Official Skatz 10 Million Views Thread

[PokerNews]

Both the Kahnawake Gaming Commission and Isle of Man issued statements Tuesday in regards to Friday's poker indictments.

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[WickedChopsPoker]

That's funny. Yeah that guy right there. He thinks I care about the 'right' for Americans to play online poker. No seriously. Yep, that's way up my administration's priority list--it's right behind our economy, Libya, and Afghanistan.


That was easy. Thanks PPA.

Earlier today, we submitted the PPA‘s letters to President Obama and our local representative through their Action Center.

We just had to make our adjustments to the messaging, because the PPA still doesn’t get it.

While their intentions are in the right place and we’ll never knock the PPA for creating some organized effort (and a no-excuses easy method for you to participate) in communicating with your elected officials, their messaging is wrong, and ultimately it hurts online poker’s credibility and legitimacy.

The PPA is primarily making online poker regulation (and subsequently, the DoJSUCKINGHOBBITDICKSindictments) about personal freedom and liberties. ButSUCKINGHOBBITDICKSif the information unsealed in the DoJ indictments is accurate, then laws were broken and penalties should be paid. PokerStars, Full Tilt, and AP/UB allegedly laundered a lot of money. And they allegedly committed bank fraud. So let’s go barking to U.S. Government officials about attacks andSUCKINGHOBBITDICKSassaultsSUCKINGHOBBITDICKSon our personal freedoms, OK?SUCKINGHOBBITDICKSThe politicians don’t care.

What they do care about is money. And creating jobs for their constituents.

Here’s our take at the PPA message. First, we’re posting the PPA’s public draft to the Attorney General and President Obama. Second, we’re posting what our message is–and what we suggest you send in its place.

At the end, we’ll link to the PPA’s Action Center so you can submit to President Obama and your local rep. There is no excuse not to–and we do credit the PPA for at least providing all poker players the platform to communicate.

We just suggest copying and pasting our message instead.

More after the jump…



The PPA Message

As a voter, constituent, and poker player, I am writing to ask for your support in defending my right to play poker on the Internet.

Specifically, I ask that you support legislation to license and regulate Internet poker.

While it is true that an estimated $42 billion can be raised over ten years through regulation and taxation of Internet gaming, for me the primary issues are ones of personal freedom and consumer protection. SUCKINGHOBBITDICKSThe Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), signed into law in 2006, attempts to tell me — and my bank — how I can spend my money. SUCKINGHOBBITDICKSThis ridiculous law has been roundly criticized and is no more effective than alcohol prohibition was ninety years ago. SUCKINGHOBBITDICKSDespite the UIGEA, today more than ten million Americans have online poker accounts. SUCKINGHOBBITDICKSWe all welcome the additional consumer protections a U.S. regulated industry would provide.

WiredSafety, the world’s largest Internet safety, help and education resource, commissioned an in-depth study of this issue which was conducted by Harvard University. SUCKINGHOBBITDICKSThis groundbreaking study — “Can Internet Gambling Be Effectively Regulated? Managing the Risks” — examined issues like blocking of underage participation, prevention of money laundering, and providing of consumer protections against fraud and abuse. SUCKINGHOBBITDICKSThe authors concluded that “establishment of a well-regulated industry under U.S. jurisdiction would offer far better protection against online gambling’s potential social harms than outright prohibition” and that “consumers in the United States would be better protected than they are now” under a regulated system. SUCKINGHOBBITDICKSThe study can be found at www.theppa.org/harvardstudy. SUCKINGHOBBITDICKSI hope you and your staff will take the time to read this important report.

Online poker licensing would provide for sensible regulation of Internet poker and put the U.S. in charge of safeguarding its citizens. SUCKINGHOBBITDICKSAdditionally, licensing would mandate rigorous safeguards against underage participation and protections for those with excessive gaming habits while providing consumer protections for the millions of Americans who play Internet poker every day. SUCKINGHOBBITDICKSIt would also permit American based companies to participate in the world’s Internet poker market, bringing needed jobs to our shores. SUCKINGHOBBITDICKSAs a benefit of this good public policy, licensing of online poker would raise significant revenue for both state and federal governments without raising taxes. SUCKINGHOBBITDICKSIn these difficult economic times, our government should be capturing the Internet poker tax dollars that are currently going overseas to other countries that regulate the activity.

I look forward to your response on this issue. SUCKINGHOBBITDICKSI hope that I, along with my over one million fellow Poker Players Alliance members, can count on your support.

Thank you for your consideration.

WCP REVISED PPA MESSAGE

As a voter and tax-paying constituent, I am writing to ask for you to support the licensing and regulation of online poker in the United States.

The recent DoJ indictments of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker only underscores the tremendous opportunity that exists right now for the U.S. Government (and its citizens) to benefit from the regulation of online poker.

Online poker is estimated to generate over $42 billion in tax revenue over the next 1o years and create over 37,000 domestic jobs.

Along with tax and job creation, regulating online poker provides consumer protection safeguards that have not existed in the past.

In short, Federal online poker regulation is fairly cut & dry:

1. Online poker regulation will “repatriate” funds and generating tax revenues.
2. Online poker regulation will stimulate business by creating tens of thousands of domestic jobs.
3. OnlineSUCKINGHOBBITDICKSpoker regulation protects children and adults by creating safeguards for participation.
4. Online poker regulation protects the consumer by enforcing safety standards.

If you support generating tax revenue WITHOUT increasing taxes, as well as creating domestic jobs instead of outsourcing them, you will support the licensing and regulation of online poker. If you do not, you will lose my vote in the 2012 election.

