ldrews

My experience is that fear is always irrational. Once a threat is perceived by the body/mind rational thought seems possible only to the highly trained. Do you have a different experience?

I am amused at the way that you continually mis-characterize me or put words in my mouth. I support Trump's actions to bring discipline back into our immigration and border control. I only favor keeping "illegal" Mexicans and "illegal" anybody out of the US. I happen to like Mexicans a lot; one of the reasons I live in Mexico. But that is no excuse for lax border control. The Mexican government certainly doesn't practice lax border control. I was taught from an early age that trust is earned. If I do business with you I start small to see if you are, indeed, a trustworthy person. So initially I assume you are, but verify. I used to be naive, like you, and assume everyone is trustworthy. Having been burned several times, I no longer do.

In general I agree with you. But just like there are sections of Chicago that I avoid because the risk/reward ratio is not good, there are now classes of people/culture I would avoid for the same reason.

If you think your life or family's safety depends on it, then perhaps it would be wise to do so until you find out otherwise. If you don't think your life or your family's safety depends on your assumption, then no. The problem is you may not know the answer until it is too late.

In the wild not all lions are dangerous, just some. In the wild, if you encounter a lion, what is your assumption? In the world not all Muslims are dangerous, just the jihadists and groups like ISIS who have established a history of terrorism. Since Muslims do not wear a sign indicating their affiliations, when you encounter a Muslim in the world, what is your assumption?

Thinking about the US Syrian attack a little bit more, if I were Russia I could not afford to let the US attack go unanswered. If Russia does not respond actively in some way it will lose face and standing among its allies and enemies. After all, it did not stand up to aggression against one of its allies by the US. So it seems to me that we are probably committed to some kind of active war with Russia at this point.

So then you believe that Assad is dumb enough to have initiated this attack. I would really like to see some evidence. Do you have any? Or are you just posturing? And then there is the supposed ineffectiveness of the US response. And the US notified Russia beforehand. Perhaps False Flag followed by False Response? I guess we will see. And don't we risk a major confrontation with Russia who considers Syria an ally? Regardless of who did it, the US response seems to me to be an act of war. Certainly if Russia carried out the same type of attack on Turkey we would probably already be in a war with Russia.

Color me highly skeptical. Assad has never impressed me as being insane; a tyrant, yes, but not insane. He would surely know that using gas would provoke the world to retaliate. And he was already winning the war. And if I remember correctly, a couple of years ago Syria/Assad relinquished all of their chemical weapons, under the supervision of the Russians. So theoretically Syria should have no such weapons. This smells to me like a False Flag incident. I would like to see some actual evidence/proof to substantiate the claim that Assad was the perpetrator.

You are right, I seldom do.

Is there any response by Trump you would approve of? What do you think a proper, appropriate response should be?

Great! Would you please explain the limitations to me.

Since passage of any health care legislation requires the cooperation of Congress, I have serious doubts that any health care bill will pass. Obamacare will remain in force. and will probably stay in force until it implodes/crashes or the costs skyrocket to the point that many people will effectively have no health care. Even now some families have deductibles in the $9,000 range. For them that is the same as having no health care at all. So it probably doesn't matter what Trump has in mind. Whatever it is, we won't see it in our lifetime.

Since I see Trump as having little clout with Congress, yes I expect him to use Executive Orders. The problem is that, as we have seen, Executive Orders can be reversed by the next Administration. To me, the upside is that most of things that I would like to see happen can probably be accomplished via Executive Orders. Focusing on golf course usage is again getting distracted from the essential operations. I really don't care how often he plays golf, I care that he initiates actions to reduce government, reduce regulations, etc., etc. Don't watch the hands, don't listen to the chatter, focus on what cup is the pea under! Otherwise you will lose.

With your hand I see 5C. But if partner has a stopper in S then we probably have 3N. Partner probably does not have 4 in a major otherwise would have bid it. So I would bid 3H showing my strong hand inviting partner to bid 3N with a stopper in S. If partner makes other bid, go to 5C.

Trump is a political neophyte and it shows. Also, Trump is not really a Republican, but rather a populist who hijacked the Republican nomination by going directly to the voters. So Trump has almost no traditional political capital. We will see if his direct appeal to the voting base is sufficient to accomplish anything legislatively.

Yep, I pretty much like the way things are going. Attempts to reduce size of government, reduce amount of regulation, doing cost/benefit analysis on regulations, starting to bring immigration and borders under control, reducing tensions with Russia, renegotiating adverse trade agreements, changing direction in the Middle East. Pretty much what Trump promised during the campaign. How about you? Still focusing on the theatrical goings on? Not enough holding hands and singing "Kumbaya"? I am loving the circus surrounding the Russia Connection/Wiretapping/Incidental Surveillance/Unmasking, aren't you?

My partner and I wish to play a Modified Precision Club system in BBO tournaments. Since many of our bids require alerts and we do not have a Full Disclosure CC to explain our bids, I anticipate that we will be asked for an explanation of our bids frequently. Providing the explanation consumes time. Tournaments have a time limit per hand. Has anyone experienced a problem with this?

Don't know if they actually would, but they probably have the legal authority to do so. Extreme case in the USA 40 or so years ago: in Utah a father resisted sending his child to public school. He barricaded his family in their house. He was shot and killed during a confrontation with the Sheriff who was sent to enforce the state law that all children above a certain age must be enrolled in school.

I wish to develop and upload a Full Disclosure bss file to the BBO server for use by myself and partners. I request that this ability be implemented in the current software. The server obviously has the Application Programming Interface to do so since the old Windows version had this capability. The current browser interface just needs to be hooked up and a user interface exposed. I am a retired programmer/web developer. If BBO does not have the resources available for this task, I offer my services gratis to take care of it. Regards, Larry Drews www.ansantek.com

Could you lay out your reasoning, please. Today looks to me like a defeat of the Republican attempt to mess with Obamacare, leaving it intact. Obamacare is pretty far from a single-payer system.

We play a wide range NT, 11-15. The Australian Stayman looks like it might work very well for us, allowing us to split the range into two subranges on the rebid.

Just trying to follow your example.

You seem to think that publishing something adverse is in the same category as hitting a person in the head with a rock or or blunt weapon, or breaking windows and destroying property.

My,my! You disagree! How restrained.

I could be misinformed. Can you provide me with a link to an authoritative description/discussion of the California Driver License application process as it applied to applicants without proof of citizenship?