Lobowolf

Pairs most likely to win a pairs qualification event for a team selection.

The related thread got me wondering. Let me preface by saying that I'm in favor of a team selection process. Having said that, though, the comments about team chemistry and so forth has me curious. I'd like to get some sort of consensus about who the 3 best pairs in the country are, then see how many here would actually take the position a team consisting of 6 other people would be a better team. So...to start the show...who ARE the 3 best pairs in the country (at IMP scoring), anyway?

I think it's fair to say that vegetables are "less likely to have contact with feces" than cows, particularly cows in the food industry. Still waiting on that outbreak of mad tofu disease. And disease or no disease, this quotation by Al_U_Card would suffice to support my original statement: That's just me, though. If you like intestines and snouts, then omnivorism is your best bet; the soy substitutes at this time are poor, at best.

We made a pretty narrow bid. Presumably, if we need to take a shot, partner was aware of that fact when he chose not to invite 7.

A diamond and a pass, for me. I'll take the sure entries and the 5-card suit. There are some + factors for a heart lead, but they don't quite win me over. The second hand probably has a better spot (or two) than 2♣, but there's no guarantee that we're getting there.

Mike Lawrence's book, "Opening Leads."

Not that I feel like I need validation for...well...pretty much anything, but every now and then I read something that really makes me glad I'm a vegan.

Presumably partner knew our NT range when he bid 6NT instead of 5NT (forcing to 6 and inviting 7). As for us, we already determined at the first bid that a 5-card suit and a couple of tens wasn't enough enough to upgrade us out of our NT range. Autopass it is.

My remembrance is that Donald Rumsfeld (via "intelligence" from Chalabi) sold the idea of a quick and easy war, a war that would pay for itself, and a war where we would be embraced as a liberating force. I don't think I said anything in contradiction of that. But even if the war hadn't been "sold" at all, or even if there were no doubt that there were WMD, or that the war was directly tied into 9-11, the duration and the mounting death toll still would have made it unpopular, and less popular than in the early days. Misrepresentations are certainly a sufficient condition for the war's unpopularity, but they weren't a necessary condition.

I call it "small-L libertarian," and apply it to myself, too. And yes, I'm very tired of it.

But long after the war was decidedly unpopular. Also causing the war's unpopularity was how long it lasted and how many American lives have been lost. It wasn't the quick and easy win people expected/hoped for. The defeat of the Republicans doesn't explain Obama's victory; it restates it. A tremendously effective predictor of political races, historically, is the state of the economy. If it's good, the party in power can expect good things in an election, and if it's bad, they can expect bad things. Part of the discussion depends on what we mean by "Republican ideology" and "decline of the Republican party" (registration numbers? failure in elections?) Ultimately, elections give you 2 choices -- this guy, or that guy. Extrapolating that entire philosophies have been embraced or rejected is painting with too broad a brush. With respect to Josh's point about the sine wave and the decline, I think that the sine wave is so much bigger than any gradual demographic shift that it swamps it in significance, and will for a long, long time. The shift that we've seen in election results has been sudden and dramatic, which is why I attribute it more to the ebb and flow than to gradual demographic trends. A similar explanation could have been given to the Clinton victory in 1992 after 12 years of a Republican White House, but shortly thereafter, we got the first Republican congress in decades, and 8 years of Bush. Even taking the position that it should have been Gore in 2000, we went from a clear preference for Clinton over Bush then Dole to a virtual toss-up. With respect to Adam's comments regarding illegal immigration, just about all white racists are opposed to illegal immigration, but that doesn't mean that anything close to a majority of people who oppose illegal immigration are racists, and I would posit that most of the middle third, politically, are solidly against illegal immigration, and solidly opposed to the conflation of "immigration" and "illegal immigration" wherein they are mischaracterized as being "anti-immigration." Of course, they're pretty much sold out equally by politicians on both sides, for different reasons.

