Elianna

Oh, you mean you steal other people's chocolates. I get it. :P Back on topic, I don't feel the need to say anything to my partners when something happens. If I see them getting upset, I usually excuse myself to go get water, and ask if they want some too. I find that water solves a lot of mental problems (fatigue, upset, etc.)

Adam and I are arriving late on Thursday the 13th, and staying through to the last Sunday. We'd be up for getting together for a dinner or something, but our schedule is getting a little busy with all our relatives! B) We're pretty recognizable: two darkhaired, overweight, youngish looking people. I think that we're fairly recognizable, and Frend seemed to think so, too. :)

I dislike Sudoku, too. I really like Cross sums, though, I find them quite addictive. I used to be really into crosswords puzzles, but I stopped a while ago. I was thinking of starting again after I saw "Wordplay" :rolleyes:

I believe it was Zionists pre-Israel who killed 200 at the King David Hotel with a bomb. When the terrorists become the country, what then? Actually, it was the Irgun, who were denounced by many Jewish organizations, including the Jewish Agency (one of the most important Jewish groups in that time. The agency in fact helped hunt down Irgun members) The group that came into power in 1948 was the Palmach, and any more detail woul be another story. Most "zionists" were appalled by the bombing of the King David Hotel, and that is why the Likud (what the political side Irgun became) did not come into power for a long time. Interestingly enough, it was a Likud PM that made the first deal with a Muslim power: Menachem Begin giving the Sinai back to Egypt. I just wanted to point out that not all Zionists, just as not all Arabs or Muslims, are alike, even though many people like to paint all of these groups with the same brush. Another note on that subject: most sources seem to place the number that died in that bomb at 91, not 200. And the Irgun targetted that hotel not because it was a resort site (as the name might imply) but because it was the headquarters of the British in Palestine. Of course, this does not negate the fact that most (if not all, I don't know this detail) of the people killed were civilians, and that this was truly a terror act.

I don't really see the difference between this and 2way NMF. Is there a difference? Also, I know that the checkback taught by one of our local teachers is different than this. When people say "checkback" in the US, do they usually mean 2way? That was my interpretation, but apparantly not the interpretation of this teacher, and several others.

"Smells Like Teen Spirit". Tori Amos covering the Nirvana classic.

An engineer walks by a house that's on fire, grabs a hose, and puts the fire out. A physicist walks by a house that's on fire, sees the other houses around it are not on fire, figures that on average, houses aren't on fire, and walks away. A mathematician sees a house not on fire, and sets it on fire, thus reducing it to an already solved problem.

We must get our news from different sources. I have not heard about any of this, and I don't think that it's fair to say "in the USA...". More likely, it's "in [insert your part of the USA]" Or maybe even your news source. Looking at my local paper, The Los Angeles Times, I see several articles about the World Cup today. (I read the online version, so this may be different than the printed version, but when I go over to my mother's house and read the paper, it doesn't seem different). These articles seem to be about: Soccer "widows" http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-cupwin...1,7352770.story youth in the World Cup http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-teens7...1,4122984.story Olympic Stadium moving beyond Nazi past http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et...,1,263579.story (actually a positive article, btw) US beats Angola in WP practice http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-ussocc...1,4021870.story --from yesterday Lacrosse coach at WC http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-arena6...1,6229312.story -from yesterday Article about Japanese team http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-cupwin...1,6894016.story -from yesterday Only one of these articles talks about a connection with Nazis, but the view is that the Stadium has surpassed that.

My students told this joke! Except it was changed to a rabbi instead of a clergyman. (I teach at an Orthodox Jewish school)

As this was the last day of school, for the last fifteen minutes of class, I let my class be themselves. So we had a joke telling-fest. Most of the jokes that they told were funny, even though some were a bit meanspirited, and this has put me in the mood to look for other jokes. So what are some jokes that you like (bridge-related or otherwise)? I'd especially be interested in jokes that I could place at the end of the finals. So I'd like ones that aren't putdowns of anyone, don't have/imply "bad words" and are age-appropriate for 15-18year old girls who attend a very religious school. Of course, feel free to share any joke you like. The goal is to make other people laugh.

Sure, ask your partner to post a convention card.

I used to work for a company that was trying to make these kind of searches. It was called Zapper, and it basically had this whole method of looking at the context around the words searched for, both in the originating text, and in the searched at text. So it was ideally used not by typing in words in a search engine, but by opening a document, say an email, highlighting something in someone's email that interests you, and then calling the search engine. It was pretty good, but the company is defunct now, I believe.

