Posted 11:49 AM by Floyd

It's Saturday, so the Mercury News prints extra-big helpings of reader-created lunacy. First we see evidence of the increasingly tenuous grip on reality possessed by the anti-war left:

WITH all the fear-mongering by the Bush administration, it is easy for people to lose sight of the facts about the U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq. The majority of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were destroyed in 1996, leaving only a small amount for the inspectors to find now. As chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said, given enough time, we will be able to disarm Iraq, although it would be faster with more cooperation from Sadaam Hussein.

Are we really willing to face 500,000 casualties, as estimated by the U.N., plus all the psychological damage, material destruction, and disruption of people's lives to fight a war no one wants and many think is wrong? Or could we wait until the inspectors have had time to root out the few remaining weapons?

Yes, Iraq is being deceitful, but let's show the patience of maturity and make the best decision in terms of human lives, culture and health of the planet on which we live.

Hope Raymond
Palo Alto

It's amazing that Raymond thinks that the inspectors can magically find and neutralize all dangerous weapons in a country twice the size of Idaho. What does she think the inspection process is, a game of Zelda? "I know there's one more chemical warhead on this level. Have we checked the Laundry Pool of Basra?"

And I love her casualty estimate of 500,000. My estimate for the number of casualties is 5,658,329. My methodology for this estimate was to turn on my calculator and bang on keys at random. It's probably just as valid as whatever process was used by the folks at the UN.

Brilliant letter number two was on the issue of whether San Jose should have given employees a day off to celebrate Cesar Chavez' birthday. The assessor complained that the holiday would interfere with his assessment schedule, prompting this letter (from which I quote one paragraph):

Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone objected to the establishment of a Cesar Chavez holiday for county workers at this time, saying the loss of a day's work would jeopardize completion of the county's assessment roll (Opinion, Feb. 11). Given the County Board of Supervisors' vote to approve the holiday, it is evident that Stone now has his marching orders. But he shouldn't be disheartened! Instead, in the spirit of true leadership, he should seize the opportunity to infuse his office staff with an ardent dedication to the worthwhile cause of closing the assessment roll on time.

Great. The Mercury News is printing letters from Stakhanovites.

Posted 11:40 AM by Floyd

John Jay Ray reports that Blogspot is once again blocked in China. Blogspot was available when I visited China in November; later it was blocked, then accessible.

I wonder if these reversals are attributable to technical problems rather than policy changes.

Posted 11:32 AM by Floyd

Sports update part 2: John and I had a decent but not overwhelming game -- 57% in the afternoon, 53% in the evening -- to finish 5th in Thursday's two-session pairs event.

In duplicate bridge pair events, everyone plays the same hands. However there is still an element of luck because your opponents can play well against you, or badly. Also some hands feature random guesses, like where to find a queen or whether to bid a game or slam that needs a finesse. Bridge players talk about whether they were "dealt" a good game, the dealing referring not to the high cards they receive but to the number of mistakes they benefit from and the number of lucky guesses they make.

John and I made a few mistakes, but we were not dealt a winning game. We probably had second or third place available if we played optimally.

Posted 9:43 PM by Floyd

Sports update: I have played two sessions at the Santa Clara Regional. Last night I played in the Charity Pairs with John Jones, my partner for tomorrow's two-session pairs event. We did well for a first session, scoring 58% to win North-South in our session and I think tied for 6th overall.

We spent three hours Monday discussing our card. We play a fairly normal strong notrump 2/1 card. Here is one thing I agreed to play that I can't wait to use: Against a strong club we play that a 1 or 1 overcall shows 3 to 5 cards in that suit.

We had one disastrous misunderstanding: None vul I held T8xx xx A9xx Axx. LHO opened 1, John doubled, and I bid 1. This rolled around to RHO who competed with 2. Now what? I wanted to compete but didn't want to guess a suit, so I doubled, assuming it was takeout. According to John, standard is penalty; he floated it and we were -470.

Today I played in the side game with my friend Eric. The real events were a two-session pairs and knockouts, but Eric could not play this evening. We started out with this wonderful board: My LHO had a balanced 18-count and after her partner opened his balanced 12-count, she drove to 6N. (She could not bid 4N over 2N, you see, because that would be Blackwood.) All suits broke and all four of our honors were in the pocket; declarer scored up his 15% slam. (We actually got 1 matchpoint out of 5; declarer did not take advantage of my KJx under dummy's AQTx -- his best play to make -- and he made 1440 instead of 1470.) Then we bid a slam which was probably somewhere between 60 and 70%. Naturally this went down.

Later we had a Texas disaster. We agreed 1) that Texas was on through 3 and 2) that systems were off over penalty doubles. These understandings are mutually exclusive -- Eric played 4 down four, which was 1020 points below par.

However we had plenty of good boards as well. With one round to go (out of six) we had 53% and were third behind the leaders' 60%. We had three tops and an average to surge to 59% and victory in the event.

