DrTodd13

I have no idea. Maybe there should be a limitation to what TDs can set as rules so that at least the game of Bridge is played. There is. Law 80F says that sponsoring organizations (ie, the person/organization who sets up the tournament) has the duty and power "to publish or announce regulations supplementary to, but not in conflict with, these Laws." A regulation that "Psychs are disallowed" is contrary to Law 40A, and hence to make such a regulation is illegal under Law 80F. All of this is true but who says tournaments run on BBO have to follow any of laws of duplicate bridge? If they were saying they followed bridge laws and then banned psyches then you have an argument but as it is, nobody states that they follow the laws of duplicate bridge. When you go to an ACBL tournament, you know that they have stated they operate in conjunction with this laws but on BBO there is, unfortunately, no such implication.

The other problem is that many (otherwise) reasonable people cry "psych" when it was just idiotic bidding... Pair agrees to play SAYC. One opens 1N, the other bids 2H intending it as natural but in SAYC it is a transfer. In a world of legal psyches, we can call this a mistake. In a world of illegal psyches, this hand definitely does not match the requirements for the bid so it is a psyche. If a TD were consistent, he would have to be punishing people for deviating from their stated system even if it were a mistake.

Did the director have a no psyche policy? If he did then you have to realize there is no oracle for deciding what was a psyche, a tactical bid, a mistake, bad eyesight, bad judgement, etc. So, if the principle of self-serving statements being given little weight is used then the director would have to consider all such abnormal actions to be psyches and punish accordingly. Know the rules of the tournament and don't play in tournaments that disallow psyches. It isn't bridge.

Ok. I finally got around to doing a little practice bidding with this system and I don't think I like it. As if a nebulous ♦ was not bad enough as it is, rolling all balanced 12-15 counts in just makes it more nebulous. We bid 25 hands or so. There were a few preempts, one 1♣ opening, two 1N openings, a few 1♥ openings but the bulk of stuff was the nebulous ♦. If a mixture of bids is a good thing then I think this system is a bit lacking. Seldom did we quickly find a fit and stop at the 2level with a minority. Part of the rare 1♣ structure seems to cater to this but this does not seem like it should be a goal of 1♣ responses. As a small nit, there was a hand that came up where I opened 1♦, pd bid 3♣ showing 6+♣ and 0-9 points and I had something like Ax xxx Axxx AKxx and wanted to ask pd about a ♥ stop. Alas, 3♦ was to play and 3 of a major with both mini-splinters in support of ♣ and 3N showed stops in both suits. This is another situation where these wide ranges are causing problems. I could wind up in 4♣ with 15 points or miss 3N if I'm pessimistic. Personally, I'd rather have more definition in my system rather than less and I'd wouldn't put so much focus on the 1♣ sequences. Played something almost like matchpoint precision where 1♦ guaranteed a 4cM unbal. We had some nice inferences from this guarantee about inferred major and possessing shortness.

Lets be clear: When I am talking about "magic words" I'm referring to Todd's insistance that accepting Jesus as your personal saviour is an absolute necessity for salvation. I don't find it logical that your god of "peace and love" so hung up on ceremony that he would condemn Ghandi for a failure to believe. Moreover, from my perspective, if your God does behave in such a manner, he's not worthy of my (or anyone's) worship. All you have is a blind guess regarding which of 1001 different cults is right. At the end of the day, what differentiates your choice of cults from Islam, Hinduism, Mormonism, or what have you. What differentiates Christianity? Because we have a leader who predicted his own death and claimed He would rise from the dead and He did it. I think we might want to listen to someone capable of doing that. Of course, you are going to reject the resurrection with a bunch of trite explanations that have long since been demolished but which you can place your faith in without feeling like you aren't irrational. You might want to read the following link about Simon Greenleaf. There are numerous examples of people who set out to disprove the resurrection and when they look at the evidence end up believing in it. It is so easy to say "someone stole the body" and to ignore all the evidence saying this was impossible.

In Penrose's Shadows of the Mind, he shows that the human mind is capable of doing things that exceed that of a Turing machine. Therefore, the brain cannot be the equivalent of a very powerful classic computer. I'm sorry but I think that strong AI is pretty much demolished and that there is still some mystery about the brain and how it is capable of doing things that are not algorithmic. Neither determinism nor randomness allows the brain to do what it does but at the moment we don't know of a third option. If free will exists then it must be related to this third option. Penrose's original idea of isolated quantum superpositions among neurons in the brain had problems and he has since abandoned that idea. He now favors the idea that some form of quantum interaction is happening in the microtubules that extend out from neurons and touch microtubules from other neurons. It is an interesting idea especially when you hear that it has been shown that there are single-celled organisms that learn and have memory. How do you do that without a brain? It seems these organisms also have microtubules. People think the environment is too warm and wet for isolated quantum state but the debate is still out on this point. Some think it is possible and others not. Read the book if you already haven't...it is pretty interesting.

