I’ll preface this with the fact that I have no kids.  But I read a lot of stuff about people whining about different things that I find really annoying and wasteful.  We have a professional class of politicians that have to always be making noise about something.  We have a professional class of whiners who constantly have to be complaining about something.  And we have a billion 24/7 news outlets on TV, the web, and everywhere else that need something to talk about.  Whiners and politicians are good that way.

BTW, the irony of the fact that I’m whining about whiners is not lost on me.  And I don’t think all politicians are bad.  Just most of them.

So this article:  Court rejects Illinois video game law is short, but good.  And I love this quote they pull from the ruling:

 “As we have suggested in the past, there is serious reason to believe that a statute sweeps too broadly when it prohibits a game that is essentially an interactive, digital version of The Odyssey.“

Brilliant!  I’m glad a rational judge got a hold of this.  Personally, I think trying to legislate taste is a really bad idea.  Parents should decide, or even better help their kids make informed decisions, what their kids look at.  There are movies, books, etc. that some might find inappropriate for kids.  I’m sure there are a ton of parents that think Catcher in the Rye is bad for kids.  And Amazon.com or the brick and mortar Barnes and Noble don’t card people before they buy it.  In fact, I wonder if Best Buy or Circuit City has to card kids before they buy R movies – I doubt it, but I’ll check.  There are a lot of R movies that are a hell of a lot more disturbing than most games.  Things like The Ring.

Anyway, I guess I just get frustrated seeing all these articles about people legislating what people can and can’t do.  And I’m pretty sure (at least in hindsight it seems this way to me) that at about 16 people should be able to make their own decisions.  I mean if we trust them enough to go 70 miles per hour in several tons of steal we should be able to trust them to make other choices. 

/diatribe