Gilithin

Something else to ponder - the withdrawal may well not be the only part of the fallout from Afghanistan where DJT tied JB's hands. A few years back there was a refugee crisis from the Middle East and North Africa. Europe took the brunt of that and the US reaction was "America First!" Now I see that the UK has already agreed to take 5000 Afghans. My guess is that BJ sees that as a down payment on the creation of a trade deal and he would be more than happy to take more if he gets the trade deal he wants. But when it comes to Canada, Germany, France, et al, just what is the US willing to offer for them to take their share? Because if I were the leader of one of these countries, that is what I would be asking. "You want our help? Best get your chequebook out."

This is precisely the point though. If West rebids 1NT with a balanced hand holding one or both 4 card majors then East needs to respond 1♠. If West bids 4 card suits up-the-line irrespective of shape, as in SEF, then East can afford to respond 1♦. If playing an up-the-line system it does make sense to play 1♠ as natural and 2♠ as 4th Suit Forcing. With shape rebids, I am with you that nebulous just works out more efficient.

I would have assumed a 1♠ response with that unless playing an up-the-line system.

I think I might have heard the name in passing but have certainly not read it. Is it worth adding to my future reading list?

Not bad enough for me to downgrade so a simple 1♣ opening, to be followed by 2♦ and then, if available, 2NT. A 2NT rebid is ok too but then if we miss 6♦ it is on me.

It's not though is it? In this auction I would be unlikely to introduce a 4 card diamond suit with heart support, or with 4 spades, or even with 4 clubs as in the actual hand: Would you really respond to a 1♥ opening with a 2♦ bid on this hand? Really? I mean I can come up with at least 2 better calls without even thinking about it... Your bid for a limit raise in clubs is the best bet. The default for this after an overcall is a cue bid (2♠). The mainstream solution is perfectly ok. You still have some awkward hands, the main one being a good 3343 without a spade stop, but you can treat the 2♦ bid as 95% 5+. Some other solutions are also available (transfers, X=♥&1NT=♦, X=♦&1NT=♥, etc) but it's probably best just to play standard unless you are approaching expert level and want to invest in full transfers.

And used it as an opportunity to prostitute himself by advertising for one of his donors while receiving a treatment from them that any of his voters would have been refused given the diagnosis that was reported.

Except....do you have a contingence plan if NZ decides to close its borders again?

It seems to me that most UI issues could easily be solved by just putting North and East in one room with the Souths and Wests in another. Use a tablet to pass the virtual bidding tray electronically. It does make the card play a little more awkward but nothing that cannot be solved. It would also have the benefit of reducing plays out of turn and, where they do happen, isolating the effects to just one other player. On the MI front, my view is that system files available to opponents should be much more expansive than they currently are at the professional level. If the tablet app was also programmed to accept a standardised format for such system files it would allow for auto-alerts and to provide electronic explanations for the majority of cases. This is more difficult at the social level but it could certainly be helped by the production of expanded standard template system files by RAs and clubs that have specialised local systems. Such files could be used by club pairs either directly or through minor edits. Even if the system is not used, such efforts would provide a more solid basis for TDs to rule on MI cases as well as generally improving the standard of club players (since they have more information). An additional effect of this would be that the task of fully documenting unusual methods goes to the pair using them. And the fact that the pair playing more standard methods are thus guaranteed to get good explanations would perhaps make unusual methods somewhat more acceptable to social players. One can but hope. In any case, it seems to me obvious that if bridge authorities are keen for bridge to move forward more or less under the current rules, the answer to most of the rules challenges lies in the proper use of technology. Whether that makes the game more or less popular is a difficult question. On the one side are those that object to separate rooms saying it removes the social aspect of the game; on the other side, the ability to have immediate explanations for unusual bidding systems would make the high-end game much more accessible for virtual kibitzers and the effects of cheating would be considerably reduced. Finally, if I could I would ask a professional Eurogame designer to re-write the rules of the game in a modern, clean format. The way game rules are written now is light years ahead of the style from 1925 and rather than constantly updating those originals, I would see if it were not better just to redesign from the ground up using modern techniques.

