I love the ad hominem, "this is a billion-dollar industry."

When in doubt, "rabble, rabble, there's money involved so it must be evil!"

I was constantly asked for my opinion on the recent Georgian elections while in Georgia and my response was always "I know nothing."

Liking China for privacy reasons? That's... interesting.

The difference is that they don't bother lying about it like the US government does. The Chinese never had any concept of privacy previously, so they didn't lose any. But in the US we did have privacy and the government is constantly looking for ways around that without people knowing about it.

In China : the Big Brother is visible and you live in the reality .
In the US : the Big Brother in invisible and you live in a fake reality .

Mostly yeah, but around here, the people keep a pretty close eye on everybody.

The best part about that is, if it is a billion dollar industry (raked in around 7 billion last year alone), then that must mean there are at least millions of gamers in the US, yet there are not millions of murdering, game-addicted psychopaths running around right now. Their own stats refute their ridiculous claims about video games causing violence.

7 Billion? The last chart I saw showed PC game sales in the 15 to 20 billion range -- and that's just PC sales. Console sales I believe were closer to 25 billion. That's not a small industry by any means if the numbers I saw were accurate.

7 billion in US profits, not worldwide or simple sales.

Ah, gotcha.

It's funny that you mention common sense, because as I age, I'm increasingly finding that "common sense" is becoming more and more uncommon.

Just as an example, I know a fairly conservative couple that lets their kids get away with pretty much anything and they're little terrors, who nobody in particular looks forward to a visit from.

By contrast, I work with a juggalo, who is one of the strictest parents I've ever met. He has a teenage daughter who he's fiercely protective of, and a young son who he filters EVERYTHING from TV, to videogames, music, etc. Hell, he doesn't even play his own games in front of him, he rather waits until it's bedtime, then plays what he wants/listens to what he wants.

It's kind of odd how much the spectrum seems to shift these days, and the people you'd expect to be "bad parents" aren't, while the ones you'd expect to be strict, aren't.

I'm not sure about that, but from what I remember hearing about him NBA player Tim Duncan is a fan of games and Magic The Gathering.

You know my brother and his kids!? Kidding, I love my family... no seriously, his kids are awful.
It sounds trite, but you really can't judge a book by its cover. Take my wife, she has multiple tattoos and piercings and she occasionally gets nasty looks from the "squares" because of her appearance, but if they bothered to look past appearances, they'd find she is a well-respected business analyst at her company who works her ass off yet still finds time to do homey things like canning preserves and knitting, plus is the best mother in the world (okay, I am a little biased). Unfortunately, far too many people, especially in politics, never bother to even try to look past the surface.

No thanks. I got one myself. ;-)

As someone familiar with local politics of San Francisco (I live next door), Lee is just making a grandstanding statement to what he believes is his safe base, the relatively conservative business-minded power brokers of SF Chinatown, with just enough of a hint of SF style progressive-ism.

Long story short, California has the worst gerry-mandering setup in the entire US, and most politicians have voting districts that align along major political blocs. Thus this kind of grandstanding, and in some cases absolutism is commonplace.

This is not a mindless politician -- he's penned a number of sensible laws in the last few years -- but in this age you have to get more than a few soundbites, and sometimes sane public debate is a victim.