Rep. Spencer Bachus takes the "stupid about the internets" crown (gambling hearings)

The BBQ Pit
1

Wow.

This has to be about the dumbest thing I’ve heard out of Congress in a long time, and that’s saying something.

To summarize, the good Congressman was grilling a gambling rights advocate about age verification systems. As part of the usual showboating in such “testimony” sessions, he read a story off one of the Poker websites in which a child of 10 was introduced to poker by his brother. He then said, “I guess the verification system didn’t work.”

Yes, Congressman. The age verification system of major online poker websites failed to prevent a kid from watching his brother play poker WITH CARDS, in the REAL WORLD long before the internet was even created by Al Gore. You win. You got us.

2

“Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the children?”

3

I was taught how to play poker by my father!! :eek:

4

Ditto, when I was ten. God, it was boring.
Well, how many ten-year-olds know what it’s like to win or lose like that?!

5

Hell, the entire concept that Congress can effectively legislate what people do is ludicrous.

6

How do they fit the cards and chips in those tubes?

7

They’re microchips, duh.

8

Dude, it’s spelled “teh intarwebs.” Don’t you know anything? Jeez.

9

Hah. That’s nothing. A few years ago our Minister for effin Telecommunications, no less, announced some anti porn legislation banning the hosting of pornsites in Australia. In the press conference he was asked [paraphrasing] “won’t this be completely ineffective because Australians will just view precisely the same porn hosted outside Australia?” and he replied that the high cost of international phone calls would discourage them.

We had a Telecommunciations Minister who had never used the internet.