Christmas is this weekend and I figured I would blog about what I am thankful for as we are approaching the holiday season. First, I am thankful to be alive. As simple as that sounds, last year I could not have told you whether I would live to see another Christmas. I will blog about that sometime in the future.

I have never had a tremendous amount of respect for the Poker Players Alliance. I always have thought they were extremely unorganized and seemed to have very little value true value to poker players. Let's not even discuss their Full Tilt Poker connections. Now, they have released a statement regarding statements made by I.

US DOJ 1 - Online Poker 0 Cue "Party at the DOJ" [youtube]http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=XYiy7L1grVk[/youtube] *Brent Beckley* pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiracy charges stemming from the Black Friday indictments on April 15th. Where are the people that claimed that none of the sites or processors would receive jail time? Where are the people that claimed that the UIGEA was a bad law with no teeth? The realists among us knew that the Black Friday indictments were not only bad news for the industry but also would likely result in at least some convictions.

In the poker game of life, women are the rake. In the case of *Luciaetta Ivey*, one has to wonder if Ivey would have been better purchasing time.

I have decided today that I am going to sue the U. S. Government because it did not properly regulate the fast food industry. It did not tell me the dangers behind eating fast food for 20 years and now I am fat.

Can I have what Phil Hellmuth is smoking? "I wouldn't be surprised if online poker was passed in the next five days. " I've got my Baked Cheetos ready for whatever wacky weed that Hellmuth is smoking. Did his Magic 8-Ball tell him that online poker regulation was likely soon or is this just another Hellmuth sales pitch? Don't get me wrong. I like Phil.

Welcome to this week's edition of Poker Mythbusters. The UIGEA is unenforceable. The UIGEA is a bad law. The wording of the UIGEA is too vague.

Just received a press release from ppipoker. com[http://www. ppipoker. com/] a few minutes ago.

Earlier today, Buzzblog. com revealed that High Stakes Poker is no longer on the schedule for GSN starting in January. I told you so!!! I said back when Norm MacDonald started this year that he would be the death of the show.   (Black Friday obviously helped a little.

Who among you remember PokerRoom. com[http://www. pokerroom. com]? The site was among the first online poker sites to offer poker for real money.