New York governor signs 'unnecessary' game law

He's not blind, but he is the god at paying attention to two different things.

Right eye: Addressing the questioner

Left eye: Addressing the nipples popping out of that hottie's sweater.

"All consoles already have parental lockout features built in and ESRB ratings are prominently displayed on each game's box and disc."

You can't exactly blame him for not SEEING the ratings or parental options.
http://www.instantrimshot.com/

lol@instantrimshot. My cheesy jokes just got 100 times better.

Best website ever I just need a site with a laugh track.

How did you not see this coming?

I found this for ya Mr. Escape. It's kinda quick and dirty, but it will do the trick.

http://www.soundboard.com/sb/laugh_track.aspx

@ negativecool.

he's not blind? ok...peep this scenario: if he's checking out an ipod that is DIRECTLY in front of him, lets say 1 foot away, he sees that ipod about as well as the average person would see an ipod at 400 (FOUR HUNDRED) feet away. i'm sorry, if thats not blind (legally blind, which he is) that i dont know what your definition is.

Patterson's never seen legislation that he didn't like...

Dude O__0.

you're killing me

So he's Daredevil! I knew it!

I fought Daredevil once. I put a ipod on him and told him it was a explosive device that would turn him into Ben Afflack. He was like "NO NOT AGAIN!". Fun times.

I didn't see that joke coming.

(Reply to Chase)

In the words of the Animanaics:

"Justice isn't blind, she's cross-eyed."

Our government does late-night bum-powdering now?! Is that a new amendment or something? I wonder if I can request mine to be given by Barbara Boxer...rrowr!

This truly is the best country in the world!!

What state do you live in?

These things happen, and it is the reason that great towering figures of law such as Justinian, Suleiman the Magnificent, and our founding fathers are so important: they all somehow managed with seemingly super-human ability to codify and modernize thousands of years of complicated, arcanely worded/written, contradictary, and often-times bitterly contended law. Schools teach in history class "Justinian... byzantine empire... codified roman law... was really important... end of lesson." and don't seem to want to explain WHY codification is so unbelievably important and impressive.

America's legal system in its current form is pretty depressing for some people. Many countries in the western world have modernized their constitutions and governments to a much greater extent than us. Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Greece, Japan, Ireland... These are all fresher and 'younger' governments than ours which hasn't been meaningfully ammended in the longest time. The solution -- if you ask me -- is the dissolution of the 50 states into more efficiently managed regions with less popular representation so that more actually gets done.

I'm not saying end democracy and representation, I'm saying end meaningless borders that no one cares about anymore that are a drain on our efficiency. The Civil War is long over -- you're American first and Virginian/Californian/New Yorker/etc. second. why should new york and new jersey be separate states or massachusetts and new hampshire? they're completely interdependent. new york city has more in common with northern new jersey than new york city has in common than in all the rest of the state of new york!

No, she's not a dependent because she's an adult (i hope) who is separate legal entity. Once you become married, you are now a single legal entity.

Wow, Rocketboy. I guess I'll give you a pass on this one, because you're certainly not the only know-it-all out there that tries to act as if your guess about something you have no idea about is a fact.

The following are the requirements for claiming a dependent that is not related to you, straight from the IRS:

1. They must be under 25 years of age if they are a full-time student, or under 19 years of age if they are not.

2. They must have lived with you ALL year.

3. They must have made less money than the total amount that the exemption is worth ($3400).

4. They must have been responsible for paying for less than half of their living expenses on their own.

5. Must not violate local law. In states where cohabitation is illegal, even if unenforced, voids the claim.

My girlfriend is a 23 year old full time student with no income that paid far less than half of her living expenses on her own, and lived with me all year.

We qualify for 1-4 no problem, but #5 is where I lose it, as living with my girlfriend is technically illegal here.

Vcize.. really? Your local gov't is enforcing a blue law? Well, I guess it's Aol/Weblogs's duty to report your IP address and send you to jail.