This is a good point! An omnipotent and benevolent God would make humanity in a way that we would all get along quite well, and there would be no crimes and no war. And we would be living in a world where weather phenomena would not suddenly wipe out your house and family. So either our creator was really poor compared to other creators who could buy themselves the Ferrari of universes whereas we got stuck with Al Bundy's wreck, or there is no God-like creator. At least this seems logical to me... Classic problem of evil. This has been covered ad infinitum by many people. My answer is that the gift of free will and sentience is a greater good than all evil put together. You can't have free will without someone choosing evil.

That is a Calvinist viewpoint. Most protestant denominations are not Calvinist. I personally agree with you here. Under Calvinism, if you weren't called then you shouldn't be blamed. That is why I find Calvinism abhorent. Some would be damned to hell and there would be nothing they could do about it.

So, we cower before God because he will damn us if we don't As I said originally, "Toe the line or your *****ed" Beautiful religion you got there Todd... First off, one can make an argument that God isn't the one doing the damning. You are damning yourself by rejecting a free gift. It is an impossibility for God to allow you to remain in his presence if you have sin. If the soul is immortal then there must be some place for the soul to go outside God's presence. You don't blame gravity if an asteroid falls on your head and you shouldn't blame God if your own deeds condemn you. Nowhere did I say we should cower before God. There is no need for it. The God you seem to prefer is the one you need to cower before because you can never know whether you are good enough or not. My God provides a free way to atone for your sins and a way to know where you stand. It is a beautiful religion because despite your mockery, Christ still died for you so that you could be reconciled unto Him.

Comment 1 You failed to answer the core question: Were Ghandi's actions sufficient for him to achieve salvation? Comment 2: I seem to recall that this "God" thing is supposedly all-knowing and all-powerful. In general, arguments for a concrete rule set are based on imperfect knowledge. All too often your "judge" isn't capable of separating intent from action. Accordingly, arbitrary standards are often necessary. However, if your fundamental assertion is correct, all these little issues fall by the wayside. By definition, your God must be capable of enforcing a flexible standard in a just and equitable manner. Answer to comment 1. Sin is infinitely worse than any good deed. The question is not did Ghandi do anything good, it is did he do anything wrong? So I would phrase it as Ghandi's bad deeds, however few they may be, have condemned him. His good deeds are irrelevant in the presence of sin. Not sure what you're getting at with comment 2. God as perfect judge must separate intent from action I agree. I don't know the optimum method of representing good versus bad intentions. It could be one or more rules I don't know. I don't think it matters though whether the ultimately rules are small or large in number. Are you trying to say that what is defined as good versus bad is arbitrary? Many people might agree with you but there are others who claim to believe in objective morality even in the absence of God. Take some rule set and ask why some things are good and others bad. You can extract some principles and may be able to extract principles about those principles and so on and so on but ultimately the best you can do is get back to one uber-principle. Why should that statement be accepted? Well, it is axiomatic and if there is a perfect judge of what are good axioms and which are bad it is God.

So you prefer an arbitrary God who randomly chooses a line where someone slightly less evil than X gets into Heaven and someone slightly more evil goes to Hell? This is the kind of God I would not want to venerate because he would be arbitrary and capricious. I prefer a perfect God who doesn't draw an arbitrary line but requires the non-arbitrary standard of perfection. Moreover, knowing that fallen humans are incapable of such a state He provides a means for us to attain perfection by proxy and did so through living a perfect life and accepting punishment for us. A perfect God who is willingly to sacrifice himself to attain fellowship with His creations sounds like something worth of veneration to me.

The best thing for this baby would be to get adopted by some normal family somewhere. Perhaps it would be better to not know your mother if she were Anna Nicole. Of course, she'll probably end up with either Howard K. Stern or that Larry guy. Not sure how much better that is than Anna Nicole because is anybody that would want to date Anna Nicole ranking very high on the sanity scale?

That's why I wanted to clarify what we mean by Christian. Many people say they are following the teachings of Christ by trying to be good people but those people are damned. They may genuinely think they are following Christ but reject the main message. Which one was that? (He left us with quite a few, didn't he?) Reconciliation to God (forgiveness of sin) by accepting him as sin-bearer through His death and resurrection.

That's why I wanted to clarify what we mean by Christian. Many people say they are following the teachings of Christ by trying to be good people but those people are damned. They may genuinely think they are following Christ but reject the main message.

So do Roman Catholics qualify as Christians? After all, the Papists have all that liturgy surrounding the intercession of the Virgin Mary and various Saints. Traditional pilgrimages like the Camino de Santiago d Compestella are still held to grant forgiveness from certain sins. And then, of course, there is the entire concept of indulgences, plenary and otherwise... Personally, I feel if you believe what the pope says a good Catholic should believe (the cathecism) then I wouldn't call that person a Christian. The term Christian is misleading here though. There are people who are saved who still have lots of problems and don't act much like Christ (Christian meaning "Christ like" or "little Christ"). Conversely there are those who are not saved but who do strive to imitate Christ but they have a powerless faith. Many today interchangeably use Christian for saved and if we want to use that here that is fine but we should be clear about what we are talking about.

