The Death of Neteller

As expected for several months now NETeller is officially dead in the United States. A legitimate legal company operating lawfully in the British Isles since 1999, traded on the London Stock Exchange, handling billions of dollars in transactions every year. But the new freedom defined by the Bush administration does not include the freedom for Americans to spend their money as they please.

America recently arrested the two Canadian founders of the company, who now face 20 years in jail if convicted of handling illegal gambling funds. In response to this NETeller immediately halted all American gambling transactions and banned Americans from opening new accounts. The move effectively kills off 65% of their business. They also asked for trading of their shares to be suspended.

I simply cannot believe just how easily Americans hand over their freedoms. For a country that markets itself on being so free, it is amazing how quickly and how easily these freedoms are taken away. And no one seems to care.

The government didn't even research this particular situation. As I've previously discussed, Bill Frist simply slipped a bill into an unrelated anti-terror bill and in the blink of an eye closes the door in the face of millions of Americans, and billions of dollars in tax revenue. Then suddenly America starts arresting foreign entrepreneurs who dared to start legal and legitimate gambling companies abroad.

The saddest thing of all is that this will achieve nothing positive whatsoever. New companies like NETeller will spring up (and have already sprung up) in countries that couldn't care less what Americans think. Americans who wish to continue their hobby of playing poker, sports betting, or otherwise gambling on line will simply set up accounts with new companies and use them. In other words this move does nothing but push everything underground, exactly like prohibition.

The wonderful learned politicians who support this kind of shit believe that gambling transactions support terrorism (doesn't everything these days?) and so use this as an excuse. So instead of regulation, taxation, and monitoring what is going on, they instead decide that the appropriate course of action is to drive it underground where they will have no clue what is going on. Brilliant!

I sincerely hope that the Democrats will have the balls to kill off this legislation (there is still time to water it down). I also hope they will field an impressive candidate who can kick these Republican Nazis out of office. It's about time we cared less about 'spreading freedom' around the world, and cared more about keeping freedom here at home.

Happy New Year

My wife and I try to stay home on New Year's wherever possible. We live in a town where public transportation is severely limited, and drink driving poses a serious problem. So rather than being killed just to go and stand in a shitty smoky bar, we stay home, watch TV, and drink Champagne. Sometimes with friends, other times without.

This year we tuned in to the various New Year countdowns that were on offer, and to our dismay found that they were all total shit. The music was just ghastly. Here is a small sample:

Yo yo yo, know what I'm sayin'
Yo Yo, New Year's Eve 2007
2007, Yo Yo, Nah what I'm sayin'
Yeah New York, 2007 yo.

Now I am not trying to dis rap, but seriously. I only saw one rapper I had heard of. The others seemed to be so fat they had to have their shiny gold coats custom made. I also watched a band identified only by their stupid hair cuts cover the old time classic Song 2, by Blur. After all Blur must be so old now there is no way they could have performed their own song.

Christina Aguilera sung some awful song well, followed by one that people had actually heard of. But for some strange reason she seems to think it is 1926, hence the weird hair cut and makeup.

Another person also thought it was 1926, and that was Dick Clark. He probably quite enjoyed being a young man in 1926, and decided to ignore reality for a while and simply pretend that time was no longer moving forwards.

Clark's performance was a complete joke. I hate to be mean about the elderly and afflicted, but there comes a time when you have to hang up your 1960s headphone set and realize that you are decrepit useless drooling old man with nothing left to contribute to the modern world. It is not brave or special to sit motionless trying to pretend that the last few decades had not happened. His being on TV was an embarrassment to himself, his family, and the hoards of sycophants who work around him telling him he's still got it.

I know that America is so young people sometimes like to cling to 'tradition' such as this. But showing this man stumbling through his lines was just sick. The man has had a stroke, and nearly died so many times. He needs to retire with what is left of his dignity. This should have happened in 1979.

Picking up the slack for the old man was Ryan Toolcrest. It was quite hard to know who to dislike more. A sad delusional old man, or a sad closeted egomaniac with his disingenuous smile. Toolcrest and the other presenters kissed up to Dick like they were looking to score an inheritance. The mediocre talent picked for the show mirrored their own, and 2007 rolled around with the presenters making grandiose claims more in keeping with the discovery of alien life or a cure for cancer, than merely the start of a new year.

Suffice to say I did not enjoy the crap the networks spewed my way this New Years. MTV did not do any better. Neither did the other networks that took a shot at it. Having watched this New Year's sad fest, I may be tempted next year to take my chances with the drunk drivers. Apparently the TV networks have long since given up on quality New Years programming.