Posted 6:54 PM by Floyd

Not content with lying, politicking, and harassing golfers, the New York Times is now engaging in simple trolling. Todays's Times contains an article (prominently featured on the San Jose Mercury News website) which bemoans a change in the system for contacting the president. Reporter John Markoff tries to convince us that the Bush Administration is making life difficult for citizens. By the third sentence he's already insulted my intelligence worse than anything since The Matrix:

Do you want to send an e-mail message to the White House?

Good luck.

In the past, to tell President Bush — or at least those assigned to read his mail — what was on your mind it was necessary only to sit down at a personal computer connected to the Internet and dash off a note to president@whitehouse.gov.

Let's not forget that it is also possible to write to santaclause@northpole.org and god@heaven.org.

Posted 6:50 PM by Floyd

I'm glad to see that some portion of my tax dollars -- and Ted Turner's Atlanta Braves ticket receipts -- are used to pay the salary of a know-nothing Luddite:

China's ambitious economic growth plans are environmentally unachievable because the world does not have enough resources to allow its 1.3 billion people to become Western-style consumers, a U.N. official has said.

Klaus Toepfer, head of the U.N. Environment Program, said China's aim of quadrupling its economy by 2020 can only occur if developed nations radically change their consumption habits to free up scarce resources for the world's poor.

"Quadrupling the GDP of a country of 1.3 billion, can you imagine what are the consequences if you go in the same structure as was done in the so-called developed countries?" Toepfer told reporters during a visit to Sydney Wednesday.

He said that if China had the same density of private cars as, for example Germany, it would have to produce 650 million vehicles -- a target that environmentalists say the world's supply of metal and oil would be unable to sustain.

In the past, say, 20 years, the developed world added tens of millions of new citizens. And millions more people in countries like Taiwan and Korea and Malaysia greatly increased their standard of living. I don't remember the world running out of metal and oil.

Economist Julian Simon made a famous bet with gloom-and-doom activist Paul Ehrlich. He wagered in 1980 that the price of five metals would fall by 1990; basically Simon sold short on those metals, with a 1980 price of $1000.

Simon made $576, because the price of those metals (inflation-adjusted) fell in half in the 80's. Too bad Simon is dead, else he could make some more dough betting with Toepfer.


(Thanks to Hit and Run for the link.)

Posted 11:18 PM by Floyd

Today Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean starts a guest blogging stint on Lawrence Lessig's blog. (I know very little about Lessig other than that he is a Stanford Law professor and is involved in several internet foundations.) I checked out his first post and found it rather wanting.

Dean chose to complain about Internet deregulation:

The Internet might soon be the last place where open dialogue occurs. One of the most dangerous things that has happened in the past few years is the deregulation of media ownership rules that began in 1996. Michael Powell and the Bush FCC are continuing that assault today (see the June 2nd ruling).

The danger of relaxing media ownership rules became clear to me when I saw what happened with the Dixie Chicks. But there’s an even bigger danger in the future, on the Internet. The FCC recently ruled that cable and phone based broadband providers be classified as information rather than telecommunications services. This is the first step in a process that could allow Internet providers to arbitrarily limit the content that users can access. The phone and cable industries could have the power to discriminate against content that they don’t control or-- even worse-- simply don’t like.

The media conglomerates now dominate almost half of the markets around the country, meaning Americans get less independent and frequently less dependable news, views and information. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson spoke of the fear that economic power would one day try to seize political power. No consolidated economic power has more opportunity to do this than the consolidated power of media.

Ignore for now the silliness of imagining the Dixie Chicks as Solzhenitsyn; as Richard Bennet pointed out in one of his bomb-lobbing comments, the Chicks have benefitted immensely from the scruitiny after attention was drawn to their Bush-bashing gaffe in Britain. What I really object to about Dean's post is that it is just another venue for campaign propaganda, and has nothing to do with blogging.

