Scarabin

Surely psychopaths do not understand other peoples feelings (even if they are psychopaths also) and do not undertake tests? :D

Sorry to be unable to help. We are on Pal format and copyright classified as zone 4. :)

To an outsider this seems to describe the position admirably. The whole situation is surreal, the participants bigoted and intransigent, and the government dysfunctional. With the Republicans fulfilling the role (of restraining the President's spending) assigned them under the constitution even though economic circumstances indicate expansionary policies are required. To me it seems the system is at fault, and the government only functions when the players agree to break the rules. I agree all this sounds weird - even surreal! :unsure:

When I was very young I discovered and devoured Edgar Rice Burroughs martian stories. So much so that I recently saw "John Carter" but found it ridiculous.

Do you have favourite quotations? An old and well known one of mine is: No man is an island, entire unto itself, girt by the sea. Send not to know, for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. This is from memory and may not be exact. :) That is from John Donne, I also like Milton: A dungeon horrible, on all sides round, as one great furnace flamed but from those flames, no light, but rather darkness visible, served only to discover sights of woe, regions of sorrow where peace and rest can never dwell but torture still urges and a fiery deluge fed with ever burning sulphur, unconsumed. Your turn?

The second season of "Prisoners of war" and the third season of "Homeland" have just hit our screens. Both addictively watchable but amazingly different. :D

Surely we have to try diamonds first? And the best line is to lead towards the KJ and hope West has the A? Double-dummy we lead toward the Q and drop the A on an obligatory finesse? At least that's how I see it but I am no expert. :rolleyes:

Hammett was a great innovator. He wrote completely unique detective stories and I do not think they have ever been surpassed. Second favourite in fiction is John Mortimer for his Rumpole stories. In non-fiction probably David Chandler for his military histories and Liddle-Hart for more recent wars. Mind you I have practically given up reading books with the advent of computers and dvd's. :rolleyes:

Although he is long dead I think my favourite fiction author is still Dashiell Hammett. I was reminded of this while watching "The killing". I think Soren Sveistrop could have modelled his scripts on "The glass key". Am I alone in this?

Watched the third season of "The Killing" (Danish) which ended last night. The series returned to the high standard of the first season - "trim,taut and terrific", but I found the ending utterly unconvincing. :(

F.w.i.w. my experience of proportional representation is that it tends to weak government and broken campaign promises.

Thanks for your thoughtful and reasoned reply to my "cri de coeur". I have to agree with the points you make but I have some issues with your last paragraph. Perhaps Assad might turn over temporary control of his chemical weapons if these are partially controlled by his allies and cannot be passed to his enemies. Anyhow he probably expects some quid pro quo? I imagine his motive for building a chemical stockpile is similar to the US use of drones - a weapon which is effective and relies less heavily on the loyalty of footsoldiers. Do you seriously believe Assad has visions of world power? In an interview today President Obama said Syria has no capacity to harm the US but Iran has. As I age I draw increasingly to an existential view of the human condition: although we may not be able to influence our government we have to bear a share of responsibility for its actions?

When this confrontation started I was a deeply committed supporter of the US ( almost even when mistaken because I thought American mistakes were honest mistakes). As it progressed I developed a respect for Russian judgment and distrust of American veracity. I think, more than anything else, I dislike people, whether politicians or posters, to claim absolute knowledge and ignore all objective evidence. Of course it is even less honest to claim to have concrete evidence and refuse to disclose it? My individual opinion is spittle on the wind but how many people outside the US share my view?

Thanks for timely reminder that this is reality, with real people at risk, and not just a childish dare. Way I see it America's integrity is on the line. Maybe you cannot just walk away but equally you cannot keep repeating the same deliberate mistakes and pleading faulty intelligence. If you want to retain any trust you must eventually recognize intelligence is faulty and lies are lies. The telephone intercepts could be convincing and, since the cat's already out of the bag, why not release the full transcript?

I would hope the UK vote might be a game changer but it does not seem to have affected French or American resolve. At least there is more open skepticism than before IRAQ 2.

Granted, but it's still shocking when governments conspire with each other to mislead their own citizens. This is the real treason and deserves punishment as much as anything else.

I think that all over this world there is a gap between the executive and other branches of government. We have all seen examples of the executive branch manipulating other branches through lies and forms of coercion: party discipline or accusations of lack of patriotism/humanity. I am reassured that our small community retains a facility for independent thought and not being swept along by a climate of "if I can portray it as sufficiently evil then it must be so". Of course I agree that the balance of probability is that the Syrian government is guilty but there is enough evidence against this to cause us to wait for all available evidence and to weigh this carefully. Surely I cannot be the only person to view with incredulity the Western governments destroying any claim to the world's trust. Especially when they do it so ineffectively?

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I do not have any special information and am just quoting Kerry's speech. My reference to history concerns the only hard evidence, (a) from Russian analysis of type of chemicals used on a previous occasion, suggested the rebels as the culprits, and (b)the Iraq WMD debacle (as a reason for caution). My real concern is that a US rush to judgment will result in appalling suffering for relatively innocent people. The Europeans are equally guilty in this respect but I do not find them quite so eager to expend money on expensive missiles.

I am genuinely puzzled by Secretary of state, Kerry's recent speech: He seems to say he has no direct evidence against the Syrian government and does not expect the UN investigation to provide any evidence but judges them guilty and proposes to punish them nevertheless. With a fine disregard for history he seeks to cloak this with a high moral tone. Is this really what America has sunk to?

Whatever we think of 32519's abilities and style, we have to give him credit for transforming a fairly dry topic on bidding into a flame-war any water-cooler addict would be happy to join. I confess I would not have had the bottle. Actually I think we are wrong. 32519 is not acting the village idiot, he is playing the court jester. He has paid back some put-downs, rattled a fair number of cages, stirred up a degree of controversy, and I suspect he has enjoyed it all immensely. Returning to the OP, I would like to see the standard of BBO debate rise above that of an Australian state parliament but I think the mods are doing everything we can expect of them, doing a good job of balancing topic flow against propriety. I am not really sure I would like to see our more colourful posters banned - the fora would be duller for it - perhaps occasionally curbed. :unsure:

Vampyr referred to Hrothgar's personal attack on her and at first sight it seems unforgivable. Indeed Hrotgar acknowledged as much. However we do not know what provoked this attack and I suspect the moderators balanced the provocation against the result. I do know that Vampyr's personal attacks can be quite venomous. :(

OK so far. We can easily agree on the general principles but I expect problems only arise when we get to the details of your proposed complete evaluation system. ;)

:) Of the 3 example hands 1&3 clearly have less losing tricks than 2, because the high cards are concentrated. Culbertson honour tricks, Bissell point count, and surely all losing trick counts reflect this. Milton Work HCP are only good for: ease of calculation balanced hands locating missing honours. I feel I must be missing some deep point, otherwise what is the problem? :)

Interesting thread but is the suggested method more accurate than the old Bissell system or the Roman club losing trick count?

If we strip away the restrictions of political correctness this becomes an argument of extremes. Clearly, at least to an outsider's view, employing stereotype profiling in one's own defense is no more than basic common sense and Barmar is completely correct. At the other extreme if stereotype profiling debars someone from obtaining justice,this is appallingly wrong, but I suspect the system has to be flawed to render this possible. :huh: