Catching up on some big news going on in Washington D.C., the PPA has be on Capital Hill this week fighting the good fight for “National Poker Week” as they attempt to get online poker legalized.
Mainstream so-called “media” has been picking up on it, as the AP reported the PPA’s plans to present a petition with 350,000 signatures to President Barack Obama (aka, The Phil Ivey of Politics). The Wall Street Journal wrote about the PPA’s ramped up lobbying efforts here. And in the above CNBC vid (more on it here), Les Bernal of Stop Predatory Gambling makes some completely ridiculous and wrong claims about how online poker makes its money.
Head over to Pokerati for more coverage, as Dan Michalski is actually in D.C. to provide a hands-on perspective.
And that will be the last time we ever put “Dan Michalski” and “hands-on” in the same sentence.
Everything about Giorgia Palmas is hot. Her name is hot. She hails from Cagliari, Sardinia which just sounds like a place crawling with hot girls everywhere. If she was as skilled as Jeff Madsen's ex Trischelle in the sack…and was mute…she'd probably be close to the perfect girl as you could get. View more Giorgia Palmas pics here.
:: Poker player Michael Phelps was named Sportsman of the Year by SI even though he only final tabled one tournament. Erick Lindgren, John Pham, and Daniel Negreanu are like, "Seriously wtf?" What? This isn't just a poker award? [link]
:: While British model Danielle Lloyd doesn't look as good in a bikini as reigning WCP Girl of the Year Keeley Hazell does in this chocolate one, we're not ones to really split hairs over two hot ass super-models in bikinis. [link]
:: The PPA issues its statement on the 60 Minutes/Washington Post pieces on the online poker cheating scandals. It's ok, but just feels like there's some meat & potatoes missing from their message. [link]
:: Read Dr. Pauly's reflective and spot-on take about Las Vegas. [link]
:: Good news! Andrew is still not the father! Our new favorite part is around 18 seconds. [link]
:: National Lampoon opens an online casino. Ok. Why not. [link]
:: What started off as potentially one of the worst threads ever turned out to be pretty damn funny. [link]
:: Man this economy is even hitting Monopoly Man hard. [link]
Thanks to pervie tennis photogaphers, Anna Kournikova brought daily workplace productivity to a virtual halt a decade ago with an endless stream of sexually suggestive “sports” photos of the not-quite-legal racket swinger. Fast forward to today and not much has changed except for Anna’s age and the speed of the Internet, which makes looking at photos of her doing a triathlon (link below) or a shoot for K-Swiss (to the right) feel a lot less creepy and about a 100 times faster–leaving more time for this, this, this, this but not this.
All right, some poker news links:
:: Woman poker players find something to bitch about and for good reason (Click here)
:: Canuck Cheung chipleader at WSOP Circuit in E-town (Click here)
:: Ron Paul partners with Barney Frank on bill to slay online gambling prohibition (Click here)
:: Houston poker room raid leads to organized crime charges, and guns and poker are all the rage in Dallas (Click here and here)
:: Purple Lounge signs sexy poker player/model and Poker Night Live presenter Michelle Orpe (Click here)
:: Washington State PPA-er Lee Rousso keeps fighting the good fight (Click here)
:: Lacey Jones‘ “Hottest Girl in Poker” video rising the ranks over at RawVegas.tv (Click here)
:: Poker movie The Grand could hardly pay the buy-in for the WPT Championship with its box office receipts (Click here)
Anna Kournakova triathlon photos below and after the jump . . .
UPDATE: Photos of Anna Kournikova running during a triathlon removed, see some of them here.
The chairman of the Poker Players Alliance, Al D’Amato, told the New York Post that the U.S. looks “like the ugly American” in the way its handled its WTO treaty obligations and that massive compensation claims by US allies may strengthen lobbying efforts to overturn the prohibition of Internet gambling.
“In a matter of months, you’re going to see billions of dollars in trade sanctions coming down against the United States,” the former US Senator told The Post.
“Then, I believe we will start to have a profoundly new and different group lobbying, saying you’ve got to stop this prohibition [on Internet gambling],” he said. “We look like the ugly American.”
The WTO ruled last December that it was illegal for the US to target Internet gambling without applying the same rules to US-based operators of remote betting on horse and dog racing. After the ruling, Washington declared it would remove Internet gambling from its WTO treaty obligations, which pissed off our allies and resulted in billions of dollars worth of compensation claims filed against the US by Japan, Australia, Canada, the European Union, India, Antigua, Macau and Costa Rica.
In related news, if you missed Howard Lederer and some lady who needs a good bangin’ on CNBC talking about Internet poker, watch the video after the jump below or here.
Vanessa Rousso is kind of hot, which is the first prerequisite in our reasons on "why you should listen to what a girl has to say." Other reasons include (in descending order of importance): big boobs, morally casual attitude, mother, because they are smart.
From what we can tell, Vanessa Rousso (at right on the left) is also smart as hell (she was her high school valedvictorian valedictorian and graduated early from Duke, which we’re not 100% sure but think is where she went to college), which means she fits at least two of our five criteria. We’re not good at math, but that sounds like enough reasons for us to listen to her.
The PPA is in Washington D.C. again lobbying for a carve-out from the UIGEA, and Rousso was there to tell everyone why online poker should be legalized in U.S. America. Says Rousso:
"It’s hard sometimes to be a girl and sit down at a live table. Women can start playing [online] with a level of anonymity. They’re not singled out as the only woman on the table; they can just practice poker, which is what it’s all supposed to be about."
And single-handedly, just like that, Rousso convinced Congress to make online poker legal for us all!
And back then, we could give him a pass for not knowing any better. But just as alcohol prohibition failed, creating enormous law enforcement headaches, Goodlatte’s legislation, if it passes, will do the same.
"I am a big advocate of opening up the Internet to all kinds of legitimate uses," says Goodlatte, who then continued with this gem: "But we don’t want the Internet to become the Wild West of the 21st century."
On Goodlatte’s website, he claims that Internet gambling currently, "threaten[s] the ability of states to enact and enforce their own laws." However, as Michael Bolcerek, head of the PPA told us, Goodlatte’s bill has "no funds allocated for enforcement or a laughable amount."
And twice on Goodlatte’s website he states pro-regulate it and tax it facts. First, he says that Internet gambling activities "…suck billions of dollars per year out of the U.S. economy…" And later he says, ‚ÄúGambling on the Internet has become an extremely lucrative business…Numerous studies have charted the explosive growth of this industry, both by the increases in gambling websites available, and via industry revenues. Internet gambling is now estimated to be a $12 billion industry, with approximately $6 billion coming from bettors based in the U.S." Seems like keeping it within our borders and taxing it might be a smarter route, don’t you think, Bob?
The illogic and early 20th century mentality of Goodlatte is remarkable (in a bad way). Visit the PPA today and sign up to help make sure Goodlatte doesn’t get his way.
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Thanks to pervie tennis photogaphers, Anna Kournikova brought daily workplace productivity to a virtual halt a decade ago with an endless stream of sexually suggestive “sports” photos of the not-quite-legal racket swinger. Fast forward to today and not much has changed except for Anna’s age and the speed of the Internet, which makes looking at photos of her doing a triathlon (link below) or a 
The chairman of the 
Vanessa Rousso
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