pbleighton

"1H, Mr. Conservative I heard about that 65 come alive stuff and partner is an unpassed hand and we are NV. Will be interested on how players bid this one." Mike, I can understand a conservative player's aversion to a WJS, but... Do you play Michaels? If you do, what would you have to change about this hand in order to get you to bid 2NT? Peter

I would bid 3H not vul. If vul, I would bid 2NT. Peter

"Pard may have 4spades and 7D and rebid 2D." Not one of my partners B) OTOH, I play a 1S rebid as absolutely forcing. I would rebid 3H, a slight downgrade. Peter

Let me point out something about the government's ability to print money. It prints money (runs a deficit) when the elected representatives decide to spend more than they decide to tax. They do so almost every year, and the reelection rate is very high. Polls show that people want more spending (when you ask program by program, which is how the budget is built), AND lower taxes. Election results bear this out. Printing money is democracy in action. Peter

4H. "Agricultural"? LOL. Peter

"If you meant the auction to go (3♣)-X-(P) well, that's a different story. Holding the hand you gave, I bid 4 D>" 4H for me. I hate the 5 level :P Peter

"ok I strongly disagree, I think 2s is limited...never unlimited...but find it interesting that others play it other." Standard practice around here is that 2S as unlimited, but not absolutely forcing. In this case I would bid 3S. Peter

"It wasn't MY choice to double (I disagree to double here btw), but it's clear the one that doubled wanted to show this kind of hand: (very) strong with lots of ♠s. He should've forseen any problems by partner having 5 or more ♥ and bidding at the 4-level immediatly before taking out that red card, not after..." Partner shows you an 8+ heart fit, change gears. Peter

"Thanks for everybody's comments! Speaking of classics, in another match the same day the opponents have a long auction where one finally bids 4♣. Other opp: Alert - it asks for aces. We: We didn't ask. Other opp: Oh, sorry. What can one do now? So no TD call and they continue." I think it technically merits a TD call, but I wouldn't do anything. This is very likely an innocent mistake, and I don't like to upset people without reason. They shouldn't get upset by a TD call, but they do. The answers to the questions in this thread really depend on your attitude toward bridge. If your approach is "it's just a game" (my approach), then I don't insist on shuffling if I am late, I don't do anything in the above example, and in general I never call the director except for revokes, play out of turn, etc. I might tell the TD about the first example (bid placement), but I probably wouldn't. My attitude towards cheating in a game which isn't for money is that I really don't care if people want to degrade themselves by cheating. Those who take bridge more seriously will have a different approach, as they should. Peter

I am going to ignore 7H, and just bid 6. Peter

"The standard 2/1 does not include 2N as a balanced hand 11-12 (or stronger): 2N is a weak pre-emptive raise in diamonds" Where do you play, Kalvan? 2N as balanced invitational is standard 2/1 where I live. Peter

Dog: What would 2NT mean in your partnership? Isn't 1NT an underbid with 11 hcp? Peter

"My impression is that there are two versions of 2/1 with regard to 2♣:" Adam, most of the 2/1 players I know play 1D-2C as forcing for one round, and responder may pass a 2NT rebid by opener (though he typically wouldn't, usaully having 6 cards). I live in the northeast U.S. I guess things are different where you live. Peter

2NT or 3NT are both fine. I would bid 3NT because we have 24+hcp and a 9+ card fit, and because I have an IMPs style of bidding game at MPs ;) Peter

Not sure which hand you had. South could have bid 2D, if he felt like it. I think West was too weak for 2H - I would have passed. Because I, as East, would expect more from West for 2H (either another queen or another heart), I would have gone to 4H. Nothing really terrible here, as far as I can tell. Peter

