Just when I thought that things might be winding down in the virtual world, I discovered the following today:

“The CIA has created a few virtual islands for internal use, such as training and unclassified meetings, government officials said.”

And this brings up an interesting question. Putting that fact aside, is there a chance that this virtual world could actually sustain an economy outside of the already successful retail and virtual real estate markets? Could there one day be a need for little virtual IT personal to visit from time to time, tuning up virtual PCs (no pun intended) and checking out those PCs with a virtual law enforcement theft list? Don’t dismiss it, things are already heating up in there. Not too long back, another three letter agency was kicking virtual butt in their own war against gambling in the virtual world.

After reading all of this, I cannot help but think it would be fitting to make the punishment fit the crime. Despite the virtual dollars being valued in real US currency here, would it not be a hoot to take these would be gamblers and try the following with them.

• Raid the virtual casinos with virtual law enforcement.
• Force virtual appearances in a virtual court presided over by Judge FuzzyFox.
• If found guilty, the convicted would stand to see the following sentence: one year of banishment to “The Sims” Island.
• In their real lives, the convicted must mirror there virtual experience with a green plumbob and listen to everyone talking with The Sims native language. Conversely, the plumbob would also double as a house-arrest device.
• Failure to comply with house-arrest rules in the real world will result in being mouse-dragged into the county jail for the remainder of the sentence.