Start with the post itself; it's phoned in, and could have been written at any time in the last five years. It's not topical or personal or accessible, it's just three paragraphs from a Dean position paper. Then there is a superstructure of campaign activity. The post I quoted was bracketed by two posts from the people who probably did the actual typing, viz:

The post below is from Governor Howard Dean. You can check out the crossposting and commentary at www.blogforamerica.com and read more about Howard Dean at www.deanforamerica.com. Thanks!-- Matt, Zephyr and Nicco, Dean Internet Team

There's nothing really wrong with Dean having a bunch of piss-boys type his words into Lessig's blog. And there's nothing really wrong with the fact that Dean is not going to respond to comments, and almost certainly will not even read them. That's how presidential campaigns work. But please don't make the mistake of thinking this whole publicity stunt has anything to do with blogging.

Posted 9:26 PM by Floyd

And now, some bridge-blogging. This time there will be no casualties.

On this weekend the San Mateo County unit held its sectional. San Mateo is the home unit of both Billy Miller and Steve Weinstein; in fact Weinstein's father Art ran some club games, and the sectional 99'er game is the Art Weinstein Memorial Pairs event.

San Mateo sectionals used to feature a knockout, back around 1996-1997. Due to a strange combination of circumstances, three knockouts were held but there was only one final. (In the first KO, a pair was told they could not play their strange system, and their team withdrew in protest. In the second, a massive West Coast power outage forced the cancellation of the Saturday evening games.) When the final was played, I was on the winning team. I remember that day well because David Friedman had a get-together at his house, and I attended between sessions.

Naturally I was eager to defend my title. Normally I would get a pair to play with me and Sherry, but Sherry was not sure if she could play, as her cousin Vicky was due last Friday. So I got my friends Scott (of Caroline Club fame), Brian, and Mike to play. Scott was not available Friday night, and Sherry agreed to substitute.

The first round of the knockouts was held Friday night at the bridge club in Burlingame. There were seven teams; unlike the last time I played in a sectional bracketed knockout, there was no handicap. We drew a head-to-head match. Sherry performed very well, and had this triumph in the first half:

At all vul, dealer, she held x x QJxxxx AJTxx. She passed, her LHO passed, I passed, and RHO opened 1. Sherry overcalled 1.

Her LHO doubled, showing the majors, and I raised to 2. RHO bid 2; Sherry competed with 3 and her LHO bid 3.

This was passed back to Sherry, who hesitated but bid 4. This was doubled by her RHO. I wasn't very pleased about this, but I did have a good hand -- Qxxx AT98 Axx xx -- and Sherry is not like many beginners who bid when it's their turn. A club was led and trumps were 2-2, so Sherry scored up +730.

We won the first half by 43. In the second half Sherry was solid again. She made a tough vulnerable game, then had to decide what to do with AKQx KQTx xx AQx after I opened 1. The auction started 1 - 1, 2 - 2, 2N. I confess I would have blasted to 6N; Sherry was more conservative, bidding only 4N. This was right in theory -- I had x xxx AKJxx K9xx and had quite enough to do at the four level -- but wrong in theory as everything split and the diamond queen was right.

Our teammates had two bad results, but one good one: The opponents bid to 6N on the hand I described and went down! They decided to play for hearts 3-3 with the finesse working rather than diamonds 3-3. We lost the second half 26-25. The final score was 88-46, imagine, 134 imps on 24 boards!

Saturday morning Scott and I went over our strong club system (the Caroline Club). This system has canape openings: If you open 1 of a major, you have a five card major, or a four-card major and a longer side suit. Two level openings show minimum opening strength and are major-minor two-suiters.

We arrived at the San Mateo Expo Center and started playing. Sherry was able to come as her cousin had been quiescent. We had started playing when the director arrived to chase Sherry away; she was not allowed to kibbitz as she was on the team. I can understand this rule in a real event, but dislike it in a sectional when I am playing with friends. Sherry decided that she didn't want to have nothing to do, and also that she would let everyone else play. So she became our non-playing captain.

The first half went fairly well. Our opponents were playing an 11-14 notrump, which didn't come up much; we were playing a 10-12 notrump which came up all the time, and gave the opponents fits. We had a good set and started the second half up 22-7.

