One step forward…

For free speech!

California’s law prohibiting the sale and rental of violent games to minors was struck down by the Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision.

That said, I think that stores are perfectly within their rights to refuse to sell M or AO rated games to minors (unaccompanied by a parent/guardian); I believe that Gamestop and Toys R Us already do this. That’s no different than a movie theater refusing to sell tickets to R-rated films to minors without a parent present.

Imagine if California had passed a law mandating a $1000 fine per infraction for each time a minor snuck into an R-rated movie; that’s essentially what this law would have done, only to the gaming industry.

I will agree with fivewheels, who said, “The irony was so much better when the case was called Schwarzenegger v. EMA.”

Given the government’s penchant for regulation, I wonder if Civilization (a classic game if ever there was one) would have been refused sale to minors. After all, in the GTA series you only kill a few hundred or thousand people, but in Civ you can nuke entire cities and lay waste to entire nations! Who decides which games are too violent?

Parents should, but this decision merely says that parents cannot make the state do their job for them.

Journey to the West

Sure, Hayao Miyazaki might be a raving environmentalist wacko who prefers getting his power from coal (I guess?) to nuclear power, but that doesn’t mean the man can’t direct a good movie.

And Princess Mononoke is one such good movie; like many of his other films, it pits man against nature, but Miyazaki is no James Cameron, and this is no Avatar. The humans are actually real people, and not caricatures of the military-industrial complex.

The acting is good; Disney sprung for real actors, instead of just using office interns to record the English dub. Joe Hisaishi’s score is excellent, as always.

I got nothin’

And by nothin’, I mean internet service as well as nothing to talk about.

I can’t rant because I have no news access!

I may have to bite the bullet and upgrade my cell phone and plan to one that supports tethering, for situations just like this.

Don’t worry, internet peoples; I’ll be at Starbucks mooching free wifi later if it’s still down, and I have a Daily OST selection scheduled to go up in the next hour or two.