Lobowolf

That doesn't bother me too much on this hand; I'd bid 4♦ and be happy to have a splintering alternative to the stiff queen. Playing the methods outlined in Han's post, I'd bid 3♠.

The non-secret vote is pretty much the Prisoner's Dilemma in action, in many cases: You all might be better off voting union, but if you don't get the union, you'll have been better off voting no union.

I hope you're right. We could use a great one.

"I give up" meant something roughly like, "Since you assert my first guess was incorrect, and I can't think any rational alternative, I won't hazard a second guess, I'll just ask." That is to say, it wasn't "I give up BUT let me ask this question." It was "I give up, SO let me ask this question.

ok, I give up...what is the intended context given that this excerpt completely means nothing about skin color?

Pardon me. "Those black guys" have been voting for white guys their entire lives! But "Those white guys" will too often NEVER vote for a black guy, simply because he is black. These 'reverse racism' arguments never worked with me. If you are black then you have probably been discriminated against your whole life, but still voted for the type of people who were doing it. Then, after having fought for literally centuries for equal rights, one of your people has a chance to do something amazing. Of course you will want to vote for that person! And I'm applying this argument to blacks and to women, though of course it would apply in many ways. There is such a world of difference between "a person like me finally has a chance to make it!" and "I would never vote for a person who is not like me." BTW it's not just African-American racism. The whole 'Muslim' thing may never die... I guess the question is to what extent you take "a person like me" to be about skin color, or to be about belief system. It'd be interesting to see the demographics in a race between Bill Clinton or John Kerry vs. Condi Rice or Alan Keyes.

Observation #3: There's an interesting subtext at work here, too; the unquestioned assumption that if you're "lower income," you should, de rigeur, be voting Democratic, and if you're not, we have to figure out what illogical forces (such as racism) are at work. I can't remember who wrote it (Larry Elder?), but I read an interesting article that took the position that not only was this not the case, but that many typically Republican positions actually disproportionately help low-income people. For instance - Support of school voucher programs: if there's a good, expensive private school in the area, rich people can already afford it; it's those who are financially strapped who can't pay out of pocket for the private school, and also out of paycheck for the public school they wouldn't be using. Partial voluntary privatization of Social Security: Rich people have disposable income to invest after deductions from their check. The long term stock market results are disproportionately less available to people with lower incomes. In addition, to the extent that race correlates with poverty, status quo social security is worse for African American workers, who have a shorter life expectancy and less time to enjoy the benefits of their mandatory deductions earlier in life. Private gun ownership for law-abiding citizens. To the (arguable) extent that gun ownership discourages crime, the benefits have a disproportionate effect in higher crime areas (ditto stricter sentencing). Illegal immigration. If it's true that Republican politicians are more opposed to illegal immigration than their Democratic counterparts (debatable), the effects disproportionately hit the lower-education, lower-income unskilled labor force. There were more that I can't remember. I didn't agree with all of them, nor did I disagree with all of them. I do think that the author made enough of a point that the semi-automatic "Not rich? Why would you ever vote Republican?!" dogma is worth a second look.

2 observations: 1) He's got a better chance than McCain does "closing the deal with those black guys." 2) It's a different argument than race?! a. For instance, he's from Hawaii, unlike most people. b. Of course, Most people aren't from Arizona, either. Which isn't to say that his "unfamiliarity" argument isn't accurate with respect to certain voters; however, I find it disingenuous to suggest that the argument isn't about race. It may not be an identical argument, but it's certainly a large part of it (and the part he led with, not being Hawaiian or having a fairly atypical (in the USA) name.)

I agree that expired photo ID's should suffice, but the nun story aside, Item 4 in the Rolling Stone article suggested (and "suggested" is an underbid) that photo ID shouldn't be required at all, which strikes me as off-the-charts nuts. I haven't worked on an election commission, but I can't imagine that fraud is all that rare. My recollection of the Dornan-Sanchez Congressional race is that a bipartisan investigation concluded that hundreds of fraudulent votes had been recorded, but not enough to have changed the outcome, as Sanchez won by about a thousand votes. Still, a finding of a few hundred in a single Congressional district strikes me as surprisingly high.

Help me out here. Prop 8 is going to amend the State Constitution. Shouldn't this require a 'super majority' (usually 2/3) in order to pass? Bizarrely, no. Section 4 of Article 18 of the California Constitution provides that a simple majority of voters suffices. It's considerably easier to change the state constitution than to raise taxes, when it comes to the California initiative process.

Proposition 8 now apparently leading in the California: http://cbs5.com/local/proposition.8.poll.2.834082.html If Proposition 8 passes in a close vote, gay marriage in California may be a curious byproduct of Hillary Clinton's loss in the primary. Gay marriage generally does poorly with the African American demographic, and a higher black vote is expected Obama on the ticket.

