I don't have a PS3 or 360, so I'm playing through GTA: San Andreas on the PC to catch up until IV comes out for the PC. I've played every GTA ever, including the rarely mentioned but brilliant top-down 2D GTA and GTA2.

For me, the fun of the game has always been driving crazily around a well-realized city. Zipping down a crowded street on a motorcycle, running every red light while avoiding traffic is great fun!

Setting aside the fact that there are much worse games out there (Postal, Manhunt [also made by Rockstar, BTW]), the main focus of GTA has always been the freedom to do anything in a given environment. People who are into simulated violence don't need GTA to get their fix. Hell, there are people who play The Sims just to torment their charges by putting them in a room where they can't even sit down and give them no food and no access to a bathroom.

If developers put as much freedom as the GTA series has into Barbie Horse Adventures, you'd see all kinds of horrors there, as well. Would critics then say that BHA encourages bestiality?

They really don't sugar-coat the conditions for women there. I think this is only mentioned in BS because of the curiosity of cross-dressing, but the reasons why it is even done are pretty clear. It is also clear that is it considered a "game" to put away once the girls are married.

I'm all for cultural difference, but oppressing 50% of the population like this is just messed up. I don't think I would mind the gender segregation so much if both sides had equal rights (the ability to drive, for one). It's clear that women are little more than property.

I'm not familiar with the law, but is a woman required to eat right, not smoke, not drink, not do drugs (of the legal kind), or do anything else that might potentially harm her unborn child? Is this actually codified somewhere?

I understand if she tried to abort past the legal limit for her community, but this goes far beyond that. By definition a stillbirth is a birth, and not an abortion.

This woman shouldn't have been prosecuted for anything beyond the illegal drug charges.

That's already illegal. It's defending a woman from homicide charges for doing cocaine while pregnant.

As others have mentioned there are plenty of legal substances that will have a worse effect on a fetus. Should we illegalize those for pregnant women? Should we lock all pregnant women up in compounds so we can control their eating and drinking habits?

Is there anything a son can do to merit an honor killing? If his son had an inappropriate crush on an unmarried woman, and spoke to her, would he be killed as well? Because presumably, the object of the crush in my example would be killed.

Whatever the justification: religion, tribal traditions, or something else, honor killings are an abomination. I don't want to understand a mindset where they are excusable in any way, shape, or form.

Another village proud of a double honor killing:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUKNOA63974220080516

I'm not sure how tied the Caste system is to Hinduism, but it is interesting to note that religion isn't touted as the primary justification, but the good of the society.

And again, this can't be written off as the actions of some extremist kooks. The whole village supports the crime, and no one is likely to be prosecuted. I'm not sure what can be done to change this.

A guy sends beams his phone number to any and all women in his vicinity: no problem.

Woman responds: she gets killed.

Sounds like women have much more to lose by flirting than men.

but does this mean that the previous Girl's Crisis was illusory compared the effects of ethnicity and economics? They did evaluate 40 years of data, after all..

In my day (early 90s) it was definitely the other way around.

Even if Sun got a 100 million dollar settlement (and I doubt Oceanic gave out 0.6 billion in hush money) it wouldn't be enough to buy controlling interest in what must be an at least one billion dollar heavy industrial megacorp. *Even* if she had Hurley's help it wouldn't be enough.

One early theory was that Widmore helped her out for some reason. That doesn't seem to be the case now, but still don't know how she came up with the scratch to overthrow her father.

...in a grave.

You might have been confused by the episode where Sun had her baby. That was a combined flashback/forward where Sun was in the future, and Jin was still Paik's enforcer before they even got on the plane.

The island "moved", in time or space we don't know which, and the water filled the void left by the island. Everyone on the island should be fine wherever in time or space it happens to be. We don't know what happened to those with Daniel on the motor raft are, though.

So there went half of my stimulus check. That doesn't count as retail spending, does it?

This discussion is getting a little out of hand. Depending on subject matter and interest level, anyone can appear boring in a conversation, regardless of gender, class, or what have you.

As was said above, a good conversationalist tries to feel someone out to figure out what they are interested in talking about. Not everyone has this skill; I would say most people don't.

In a broad sense, men and women have different interests, so it's easy to see why would one group would think the other is, in general, boring, in any given conversation.