The Bill (again)

[knockonwood]

I know i dissed somebody yesterday about freaking about the new bill and all the NC posting. Here's a part from the Law School Dropout's poker blog which i thought was a calm response.

What has two thumbs and is happy not to be American. This guy!! Alright, you know what: I'm actually going to write this post ignoring the hooplah of the past 48 hours -- if you had your head in the sand, Sen. Bill Frist managed to attach anti-internet-gambling language to a port security bill that was passed resoundingly by both the House and Senate, meaning that it now only awaits the signature of President Bush before it becomes law. Why ignore the elephant in the room? Because people have been losing their collective minds over this thing and nobody - nobody - knows just what type of effect this is going to have. Because it's unknowable at this point in time: the next step is for the US Department of Justice ("DOJ") to formlate a set of guidelines to dictate how the law will be interpreted and enforced. A bunch of uninformed adolescents yelling that the sky is falling serves absolutely no purpose other than to inject an irrational measure of panic into the proceedings. Online poker will survive in some form. Neteller will be fine. Do I have the answers to just how this will affect the internet poker scene? No, and neither does anyone else, so for the purposes of this blog, it's business as usual until we get some more concrete information from the poker sites or the DOJ.

[drzen]

I understand why everyone's freaking out, and I sympathise. It's hard to imagine that this legislation will be overturned, and if there is even one prosecution, Party's reaction will seem mild. But someone is going to figure out a way round it. The business is too big to be stopped by a cacksacker like Frist.

[Paxosmotic]

Warning, if you're not into metaphors, do not read this post. Also, if you want to be high and mighty and use the word tragedy and innocent lives 17 times to show me how great a person you are, don't read this post. It will offend you.

You know what this whole situation reminds me of? The day after 9/11. The day after the mourning. 9/11 was the day where everything was so awful. 9/12 was the day where every person you met knew exactly what was going to happen. Everything was "we're going to...", everyone was so certain about everything. That's what this all reminds me of. I was just reading through the legislation forum and some of the posts in there are amazing. Some people are like "this is the end of online poker", and others are like "this will not affect anything."

I don't know, maybe it's the fact that I know what the words gerund and infinitive mean, but it drives me up the wall when people have such a casual relationship with the English language.

Example:

Incorrect: "Online poker is over!"
Correct: "Online poker will likely become increasingly difficult to play, resulting in a shrunken player base consisting of the more dedicated players."

See what I did there? I qualified the statement as a likely outcome. Every time I see a sentence like "problems with cashouts will occur" or "online games WILL be shutdown in the USA" (two quotes from the same post), it makes me want to punch a 9th grade English textbook. I hate predicting the future. It's why I don't use the word "will" in an unqualified manner.

Think of it like this. If you were one of my troops (I'm in the military), and I gave you an order, which one is correct?

"Get this to me by Friday."
"You will get this to me by Friday."

The first is an order (call it a strong suggestion), the second is predicting the future. If I say "you will" do something, it's very easy for you to say "no, I won't."

This post is MILES off topic by now (oy, 5am), but yeah the point was that I'm sick of all of this sky is falling talk from people who have no [censored] clue about anything.

[knockonwood]

hmmm... i liked the dialogue. Is 'the sky has fallen' a Queens of the Stone Age shout out? Man, internet forums get the head ticking.

[KingOtter]

MY suggestion is:

- Read what the sites are saying (not the customer support reps, OFFICIAL announcements).
- Read journalism sources with critical thinking (is this biased? Do they have a reason to be biased? Is this a fact or opinion? Look for facts.)
- Discount 98% of what other people are posting. Just ignore it. Including this. I think you'll be left with the letters 't' and 'r'.
- Create an informed decision based on these facts.

And you'll be fine.

[OziBattler]

Pax,I agree

It is hard to separate the crap from the utter crap in some of the forums on this site these days.

my take on all this is that live goes on, poker goes on....easy for me to say given Im not in the states but whilst I dont have a problem with ppl taking precautionary measures and getting the BR into an account they can control...there is so much BS being written on 2+2 that is just speculation. I choose not to listen to speculation. I listen to facts. I do things to minimise my risk (eg I completed my party bonus and cashed out just incase) but Im not going to the extremes (an extrem for me would be to withdraw all my money from neteller to australian bank accounts...which btw is harder to do and a bit more costly to do that if I were American). I read certain posts in certain forums and have a good laugh because they are FOS. I continue to play poker. I will do my best to keep this forum alive. I will be posting a thread about session review signups on friday. I will keep myself as informed as i can on the FACTs and the current state of play of online poker. I will get drunk on the weekend. I am using the word will in this post because PAx will find it funny. I hope enough ppl have a few bucks in stars in case I start a 2+2 table. I am not going to start a new paragraph at this point in this post because I couldnt give a [censored]. that is all. Im going to bed. holla.

[Paxosmotic]

Pax will use his newfound wealth from cashing out to fly to Australia. Pax will pour a bucket of syrup on you. Pax will laugh heartily.

[Bilgefisher]

[ QUOTE ]
MY suggestion is:

- Read what the sites are saying (not the customer support reps, OFFICIAL announcements).
- Read journalism sources with critical thinking (is this biased? Do they have a reason to be biased? Is this a fact or opinion? Look for facts.)
- Discount 98% of what other people are posting. Just ignore it. Including this. I think you'll be left with the letters 't' and 'r'.
- Create an informed decision based on these facts.

And you'll be fine.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is good advice. One thing I would say about the legislation forum atm. If its not posted b Berge20 Mr.k or Natethegreat, your better off getting breaking news from the comic pages. I recommend waiting 2 weeks before you start reading anything other then sticky posts on there.

[Thrakkar]

[ QUOTE ]
...the point was that I'm sick of all of this sky is falling talk from people who have no [censored] clue about anything.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nicely said, Pax!

I too am sick of all that DOOM talk.

So just <font color="red">to annoy everybody who writes about the end of online poker </font> (or gambling in general) I am telling you this:

Today I bought 4,750 shares of Partygaming at 40 pence each! You are welcome to see me lose my stack, but do me a favor: stop raising your nut-flush draw on the flop with no pair on the board after 9 callers!!! [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

To the rest: "Live long and poker!" (Spock)

Holla!
-Thrakkar

[OziBattler]

[ QUOTE ]
Pax will use his newfound wealth from cashing out to fly to Australia. Pax will pour a bucket of syrup on you. Pax will laugh heartily.

[/ QUOTE ]

zing! tehehe.