Posted 3:37 PM by Floyd

The anti-war movement drools on:

RECENTLY, in a Washington Post article, Condoleezza Rice compared the reluctance of France and others to support war against Iraq to the appeasement of Nazi Germany before WW II. This was a comparison of a most powerful nation, Germany, and one of the weakest, Iraq.

Here are some comparisons she didn't make.

Hitler registered Jews and synagogues. Bush registered Muslims and has the FBI counting and identifying mosques.

No one in this country is forced to register because of their religion.

Hitler held secret tribunals. Bush held secret and military tribunals.

Every country has military tribunals. That's how they resolve crimes committed under military jurisdiction. Jackass.

Hitler passed the Enabling Bill for the safety of the Germans by ``temporarily'' suspending civil liberties. Bush passed the Patriot Act to secure the safety of the American people, which limits civil liberties.

When you get thrown into a concentration camp, maybe I'll act like you have a point and are not a loon.

Hitler deprived the Jews of their citizenship. The leaked Patriot Act II would allow the Bush administration to revoke citizenship.

Is there a difference between persecuting people based on their ethnicity and punishing people for treason and terrorist acts? Not on Planet Fucking Paisley.

Hitler deprived the Jews of their basic human rights without due process. Bush deprived accused American citizens of their basic human rights, detaining them without due process.

And the vats where Bush boils people into soap are where?

Hitler set up isolated concentration camps for political opponents. Bush sent illegal combatants and terrorists to isolated military prison camps.

It was the first time in history that captured soldiers were not set free with clean clothing and a floral bouqet. Shithead.

Hitler killed over 50 million people. Bush authorized the use of nuclear weapons on countries that refuse to give up weapons of mass destruction. This was a comparison of a powerful leader, Hitler, and the most powerful leader, Bush.

Arlen Comfort
Menlo Park

Hitler killed 50 million people. Bush did not kill 50 million people. That's quite an apt comparison, assclown.

Posted 5:52 PM by Floyd

Little Green Footballs has photographic evidence of Jacques Chirac's Kurt Waldheim moment. (Chirac is photographed with Saddam Hussein at a French nuclear reactor in the 1970's. France would later build a reactor in Baghdad; said reactor was bombed by Israel in 1981.)

Posted 5:43 PM by Floyd

Here's another essay on drug policy by M. Simon:

I think it is time to take a closer look at the biochemistry of heroin. Heroin is an opiate. Opiates are drugs that come from the opium poppy or are chemically similar to that drug. Included in that drug category are drugs such as morphine, heroin, and synthetic analogs such as Demerol, Methadone and OxyContin. Drugs in this family are excellent pain relievers and can be, among those genetically disposed, highly addictive.

Here is what we know about the biochemistry of those drugs. They bond to the endorphin receptors in the brain and by doing so relieve pain and give a sense of euphoria. In other words they make you feel good.

What is most interesting about the human body is that it will under various circumstances produce endorphins on it's own. The human body in other words is a drug factory. However it is best to keep this fact a secret in order to stay on the right side of the law. We certainly don't want police breaking down our doors at 3 AM just for feeling good.

So just to be on the safe side we need to find out under what circumstances the body produces these heroin like substances, these endorphins. One relatively hard way to get the job done is to exercise. Hard sustained exercise will cause copious endorphin production. This produces what is commonly known as runners high. In those so disposed it produces exercise junkies. These are no different from heroin junkies except for the source of the chemicals that fill the endorphin receptors. I guess this would make exercise machines drug paraphernalia. Not to worry. So far they are not illegal.

What else can we do to produce endorphins? Sex produces them. In huge amounts. It is one of the reasons that people who have just had sex have very dopey looks on their faces. They are in fact doped up. Of course there are the inevitable sex junkies who would rather make their drugs by sex rather than injecting them in a vein. At least there are no puncture wounds to give the sex addict away.


There are a number of other things you can do to get the body to produce endorphins, but I'd like to talk about the most popular among young and old, rich and poor, the well educated and the ignorant. Eating.