And I could apologize for misunderstanding that you were specifically talking about claiming her as a dependant, but your chick is a lazy freeloader, and you are a pompus twit.

Oh, and age does not matter.

"Vcize.. really? Your local gov't is enforcing a blue law? Well, I guess it's Aol/Weblogs's duty to report your IP address and send you to jail."

I'm not following you here. It has nothing to do with jail or the local government enforcing anything (they're not enforcing anything), it's the fact that the law, which is totally unenforced and only around because "they haven't gotten around to remove it" is costing me money on my taxes.

"And I could apologize for misunderstanding that you were specifically talking about claiming her as a dependant, but your chick is a lazy freeloader, and you are a pompus twit."

Well I'm not sure what part of 'it will cost me because I cannot claim her as a dependent' you didn't understand. But as for the rest of it, my girlfriend is in her 3rd year of med school and on rotation 60-70 hours/week, hence her lack of income, and I think we've proven the only pompus twit in here is the one that CONTINUES to make ridiculous assumptions about things he clearly is not aware of.

Amen to that. I saw Marky Mark's Planet of the Apes.

The consequences of passing a law like that are NOTHING compared to what would happen if.. they.. started taking integrals determining the the fate of humanity.

...and to be honest, it's not like this law is useless.

If it only confirms on something that's implemented anyway, then what's the problem? ESRB isn't a government organization so anything that makes it any more official is a good thing for us gamers, right?

I like this guy's thought. I mean how long do you think it took the legislature and executive to pull this off, probably a half-hour. I know we all like to laugh at people who know less than us, but it does make something official that once was only self regulatory.

I disagree.

The MPAA and ESRB are voluntary organizations and government involvement in the way they conduct business to this extent is inappropriate at best.

i beg to differ, regulation is one of the few things in which the government is proficient (or is atleast better than private interest).

I can has cooky nao?

Maybe because it does affect them. Paterson is just another member in a long line of useless New York politicians willing to tackle the simple issues and spend a lot of money doing it while ignoring stuff that is actually important. The usual tilting at windmills. Paterson being blind is just par for the course in that state, the only difference is that the rest of the governors didn't bother using their perfectly functional set of eyes. You could say it's an excuse to act just like everyone else.

New Yorkers have a state that has the largest population of paid legislative staff and produces twice as many bills as the next state (Illinois) yet manages to actually act on around 4% of them. Introducing bills costs money, hence the massive legislative staff being paid out of New Yorkers pockets. The state is the third largest economy in the United States, 16th in the world, yet is still managing to find a way to come up $5 billion short in spending.

They have a ton to fix in that state before worrying about sending non-functional bills (which cost taxpayer dollars to write and push through the legislative process). This bill does affect them, it's just another tick in the $124 billion New York will end up blowing this year, mostly on useless crap.

Maybe because I pay 25% of my $90K salary to the frackin' governments and I don't want them using that money on stupid, useless things like pointless lawyerin'.

When you grow up and start paying taxes you may understand.

New York's budgetary problems in this current round have little to do with costly overhead and video game legislation which (judging from all these websites out there dedicated to STOPPING the bill's proposal) have wasted more money than whatever the bill's discussion in the legislature cost. If video game "justice" experts are so interested in "the people", maybe they should have donated to charities all the money they spent advertising and spamming my email with "TELL PATERSON TO STOP THIS BILL!!!"

States all over the country are in serious financial trouble -- huge overhead or not. The rather small state government of Indiana has even outsourced state jobs (an incredibly unprecedented act for those of you who are clueless to the differences between government and private industry jobs where 'you're fired!' is commonplace) to save money.

That being said though, New York State's government does do a better than average job in passing legislation that really matters in life (i.e. things more serious than your video game squabbling) For example, health insurers are not allowed to refuse coverage for previously-existing conditions, state pensions and licencing can be broadbanded easily, teacher professionalization is among the highest quality in the country, NYS nurse licensing is the most rigorous in the country, the state and city universities are excellent and cheap for NY residents, the state inspectors and regulatory agencies are some of the best in the country, etc.