"Hi phleighton Please consult the above information.' I have already consulted it. In fact I posted it, minutes before Richard did. You seem to have difficulty reading my posts. We actually switched sides for our own purposes (remember the Iran-Contra scandal?). "A Dane newspaper published some offensive cartoons and some Arabs burned an embassy(two?) and the mobs also killed a number of people. Normal reaction to the invasion of Iraq from your viewpoint? They riot and burn an embassy(two?) as a result of cartoons or was that also the result of the invasion of Iraq?" You seem to be delibreately misunderstanding my point. Anti-Western Islamic violence: 1. As a movement, was primarily caused by the conduct of Western powers over the last century. There were, of course, Christian-Islamic violence before this (see the Crusades), but the installation and support of corrupt dictatorships who were (at least perceived as) friendly to the West has made these tensions much worse. The West's robbery of Palestinian lands and subsequent gift of these lands to the Jews, whatever else you may think of it, has undeniably made the situation even worse. 2. Thus, the invasion of Iraq didn't create Western-Islamic tensions. It did, however, make them much worse, as demonstrated by the statistics I quoted. "You choose to ignore the Iran/Iraq war as 'violence' because it happened 18 years ago" I don't do so. It is violence. What I said was that the huge spike in worldwide terrorism which started in 2003 wasn't the result of a war which had ended 15 years before, but rather with the invasion of Iraq which took place in 2003. "We must be to blame for the Germany concentration camps and the mass killings there if your logic is correct." This is really puzzling. I don't follow you. "Two Arab nations fight each other and it is our fault." No, it is our fault for arming first one side, then the other, taking advantage of other nations' misery for our own crude (oil) purposes. "You still have not anwsered my question about why we should not have allowed the invasions of Korea and Kuwait without intervention? We should have avoided fighting in Vietnam, Korea and Kuwait?" We should never have been in either of the three, since you ask. I never mentioned Korea or Kuwait. I will answer in detail on Vietnam, which I did bring up. You need to get your history straight. A colony of a Western power (France), which had invaded Vietnam in the first place (should we have stopped that?), was getting kicked out of the country by an insurgency led by Ho Chi Minh. He was enormously popular in the country. Eisenhower refused to get involved, telling those in his administration that if a free election were to be held in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh would win 80% of the vote. We invaded, and chose to support the losing side in a civil war, due to our stupid and self-destructive obsession with Communism. "How do you pick and choose?" We should mind our own business, unless we are DIRECTLY attacked. "Did someone that you knew die in Vietnam about 1968? It seems a strange date to suggest withdrawing." I used 1968 because it was the year that it became obvious to the American public that the war was not as advertised. We could have withdrawn then, with the same end result as withdrawing later, except far fewer Vietnamese and Americans would have died. As I said earlier, it would have been much better if we had never invaded Iraq or Vietnam. "You appear to misunderstand that fact. You blame the violence on the Iraq invasion and choose to ignore the fact that that there have been wars on this planet every year since Christ. " I balme the upsurge in violence, no the fact that we are a violent species. The fact that violence is eternal doesn't mean that it is random. Worldwide terrorist acts went up by a factor of 50 from 2003 to 2005, and it JUST SO HAPPENED that we invaded Iraq in 2003, infuriating Muslims across the globe. WOW, WHAT A COINCIDENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "Thanks for looking up the losses in the Iraq/Iran War. A mere 300,000 dead and you say that violence is increasing because of the tiny fraction killed after the Iraq invasion?" See above. "They are butchering their own people(you say because their own people are 'soft' targets. This makes no sense to me. I am going to hurt America by killing 12 and wounding 17 in an attack on a local place where the Iraq police hang out" They are doing so in order to drive us out of the country, and because we smashed the social order and let loose a civil war. "Would Kuwait really be better off with Saddam ruling there? Would South Korea be better off with the Americans leaving them to their fate in the 50s? Do you know something about the starvation in North Korea that I do not know? The South Korean economy seems better than that trainwreck of an economy in North Korea." We have no idea what Korea would have been like, what direction history would have taken, had Korea turned into a Communist satellite 60 years ago. There is a good argument that confrontation is a gift to unpopular dictatorships (see Castro). Personally, I think that Korea would have wound up currently like eastern Europe (optimistically) or China (pessimistically). The North Korean dictatorship thrives on foreign confrontation. Absent that, the focus would have been on "what have you done for me lately?". As for Kuwait, if Saddam had overhrown the corrupt Kuwaiti dictatorship and replaced it with his own, it is unclear whether the Kuwaitis would have been much worse off. I believe that eventually, all countries will be secular, relatively peaceful democracies. However, this won't be hastened by the U.S. thumping its chest and committing mass murder. All of which is irrelevant to the invasion of Iraq. We were right ot fight Germany and Japan in WWII. This gives no sanction to any other war, nor does an unjust war mean that a just war can never happen. Peter