What foods are especially good at promoting endorphin production? Sugar is one. The sugar high is well known as are the withdrawal symptoms when the sugar levels in the body decline. This gives rise to the well known and widely remarked sugar addict. Another food type that is really good at promoting endorphin production are fats. This may be one of the reasons that our many fast food emporiums often provide the customer with a whole day's worth of fat in one sitting. It makes the customer feel good and like any junky the customer keeps coming back for more when the food fix wears off. Another great food that really supercharges the endorphin system is chocolate. With it's mix of sugar and fat it really cranks endorphin production. This is very popular among chocolate makers because it produces chocolate addicts who keep coming back for their next fix. The fast food and candy companies really do take advantage of the addictiveness of food. Once they get you started you really are hooked.


What does this tell us about how we regulate opiates in America?

Given the current popular understanding of addiction a Big Mac = a shot of smack.

This either points up the futility of the drug war or the need to greatly expand it. Please don't tell the DEA, because they may decide that controlling heroin is not enough to keep the so called "drug epidemic" in check. You may soon have agents patrolling the parking lots of fast food joints looking for eaters. We will all have to be on the lookout for food snitches and you may have to get a doctors prescription for a burger, shake, and fries. I suppose if it prevents one addiction it is worth it. At least that is what they tell us when heroin is involved.

It is almost enough to make you want to move to France.

M. Simon is an industrial controls engineer for Space-Time Productions
and a Free Market Green

(c) M. Simon - All rights reserved.

Posted 5:36 PM by Floyd

I happened on a website of opinion writing called The American Scene. The Scene is somewhat of a periodical; it has a blog, but also contains longer essays and a letters section.

A recent blog entry called Molly "I write in a Texas accent, therefore it must be true" Ivins' latest column "the worst ever". Ivins issued a garbled interpretation of recent French history, then opined that colonialism was worse than fascism or communism.

There was also an interesting essay from two years ago on "Abolishing High School". Ross Douthat writes:

But high school socializes adolescents by forcing them to spend all their time, not with adults who offer examples of maturity, but with other adolescents. The only adults in grades 9-12 are teachers, whose role as disciplinarians casts them as adversaries rather than as role models. Few high school students set out to emulate their instructors--instead, they set about emulating their peers.

The result, predictably, is the warped culture that holds sway in the halls of most American high schools. Adolescents are conformist, so the culture demands conformity. Adolescents are vicious, so the culture is cruel beyond belief. Adolescents are insecure and anti-intellectual, so the culture despises academic achievement. And, of course, adolescents (or their parents, more likely) adore athletics, and so the culture treats athletic stars and their paramours as its kings and queens.

When a student finally graduates out of this culture, he has undoubtedly gained a smattering of practical knowledge. But after four years in a shallow, conformist world, he is no closer to being an adult, really, than when he entered high school in the first place. Or if he has matured, than it has been in spite of his "socialization," not because of it.

I wholeheartedly agree. America's educational system was created by a nineteenth-century socialist who had many diagreeable goals (one of which was "Christianizing the Catholics"). It should be dumped in the dustbin of history.

Posted 10:05 PM by Floyd

My favorite online media website is that of the New York Press. This "alternative" newsweekly -- I assume "alternative" is as meaningless when applied to newspapers as it is when applied to a music genre -- prints a wide variety of opinion. The publisher, Russ Smith, is a conservative libertarian. Christopher Caldwell has written a New York Press column (Hill of Beans) for several years. Jim Knipfel is a wry iconoclast.

Then there are the left-wingers. Most of the writers have some liberal tendencies, which is not surprising in an "alternative" paper. But like Caldwell, they are not dogmatic and feel free to dissent from what they see as silly, hackneyed, or outdated. The exceptions are two overt and annoying left-wingers, Michaelangelo Signorile and Alexander Cockburn.

Signorile is a loudmouth leftist whose tone suits the Press, just as Conason suits Salon and Eric Alterman suits MSNBC. His writing is crass and obnoxious, and contains little of value. (One recent column was titled "Deflating the Gasbag Limbaugh", making me wonder if I had inadvertently accessed the archives of 1995.)

