Lobowolf

LOL Wow, I heard this story on the radio, and when I heard the White House version, I just figured he did some ambiguous head nod. How on earth can anyone take the "no" on that with a straight face?! I mean, unless a press release that he wears contacts and dropped one is about to come out. I have no problem with his bowing, btw; it's easily attributable to a new president, a slew of rules and traditions pertaining to protocol, and a desire to show respect and foster international relations. WTP? Seriously, though, what the hell else would it have been? The spin is worse than the bow. I love that I heard that it was a "gesture to show respect." Ummmm... well... isn't there a word for inclinations of the head or body to show respect? Oh yeah... bow.

Not sure I get the logic here. Matchpointed adult events sort out the best players pretty efficiently, too, but I can't think of any major IMP events offhand that sort out qualifiers by matchpoints. The Spingold gets some awkward number fields; perhaps 6 sessions of pairs, averaged between teammates, then the best 8 teams play knockout matches?

You know, like playing Asteroids.

Yeah, but when he finishes by shooting himself, too, that really sells the claim.

Language barrier aside, I think it's fairly safe to say mental illness is at work here. I probably trust the police in general less than most people do, but I'm pretty sure they weren't sneaking into this guy's house and watching him sleep and touching him. Or trying to cause him to have a car accident 32 times over a 5-year period. So no...so tie back into a previous post...I'm not quite ready to attribute his actions to some systemic societal problem that mysteriously manages to avoid 99.999+% of the people living in the same society. But if you need to have a cause when you see an effect, I'll nominate faulty neurochemistry.

Expect RHO to have first round control of clubs (A, void, or similar)

Further downside: It's got defense in the form of an outside ace and potential spade ruff(s), should the opponents end up in hearts. So if you preempt, you could end up in the wrong suit (vs. clubs), you could get killed in the right suit, and you could induce a sacrifice over a game contract that wasn't going to make. Or you could NOT sacrifice and it makes only because your bid tipped partner the wrong way on a close lead decision.

I'd bid 2NT NV where it shows the minors. Vulnerable, I play it stronger. Other than that, definite pass. No safety for a diamond preempt, it probably gets partner off to the second (or third) best lead, and it's unilateral when you might very well be reasonably well suited to compete in clubs. It's got the same plus all preempts have - the opponents might land in the wrong spot -- but it's far outweighed by the minuses.

How would you do that?

Lets go Mets! And Reds. I'm just glad to see that the time of year that sucks the most (post-Super Bowl and pre-Opening Day) is finally over!

Way over. lol Good catch; that's 300 million.

Has the U.S. as a country lost its way? I'll take the "No." Over 3 million people live in the United States. Over 663,000 thousand of them lost their jobs in March. For systemic representation of the State of the Union, I'll extrapolate from the 662,995 who didn't kill anyone; not the 5 who did.

Disagree with the bidding so far, but I'd have to see partner's hand to know which bid I disagree with.

Not quite so old, I think. Between 13.5 and 14 billion. It was formerly thought to be more like 15 billion, but now they've got it narrowed down to the nearest 300 million years or so.

I refuse to cite to The Bangles.

Deep inside of a parallel universe It's getting harder and harder to tell What came first. -Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Your ability to work Bush and/or Cheney into just about anything is becoming a source of morbid fascination for me. The possibilities are limitless. A grasshopper walks into a bar. The bartender says, "You know, we have a drink named after you." The grasshopper looks down from a newscast of Dick Cheney lying about Iran's nuclear weapons program and says, "No *****? There's a drink called Steve?"

Master Universe Solvers Club: Q. What was there before there was anything? A) Nothing. (2) B) God. (2) C) Unspecified matter (2) D) A "void" (meaning something other than "nothing"). (2) E) What the ***** does that question even mean? (12)

I find the results of this thread to be interesting in conjunction with the Noah's Ark thread, with respect to the burden of proof being on the side ascribing to an affirmative belief and the posts focused on holding to beliefs unsupported by evidence. Is the support for the belief generally, "Well, it's a REALLY big place that's been around a REALLY long time, so it seems like there should be," or something else? If the former, does that constitute evidence?

Sorry...intentionally didn't leave a maybe or a probably or anything like that. But do feel free to post and elaborate.

I'm not sure what you mean by "a product of religious belief." I don't know of anyone, say, praying and having thermodynamic laws divinely revealed to him. Of course, if a religious physicist DID claim that that was exactly how he came to discover a scientific truth, which of us atheists would accept that as evidence? We'd all say, "Well, we've all had the experience where the answer to a solution that had baffled us suddenly became clear. That's what happened, and he attributed it to God." I agree that the average religious zealot, too, is average-minus. And I posit that the average religious person is no more a zealot than the average atheist is a nihilist.

Does anyone make that argument? I see the claim of the good works done by adherents to religion (and whether or not its a net positive in light of things like Holy Wars, I think saying "some decent acts" is far too dismissive of an enormous amount of time, energy, and money poured into noble causes by various theists) WHere was I? Oh yeah. I see the claim of their good works done not as a basis to suggest that those works are any sort of foundation for belief, but simply as a counterpoint to attacks on religion by a one-sided litany of the bad things done that were motivated by religion. Many, many positives and many, many negatives have come out of man's beliefs in a higher power. I also think that while it's patently ridiculous to suggest that all, or even most, or even a substantial minority of atheists are nihilists, I think that it's reasonable to believe that most nihilists are atheists. And your average nihilist is probably average-minus when it comes to improving society.

I pretty much agree with Adam. I think everything's completely normal up to 2NT, which is reasonable, and the final pass, which is bad. 2NT is forward-going, and south can hardly have more for his auction thus far.

Yeah, the "5-Level" quotation refers to the notion that it's usually a mistake for the second side to make a 5-level bid in a competitive auction. It definitely does not follow from that that it's not a mistake for the first side to make a 5-level bid, too.

I'd be tempted to bid on with what looks like a more offensive than defensive hand (based on the distribution, for instance; the potential for a lot of diamond tricks on offense, but not on defense). I'd fight the temptation and pass, though. One idea I try to bear in mind that might be helpful. Can't remember for sure where I got it...maybe Jeff Rubens? Frequently in making a high level decision, the opponents' trump suit is divided unequally, as it is here, with our having a singleton spade. When that's the case, other things being equal, it's usually the partner with the long trump who is best placed to make the high level competitive decision. He can infer our shortness, and if he has long BAD cards in the opponent's suit, he can upgrade his hand offensively, in the same way that you might evaluate a hand after a splinter; his good cards are working in our long suits, and his worthless cards in our short suit can be ruffed. Conversely, if his length includes honors (particularly secondary honors, e.g. KJx or something), they could be wasted on offense, but particularly helpful on defense. My hand's certainly more shapeley and offensively oriented than partner knows about, but he's got the long spades, and he's got them behind the spade bidder. I'll let him make this call. Wouldn't surprise me to be wrong any particular time, but on balance, I think it's preferable.