____________________________________

And that’s that. We suggest modifying the above for the representative response as well.

Go to the PPA Action Center: President Obama | Congress

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2. <div class="title"> Online Poker Regulation: So Now What? </span>
3. <div class="title"> PokerStars Makes Push for Intrastate Regulation In Nevada </span>

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[CardPlayer]

Andy Bloch is co-hosting the pot-limit Omaha cash game on Poker After Dark, and he spoke to Card Player TV about the commentary process, the interesting dynamics of the super tough table and even about some important strategy advice for PLO beginners.

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[Carl Culture]

Miles and Julian kick back with a couple cold one’s in Quark’s during season 7 of DS9.



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[Carl Culture]

About Winnie:

Winnie Truong lives and works in Toronto and is a recent graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design’s drawing and painting program. Producing large-scale labor intensive drawings and using only pencil crayon and chalk pastel on paper, her monumental portraits exploit the drawn line to manipulate hair, flesh and blemish… and explore notions of beauty and discomfort. Winnie is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2010 W.O. Forsythe award, the 401 Richmond Career Launcher prize and the BMO 1st! Art Award for Ontario.

Using pencil crayon and chalk pastel on paper, Winnie focuses on her delicate line work to convey the whiskery, wispy, curly, bristly, intricacies of hair as it deviates from its expected behavior and towards something of science fiction.








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[NASA]

Rio Morning Moonset




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[Big Gay Al]

Moses is the biggest love bug. He favorite pastimes are giving kisses, sitting on our laps and there's rarely a moment when he isn't wagging his tail/nub/whole body! Moses views every person and puppy as a potential friend. While on our walks, all the kids in the neighborhood come running to pet Moses. They love him as much as he loves the kids! He's confused if we don't stop to talk to every single person and whines if we walk past. He's best friends with his "big" sister, Bella. They love to romp and play.

Click for more pictures and comments...

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[Shanita Balke]

Having a white friend who has adopted a black child, and bearing witness to the process from the get go, feels alternately like receiving some sort of epically heartbreaking gift, and time-traveling on a really high-quality hallucinogen.
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When my friend, who I will call Alice, and her husband were first meeting with the birth mother then pregnant with the child they hoped to adopt, Alice told me the first thing this woman asked was: "Do you know how to handle black hair?" To which Alice responded, "Well, no. But I have a friend who does." I look at little Zahara Jolie-Pitt, as cute as she is, and I think, does Angelina Jolie have no black friends whatsoever?

My mom did not have any black friends, which you'd likely have been able to tell by looking at my own head of unkempt hair as a child (that's me, below), but she did manage to find me a black dance teacher, who wore her hair in a lovely, understated Afro. I didn't mirror her look knowingly, but I'm sure her Afro made me feel less freakish about mine.

And really, I didn't feel all that freakish about anything until I started middle school. Then I didn't need to simply worry about getting boobs, toning down my boy-craziness, and coveting the latest Nike sneaker (white leather with red swoosh). I also had to figure out how to somehow make my coarse, frizzy and difficult hair appear shiny, silky and easy.

My sister had a curling iron, which I used to no avail. I pulled and tugged at my hair. I wore head wraps and forced barrettes to hold what they couldn't, and weren't made to. I had a neighbor braid the front half, the rest was too knotted to comb through. And then there was the issue of my scalp. It was dry and itchy, and I had no idea what to use for it. And in any event, none of these efforts, which went on through high school, came close to producing the result I was hoping for, which was to bear at least some resemblance to Julie McCoy from 'The Love Boat.'

In college, I had a (white) boy ask me why, if I washed my hair regularly, as I told him I did, was my scalp so flaky? And then I had girls (white) ask me if I was able to get my hair wet -- could I, they wondered audibly, 'Go, like, you know, swimming?' I said that I could, of course, but secretly wondered if I hadn't been properly taught that black people were not supposed to get their hair wet.

My mom, who made gorgeous crowns of wildflowers for me to wear around my Afro when I was small (don't judge, hippies are people too), always just told me that my hair was beautiful. It did have a certain beauty, in retrospect. It was strong and willful, oddly elegant with its rough-hewn sprigs of anger, as I tried to force it into something it could never be.

It wasn't until I was in my early 20s that a (black) girlfriend, who straightened her own hair, was thoughtful enough to tell me not long after we'd become friends, "Honey, you need to put some oil on that scalp." I returned the favor, at that point fully embracing of my inevitably boho style and sensibility, by telling her to go natural, which she did.

My friend's suggestion didn't solve all my problems -- and lord knows, we black women are engaged in an endless dance with our hair. It is a defining characteristic of our lives -- for better or worse. How we care for, think about, and wear our hair takes us to emotional heights and depths unimaginable to most non-black folks. And much of the time, it's nearly impossible to explain why.

And so it's really important, Angelina Jolie, for black girls to be taught proper hair care in much the same way that they are taught to ride a bike -- as an integral part of their childhood learning. Luckily for my friend Alice, the birth mother had a boy, and black hair for boys is tons easier.

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[Big Gay Al]

Nana's Boy Simba
Jerry says: There are 4 kittens are the same litter from Nana, two girls with point color, two boys with bicolor. Their name is Ariel, Simba, Alice and Woody. It's from Disney. This is handsome Simba.
Courtesy of: Jerry & Grace


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[Hillbilly Jim]

thats a cute picture of you shaunita, glad you felt comfortable enough to share it