Cockburn is a paleosocialist of ancient pedigree. Two decades ago he was an apologist for the Soviet empire; in one column that I shall never forget, he argued that the capitalist and Communist economies were equivalent because while capitalist workers lost time working in factories, socialist consumers lost time standing in line. Cockburn's present mental state can be envisioned by imagining a rabid Lakers fan in the year 2023 after the team has moved to Omaha and been renamed the Wings, while all the championship flags and retired jerseys were lost in a fire. In his latest column, Cockburn oozes with concern that the young might imitate the heavy drinking habits of famous journalists -- to use a random example, one Christopher Hitchens. Cockburn even diagnoses Hitchens as suffering from "[a] severe neurological disorder brought on by years of heavy alcohol abuse, compounded in turn, by vitamin deficiencies caused by self-neglect." (I assume Cockburn called up some KGB pal who was responsible for putting dissidents in mental asylums and asked him for tips.)

The Press hit the stupid commie trifecta this week when it published a book review by Matt Taibbi. Taibbi reviews Norman Solomon's latest book; the teaser is "Norman Solomon's new book criticizes, but does little else."

Solomon is a media critic and darling of the radical left; he plays guard on the same team of which Noam Chomsky is the center. Solomon's criticisms of America would probably sound fresh and sprightly in, say, 1880, but now they are outdated, irrelevant, and insane. Solomon recently made a name for himself by criticizing Dilbert. Dilbert creator Scott Adams mocked Solomon mercilessly in his subsequent book, and called him a Commie. You have to be amazingly irrelevant and incompetent for a bland mass-market figure to feel safe in labelling you a Communist.

However I forgot all about Solomon and his foibles when reading Taibbi's review. Taibbi does not, as the teaser suggests, find Solomon too negative or critical. He thinks that Solomon cannot reach average Americans because Solomon cannot access their depravity and self-hatred:

You can talk all you want about suffering Iraqi children and the long-term consequences of using depleted-uranium ammunition, but you’re not going to convince some frustrated cubicle slave in Lawrence, KS, with a fat wife and forty grand in credit card debt and a spare tire that makes him sick with self-loathing every time he sees the cover of Men’s Health, that he doesn’t want to bomb the shit out of somebody, anybody, at the earliest conceivable opportunity, for the first reason you make available to him. He knows better than you what he wants. And your timid little pile of "facts" and tepid appeals to some abstract morality, aren’t going to cut it.

As the Left becomes further detached from reality, talk like this becomes more frequent: The Left has failed because average people just aren't good/compassionate/intelligent/sophisticated enough to agree with them. Not only is Taibbi lost, but he has no interest in finding his way back. Accepting his premise, just what is Solomon supposed to say that will sway this hypothetical monster who wants to retalitate against the world to compensate for his personal deficiencies? Maybe Taibbi thinks the more active forms of socialist will grab the attention of Mr. Cubicle Slave: Dekulakization, or information about conspiracies by Jewish doctors, or zero-based calendar reform.

I was willing to assume Taibbi's contention for the sake of argument -- for one paragraph. Taibbi's little diatribe is nothing more than the usual hatred that commies have for actual workers, in this instance manifesting itself as blood libel. Consider the horrors of the twentieth century: The Nazi/Soviet rape of Poland, the starvation of the Ukraine, the slaughterhouse of Cambodia. Who was more likely to approve of them while they were being perpetrated: Joe Sixpack or a leftist media critic?

Posted 6:59 PM by Floyd

Ken Layne pointed out that more people watched Kangaroo Jack last weekend than participated in anti-war protests. A ruckus broke out in the comments section. One woman earnestly pointed out that "it is nevertheless unprecedented to have protests on a global scale. It is more than just numbers. You've got people from different cultures and countries who are willing to join in a concerted protest effort." Imagine that: There exist people in many countries, not just the US, who will continue to misapply the lessons of 60's until their walkers and wheelchairs rust. What an incredible logistical exercise, to get them all out chanting, singing, and excluding Israelis during the same 48-hour span! Next you'll be telling me that a billion people all turned on a television and watched the same boardcast of the World Cup final. What were the odds?