That is a classic example of "The Pro Question". It's basically asking a question that you already know the answer to, because you think that partner doesn't know what that bid means, and you want to make sure that he does. Bad teachers are among the most common perpetrators, because they're in the mode of "educating" their partner. To sum it up: This type of thing is usually done to make sure partner understands OPPONENTS bidding, rather than to try to give information about asker's hand.

And having it be opt-in (or opt-out) would probably make many people happy.

Look, I am not saying that people should stop talking. All I'm saying is that it would be nice to have the option to turn off kibbitzer chat at a table FOR OURSELVES instead of turning off all chat (which seems to include private chat from friends). It's annoying to have to club 50+ people, especially because some of them are my friends in other situations, I just don't need to listen to their inanities. When there are 50+ people, it's WAY easier to ask for a way to turn off kibbitzer chat FOR OURSELVES. What I don't get is why people are getting upset about this being advocated as an option. Ok, here's a different analogy: You're at a friend's party, and there's someone there who talks loudly, to the whole room, thus preventing people from having quiet, private conversations. (Yes, this may not be your idea of a good party, but it's some people's.) If no one ever says that it's annoying, how would that person ever know? Maybe you think that they shouldn't care, or that the annoyed people should just leave the party. (Yes, on BBO you can ignore the person by clubbing them, but as I said, when there are TONS, it's easier asking for a method of having "special earplugs").

Well, when we express ourselves (using OUR rights to free speech), we're being oppressive? ok. I don't see anyone advocating requiring people not to talk, I only see people asking not to be required to listen. Sure, the U.S. may give you the right to free speech, but am I required to listen to it? If you were sitting in a crowded movie theater, would you feel it's appropriate for four people to be sitting there, chatting loudly and obnoxiously, and not caring what the other audience members thought? I know that I would surely be mad. I think that our society has clearly accepted that there are certain places where "free speech" is not applicable, and some of us would like to at least decide for ourselves not to have to listen to it.

Does "Hello World" count? :rolleyes:

You and Sam have actually tried out very different systems, if I recall. I seem to remember a month or so of a Polish-like club, when it was proclaimed as so fun and great before it was dropped. :) I don't remember what came before that. And did you play Recursive Diamond together? :)

This I think that I would disagree with you about. If an expert or World Class person is playing with a client, they may wish to shelter said client from having to be watched by 50+ people. Or if they are charging for lessons, why should they let people join their table for free?

And don't forget the obligatory passing around of drinks that takes up much of the chat page. Seriously, since I don't play a lot, this is definitely the number one way to be clubbed by me.

ask the club to remove you from membership. That does the trick. Have the best of both worlds: add "broadcastUserId" to your enemies and then set ignore chat from enemies :) Doesn't work. :) (Especially not for mail messages.) It doesn't work for individual people, either, when they broadcast to all of BBO.

Many of the 299ers who play in my game don't understand what matchpoints are, but we still use them. :) I don't know what's hard to understand about Russian scoring, but even if people are unfamiliar with it, a short little thing that pops up when people enter Moneybridge events should be sufficient. -Elianna

The difference between Ms. Ali's case and the cases of neighborhoods forbidding sex offenders that hrothgar was using as an argument is that of "who's doing the harming". What I mean is: in the Dutch case, Ms. Ali is not going around threatening her neighbors, but since she is threatened, they feel in danger, too. In hrothgar's example, the undesirable person him/herself is doing the threatening. I think that makes a big difference in my level of sympathy for the neighborhood. I know that you were trying to use a case that people might have an emotional agreement that they did not want certain people in their neighborhood, but I believe that this is not an apt analogy. And I feel that the only way that they get to make that decision is by their being the ones to move, not by trying to force her to move.

About stoning people in Meah Sharim, I should point out that most of the leaders of the Hassidic community were against this, and felt that it was wrong to do so (even though they felt that it was inappropriate for people to dress in a purposely inflammatory way in their neighborhoods). I seem to recall that this happening was a big scandal in Israel at the time (was it five years ago that this hit the news, I forget?), and police were escorting people. I work at an orthodox school, and am quickly learning the differences between the different "levels", if you will. At my school we have a big mix: The school is supposed to be orthodox, most of the students are sephardic, with some being orthodox, and others not. We also have a few ashkenazi girls, and while some are orthodox, most are lubavitch (which means that they follow the teachings of the lubavitcher rabbi). Most of the jewish teachers are either orthodox, or lubavitch. The one contradiction I have to what Roland said about Hassidic jews is that they place as much value on the Oral Tradition of the bible (as opposed to just the Torah), and even more so on interpretations made by rabbis (usually from 2000 years ago, but some from more recently, like the Lubavitchers). And sorry about my spelling, I'm kinda transliterating as I go. ;)

I found a table with a kibbitzer list that has three columns. Problem is still happening with the second column, but not the third.