Poker-In-The-Rear

Greetings all,

As some of you may know, one of the world's most controversial video games has released; Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 4. I'll spare you the details of it's history and what the game is about and jump right to the point of this blog. Throughout the game you can access the games Internet at various places in the map. When your using the game's internal Internet, there are tons of random and strange sites you can visit. One of these sites is "www.poker-in-the-rear.com". It presents itself as not only a online poker site, but a world-wide tournament very similar to the WPT. You can even catch episodes of poker on the games internal TV hosted by this make believe poker company. The reason I bring this to the table is if you were to take the time and actually read their website, it sends a very interesting opinion on the Internet Gambling Act. Here is a copy of the what is written on the website: (Warning, foul language is posted below)

Politicians don’t understand that you can’t legislate morality. First sex, now poker! The advent of online poker gave a whole new generation the chance to experience America’s greatest sport – going tits up and ruining your life based on random chance. It was like the old west but the hookers were hotter. Without ever having to step foot in seedy casino, a whole new generation had the chance to gamble without their friends and family finding out. Then president Lawton came along and spoiled the party with a new law blocking payments to Internet gambling sites from checks, debit cards, credit cards, or any type of electronic transfer. You can plow cash into a volatile stock market as assholes in suits run around fucking with your retirement. You can bet on an emaciated animal running around the track. You can buy a girl from Eastern Europe online. You can fritter away money on fantasy baseball. You can spend as much as you want on state lottery tickets at odds of 120 million to one. You can fill your home full of guns. You can even play Bingo in the church hall. Yet, according to the religious fervor and scare-mongering of the hypercritical, right-winged moralist on Las Venturas dole, they believe it is there job to ban everything that is fun. Online gambling is not suddenly a menace to society and a danger to our children. Smoking, goatse, polygamy, and now poker! And they call themselves patriots?!!! What could be more quintessentially American then addiction and gambling? Poker is a game of lying and taking other people’s shit so they are ruined for life. That’s my America, baby. Turn on your TV – The Ventura’s Poker Challenge is on all the time. Apparently, it is no longer up to us how we squander our money. What happen to Land of the Fucking Free?!!

The message is mixed. In my opinion it attacks poker as a game of skill, yet brings up some very strange, and some-what true claims. For instance, when it rambles about "You can plow cash into a volatile stock market... You can bet on an emaciated animal running around the track. You can buy a girl from Eastern Europe online. You can fritter away money on fantasy baseball. You can spend as much as you want on state lottery tickets at odds of 120 million to one. You can fill your home full of guns. You can even play Bingo in the church hall." These are all true, yet no "moral" law protects Americans from these what would be unmoral activities.

I am curious on how others feel about GTA's post on the matter. While it's not suppose to be serious by any means, I think it brings up some good points in a laughable manner.