(3) Republicans were in the White House and in a majority in congress when the economy tanked and an unpopular war was entered into, which resulted in a massive vote for change. When people are unhappy with "the government" at some point in the near to mid-term future when Democrats are in charge, there will be a similar reversal.

I agree...and if he says "yes," feign stomach flu. A caddy can always fill in in a pinch. ok, less facetiously... good advice in here so far. Make sure you're on the same page as far as jumps in previously bid suits. Nail down whether you're playing Drury, and what sort. For maximum safety, it's beyond your agreements and into your bidding - if you have two reasonable choices, but one is potentially confusing, pick the unambiguous one. If 4♣ (spinter) is a 10 out of 10 bid, and your regular partner would know it's a splinter, you might want to bid 4♠ even if it's only an 8 out of 10, if there's any chance you think he might take 4♣ as Gerber. If you have any partners in common, ask if he has a card that he plays with person X; you might be able to use your knowledge of the common link as a proxy.

Just going by the BBF conversations, I'd have guessed you to be more of a moderate. If you still consider yourself a conservative, what are some of the core conservative beliefs you adhere to?

Strongly disagree (with one exception). It's a rejection of the war, specifically, and the long-standing shift away from the party in power whenever there's a poor economy. Anything beyond that is a stretch.

Reminds me of seeing Barry Goldwater on Larry King way back in the day (when Goldwater was only about 150 years old). King asked him about welfare, and the response (probably about 98% complete and verbatim) has stuck with me quite a while: "A man wants to work and can't, help him. A man can work and won't, hell with him."

It depends on the legislation. In the case of gay marriage, in my view, almost certainly. I'm with ya on that one. I'm just disagree with the notion that the religious right has some sort of monolopy on intrusive "I know what's best for you, and I'm going to make it a law" reasoning. Far from it. Gay marriage is a fine example of one issue on which they do take the lead in that respect, but there's a whole bunch of other issues out there, and there's a whole bunch of non-religious-right legislators, lobbyists, and activists doing the exact same thing.

What would be an example of the motivation a legislator might have in introducing a bill that would legalize waterboarding that would make such legislation acceptable to you? For waterboarding - for torture - the answer is none. That's kinda my point.

The linked hand is 1♠-4NT. I assumed that since "Z" was the variable listed in the original post, it meant a third bid suit, such as: 1♦-1♥ 1♠-4NT. (e.g. 1X-1Y; 1Z-4NT) I play 1♠-4NT as straight aces, but 1♦-1♥ 1♠-4NT. as keycard for spades.

What would be an example of the motivation a legislator might have in introducing a bill that would legalize waterboarding that would make such legislation acceptable to you?

I believe you are kidding yourself if you believe that improper motivations cannot lead to legislation that legalizes the illegal. There is a high degree of illegal anti-Muslim discrimination motivation behind the Patriot Act and behind the legal analysis that "legalized" the torture of terrorist suspects. I don't believe that. I believe that: 1) Members of the group "non-religious right" are every bit as interested in imposing their beliefs on everyone else, through legislation, as members of the group "religious right"; 2) The fact that their motivations for doing so are not religious doesn't make their efforts any more (or less; it depends on the particular bill) palatable; and 3) Legislation can and should be judged (almost) always on its own merits. If you're opposed to torture in all cases, and think that action X constitutes torture, then you're going to be opposed to all legislation that defines it as legal, regardless of the motivation of the person who introduced it, or the motivations of anyone and everyone who voted for it. If you're in favor of torture in a "ticking bomb" scenario, then you're going to be in favor of it even if the person who introduced the bill making it legal did so only because he hates Muslims. A bill provides for, or prohibits, certain things. If you read the bill, or get an objective explanation of what those things are (or a good subjective explanation on each side), you pretty much know whether or not it's a good idea. Knowing whether the author of the bill is a Christian, an atheist, or a Buddhist shouldn't make the bill any more or less attractive.