The second half didn't go so favorably for us. For instance: I held Txxx KQx xx QJ9x. At all vulnerable, LHO opened 2 weak. Scott doubled, and RHO bid 3, asking opener to show a singleton. I passed and LHO bid 3, denying shortness. Scott doubled again and RHO passed. What would you do?

I bid 3 only because I was worried about my poor spades and lack of values outside hearts. I probably should have bid 4. I think Scott could have raised to 4 on AKxx — AQxxx Axxx. There were no bad breaks -- as advertised -- and we made four.

We also had a bad result when I opened 1 and Scott hoped that Txx would be sufficient support. It wasn't. We had had some reasonable results, but figured to be down a little bit as our teammates came over to compare. We gave back two-thirds of the lead but held on to win, 41-36. Before the two tables played their last boards we were losing 36-31, but each pair won five imps to give us the victory.

We went to Inya Lake for a Burmese dinner that couldn't be beat, and returned for the title game. Our opponents included the only other decent player in the event; in fact, he was on the team I beat back in 1997. If it should have been a tough match it wasn't. Everything went our way at both tables, and the opponents made lots of costly mistakes. Here is my favorite hand of the event:

At favorable, third seat, I held QT6543 653 T K82. Scott opened a 10-12 notrump, and RHO bid 2, showing hearts and a minor. I competed with 2. LHO bid 3. Scott passed, and RHO cue bid 3. LHO bid 3N and all passed.

Scott led the A and this dummy appeared:

K AKJT9 Q4 AJ753

The king was felled, I encouraged with the 3, and declarer played the 2. Scott played the 7 to my queen and declarer's 8. (Dummy pitched a heart.)

The missing spades were the J and 9. Scott would have led the 9 from a remaining holding of 97, so declarer was marked with those cards. (Anyway, why would she bid 3N on jack-third?)

I considered a club, hoping that Scott had QT9. But that would lead to only two clubs, a spade, and maybe a diamond.

So I switched to a diamond. This had potential to create a dummy lock. Scott ducked when the diamond went to dummy's queen, and won the diamond continuation. He led a heart, which declarer finessed. I assumed he had four hearts to make this play.

Declarer then led a club down. I played the king without much hope; if declarer had a stiff club as well as a stiff heart she was 4171. But she played the queen under the king and when I continued a club, pitched a diamond!

Now we had down one for sure. Declarer could have played off clubs and stuck Scott in with the fourth club, forcing a diamond or heart return. But instead she threw him in with a heart. Scott returned a club, and she cashed two clubs and played the fourth club. On this card, which was the twelfth trick, she had to work out what Scott had left. She got it wrong (even though I had showed out of diamonds) and kept her spade. Scott, who hard started with A73 of diamonds opposite a singleton 10, took two diamond tricks -- and the last trick with the 7, the beer card! (We won 14 imps when our teammates made 5. I did not owe Scott a beer; he doesn't drink.)

We beat our opponents 74-2 -- in the first half! They conceded, and we thanked each other and went home.

Posted 8:22 PM by Floyd

Huzzah! Evan Kirchhoff's car has returned. It was stolen by Danielle Steele or something. Anyway, interested readers (and Steele's attorneys) should check out Evan's 101-280 blog for more details.

Posted 3:21 PM by Floyd

Schadenfreude alert:

Blair Hornstine, the overachieving daughter of a take-no-prisoners judge in Moorestown, New Jersey, used disability regulations to get herself the highest possible GPA at her school. She claimed to have "chronic fatigue", which did not prevent her from taking part in a large number of extracurricular activities (such as running with the Olympic torch). The school administration caught on, and instituted a co-valedictorian under the theory that Hornstine had not even participated in many classes (she was taught by a tutor) and therefore did not really compete with the normal students. Hornstine sued the school district for several million dollars.

A federal judge ruled that Hornstine was the sole valedictorian. The graduation ceremony was held, though Hornstine did not attend. Meanwhile, the local paper noticed that Hornstine's school paper writing was copied from other sources, including Bill Clinton.

Hornstine had been accepted at Harvard University. Harvard withdrew its admission because of the plagiarism.

(Thanks to Joanne Jacobs for the news.)