Lobowolf

It would explain his maxxed-out popularity with people like Bill Maher, who called him a "perfect" candidate on the same show on which he went on one of his "Christians are idiots" tirades. I'm inclined to take him at his word regarding his faith; however, I don't think he's above (?!) professing a false belief IF it's an electability deal-breaker. If I had to take my best guess as to whether he's REALLY against gay marriage or just knows that at this point in American society, a pro-gay-marriage candidate isn't electable, I'd go with the latter.

In BWS everything (including 3♦) other than 2♠ (rebid of responder's suit) or 2 ♥ (cheaper of 4th suit or 2NT) is game forcing.

The issue isn't whether the 3NT bidders see game opposite a 6-7 count, but what the 3♦ bid shows. Around here, the standard treatment is that it's a forcing bid. With the 6-7 pount hand you're describing, responder wouldn't raise to 3♦ directly. I imagine (hope) this is a matter less of judgment and more of local standard methods.

Deciding in which hand to win a trick is a demonstrable bridge reason for playing slowly to that trick. It is possible, however, that having decided to win in hand, playing the ace does not constitute being "particularly careful", since so doing might create the false impression (beneficial to your side) that you do not have the king. A case from a European Championship bears comparison: declarer (South) in a trump contract led a low card from dummy's side suit of QJ and others. East, with AK and others, had to consider his play - declarer might have had the singleton ten, or a low singleton, or a void. Eventually, East went up with the ace; declarer (who had a void) ruffed and later tried to ruff out West's king instead of taking a ruffing finesse against East's. He sought a ruling, and the judgement of an eminent Appeals Committee was that having broken tempo, East ought to have played the king and not the ace. The score was adjusted. I make no comment on these facts, nor those of the original case. I reside at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James... It seems the phrase to be parsed is "should be particularly careful when variations may work to the benefit of their side." I would like to think that the phrase means something along the lines of "Don't think about where you're going to have dinner when you have a singleton." I just can't (read: don't want to) believe that by merely thinking about a position where it's agreed that you have something to think about, you thereby forfeit your right to falsecard/play deceptively/etc. It's worth emphasizing that 73F does not provide a basis for the adjustment on the hand in question; on its face, it applies to opponents of players "who [have] no demonstrable bridge reason for the action." Indeed, construing "be particularly careful" in such a way as to "protect" opponents of thoughtful players, and offering redress in situations such as this one and the Wooldridge appeal I mentioned earlier, would seem to render the "at his own risk" phrase a nullity. I have to stand by my original impression of the laws; if there's a bona fide bridge reason for the break in tempo, the other side is on its own.

The Greek God Tautologous.

I prefer 1NT as well; having gotten to this point, though, I'm as balanced (and pretty much as minimum) as I can be for the prior auction, I have a stopper in the unbid suit, and I'm in a forcing auction. I'll bid 3NT and be glad partner's first bid wasn't 1♥.

John Updike...double Pulitzer winner.

Hmm, care to elaborate? I suspect this is an ignorant comment about an old appeal case... You're close; it's an informed comment about an old appeals case. Wooldridge hesitated and gave a bridge reason for the hesitation; an opponent mistakenly placed a card in Wooldridge's hand and subsequently misdefended. Wooldridge lost the appeal. Ok, sorry I think I misunderstood what you meant. I recall that he was deciding between two equivalent cards in that one might have been more deceptive than the other, like xxx in dummy KQx in hand and they lead the suit from his right. A debate sprung about whether deciding between the king and the queen is a valid enough "bridge reason" to hesitate. The problem is Joel is too smart, and often thinking about things his opponents would never dream to think about. :) My recollection of the specifics is a bit fuzzy (the case is about 10 years old), but I think Joel couldn't have won the trick...he had something like J9x in hand and maybe the T in dummy, or some combination of intermediate cards; the suit was led on his right, and he was trying to avert a ruff. The double (and triple) irony is that I'm pretty sure his opponent (if I'm correctly remembering who it was) is known for both putting a lot of thought (I don't mean time-consuming) into card play situations AND ethics.

Hmm, care to elaborate? I suspect this is an ignorant comment about an old appeal case... You're close; it's an informed comment about an old appeals case. Wooldridge hesitated and gave a bridge reason for the hesitation; an opponent mistakenly placed a card in Wooldridge's hand and subsequently misdefended. Wooldridge lost the appeal.

