You Eye Gee Eh Ahey

As the UIGEA rolls along what should we take from it? I sit here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave compliments of a small tea tax that probably didn’t cover the services the motherland was providing in the warring continent which was the grounds for a clash between the day’s super powers. Don’t Tread on Me was a rallying cry of our freedom demanding forebears.

Today, as a smoker, it may soon be illegal for me to smoke in my own home – which is a two flat with different rules possible. I can’t do it in a closed room with others which is reasonable. I also can’t do it on many public streets – even if there’s a 40 m.p.h gale making the parts per million a mute point to others. Much of this seems reasonable to non-smokers as the UIGEA seems to lack impact on the majority of our citizens. I wonder what Tom Paine would say?

So, the nanny state impacts all of us to a small degree. For some it is not an annoyance and the other guys problem. At time it’s our ox being gored and we rise in righteous indignation and are ignored by those who aren’t affected. Too few tea drinkers or poker players out there.

Ever hear of Jamie Thomas? She’s run afoul of the copyright laws. She shared 24 songs on one of the P2P networks and was socked with a $220,000 penalty. You can view the details here. It talks in depth about all the other things that could be making us liable under current laws. Ever print out a Dilbert for the wall or quote a net site without approval? If it was a willful act, you are subject to similar punitive damages at tort.

Are you running Vista? It has Digital Rights Management (DRM) built into the system. It helps protect us from ourselves. So what if it may overprotect and there are horror stories where that’s already happened – not just to a few but to every Vista user. Yes, the DRM that some CD installed perniciously on our computers is now a part of the operating system itself.

Are you thinking about adding a backup hard drive? Well, if you buy the latest Western Digital crippleware drive, you may only be allowed to back up a portion of your files. Those AVI’s you created with that nice new digital camera can’t be copied to the backup system. More ‘protection’ that will help you stay a good little boy with the motion picture industry.

The courts and the government are looking to limit our right to be dishonest. They are willing to do it even in an instance where we may be honest. The penalties are greater than the few cents on tea that got us a country. Yet, the concern is not manefest in the actions of our “House of Lords” or usually by our fellow citizens. Who would recognize where we’ve come? Tom Paine or George Orwell?

ADDENDUM:

Well, the bloggers are back … home and hung over. I’m doing my voyeur bit on the various blogs. In honor of the tour, I am thinking of renting Dumb and Dumber and Gigli.

Speaking of dumb and dumber, I’m still playing Stud. Slowly trying to creap back up to respectability on FullTilt. I am back to break even on PokerStars. Haven’t played much on Bodog for a few weeks – the stud tables there are vacant when I think to visit. There always seems to be a nice suckout that keeps me from a really nice session. I watch people win with 5’s up and then get this:

Sure more fun when you’re the suckout King!

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 13th, 2007 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Journal, Pols and other Crooks. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.