The fuss made its way over to Greg Beato's blog, where Atrios and Layne had a tussle in the comments. Finally Layne -- writing off the cuff on someone else's blog -- came up with the most crisp and intelligent statement of the debate:

The actions of a few can sometimes have a huge impact on the many. But when that happens -- think the Founding Fathers or MLK Jr. -- there's something novel about the ideas or the approach, and there's an overwhelming moral aspect that cannot be denied.

I just don't see that in the anti-war protests of 2003. Do you know anybody who went from one side to the other because of these protests? I sure don't, and I know a helluva lot of people on the fence.

Posted 4:12 PM by Floyd

Sports update part 3: My wife and I spent all weekend playing in a knockout with my friends Eric and Brian. Knockout events are "bracketed" -- that is, the teams are separated by experience level. The Saturday/Sunday knockout that we entered had four brackets. The top bracket had the most experienced teams, including Rose Meltzer's world championship team (with Weichsel, Sontag, Larsen, Martel, Stansby). The second bracket had some decent local players. We had 2300 masterpoints (I provided half the team's total) and were in the third bracket.

50 teams entered the knockout, which was held in a conference room that was maybe 40 by 80 feet. It was good to see a big turnout after the disappointingly small crowds in San Bernardino. But the room was crowded and noisy. We got started with a three-way match (two advancing) and crushed both teams by a combined score of 125-12.

In the evening we played head to head. Sherry and I had a solid first half. On one hand our vulnerable opponents bid to 3N on the following auction:

1 1N
2 3
3N

I had Qx x AJTxx KT9xx. I had diamonds locked up and Sherry probably had a heart stack, so I doubled. +800 and win 12.

At the half we were up 24. But the second half was a lot tougher for us. Here is the most interesting declarer play problem of the tournament:

Both Vul Dealer: North	Sherry K T 9 4 K J 8 x x x K T x	Lead:x
	Floyd Q J x A 9 x A J x x x Q x

West (LHO) — 1 Pass Pass		North (Sherry) Pass 2 3N		East (RHO) Pass Pass Pass		South (Floyd) 1 2N Pass

I bid 2N because I was worried about spade ruffs in a heart contract. When dummy came down I saw that I was right; 4 goes down after ace of spades and a spade ruff, ace of clubs and a second ruff. Now all I had to do was make 3N.

I won the spade lead in hand -- RHO followed -- and played the ace of hearts and a heart to the jack. LHO played the ten on the second round; RHO won the queen and shifted to T. I ducked and LHO won the king and played another spade.

I thought for a long time about what to do. If LHO had KQ, I could cash the ace of diamonds and take two tricks in that suit. But what would I pitch from dummy on the ace of diamonds if LHO showed out? My spades were needed as stoppers and so were my clubs; I had to knock out two black aces and I needed the ten of clubs as a stopper if LHO led that suit.

I finally decided to play LHO for the club jack. I led a club to the queen, LHO fired a club back, I put in the ten and it lost to the jack. Down one. LHO had KQ so cashing the ace of diamonds would have worked.

A few minutes later I realized what I should have done: Cash the ace of diamonds and if the queen does not appear, pitch a heart winner! Now I have kept the black suit stoppers I need and can go about my business, hoping for J onside. On the actual hand I can pitch clubs from dummy on the ace and jack of diamonds and knock out the spade ace: Four hearts, three spades, two diamonds makes nine.

Here is the full hand:

Both Vul Dealer: North	Sherry K T 9 4 K J 8 x x x K T x	Lead:x
LHO A x x x x T x K Q A x x x x		RHO x Q x x T 9 8 x x x J x x
	Floyd Q J x A 9 x A J x x x Q x

We did have one good board, though at the time I was not sure if it would be win 13, lose 13, or a push. Sherry held Axxx — QTxxx K9xx. We were vulnerable and I opened 2N. Sherry bid 3 Stayman, and when I bid 3 bid 4. I had a huge hand for diamonds -- Kx ATx AKJx AQTx -- and we were soon in a small slam, making seven. I hoped that the other table had not bid the grand. They did not; in fact they signed off in 3N over 3!

The last board was a difficult bidding problem. Sherry opened 1 holding A98x AQxxx QTx x. My hand was KJx Tx AKJxx 98x. We arrived in 3N after a confused auction that I won't repeat, and I had the pleasure of watching the opponents cash the first five club tricks.

