But who specifically, of any significance/voice, is actually saying this? Quotes/links?

You can think of dissolving parliament as a way of calling an election. This isn't, say, the equivalent of the Galactic Senate being abolished to create the new Galactic Empire.

Most parliamentary systems give the head of state the power to prorogue or dissolve the parliament. It varies depending on country, but for instance Ukraine and France give a lot of authority to the President over the parliament.

In both cases (Ukraine + France) the Prime Minister had stepped down due to parliament being unable to get anything done; thus the crises and parliament being dissolved and elections being called. I don't know the particulars of these countries, but I would guess that if the PMs had not stepped down, the ability to of the President to dissolve parliament would be much weaker (not sure if through legal or merely political means).

The American equivalent (we would assume there is something in the Constitution legally giving this power) would be if the Senate and House leaders went to the President and say "We can't get anything done, everyone's divided, we can't even get a vote on the laws, and we can't react properly to any challenges facing the country, we're stepping down". So then the President says "okay, congress is dissovled, and everyone is up for reelection this fall" and so it would be.

As a specific example, the Canadian Prime Minister (being the head of government and leader of parliament) can request parliament to be dissolved by the Governor General (the largely symbolic Canadian Head of State) in the case of a constitutional crisis, or in the event of a vote of no-confidence. Parliament is technically "dissolved" every five years, when normal elections would be called.

So if the ruling government doesn't have enough votes to pass a budget through the parliament, the Prime Minister either needs to step down as leader and allow a new government to form, or the PM can advise the Governor General to dissolve parliament, thus calling an election. This is to avoid the grid-lock seen in systems like in the States. Basically it guarantees that things get done.. if the parliament can't get a budget passed, election time. If your party is not in a shape for a snap election, they are more willing to compromise. At least, that's the theory of it.

This isn't too surprising. Given the civil war and the fall of the last government it is expected to have quick parliamentary elections (which are now set for October); and given that, there's not much sense in on going law-making until then.

Fair enough,but I guess I just haven't really seen these terrible arguments, or at least haven't seen any arguments to warrant the kind of reaction seen in the video posted here. The guy's tone makes him appear very angry, personally offended and threatened. By what? People wanting more female playable characters? Why would that illicit such a response?

It's clear the guy in the video sees games as an inclusive hobby, and he's quite threatened by the idea that at some point games being produced might not cater exclusively to his demographic. The day may come that a really good looking upcoming game is announced, maybe one that this guy has been specifically looking forward to, and he might have to play as a woman.

Now there's nothing wrong with having a preference. As a man, I too would prefer to play as a male character. But if you understand that people have these preferences, why is it so hard to understand why some people (i.e. women) might want the option to play as a female character?

A few thoughts:

1) I don't think this issue is overblown as I haven't really seen much about this issue aside from online discussions. There are no laws, no protests, nothing blocking developers from making the games as they see fit. The fact that there is backlash to people simply talking and discussing these issues is a bit telling..

2) The idea that you shouldn't have female characters just for the sake of it, that they need to fill some necessary role in the story is a bit of a "your privilege is showing" moment. This suggests that the standard character, regardless, should always be male, and that if that standard male character is to be switched over to a female character,there had better be a good reason for it (otherwise it's just shoehorned in), and of course that reason will always have something to do with gender (because if there's no need for femininity in the game, why not just make the character a male!). I see no problem with main characters being female for no other reason than "we needed a human character for this role".

3) Not personally knowing any female gamers does not mean they don't exist. The statistics say otherwise, as do other people's anecdotes. When I was in school many of the women living in our section played video games just as the rest of us did. I've also worked in schools and got to meet a very wide variety of young people. This included many female gamers (playing more than candy crush on their phones). Wouldn't really surprise me that gamers who take time to complain about women in games on the internet might not be part of social circles that contain a large and diverse group of women.

4) Even if women make up a minority of gamers, market leaders don't just appeal to existing markets, they actively create and shape new ones. Half the planet's population is female, and if your company is not trying to figure out ways to tap in to that market, your company isn't doing a good job.

Timesplitters, Turok and Rogue Squadron. Hell let's throw in Dino Crisis while we are at it.

It's required to separate your recycling, garbage and compostables here. Collection trucks simply won't collect your bags if they aren't sorted properly.

It could be that you aren't privy to the intimate details of the funding, costs, time and staffing of each respective game project.

Preemptive damage control move? Maybe it was seen as too risky to have a woman present in a type of event where misogynistic comments and jokes could get thrown around without much thought.

In other, more-than-likely unrelated news, Nintendo has today released their "Announcing Nintendo at E3 2014" video, confirming a Nintendo-hosted Smash Bros. tournament for E3, a Nintendo Digital Event promising "new games and announcements", and finally, constant daily live streams of games, live at E3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghEhI4CJjAM

They did this, presumably, to quash all possible hype for the upcoming conference which they do not plan to attend in any significant way.