion was a real possible outcome of there movement and one of there talking points is that the current government is socialist so a few of them probably believe a Communist over throw is a real possibility as well. Just because it's ludicrous doesn't mean people don't believe it.

Google is a publicly traded company so why not both? All kidding aside China is way scarier.

I didn't mean all of Slashdot... I self identify as a citizen of the United States so yes us refers to the USA. Having said that, I don't think we (the US) are the only Country on earth that is beholden to China. Time will tell how good or bad that is, but big change often hurts the little guy the most in the long run.