The withdrawal was ordered in April. The 6-12 month estimate comes from a review in June following a Taliban offensive. Prior to this there was no official estimate for a Taliban takeover. Also in June were widespread reports of government forces being paid off to go home and leave their military equipment behind, with most of those forces not having been paid for several months. It is likely that these conditions were widely known, and perhaps in some quarters reported, before June but the Taliban offensive and US review are what caused them to be so widely reported by MSM. As per the previous post, I agree that the immediate lessons to come from this lie in the origins and methods behind this false planning intelligence, but you are still focusing exclusively on the here and now. To properly apportion blame you really need to look at Afghan history from at least 1989. But just looking at 2001, a year that is surely etched into every American's memory - what were the goals of the war in Afghanistan? Was it to defeat Al Qaeda? Well that goal was accomplished after 6 months - more of less the entire organisation had fled the country by then. Or was it nation-building? Bush did almost nothing for that. Defeating the Taliban? After the initial surge, Bush (and Rumsfeld) pretty much only wanted to defend those gains. Something else? Just after the war Bush stated the objective to be: "This particular battle front will last as long as it takes to bring Al Qaeda to justice". Later on though it all got a little nebulous with noone seeming to be able to give any clear answers. The point here is that the time to leave Afghanistan was 6-12 months after going there and the only person that could have ordered that was W. But the war was popular - voters were still angry about 9/11 and leaving without OBL having been caught would have been unpopular. So the US found excuses to stay. And thus the US did precisely what Bush had said clearly would not happen - " ." And this is why not giving majority blame to #43 is just wrong and why the biggest lessons to be learnt from Afghanistan (as well as Iraq for that matter) are in terms of planning specific military goals before a campaign and understanding what conditions need to be met before withdrawing. This is how the USA will avoid similar events occurring in the future.

I am not sure where your 12-16 months comes from. The original US estimate was 6-12 months with a worst-case scenario of 3 months. US planning seems to have been based off of this timetable. The bigger question mark to me is why less than a week ago the estimate was still 1-3 months despite the Afghan military simply melting away pretty much everywhere. Despite the accusations and blame aimed at them, one can hardly blame them as most had not been paid for months and some not even provided with food. There certainly seems to be a disconnect here between the military planners and the actual state on the ground. Ideally there would now be a review of how that process went so wrong and how to improve it. Sadly for the US, it's political system suggests it is much more likely that any review will revolve around trying to stick, or deflect, blame onto/from Biden and his administration.

If your system summary means that 2♦ shows 9+hcp and any hand with 4+♦ then I will abstain until I can persuade partner to play a sensible method. If 2♦ is only 4 if partner has a good hand without a ♠ stop (and without 4♥ if <GF) then 3♦.

This was rather the point I was making. While I would expect the majority of advanced players to find the textbook double squeeze, I think only real experts would find the right line at the table when North keep both black suits guarded. This is the sort of defensive inaccuracy that will not show up in DD analysis but is nonetheless important.

People always pay far too much attention to the current administration and not enough to what came before. The most common example of that is in the economy but it can also apply to foreign policy in some circumstances. Afghanistan is one such example. I already explained why the withdrawal was pre-programmed to be a disaster as soon as the secret negotiations started, and even more so after Doha. There is only so much that can be done once an avalanche starts. To take your 19:1 maths and turn it into bridge terms, let's say Opener starts with a strong 1♣ and Responder makes 19 false relay bids, completely misdescribing their hand. At the end of the auction Opener places the contract badly and it goes down for a huge minus. What would be your ATB scores? I actually think that 10% for Biden is, if anything, too high and Bush's 60% too low, but I will stand by them as nice round numbers. Those with a short attention span, or with a predisposition not to see fault in Republican decisions, will no doubt give Biden 100% of the blame. But I would like to think that the majority of posters here are informed enough to understand the realities of the last 30 or so years and therefore able to go beyond "it happened in 2021 so Biden owns it". There is plenty of blame to go around but it is absolutely clear that the vast majority of it should go to the GOP. But you are right, many Americans across the political spectrum will see it differently - sheep are sheep.

