pbleighton

"Two questions for Fred, and anyone else who supports restrictive system regulations: 1. How do players in the rest of the world ever manage to play bridge, given that they have to play against such diabolical things as the Multi, Muiderberg, transfer openings, transfer responses to suit bids, etc? 2. Why do you think ACBL players need extra protection? Are we dumber? Peter I don't understand what you are asking in your first question." Fred, let me try again. Many bids which are illegal under the ACBL's GCC (which governs the vast majority of tournament events), and which are problematic under the mid chart, are legal in many/most other jurisdictions. Why does the ACBL feel that bids which are so widely played (and defended against) are so difficult to deal with that GCC event players must be shielded from them? Peter

5C, as mikeh says, it's practical. And at this vulnerability in the direct seat, pd should have a good suit, A10x in support should make excellent trumps. Pd didn't double, which limits his strength, and you have no outside aces. Might miss a slam, but probably not. Peter

Two questions for Fred, and anyone else who supports restrictive system regulations: 1. How do players in the rest of the world ever manage to play bridge, given that they have to play against such diabolical things as the Multi, Muiderberg, transfer openings, transfer responses to suit bids, etc? 2. Why do you think ACBL players need extra protection? Are we dumber? Peter

"I think bidding 2H is showing the same hand twice." Your one level overcalls show 6 cards (mine show 4)? 2H for me. Pd will know I'm just competing. Peter

Another vote for Juan Cole's blog. He is a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan. His blog concerns the Middle East, focused on what is actually going on in mostly in Iraq, and to some extent Iran and other surrounding countries. He is fluent in Arabic and Farsi (the language of Iran), and he really knows his stuff. Peter

"Opening 2D that shows 4+ diamonds and a 4+ major is general chart because it's a natural bid." I'm n ot sure about this, in fact I have wondered about it for a while. The ACBL doesn't respond to emails, so I have given up asking. 2D showing 4+ diamonds is OK. The question is, can you ALSO promise a major side suit? I tend to think not. Anyone want to give it a shot? Peter

"Perhaps Chip knows from experience that many pairs who play such methods, when asked, do not volunteer information like "he could have a truly horrible hand". Instead they offer definitions like the one that you did and leave it to the opponents to draw their own inferences and probe for what they really want to know." Fred, I respect you, but I find this statement to be incredibly offensive. You are essentially saying that pairs who play aggressive and/or unusual methods are likely to cheat by deliberately avoiding full disclosure. As someone who plays an agressive and unusual system, and who is QUITE scrupulous about alerts and explanations, I say: Shame on you. Peter

"Most people don't have such explicit agreements about all possible sequences for most of the conventions they can already legally encounter. So, requiring this of new conventions seems like a double standard to me." It is very much a double standard. I have no doubt that most of the people on the various ACBL committees have good intentions (I differ from Richard on this). It is also obvious that they pander to the (vocal) element in the ACBL membership which never wants to play against anything they haven't played against a thousand times before (I have run into this element at tournaments and clubs, and they are not only cowardly, some of them are quite rude). Pandering to this element is IMO: 1. Wrong. Bridge is an intellectual endeavor, and dumbing down bidding is a move in the wrong direction. 2. Short sighted. In my brief time (3 years) in the ACBL, I have seen the games get smaller and the people get (even) older. Pretty soon the protected sandbox will become a graveyard, and online bridge will be the only option for U.S. players. Open up ftf bridge to new ideas, and perhaps it would have some chance of survival. The ACBL should lead, not follow. Peter

"As for the huge carbon taxes, they may have to be very very huge if they are to acomplish anything significant. In most of Europe we pay more than one Euro per liter of gasoline (some six dolars per gallon) which is insuficient to keep people out of their cars." I don't think that keeping people out of their cars is a realistic goal. More efficient cars, eventually hydrogen fuel cells, and more mass transit is much more realistic. Peter

"Death for Dog-*****? WTF? Moral Right? Can I have some of what you are taking please, your planet sounds wonderful." It's something in our water, and you have to be born here to get the mental symptoms. Foreigners just get very loose and explosive bowel movements, and are therefore at extreme risk of vigilantism. Peter

"I think I might also get some visceral satisfaction by going over to his door step and taking a dump of my own right there." Spoken like a Forcing Pass player B) Peter

"Ah yes. make it profitable and they will find a way." A huge carbon tax (phased in gradually) would make it profitable. Peter

Ben - in the ACBL, if memory serves, simple overcalls are only alertable if they can normally be less than 6 hcp, so your opp is OK, at least in the ACBL :D Peter

There should have been no adjustment. East chose to pass with a 17 count when he could have doubled or bid 1NT. I also agree with your point on a better explanation probably not influencing West's bidding. OTOH, if the 2C call was systemic, the explanantion was insufficient. Peter

