In honor of Kenny Rogers’ sterling performance in yesterday’s MLB playoff game against the A’s (but let’s not forget Kenny’s run in the 1996 playoffs for the Yankees, where he managed an ERA of 13.13, even though the Yanks won every game he started), the official VM wife offers us the following quote from Rep. Barney Frank, following Congress’s idiotic passage of a bill banning internet gambling:<\/p>\n
If an adult in this country, with his or her own money, wants to engage in an activity that harms no one, how dare we prohibit it because it doesn’t add to the GDP or it has no macroeconomic benefit? Are we all to take home calculators and, until we have satisfied the gentleman from Iowa that we are being socially useful, we abstain from recreational activities that we choose? . . . People have said, ‘What is the value of gambling?’ Here is the value. Some human beings enjoy doing it<\/strong>. Shouldn’t that be our principle? If individuals like doing something and they harm no one, we will allow them to do it, even if other people disapprove of what they do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nWell said, Rep. Frank, no matter what Dick Armey calls you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In honor of Kenny Rogers’ sterling performance in yesterday’s MLB playoff game against the A’s (but let’s not forget Kenny’s run in the 1996 playoffs for the Yankees, where he managed an ERA of 13.13, even though the Yanks won every game he started), the official VM wife offers us the following quote from Rep. … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “They call him the Gambler”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business","category-politics-implicit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-iF","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1328,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/gambling-is-the-devils-work","url_meta":{"origin":1157,"position":0},"title":"Gambling is the Devil’s work","author":"Gil","date":"February 4, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"That said, I've got $50 on the Bears +7. Ron Rosenbaum took the Colts, which is his privilege given that he trounced my ass in our inaugural football challenge. I forgot to e-mail Thane Rosenbaum about his pick for the big game, but I'm hoping he'll post a comment about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Football"","block_context":{"text":"Football","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/football"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3928,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/notes-from-vegas-at-the-copa","url_meta":{"origin":1157,"position":1},"title":"Notes from Vegas: At the Copa","author":"Gil","date":"May 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"(Or just go to the slide show.) I was not in a good frame of mind for my trip to Las Vegas last month. I'm not the sort to hang out in a bar alone, I don't like gambling (except maybe for betting on football\u00c2\u00a0 or midseason basketball), most of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Las Vegas"","block_context":{"text":"Las Vegas","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/las-vegas"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1164,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/are-you-ready-for-some-shopping","url_meta":{"origin":1157,"position":2},"title":"Are you ready for some shopping?","author":"Gil","date":"October 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The Sports Guy's football picks this week are pretty entertaining for three reasons: 1) A great anecdote about Milton Berle's natural gifts: I thought of a new gambling theory after last week's Denver-Oakland game when the Broncos sat on a 13-3 lead for the entire second half: The Milton Berle\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Orleans"","block_context":{"text":"New Orleans","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/new-orleans"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1585,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/caption-contest","url_meta":{"origin":1157,"position":3},"title":"Caption Contest","author":"Gil","date":"July 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"During the MLB All-Star game, a commercial aired for The Bigs, the new arcade-style baseball videogame. The following image graced our screen (the video of the commercial isn't online, so I had to take a photo; sorry): Sadly, I don't even know where to begin with jokes about this image.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sports"","block_context":{"text":"Sports","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4367,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/outsourcing-is-a-hit","url_meta":{"origin":1157,"position":4},"title":"Outsourcing is a Hit!","author":"Gil","date":"August 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Three weeks ago, I wrote about CIA Director Leon Panetta's \"I'm not here to talk about the past\" op-ed piece, in which the agency was just following orders for the previous 8 years. Mr. Panetta was writing because of an uproar over a secret \"jihadist\" assassination program that had been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1465,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/two-words-play-offs","url_meta":{"origin":1157,"position":5},"title":"Two words: Play offs","author":"Gil","date":"April 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's NBA Playoff time, dear readers! There's no chance on earth that the early games will be as exciting as last year's, but that's no reason not to watch! To help you along, I offer up the inaugural Official VM NBA Playoff Preview! With commentary and predictions from a truly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}