The question of accounting for information depends, as has been suggested, by how the information has been acquired. Take the question, "Bob rolls 2 dice; at least one of them shows a 1. What is the probability that the other die shows a 1, as well?" If Bob is trying to create the conditions for the premise, by rolling two dice behind a screen until he gets at least one 1, and then showing you a 1 and asking you the probability that the other one is a 1, as well, the probability is 1/11. On the other hand, if Bob says, "Hey, let's try something!" and rolls two dice behind a screen, and without even looking just grabs the first one he touches, and brings it around the screen and it happens to be a 1, then he says, "Hey, what are the odds the other one is a 1, too?" then it's 1/6. The parallel I'd draw in bridge was addressed in the book "For Experts Only," where you have to find a Q in one suit (suit "A"), and the author poses the fallacious idea of finessing the partner of the opening leader, because he's shorter in suit "B" (the suit led on opening lead). The author points out that if the lead were in the other hand, the non-opening-leader (now the opening leader) would have led suit "C," HIS longest suit, and now would it be correct to finesse the original opening leader, because he's shorter in suit C?

Irrespective of the degree to which one agrees with this statement, the analysis of the burdens one's behavior poses on society is entirely distinct from the motivation of the legislators or voters supporting or opposing the legislation. If you support motorcycle helmet laws from a "burden on public health care" perspective, then what does it matter if the law was introduced by a "nanny state" type of legislator who had a competely different motivation?

I don't think the actual result necessarily reflects the advantages of the spade lead. You hit partner with a perfect holding; you migth just as easily have led a club and found AQx. The spade lead's advantage is primarily that it's a solid suit, so when partner's holding in the suit is limited, you haven't blown a trick. A better result to illustrate would be if partner had 9xx in both suits, and the club lead gave away the game-winning trick. Catching partner with the perfect holding is more random (although the fact that dummy didn't use Stayman is push toward the major).

To better state what I meant, I'd say that the ideas, that is the proposed legislation, stands or falls on its own merits. The motivation behind the person who drafted it is incidental. Desirable is in the eye of the beholder. It doesn't matter why any particular person thinks it's desirable. Ultimately, the question of desirability left to the voters directly, in the case of a ballot initiative, or to the legislators in deciding to pass a bill, or the voters in deciding whether to re-elect the legislators. The proponents of some laws think that they're desirable because God says so. So what? Each voter decides for himself whether it's desirable or not based on his or her own criteria. Some people think that murder should be illegal on religious reasons, and some people think it should be illegal on purely pragmatic reasons completely divorced from not only religion, but morality. Does it matter? Yes, by "legal" I meant constitutional; that is, even if a given proposed law is found "desirable," that's not enough if it's unconstitutional (e.g. racially segregated schools were "desirable" in some places prior to Brown vs. Board of Education). Medical marijuana took a beating in the Raich case, and it came from the "secular left." Property rights took a beating in Kelo, and it came from the "secular left." Is it any better because the motivation is something other than "God says so"? I don't see how. And living in California (let alone Los Angeles), I'm hard-pressed to believe that it's less common, too. We have a largely-non-religious-right legislature comprised of people who LOVE to impose their beliefs on the rest of us. And it's not just legislators (who sort of have to impose their beliefs on us, as part of their job description); it's the citizenry, too. When gay marriage got CRUSHED in California in 2000, registered Republicans (let alone religious ones) were outnumbered by registered Democrats by something like a million voters. But even on "lesser" issues like whether or not you can talk on a cell phone while you drive, ride a motorcycle without a helmet, let people smoke in the restaurant you own, drive your car without wearing a seat belt, etc. Someone else's belief about what's best for you is imposed on you, and "God says so" has nothing to do with it. If someone thinks God says it's ok to smoke pot in your house, more power to him; I'm in disagreement with the largely secular belief that you're subject to criminal sanctions if you do. The motivations are beside the point.