Nanny State Cuts off Online Gambling, Shopaholics Continue.

Online gambling (illegal in the US already) was denied the transfer of money in a slimy insert of a measure into a needed Ports bill approved weeks ago and signed today (Friday)(the thirteenth) by President Bush.

Whether or not you believe online gambling should be banned, and indeed contacts with American gambling sources like bookies and horse racing I heard is not illegal, there is a big disconnect in logic in what we ban.

If Las Vegas wants online gambling banned, it gets banned as does the means to interact with offshore sites.

Ban 24 hour on air and online shopping? I doubt that'll ever happen. (No matter what some in the linked report say about not being able to separate shopping addiction from the victims' environment.) That is a good topic for another day as our nation is committed to spreading the shopaholic empire around the world while we see it destroying the espoused values of many of the GOP's firmest supporters. If they haven't figured out that the promotion of casual sex has nearly everything to do with the promotion of shopping, I feel bad for them, but I still hate the war they promote or at least condone.

BTW. banning could be used for many other 'addictions'. Too many blogaholics? Ban it. See what I mean?

When they came for the gambler, I was silent...

The Port Bill was approved nearly unanimously because the main parts of the port bill were needed, but to throw in banning money for online gambling at the last minute was pure politics by the Republicans who control Congress.

BTW, on the border fence bill, we are told that the president doesn't have to sign it yet because the Congress has not sent it over to him. He has 10 days after it is sent to him. This shows further complicity from the Republicans who control Congress in helping Bush to veto the bill that demands he build a 700 mile fence. Meanwhile we are being bombarded in the news media with propaganda that a fence would be bad.

They could keep this up until after the election and then collect all that money from Big Business who want the Guest Worker program installed and no fence built.

This is another race I have no horse in, but the hypocrisy is stunning.