I can't speak for other states (although I presume procedures are mostly similar), but I can speak as an election official in Michigan: Mail-in ballots are handed only to properly registered voters (with verification by picture ID). The ballots received in the mail need a correct signature - verified by workers from both parties - before they are entered into the optical scan reader and counted. The ballot control procedures to stop duplicate voting, etc., are exactly the same as for voters who show up in person on election day. So I think that the concerns you have are completely unwarranted. I'm curious between this and your post in the Rolling Stone thread; do you think voters should have to show I.D.?

Thanks for the description. I had no idea things were so different outside of Michigan. Here each voter actually fills and signs an to application vote. The application includes birthdate and address. The signature, birthdate, and address are checked against the registration records before the voter gets a ballot. The poll worker records the fact that the voter got the ballot. If a ballot is spoiled, the spoiled ballot must be returned to get a replacement. End-of-day reconciliation procedures account for every ballot issued and the numbers must match the counter read by the optical scanner. When we lived in Atlanta (we moved away ten years ago) I wasn't an election official, but I remember that we didn't have to show picture IDs. The poll workers were pretty careful to find a voter's name and address on the register before handing out a ballot, but I suppose fraud would have been theoretically possible on a very minor scale. I had thought that things had tightened up a bit all over after the 2000 election debacle, but I guess not. I guess looseness or tightness in election procedures is a states-rights issue for many. I don't think there's any ID checking for mail-in ballots here (California).

Re: Acorn, showing up to vote is less of an issue than getting mail-in ballots, particularly in the cases of the multiply-registered and underaged voters.

I would. Balancing like a sickman is my last remaining vice. That and Coke Zero.

I don't have my laws book in front of me, but my recollection is that "Natural" per ACBL means something like an offer to play a particular strain at a particular level. If the 2♥ bid is non-forcing and promises hearts, and responder can just pass & let opener play 2♥ with a suitable hand, then 2♥ is a natural opener, whether opener promises, denies, or may or may not have a second suit.

It mystifies me too -- as a (naturalized) immigrant, voting for the Democratic ticket is the logically obvious choice. My guess is that some of the cultural issues that seem downright absurd to me must really matter to the faithful on the other side... Why is that the "logically obvious choice" for a naturalized immigrant?

I'd have bid 1♠ the first time. Good lead direction, enough strength for a 1-level call, decent playing strength if we have a fit & competition ensues. Now I'd pass.

I don't think racism is going to hurt Obama, on balance. I don't think that many of the voters who are going to fail to vote for Obama because he's black would have voted for a very liberal new senator who was white, either. Additionally, to the extent that it does happen, Obama will pick up some votes because he's black, also. Hard to prove the extent to which racism hurts or helps him, on balance, but I'd certainly take an even money bet that he gets more votes than Kerry.

I'm not sure how much weight any particular endorsement has, particularly this late in the game. Additionally, on the flip side, Joe Lieberman, who was on the Democratic ticket 2 years ago, has endorsed McCain, for whatever that's worth. As Cherdano pointed out, also, the actual difference in the polls is probably bigger than it seems in terms of "swayable" voters. As a very rough oversimplification, 1/3 vote Republican, 1/3 vote Democrat, and 1/3 are up in the air, and actually decide the election. If Obama has, say, a 5-point edge, that's coming from the middle third -- call it 19%-14%. If you look just within that group, that's about 35% more for Obama than McCain. Congress isn't really good indicator, either. Congressmembers and presidents do different things, and, additionally, to some extent, people like to see Congress and the President check and balance each other. Reagan and Bush had Democratic congresses; 2 years after Clinton was elected, Republicans took Congress over. During the Bush (II) presidency, the Democrats got it back. So it's not like a guaranteed lock-step vote for both. Similarly, where I live (California), voters almost always vote Democrat for president, and Republican for governor. (Not relevant to the "checks and balances" argument, but relevant to the "they do different things, so don't expect straight-line party affiliation).

You have to make the ones you get at Ikea. And the directions are crappy.

But we'd know that "JohnSmith2" is better than "BobJones147."

Discuss.

I don't know much about snooker, but there's a difference in your "game" and "match" examples in chess. In chess, a player resigns a game, of his own volition, when he decides that to continue is pointless. If a chess player loses so many points that it is impossible to win (e.g. giving up 5 1/2 points in a "Best of 10" match), the match ends of its own accord; the player does not "concede."

Ditto... with a balanced hand and a few decent hearts, I like my chances for 5 tricks more than 9 or 10. At pairs, it's not close for me at all. At teams, I might spend a few seconds thinking about 3NT.