I could not, for the life of me, find the original thread. I spent FOREVER but search is shit. I recall it coming up before but now apparently others have caught on.
In an attempt to ban Internet cafes in the Sunshine State, legislators may have been a bit too broad in their language, resulting in what some legal experts say is a law that inadvertently makes it illegal to own a computer or a smartphone.The bill, which was signed into law by Florida governor Rick Scott in April, was meant to shut down cafes, some of which have been tied to illegal gambling in the state. And shut them down it did: over 1,000 cafes were immediately closed.
But it’s the wording that’s problematic, as it defines a slot machine as “any machine or device or system or network of devices” that can be used in games of chance. Turns out the Internet is full of gambling sites, which is where the definition runs into some problems.
Which if you recall the old thread, is EXACTLY what I said would probably happen.
I should be a lawmaker in Florida. Apparently it’s a job where you don’t need experience. Or foresight. I’m already well ahead of the competition.
My friend opened up a bunch of these cafes in Florida. He was making a nice chunk of change and then boom gone overnight.
And yeah the Florida legislature is embarrassingly idiotic. I first took notice when they passed Stand Your Ground and then put a statewide ban on counties attempting to limit cell phones in cars. Basically the State said that a county cannot mandate hands free rules. Florida has one of the highest cell phone usages in the country and the cellphone lobbied hard against restrictive legislation.
Although, I guess it could be worse. At least we’re not North Carolina.
What was the point of this law anyway? From what I’ve read it sounds like they want to cut down on online gambling so they thought getting rid of internet cafes would do the trick? I don’t even understand how anyone think that could possibly work.
Really, what was the point of this law? I missed the original thread. Most McDonald’s have free internet now. So if you have a laptop just go and get a $1 soda and gamble away your life savings online. Thank god the internet cafes were shut down though!
Actually we’d take Florida right now. NC is really gone crazy, it’s so bad even the Tea Party Governor is threatening to veto stuff because it’s too crazy.
A lot of illegal gambling was occurring via “internet cafes” where I assume there were computers hooked up to some network where gambling was occurring. It was supposedly for some non-profit or something but it was all a scam.
But generally, we have so little we can actually do about our shitty politicians due to gerrymandering, we just try not to worry about it.
Edit: Gerrymandering is obvious. Florida went to Obama in 2008 and 2012, but almost 2/3’s of each house of the Florida legislature is Republican. It was a big deal recently when one house or the other dropped below 2/3’s and Republicans could no longer push through any single thing they wanted regardless of any sort of filibuster or whatever. Anyways, it’s always Republicans arguing with Republicans up in Tallahassee.