Rather than throwing spades, I think the toughest defence is for North to keep the black suits. This causes some entry and timing issues rather than just giving a textbook double squeeze position.

Rugby League and Rugby Union are different sports. You might just as well include American Football as a code if you are conflating the two. And given that the bridge divide is typically between the ACBL and the rest of the world, that is even a more comparable situation. Similarly for cricket vs baseball, Touring Cars vs Nascar or F1 vs IndyCar. Is this really the kind of divide that people think would be good for the game of bridge?

Is the double squeeze not reasonably automatic just from cashing tricks?

Or, if you want a more American perspective, this is the .

is an example.

If we bid 4♣ partner is guaranteed to continue 4♥. Have we actually advanced any further? Presumably you want to bid 4♠ next. Let's say partner then bids 5♣ (or perhaps 4NT if that is Last Train) - what now, are you happy? Which hands do you see getting right with this approach that we are going to fail on with a simple 4♦?

It is abandonment, without a doubt. But it should never have become an occupation in the first place. Before this even started, the UK government told the Bush administration that going in to Afghanistan was easy but the important thing was to have clear goals and an exit strategy. The US chose not to listen, after 9/11 it was personal so instead of clear macro goals like disbanding the terrorist camps and disarming the Taliban, instead it became all about killing the handful of leaders. So when a Taliban surrender came onto the table, at a stroke giving the USA a golden opportunity at getting out fast with the key goals achieved, the Bush administration declined and committed to a war of attrition that most experts even back then said could not be won. Fast forward to 2018 and the Afghan government was making great efforts to negotiate a peaceful end to the war, which were widely supported internationally. Instead of backing this inclusive process, the Trump administration instead decided to meet with the Taliban secretly without involving the Afghan government - an example of "America First" in action. When that came out it not only undercut any authority or legitimacy the government might have had, it sent a clear message to all Afghans that this really was an "infidel" occupation with a puppet head of state. The final result of that process, in Feb 2020, was a document (Doha Agreement) that was criticised by near enough every Afghan expert but supported by Russia and China. It amounted to a capitulation with no safeguards for the future. In terms of numbers, the US agreed to withdraw 4400 troops immediately and the Afghan government was forced to release 5500 Taliban troops - a 10000 troop switch in a war where the US contingent before the withdrawal was only 13000. The result should have been clear to anyone; it is precisely the sort of policy tying the hands of any future POTUS that so many feared. And that brings us to the current time. Clearly there was a massive miscalculation by the current administration. They could easily have started shipping out non-essential personnel sooner and organised temporary defences around Kabul. In the end though, any retreat under fire is going to be difficult and have bad optics. And that was more or less inevitable after the Doha Agreement. So my ATB: Bush 60%; Trump 30%; Biden 10%. You can add some for mistakes under Obama if you like but I see these 3 administrations as the key figures in this.