Posted 5:51 PM by Floyd

The Mercury News tried to sneak this letter to the editor by me, but after my nap I am a fighting force.

Use diplomacy, not war, to defuse Saddam

THE Bush administration still needs to make the case for killing in Iraq.

Last week, Secretary of State Colin Powell used a combination of props and assertions to tell the world what it knows: that Saddam Hussein is a very bad character. Let's hear reason, not more fear-mongering, before we commit to pre-emptive war.

The missing link is the logic that leads us to the clear and present danger. Why is Saddam now deemed a clear and present danger, while he was not in 1991-92 with many more weapons of all kinds and a much stronger army and infrastructure than he has now? Regarding the Al-Qaida/Iraqi government connection: Why are some officials in both the CIA and the FBI disputing it, on grounds of the strength and the reliability of the intelligence?

Discipline, diplomacy and negotiations have allowed us to win without war against China, Cuba and the former Soviet Union. Let's continue to use these cost-effective, value-positive tools.

Carolyn Dille
Santa Cruz

Some arguments against war on Iraq are reasonable. Some are not, and the worst is "why go after Saddam now when we didn't in 1991?" In the first place there are different circumstances, such as one fewer skyscraper in New York. Also this argument reifies the past; why assume that Bush the Elder's decisions were flawless?

I hope Dille doesn't work in the medical industry. I can imagine an office visit:

Dille: What's the matter?

Patient: I have a lump here, and I'm afraid it might be malignant.

Dille: How long have you had it?

Patient: Since last year.

Dille: Well what has changed since 2002? Stop wasting my time like this!

After-the-post doubletake: What's up with this "Discipline, diplomacy and negotiations" stuff? Does Dille want us to tie Saddam up and spank him? Or is that self-discipline? Should Bush and Rumsfeld do the G. Gordon Liddy thing where they hold their hands over a candle as long as they can stand it?

Posted 5:42 PM by Floyd

I started to read Steven Den Beste's latest missive and saw a capital J in the second paragraph. Like Ozzy Osbourne I wailed, "Oh, no, no, please God help me!" My worst fears were confirmed when the J was followed by an a - c - k - s - o -n: Den Beste had committed assault with a deadly essay on Jacksonianism.

At its best, Den Beste's infatuation with Jacksonianism reminds me of the old Life in Hell strip about college that displayed a crazed professor: "The nation that controls magnetism will control the universe!" At its worst it is like any belief in such quackery as numerology or astronomy. Den Beste's Jacksonianism shares two characteristics with other pseudoscientific theories: It explains everything, and it flatters the reader.

I winced when I saw the following on Susanna Corbett's blog last Thursday:

Stephen Den Beste has an excellent post (as usual) today about what he thinks France is up to with its opposition to the war in the face of all reason. He mentions Jacksonian politics in passing, and provides this link. I wasn't far into reading it when I had a moment of sudden recognition - this is me!

Of course it's you, Susanna -- a "Jacksonian" is anyone who isn't a self-loathing idiot.

Den Beste also attempts some ten-cent psychoanalysis of the WWII-era Japanese. Den Beste explains Japanese atrocities as stemming from the code of Bushido, which scorns surrender and demands absolute obedience to the emperor.

But the Bushido code cannot explain everything. I doubt that the emperor issued orders to rape and eviscerate the residents of Nanking. Also there are contradictions that need explaining: If the Japanese looked down on surrender as immoral, why would they feign surrender as a battle tactic. Having obtained the surrender of Western soldiers, why did they not encourage them to commit suicide -- as in an English novel where an offending military officer is pointedly left in a room with a revolver on a desk? And for a culture with no concept of surrender, the Japs certainly hopped to the idea of slave labor quickly.

How about an alternate theory: The Japanese were evil. They held human life in contempt, were viciously racist, and gloried in humiliation and abuse of the people they conquered. You don't need to be a Jacksonian to have trouble dealing with such people.

(Amusing footnote: Susanna continues after her moment of enlightenment: "I haven't finished reading it (it prints out to 27 pages) ...")

Posted 5:15 PM by Floyd

E. Nough, a pseudonymous commenter on Little Green Footballs and Andrew Hofer's old blog, now has his own site. Check out Thinking Meat.

Posted 12:55 PM by Floyd

This morning I received email with the following subject:

Wanna see me small perky breasts?

Great. Now I'm being spammed by leprechauns.

Posted 12:53 PM by Floyd

I've had a cold since Wednesday. It wasn't bad at first and I was hoping my body would fight it off. But ever since Saturday I've been hitting the Kleenex box. I know it's habit-forming, but I just can't stop.

Like Jim Anchower when he is sick, I am self-medicating with Sunny D and have no appetite for Miller Genuine Draft. (Not that I would want MGD when in good health.) Some blogging will resume today.

Posted 1:31 PM by Floyd

Ken Layne called me a bridge expert. It's a nice compliment but I think it slightly overstates my playing ability. Last night I played a few hands with a real expert.

