Mass Effect

But this time everybody is talking about it including uber scholar Lindsey Lohan. Seventeen, yes 17!, year old Bristol Palin, daughter of Vice presidential Republican candidate, is pregnant and the father is a local ice hockey star (he's from Alaska) and they are going to get married. So that's all right then.
NO its not!
Teenage pregnacy in the US is the higher than anywhere in the 'developed world' despite it falling from over 10% of births. The age of majority in the United States is effectivly 21. However on life and death issues then it is seen as acceptable to die for the flag or add another citizen to its numbers below that age. The United States is not a signatory to the UN Convention on the rights of the child, the only country along with Somalia (who has no govenment who can sign) who not have ratified the treaty. Indeed the World Health Organisation states:
"More countries have ratified the Convention than any other human rights treaty in history?192 countries had become State Parties to the Convention as of November 2005."
Indeed the US's focus on preserving young life led it to abolish the death penalty for those under 16 in 1988 and for under 18's in 2005, and only at the behest of the Supreme Court.

My grumble, is not with a culture of double standards, or the stupidity of abstinence based sex education but to paraphrase Maude Flanders (deceased) of Simpsons fame - "Won't someone think of the children!" In this case that, sadly, means both mother and child. Youthful indescresion or sex and drugs as its better known can wreck lives but usually don't. However if caught with drugs (and especially if you're black and male) this indiscretion can lead to long prison sentances. Bristol, on the other hand is white, rich and well connected. She will be fine as will her child. Youth is wasted on the young, true - but that is no excuse to throw it away.
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Trig Palin - Bristol's brother... or not?
Babble.com has listed a few interesting facts, devotees of Desperate Housewives will understand the plot here...

Introducing a regular feature of Mass Effect, a monthly preview of gaming, with the fabulous month of Septmeber.

First up, the PC!

South Asian tradition tells of the Blind Man and the elephant, a tale about a man trying to describe an elephant to his blind friend. I feel much the same this month. The reasons for the is trepidation is that this friday Europe braces itself for Will Wright's new magnun opus, Spore. Billed as five games in one, Spore seeks to live up to the description of "evolutionary biology in a box." Don't cancel the BSC quite yet but don't expect too many elephants either....
Spore is due for release on Friday (UK & Europe) but 3.2 million user created creatures can be viewed at Spore.com. My contributions can be viewed here!
Expect more updates and picutres plus a full review!

Warhammer Age Of Reckoning

Yes its another fantasy based MMORPG. Yes it uses the Warhammer license, from Games Workshop but will it be any better than World of Warcraft of even Lord of the Rings online? The answer is... we'll wait and see. With any MMO the launch months are the most critical. Conan suffered from incomplete content but Warhammer claims to be finished, however they did some major changes last minute. Check back after release for 1st impressions.

Honorable mention- Flight Simulator X -Complete Edition - for all those veteran flight simmers out there...or the perfect software for budding pilots. Please note: flight simming can lead to serious hardware addiction.

Nintendo Wii -Tiger Woods 'bla bla' '09.

Another year and another round of EA sports titles with '09 slapped on them. Having fond memories of pitch 'n' put in Leytonstone I took the plunge to relive them via Tiger Woods and the Wii. Tiger Woods '09 is a quality game but a very heavily US game whose overbearing tone can quickly irritate. A case in point would be the addition of a condescending trainer whose sole purpose seems be to get you replay your own worst holes and be the focus of your swearing. If you thought golf on the Wii seems appealing then Tiger Woods '09 delivers the goods with robust single, multi and online play, get it. Best played drunk with friends as many of the best Wii games are.

Samba De Amigo -
A very strange remake of a rather strange game. Essentially a rhythm game where you shake your controllers like maracas to match beats. Best for children or university studies on hallucinogens. Start waving like a mariachi on Sept 23

Xbox & PS3

Viva Pinata

While maracas are from Puerto Rico, its Mexico's Pinatas that feature in Rare's mini masterpiece. Viva! is essentially a game about between garden design for multi coloured roaming pinata. This games didn't get the sales it deserved so go lavish some attention on it later this month.

Program of the Month: Punkbuster
Punkbuster (P is a program that runs in the background with some FPS. It detects and kicks players caught cheating and griefing.

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