Here is my suggested auction to arrive at 5:

1 2
2 2
3 3N
4 5

Opener must rebid 2 as 3 would be game forcing. Responder tries 2 as a probe for notrump. Opener's raise is obvious.

Now responder must back out of the 4-3 spade fit. Opener should reason that responder does not have four spades and that 2 was a stopper, not a suit. But if responder really had spades and clubs stopped, he would rebid notrump. So responder is hoping that opener can deliver some help in the club suit, and opener must pull out of 3N to diamonds.

After all these bad boards I was afraid that we had blown the match. We compared and there were lots of swings. We had totalled up the six-board quarters but had not added them together. Brian and I looked at the wreckage and said, "We lost by one." Eric said, "No, I think we won by one." We did the math and found out he was right.

The next day we had an easier time of it. One of our opponents was a 95-year-old lady who had driven up from Santa Barbara. She was crabby and not a good player; in fact on the first board I opened 1 on KT8 AKxx JT97 Tx, and when my hand came down as dummy she called the director on me! She complained that this was not a diamond opener; the director, whom I have played against a lot, said that he saw no problem. (For him, the hand has extras!)

We had a solid first half. On the last board of our first quarter great-grandma held Qx Ax — AKJxxxxxx and opened 5. This was passed out; dummy appeared with AKxxxx xxx AJxx — and declarer made seven when the clubs broke 2-2. Our teammates got to 7 after a confused auction. This was win 14.

We won the first half 53-16, and tacked on 23 more imps to advance to the final. We headed to an Indian restaurant in Sunnyvale for a delicious dinner.

In the final we faced one of the teams that we had crushed in the opening round three-way. They played much better in the final. In the first half my input was limited. Sherry declared seven hands and I played none. Sherry did well on the hands that she declared, but there was one soft result when I opened 1 and my LHO jumped to 2. We do not play negative doubles and could not find our heart game. That was lose 9. We also lost 9 when Brian and Eric went for 500 against our +100, and 11 when they tried for a slam and went down.

However I can't complain about our teammates when they bring back boards like this: As dealer, favorable, I held Kx K9xxx xxx xxx. I passed, LHO bid 3, and Sherry overcalled 3. Everyone passed and a diamond was led. Sherry blew it up, played a spade to the king, and a spade down. The preemptor showed out. Sherry rose with the spade ace and worked on hearts from her QJTx. The preemptor showed out on the first round! The defense slipped a trick and Sherry made an overtrick. I assumed that the preemptor had five little clubs and didn't think much about the board.

So we compared results. "Plus 200." "Minus 100, win 3." "Minus 150." "Plus 110, lose 1." "Plus 170."

"Plus 1540, win 17!"

The preemptor's hand was x &151; KJ9xxxx KQJxx! Eric opened 2N -- minors with less than opening strength -- and when Brian showed diamond support Eric competed to the six level. The opening lead was a heart and Eric's spade loser vanished.

When the dust settled we were up four. We reshuffled and played the last 12 boards, and once again Sherry was in the spotlight. She played four deals in a row and did well on three of them. But she went down in a tough game and I figured that was lose 10. We also failed to beat a white game they bid; lose 10 more.

There were some good hands for us. On the first board we played Sherry and I dummy locked declarer and beat a red 3N. I guessed well in two partials to make my contracts. We stayed out of a slam that would make if Sherry's clubs were T9x instead of 9xx , and on the last board declarer was a lock to make 3 and hacked the play.

Our first six boards we lost 7 to 12. We did lose 10 on the game we let them make, and a partial that I played well was defended very well by Brian and Eric for a 7-imp win. (Unfortunately our well-defended 3N was a push.) As for the last quarter, we lost 10 on the hand Sherry failed to make, and won 13 on the board we stayed out of slam -- the opponents bid to a grand. We won this set 17-12, so the second half was a wash and we held on to win by four imps. That was worth 15 masterpoints; Sherry now has more than 50 masterpoints and is a "sectional master."

I had to edit this post about five times to make the auction come out right on the 3N play problem. At least my hit count is going up.