When Hamish and I arrived in San Bernardino, we went to the hotel restaurant and saw Marshall Miles and John Jones. Miles has been a famous author since the 50's. I had met John through my friend and Southern California expert Jeff Goldsmith at the Toronto Nationals. Later in the week John asks if I wanted to play with him in the Santa Clara regional (which starts this Tuesday). I happily accepted the invitation. We spent last week emailing about what methods we would play; then he came into town this weekend to attend his son's youth hockey tournament, and I invited him to a gaming party held by friends of mine.

We played some games and then dealt some bridge hands for practice. This interesting hand came up:

Dealer: South	John J T 9 K 5 2 A K 6 K 5 4 3	Lead:8
LHO Q 4 3 J 8 8 7 5 2 J 9 8 6		RHO 5 2 Q 9 7 4 Q T 9 4 3 7 5
	Floyd A K 8 7 6 A T 6 3 J A Q 2	Result: Made 6

West (LHO) — Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass		North (John) — 2 2 3 4 5 5 Pass		East (RHO) — Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass		South (Floyd) 1 2 3 3 4 N 5 6

An explanation of the auction: 2 was game forcing. The next three bids were natural; 3, 3, and 4 were cue bids. 4N was keycard Blackwood, and the 5 response showed one key card, which was obviously the diamond ace.

5 asked for the queen of trump. If John had bid 6, showing the trump queen and the king of clubs, I would have bid the grand. 5 denied the queen, so I settled for the small slam.

LHO led the 8. I won on the table and immediately finessed the spade. (I was concerned that cashing a high spade first would use up an important entry or expose myself to a ruff. The finesse lost and LHO continued diamonds.

I pitched a heart and started running spades. I needed clubs 3-3, or for the same player to hold long clubs and the QJ of hearts. When I cashed the last spade, I had a feeling that throwing the diamond was wrong. But I knew RHO still had the queen of diamonds, and that he would discard after dummy. So I threw the diamond. As you can see, my squeeze does not work, but LHO misread the position and pitched a club, giving me the slam.

Then John said, "I think you should not cash the last spade. Play three rounds of clubs first." Here is the position after four rounds of spades and three rounds of clubs ending in hand; LHO and RHO threw diamonds:

	John — K 5 6 3
LHO — J 8 7 J		RHO — Q 9 7 Q —
	Floyd 6 A T 6 — —

Now I play the last trump. LHO must keep the club; suppose he pitches his last diamond. I throw dummy's club, and RHO must keep a heart to guard dummy's diamond. Both opponents have two hearts so I take the last three tricks with hearts.

What if LHO pitches a heart? I pitch a club, and RHO can afford to throw the diamond. But now LHO has stiffed the heart jack, and I can cross to the heart king and finesse on the way back! So the hand can never be beaten.

I'm not sure what the squeeze is called. John called it a non-simultaneous double squeeze, but I have seen this position described as a guard squeeze. LHO has to keep winners in two suits, and thereby exposes RHO to a finesse in the third suit.

Special thanks to Aaron Haspel from whom I pilfered the hand formatting HTML.

Update:After I posted the original HTML I realized that it looked horrible. Aaron was kind enough to help me find my formatting mistakes. A great big THANK YOU to the God of the Machine!

Posted 1:16 PM by Floyd

One of the charges levelled against Saddam Hussein's regime is that private interviews were not provided with Iraqi scientists. Lately Hussein has relented, though the first "private interview" was with one of the Iraqi minders who had previously supervised interviews. But the issue is moot if the scientists do not want to cooperate. I found this surprising information at the end of a Telegraph article on the Iraqi crisis:

Dr Blix is holding talks with senior Iraqi officials in Baghdad this weekend. While his inspectors have now been granted private access to a number of Iraqi scientists, one of their prime targets - the English-trained woman who used to run Saddam's lethal biological weapons programme - said that she will refuse to talk to them.

In an exclusive interview to be broadcast on BBC1's Panorama at 10.30 tonight, Rihab Taha, who studied at the University of East Anglia and is known as "Dr Germ", said that she does not trust the inspectors.

"It is a human right that if you don't want to speak to anyone, no one will oblige you or force you." Speaking of her work on biological weapons, Dr Taha added: "It is our right to have a capability to defend ourselves and to have something as a deterrent."

Posted 11:51 AM by Floyd

Another dispatch from another Bay Area denizen for whom every street corner is Haight and Ashbury and every year is 1968:

I deeply question President Bush's ``rush to war'' against Iraq, so some of you may call me anti-American. I was at the San Francisco peace rally on Jan. 18, waving a sign with the American flag, reading ``I am a patriot . . . for peace.'' I love my country like a mother loves her wayward child. I can be supportive, but I will not be an enabler. I am hopeful that America will come back from the brink of this narcissistic, greedy, materialistic path of destruction. America can re-discover its original essence and return to the wisdom of our founding basic principles.

Let's show the world our American might. Not military might, but the might of consensus-building, unconditional kindness, constrained consumption of these earthly riches and right-mindedness.

Janice Burton
San Jose