If you have a "bridge reason" to think, you're allowed to hesitate, and opponents are allowed to draw inferences from your hesitation at their own risk. Unless you're Joel Wooldridge. As has been pointed out, if your hesitation is "poker style" (i.e. designed to mislead the opponents), you're on the wrong side of the law.

That might be the biggest underbid I've seen in any thread on the Forums.

I wonder how many people who discussed that situation are aware that the "Magic Negro" is and has been an actual term of film criticism (see, e.g. John Coffey in The Green Mile). Of course, I also wonder if the politician who did it knew that, too.

I simply took him to mean that (in practice, anyway), evolution has serious limitations along the lines of testability of hypotheses (unlike, say, gravity).

That's a bi-partisan tactic. I think that in some cases (as here), it's not entirely inappropriate, either. I'm not a Christian, myself, but I do see a fair amount of wisdom and common sense in the admonition about worrying about the beam in your own eye before the splinter in your neighbor's.

"This is an area where I am grateful that the President is now a constitutional attorney with a much better personal grasp of law than the previous felllow had." Strongly agree; these are complex issues that he is extremely well-equipped to deal with. "I think it would be in our best interests to rethink whether or not to follow Geneva for illegal enemy combatants. One of the gross injustices of the Guantanemo detentions was in not allowing a Geneva-like tribunal to determine if there was enough evidence to warrant a suspect being held." I suspect it will be re-thought, though I'm not sure it will (or should) be changed. The GC (in my understanding; I know a lot less about international law than domestic law) is not a "mere" general human rights declaration, but a quid-pro-quo - You do this for our guys, we'll do it for your guys. Extending the same courtesy to groups that feel no similar compunction and do not offer the same consideration to our troops isn't a no-brainer.

The question that must be answered is whether or not the criminal burden of proof and rules of evidence change when dealing with would-be terrorist tacticians or whether it may be best to treat them as captured enemy and grant the protections provided by the Geneva conventions. There are sort of multiple issues (at least legally; possibly morally/philosophically as well) that get conflated. Before you even have to think about burden of proof and rules of evidence, there's an issue of whether "crimes" (from a pure USA criminal justice perspective) have been committed in American jurisdiction- let alone are provable. Secondly, assuming they haven't committed crimes that would subject them to American criminal jurisprudence but the "enemy combatant" rules apply, there are (long standing) distinctions between legal and illegal enemy combatants, and not all captured enemy combatants (particularly those who are not state actors*, but represent a faction within a foreign political system) fall under the Geneva convention. *Edit: For instance, though Afghanistan and Iraq, among other countries, are parties to the Geneva Convention, Al Qaeda is neither a party to the GC or a representative for a country that is. My understanding is that a signing party (USA) is only bound under the GC as applied to a non-signing party if that non-signing party operates in accordance to the GC. If the non-signing party does not operate by the GC, then by the terms of the GC, that party is not entitled to its protections.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we redouble holding a major.

"What you guys over there do is wrong!" "Oh. Well, what do you guy over THERE do?" I have to admit, I wouldn't have picked that out on a multiple choice question entitled: Which of the following is a disgusting tactic? I guess this is the only thread in the cooler that's not even supposed to run a spot-check for hypocrisy.