"You stated that the increase in violence in Iraq was a result of the invasion of Iraq." No, I stated that worldwide terrorism increased sharply as a result of the invasion of Iraq, and I backed it up with numbers: A twenty-fold increase in deaths, and a fifty-fold increase in incidents. "Hundreds of thousands(millions?) died in the Iraq/Iran war so violence appeared to have dropped sharply after the American invasion of Iraq." As the Iran/Iraq war ended in 1988, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq was in 2003, this statement is nonsensical. "Still no reply as to why 'if' the American invasion triggered the 'increase' in violence that the Americans losses have not jumped, however, the killing their own people has risen sharply." To start with, Iraqis were softer targets for the insurgency. At this point, our invasion has triggered a low-level civil war. Saddam Hussein's regime, as terrible as it was, was the only social order Iraq had. We smashed it, and have not been able to put anything functional in its place. This is our responsibilty. "What military units/air support did Regan provide Saddam during the Iraq/Iran war?" Our troops didn't fight. We supplied intelligence, economic aid, and weapons. "Starting in 1982 with Iranian success on the battlefield, the U.S. made its backing of Iraq more pronounced, supplying it with intelligence, economic aid, normalizing relations with the government (broken during the 1967 Six-Day War), and also supplying weapons" Later we switched sides and supplied Iran: "the sale of U.S. arms to Iran through Israel began in the summer of 1985, after receiving the approval of President Reagan." [7] These sales included "2,008 TOW missiles and 235 parts kits for Hawk missiles had been sent to Iran via Israel." Further shipments of up to US$2 billion of American weapons from Israel to Iran consisting of 18 F-4 fighter-bombers, 46 Skyhawk fighter-bombers, and nearly 4,000 missiles were folied by the U.S. Department of Justice, and "unverified reports alleged that Israel agreed to sell Iran Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, radar equipment, mortar and machinegun ammunition, field telephones, M-60 tank engines and artillery shells, and spare parts for C-130 transport planes."[8] [9] The London Observer also estimated that Israel's arms sales to Iran during the war totalled US$ 500 million annually [10], and Time Magazine reported that throughout 1981 and 1982, "the Israelis reportedly set up Swiss bank accounts to handle the financial end of the deals." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War We have blood on our hands in this war. "We cut off spare parts shipments. Perhaps you might have noticed that the weapons that we faced in 1991 and Gulf War II were Soviet Bloc weapons. The tank units had tanks starting with T series(T-54, T-72 and some T-80 all Soviet Bloc type tanks) Rifles were AK-47 rather than the American M-14 or M-16 rifles." Yes, the Iraqis had Soviet weapons. I never said they didn't. "Hitler had zero amounts of American weapons before attacking Poland. Japan also did not have access to American weapons prior to Pearl Harbor. " What are you talking about? I never said, or implied, that Nazi deeds had anything to do with the U.S. I gave Nazi Germany as an example of the violence of Christian civilization, and stated that history shows that Christian civilization is every bit as violence-prone as Islamic civilization, a point that you have consistently ignored or misunderstood. "Without diminishing the horror of either war, Iranian losses in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war appear modest compared with those of the European contestants in the four years of World War I, shedding some light on the limits of the Iranian tolerance for martyrdom. The war claimed at least 300,000 Iranian lives and injured more than 500,000, out of a total population which by the war's end was nearly 60 million. During the Great War, German losses were over 1,700,000 killed and over 4,200,000 wounded [out of a total population of over 65 million]. Germany's losses, relative to total national population, were at least five times higher than Iran. France suffered over 1,300,000 deaths and over 4,200,000 wounded. The percentages of pre-war population killed or wounded were 9% of Germany, 11% of France, and 8% of Great Britain." http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/wor...r/iran-iraq.htm Peter

Richard's argument for 2C is good, but I still bid the textbook 2NT. It defines shape and strength quite well. 2C tends to show a bunch of clubs, and is unlimited. While 2C isn't a lie, 2NT is more truthful. Also, 1D-2C auctions can be klutzy, and revealing to the opps. This is definitely what I would do at the table, so why not at the Forum as well ;) I have to admit, I would like it better if more points were in the majors. Peter

"It seemed a cheap shot to mention Nazi Germany. I do not suppose that many would be against America helping take down Hitler. I try and avoid straw man ideas." You misunderstood me completely. You had listed instances of violence by Muslim countries, I gave one by a Christian country (I could have listed a lot more). My point is that if you look at history, Christian countries are every bit as violence-prone as Muslim countries. "You neglected to respond to my mention of the Iran/Iraq War and the invasion of Kuwait from Iraq. These two invasions cost many more lives than the 'violence' of Iraq against Irag. This area of the world is very violence and the history of the viloence goes back at least to that 732 era that I mentioned." See above. See European and U.S. history. BTW, the Reagan administration actively supported Iraq in its attack on Iran. "When you gather say a million plus anti war people on the Mall your solution will occur. " Public opinion has changed pretty decisively. While I would love to see large public protests, protests in the voting booth have their effect, too. Peter