Pass. I would much rather declare than defend, but.... Peter

4S, 3S a close second. Peter

"In US speak I am a Coloproctologist why? well all surgeons start at the bottom and some of us get no further." Well, look on the bright side. At least you have a warm place to sleep ;) Peter

"Aside from the technical problems, which have way-laid research and development for the last 40 years, one big problem with fusion reactors is the radioactive contamination by tritium...... " It won't be easy, or happen soon, or happen in the private sector (sorry Mike, way too many dollars and a VERY long and somewhat iffy payoff), but I think we need a united world effort on fusion. I would like to be totally green, and think that eventually we can meet all of our energy needs from renewable sources, but I have to acknowledge that it may not be the case. Fossil fuels are not the long term answer, and fission is a known environmental disaster. There's a good chance fusion is a lot cleaner, and it certainly has more and cheaper fuel in the long run. Peter

"Price and a free market can accomplish alot. In the USA we will grumble at 3 bucks a gallon, whine at 4$ but gives us 5$ for 12 months or more and I bet we will change our oil patterns in a major way. Until then let the silly games begin with Oil under 5$ bucks in the USA." Why wait until market prices keep oil at $5 - have a tax that increases every year, so that the free market is incentivized sooner rather than later. Peter

"However, if you cut CO2 emissions by enough to make a difference then you would do serious damage to the world economy and a worldwide depression is not very good for human suffering either." You have a lot of assumptions buried in this statement. A carbon-based tax can be implemented over 15-20 years which would provide huge incentives for conservation and alternative energy sources. Explicit goverment subsidies for these alternative sources should be made available, as well. I agree with you on fusion, though the political obstacles are huge. You left out solar power, which is getting cheaper and cheaper. Eventually, there should be solar cells on every roof. Peter

"Holloway mysteryWith all the twists and turns in the Natalee Holloway case, searchers seek out the truth. More... Popular News Searches 1. Natalee Holloway 2. Hybrid Vehicles 3. Real Estate Bubble 4. Global Warming " You forgot: 5. Flannery declared a threat to national security. Peter

The director clearly doesn't understand SAYC. 2C is the ONLY possible response with this hand, unless you would bid 3H with 3 small in support, which is not standard practice. You should pursue this, not to beat on the director, but to educate him. Peter

"So, really, you'd need years and years of training in climatology to have a really informed opinion." Agree. What do you think we should do, if anything, about energy, CO2, etc.? Peter

"And maybe I would find that it's true, that there is a genuine consensus," A couple of years back I read an account of a climatology conference where the participants were polled on the issue. My (somewhat fuzzy) recollection is that in excess of 80% believed that global warming exists, and that human behavior is a significant contributor to it. Have you read of polls among climatologists with substantially different results? " in which case I would go along with it." If you were a legislator, and had to vote on a clump of bills regarding global warming, which meant that you would essentially have to say yes or no to laws which would combat global warming by changing human behavior, what probability that human behavior is a significant contributor to it would convince you to vote for these bills? Assume that the bills were reasonable, given the assumption. BTW, I have absolutely no quarrel with any investigation that you would like to make. But how do you propose that our politicians, who typically have little scientific training, decide what to do? This is really the main issue. Peter

"Therefore, we don't get the complete picture. " The picture that I get is that there is a strong consensus among the experts in a scientific field on an issue which has enormous public policy implications. This consensus is not yet universal, but it has gone from being a new weird theory to the consensus view in less than 15 years. My points are: 1. Perhaps David is qualified to critique a consensus in climatology - I doubt it, in spite of his impressive mathematical training - climatology is not the same field as mathematics. I don't think many climatologists would be able to effectively peer-review a paper submitted to a mathematical journal. In any case, very few of the rest of us are able to do so. I know I couldn't, and my background in math and science is a lot better than most people, including most of the politicians who are charged with setting and executing environmental policy. 2. This is a public policy issue, not an abstract metaphysical discussion. As a society, we should use the best information available to us, even if it is not perfect, or certain (as is the case - I don't think that the issue is totally settled yet). We should let the scientific consensus guide us. 3. We should also consider the downsides of taking one course of action (assuming global warming is caused to a substantial degree by human behavior, and changing our behavior accordingly), versus the other (doing nothing). If the odds of global warming being caused to a substantial degree by human behavior were only 50%, or 20%, we should still act as if we knew it was absolutely true. The reason is that the downside of inaction is terrible, and the downside of action is that we merely accelerate our weaning away from our dependence on fossil fuels. Since we are burning oil twice as fast as we are discovering it, and looking at the dramatically increasing use of energy in the third world, the actions we should take to combat global warming are mostly things we are going to have to do fairly soon anyway. Peter