The Netherlands is a small country where only small things happen. In the late 1970's there were a couple of hostage takings by militants from the ethnic minority originating from the South Moluk Islands. I don't know the definition of terrorism, but to me these were obviously terrorist acts (even though I had and have sympathy for the South Moluk point of view since I grew up in a South Moluk neighborhood). The motives were entirely political. I recall that twice a train was hijacked and the passengers taken hostage, once an elementary school was occupied and children and teachers were taken hostage, once the provincial administration building was occupied and there was a hostage taking in the Indonesian consulate. There was also an attempt to kidnap the Queen (but this was prevented). The point for this thread (and the answer to your question): All trials took place in the regular criminal courts. All sentences were served in regular prisons. Since you asked to be specific, and for those who are interested, here are some details that I found on the Dutch Wikipedia. I left out the names of the people involved since I don't consider it important, but if you really want to know you can find some references at the end: Train 1 (at Wijster): 7 hijackers held a train hostage for 12 days. During this, the train engineer and two passengers were killed. The hijackers surrendered and got prison sentences up to 14 years. Train 2 (at De Punt): 9 hijackers held the train hostage for 20 days. There were a little less than 100 passengers. The hijacking was ended by military force. Six out of nine hijackers lost there lives as well as two passengers. The remaining 3 hijackers were sentenced to 6 to 9 years inprisonment. Elementary school: 4 hostage takers, a 3 week hostage situation, no loss of life. The hostage takers surrendered after an armored car attack. I don't know the sentences. Province administration building: 3 hostage takers held 16 women and 55 men. 1 killed and 1 injured who died a few weeks later from his injuries. The military intervened when the hostage takers were litterally standing ready to execute more hostages (the man who died from his injuries was the first to be executed). Sentences: 15 years inprisonment. Plan to kidnap the queen, but they were caught while preparing for the kidnapping: 39 people involved. Seventeen stood trial and were convicted to different sentences. The longest sentence was 5 years in prison. I hope that this is specific enough. I would say the Dutch prosecuted "in a manner that was consistent with their values and ideals" (to quote some important guy on the West side of the Atlantic). Rik 1. Wijster 2. De Punt 3. Elementary school 4. Province administrative building 5. Kidnap attempt Dutch Queen With respect to actual crimes taking place within a country, it's easy to use the criminal courts; more problematic areas pertain to people who train or associate with terrorist groups, participate in training activities outside the country then return (or come) to the USA in a "sleeper cell" type of situation, plan to participate in terrorist acts (but towards which acts to steps have yet been taking, and thus no criminal conspiracy has yet taken place), etc. You describe incidents of murder, conspiracy, kidnapping, etc. taking place within the geographical confines of your country. Those are the situations in which it's easy enough to use the criminal court system. Secondly, on its face, the Geneva convention (and its protections) do not apply to everyone; additionally, American jurisprudence for more than 50 years (at least since World War 2) has been that there is a distinction between lawful enemy combatants and unlawful ones.

Sorta makes you wonder why we have fewer suicides.

Obama was elected to reverse those very failings he listed so bluntly. I think he was right not to pussy-foot around the truth. It was an announcement that things were now going to be different and there really is no way to say that without implying that there was something wrong with the way things had been done. Further, he was not just talking about Georege Bush or Republicans or conservatives. Possibly we all read into the speech something of what we want to see in it. But the repeated calls to responsibility were, I think, a very big deal. Of course no none is advocating irresponsibility but again there is a matter of what he chose to emphasize. Of course anyone can find there tut tut examples, but here is one. A couple of weeks ago the Washington Post did another of the stories on foreclosures. Maybe it was a slow news day. But this guy bought a house for around 220K, borrowed another 180K against its inflated value (numbers approximate but pretty much right), spent it all, and now is in trouble. Well, no *****! I am sort of hoping the call to responsibility means something like this: To the bank/mortgage brokers/derivative investor: The money is gone, you dumb fools. You won't be getting it back To the owner: Your house is gone, you idiot. From here on in no one will be lending you the price of a beer. To the community: We will see to it that with all possible speed this house is taken from the idiots and sold to some family that grasps the concept of paying off, not enlarging, a mortgage. Yes, like everything else (Middle East, the auto industry, etc) I know it isn't that simple. But I wanted to get this off my chest. I am not quite sure what you are advocating. This guy and his children should be thrown out into the street and starve? The government pay for his house, food, health care etc?..... other? Clearly this guy is poor, very poor in fact broke. Maybe he should rent, rather than people who DIDN'T over-borrow, and are paying rent/mortgages of their own (i.e. "the government") buying his house for him.

IMO Opening 1NT with 2 doubletons is acceptable when it serves a purpose (like solving a problem), but not something to go out of your way to do with any old 5422 hand. For instance, if I'm 2-4-2-5 (preferably with some stuff in the pointy suits) with a 16-count, I'm going to be happy to open 1NT, because if I open 1♣ and hear 1♠ from partner, I'm not strong enough to reverse into 2♥, 1NT would be a gross overbid, and 2♣ is both an underbid and a distortion. But if I'm 2-5-4-2 with the same 16 count, I'm going to bid naturally, because opening 1♥ then bidding diamonds is descriptive and doesn't pose inherent bidding problems. Or to put it another way...it's not a bad idea to think about your second bid (at least) before making your first.

Part of your relatively low probability of dying in a terrorist attack is due to the fact that some people take it more seriously than you do.

A call is a bid, double, redouble, or pass; if a call hasn't been made, I don't think you can have a "change" of call. So, I wouldn't bar your partner, but there is certainly potentially unauthorized information, and your partner is under an ethical obligation to act accordingly.

Just out of idle curiosity, I'm going to see what my matchpoint score is on the auction 1M-2M (unopposed) over the next few months.