I always find the argument that bridge cannot be played by the rules because it would reduce membership to be disingenuous. One reason I tend to avoid playing in bridge clubs is precisely because I have far too often seen rulings that have little to no connection with the actual rules, while various levels of UI, MI and the like are routinely tolerated. And whether TDs like it or not, players calling for such issues tend to be regarded negatively by certain quarters of clubs. The simple truth is that bridge rules at club level are a complete mess. I once asked when it is ok to call the TD and when it is frowned upon. The answer - "Well it depends on who it is." Really? How on Earth is a new member supposed to know when the rules should be enforced and when not? Against that, players that actively obfuscate their agreements rarely get any action taken against them. The very first time I visited a bridge club there were 2 incidents that stuck out. The first was when our opponents claimed to the TD (without telling us) that my partner had hesitated with KJx in second seat. I certainly did not notice anything at the time so if there was a pause it must have been very subtle. Against that, we had another hand where LHO opened a weak 1NT, partner Doubled and RHO Redoubled with an alert. On asking I was told "Automatic". So I asked if that meant he would XX with any hand and received an affirmative. To this day I do not believe this explanation, since it just does not make any sense. It seems to me far more likely that they were playing the Automatic XX convention, which is where Pass forces XX and a direct XX has some other meaning. But what can one do? Without a CC, any call is essentially an accusation of lying (and hence cheating). And then there is the last time I entered a non-club tournament. Before even going to it, we were warned about one well-known competitor who was known for routinely bidding a weak suit on the way to 3NT to misdirect the defence. There is of course nothing wrong with that in itself but after the first 20 times or so it is (to my mind) an agreement that requires an alert. This is Menagerie level bridge but I am willing to bet that he has never received a penalty for it despite it being done often enough that even occasional opponents noticed the pattern. At the tournament itself, it turns out that the (semi-) famous player was not in our section but one of the leaders in our part wanted to give the explanation "kitchen bridge" to literally every system question. Again, I am quite certain that they were using this term only to avoid giving full disclosure on the slightly unusual style that they were employing. Is this ok? Is this type of behaviour something that will encourage new players to take the game seriously? Those that make excuses for lax policing of the Laws and Regulations are tacitly encouraging these players. So why should I pay to go to a bridge club and not get a game run according to the rules when I can play online and just kick any players that are cheating exchanging UI or failing to explain their agreements? It would be nice if, just for a change, bridge clubs and their TDs actually thought about those that want a game without all the funny business rather than just sinking to the lowest common denominator.

According to the NOAA data it is only the 13th hottest for the USA and the 6th warmest month for North America as a whole. In their data record (142 years) it is the hottest for Asia and for the world. Some others - Europe 2nd, Africa 7th, South America 10th, Oceania "Top 10". I have not yet seen anything released for Antarctica or for the oceans but logic dictates that they are both likely to be lower since the Northern Hemisphere land-only figure was higher than the average. It is worth noting that this is not the largest temperature anomaly in the NOAA dataset but as it is the largest anomaly for July, and July is the warmest month, it works out 0.01C warmer than the previous maxima. Sceptics are already pointing to satellite data that supposedly (I have not checked) shows a lower anomaly but obviously you will not see those claims reported in MSM channels. What is clear is that it was a very hot month globally however you want to spin it. Whether it was really the hottest is, I think, uncertain. There is no way that our current measurements are really accurate to 2 decimal places. And things are even less certain when you go to the 2000 year mark as several media outlets have confidently reported; but headlines are headlines. Personally I am less interested in whether things are getting warmer (they surely are) but rather how fast, ie what the sensitivity factor is. The evidence seems to suggest (to me at least) that the real value is a little lower than the majority of the IPCC-approved models are currently using. There seems to be some reluctance in re-calibrating though, which I personally find disappointing. You go where the scientific data takes you, not where the money wants you to be.

Well obviously. The number of total trumps is defined as the total number of trump cards both sides hold in their respective best fits while the number of total tricks is the sum of the number of tricks available to each side if they could choose trumps. The latter does not specify that the choice of trumps must be the same suit as chosen in the first part. As I wrote before, go away and actually learn about what you are talking about before trying to disprove it.

Presumably this teacher would also think that the correct answer to the test question "The Jews should be eliminated. (T/F)" is True. The fact that someone has written something down does not make it true. And basing questions of fact from an opinion source is poor. One of the best lessons I received at school was in History regarding the quality and reliability of sources, pointing out that some are more reliable than others. The point here was not to discard the unreliable sources but to give them only the appropriate weight for the question being asked. If a text book presents something as fact that you know 100% is untrue, it is, I think, right to treat it as an unreliable source.