I'm a Christian. Personally, I would add another caveat to the true Christian and that is that he is placing total faith in Christ as his sin-bearer and is relying on nothing else for salvation. If you ask someone what reason they would give to God as to why He should let them get into Heaven and the person goes into a laundry list of I did this and that then I would say that this person is not a Christian because ultimately they believe that Christ's sacrifice is insufficient and are in part relying on their own goodness. Since their goodness can never be perfect they can never achieve 100% goodness which is required for salvation. I find that a vast majority of Christians place some reliance on their own goodness or earthly deeds or ritual and are therefore doomed. I'd be surprised if 1 in 10 professed Christians were true believers.

I think that 4♥ should be a cue-bid inviting a 4♠ cuebid. I think that 4♦ is a general slam try and doesn't deny having a ♥ or ♠ control...after all how could you be interested in slam without major controls here. So, 4♦ would ask pd to evaluate his hand for a ♦ slam. 4♥ would just ask to give you information and you'll make the decision. 4N after the 4♠ cue-bid I think would be RKC because I think that 4♦ or 4♥ sets the trump suit. Now, add in this wrinkle. You are either up 15 or down 15 and this is the last board of the match. 6♦ much more likely if you are down 15 but what do you do if you are up 15. Does that alter your decision?

[hv=v=n&s=satxhaktxdkjt9xxc]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] You open 1♦. Partner responds 3NT. Are you interested in slam? If so, how to proceed?

Cosmic ray influence on climate. Here it is.

Volcanic eruptions cool the planet not warm it up. There is some evidence of a global temp decrease of about 1 degree for several years following an eruption in the western pacific rim some two or three hundred years ago.

Not sure what you are laughing about. Are you saying it is not science because it gives a probability instead of certainty? Or are you saying that 90% certainty isn't enough reason to work towards a change of our CO2 production? If the first, you are misunderstanding how science works, when it is dealing with complex systems that we can't understand in full detail. If the latter, then I can't help you. You go a doctor after having an almost heart attack. He gives you a medicine. I assume you take it? Well if the doctor were honest, he would say that we know with 95% certainty that this medicine helps, and that you have an expected likelyhood of (say) 40% that you won't have another heart attack if you take the medicine, but 70% if you don't take it. He would mention that there is a 5% chance of some negative side effects, and a 0-0.5% chance of some serious detrimental side effects (we don't really know). He would then tell you that if you change your eating habits, do some exercising, and so on, you can (according to our knowledge with about 95% certainty) further substantially reduce this risk. By your climate change logic, I am sure you would ignore this advice, refuse to take the medicine, and start smoking? Arend My point is this. If you went to people on the street who believed in anthropogenic global warming and asked them about it, they would tell you it is a scientific fact. If asked to give a percentage of likelihood that humans were causing global warming, do you believe that they would have said 67% up until a few days ago or would say 90% now? I seriously doubt it. They would likely say 99 or 100%. The proponents have done a disservice to themselves by not being honest and giving the real number. They have overstated their case intentionally to try to motivate action. To want action is ok but you should do it honestly.

Surprised you took time out of your busy schedule of watching for the sky to fall and insulting everyone to post this message. Grow up. Excuse me for allowing myself to be a skeptic when even the latest climate report puts the probability at only 90% that humans are causing it. 90%...lol....hardly scientific proof.

Please, somebody do a FD version of this. I would but my schedule is pretty booked these days.

Since no one else will say it I will. For there to be peace in the middle east, one of several things have to happen. 1) Israel is destroyed. Even then the Sunnis and Shias would kill each other so I'm not sure if this would count as peace. 2) Islam ceases to exist. 3) All muslims fail to take their religion seriously. In Islamic theology, it is unacceptable that lands once controlled by Islam would subsequently not be controlled by Islam. That point seems to be very clear. If they don't take their religion seriously then they can ignore this requirement. Israel and Iran actually had pretty good relations until the the Ayatollah took control. Along with him came people who took Islam seriously. For the record, it isn't like a country called Palestine existed and then the mean world decided to break it up and give part to the jews. The British were in control and could damn well do what they like with it. They chose to relinquish control and form two countries but the Palestinians rejected this. In terms of Germany being the one who should have ceded land to the jews, what jew would want to live right next to country that had just tried to exterminate them? While the jews may believe the land is theres because God gave it to them, in a secular sense, the country is theirs because the British and the UN gave it to them. Islam can deny that Jews ever lived in the land but that is pretty silly. The Philistines may have lived there are one time but the jews did as well. Should we give all the US back to native americans because of the way they were treated 3 centuries ago? These ancient claims to land can get tricky but from a practical standpoint the British were in control and chose a disposition of the territory. Israel hasn't acted perfectly since its creation but if Islam were defenseless, Israel wouldn't invade but we all know the reverse is totally not the case.

There is no "official definition" of 2♣. There are "allowed definitions." I have never seen the term "8.5 quick tricks" as part of the description for allowable meanings for 2♣. The GCC says that 2♣ may be an artificial bid showing a "strong hand or a three-suiter with a minimum of 10HCP." What is a "strong hand?" Not defined...that is the argument.