A very common, simple treatment is double = both majors, 1NT (or higher in NT) = the minors, all others natural. The main thing is that, regardless of method, jump in aggressively when vulnerable, and with reckless abandon when not vulnerable. Peter

"Who decides what century 'facts' come from? Is this an area where 'unpleasant' facts are deemed 'unworthy' because they conflict with the 'world view' of some posters?" Violence is eternal, in all civilizations. You could have quoted a lot of 'unpleasant' facts from the history of Christian civilizations (some quite recent - see Nazi Germany). You chose not to. Why? Does this conflict with your 'world view'? The issue is that there has been a huge upsurge in terrorist attacks since the invasion of Iraq (see the links provided). Why now? Is it JUST A COINCIDENCE that it happened directly after an event which infuriated the Muslim world? That would be QUITE a coincidence, IMO. The kind of COINCIDENCE imagined by those who find the OBVIOUS conclusion to be in conflict with their 'world view'. Peter

"That means at historic lows or pessimism I buy!" Like to buy a bridge? I got one that's just right for you, real cheap :) Peter

"Ya the article does say because of methodology we cannot conclude if there was an upsurge in violence." That's the Administration spin contained in the article. The numbers are quite clear, and overwhelming. Here is some spin: "When the 2004 data was released, Mr. Brennan stated that “the data you will see today represent a break from previous years, and the numbers can’t be compared to previous years in any meaningful way.” This year, the Administration is again making the same claim. According to the 2005 NCTC report, “the overall data set cannot be meaningfully compared with previous Government efforts to compile terrorist statistics.” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack states: “it’s comparing apples and oranges.” The Administration appears to apply a different rule, however, when terrorism data shows a decline in terrorist attacks. When the Administration released its first report on terrorism incidents in 2003, it purported to show that terrorism incidents had declined in 2003 compared to prior years. This led Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to claim the data was “clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight” against terror." So numbers using the same methodology are good or bad, according to the Bushies, depending on how they help the Bush Administration case. I have a pretty good grasp of statistics, and know that you have to look at them carefully. On the other hand, an increase of over 5,000% in the number of terrorist attacks and over 2,000% in the number of deaths in three years is just plain huge. So now we have the numbers you requested. What do you think caused the upsurge? Do I read your post correctly that you think it was (primarily) the invasion of Iraq? If not, what? As to what we should do: The longer we are there, the worse things get, and the lower the U.S. sinks in international public opinion. At this point, our moral leadership is almost zero, and it will take decades of decent behavior to rebuild. We will be driven out eventually, by our own public opinion if nothing else. Why wait? See Vietnam. Can anyone make a serious case that we were right to stay so long, that we shouldn't have left in 1968 (not to mention never going in in the first place)? We should get out now, and offer substantial continuing nonmilitary aid, conditional on the behavior of the government. After all, we made a huge mess, and have a moral obligation (not to mention practical motivation) to help Iraq rebuild. This is NOT a good solution. It will not "fix" anything. It is, however, the least bad solution. Do you have a better one? Peter

"...can anyone provide some decent data proving a measured upsurge and over what mearured period of time for starters..." OK... "The new data from 2005 shows that the number of reported terrorism incidents has increased exponentially in the three years since the United States invaded Iraq. There were 11,111 terrorist attacks that caused 14,602 deaths in 2005, compared to 208 terrorist attacks that caused 625 deaths in 2003. This is an increase of over 5,000% in the number of terrorist attacks and over 2,000% in the number of deaths in three years." http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/Docu...12209-29811.pdf This is based on data compiled by the Bush Administration, though of course they frantically try to spin the numbers. Peter

"Robert than made a post about the Muslim invasion of Spain during the 8th century. Personally, I find Robert's point completely irrelevant." As do I. There is a tendency among some in the West (particularly the U.S.) to see Islamic societies as historically more violent and aggressive than non-Islamic societies, and to think of the violent Islamic fundamentalism of the last 30 years (not to mention the fundamentally secular Arab-Israeli conflict) as a natural, inevitable outgrowth of this supposedly violence-prone religion. This ignores a truly staggering amount of history. As to the upsurge in Islamic violence (particularly anti-Western violence) since the Iraq war: The fact of the upsurge is obvious to anyone reading the papers: London, Spain, etc. Not to mention that in Iraq polls show over half the country believes that it is OK to kill the American occupying forces, and many of them act on this belief (yes, Iraq counts). The cause of the upsurge: make people very angry (or even angrier than before) and some of them are violent. One plus one does equal two, even when you would like it to equal three. Peter