John / Billybob
Well done.
Any tips on blackjack?
Nope, I hang my hat on the fact that, right or wrong, the trier of fact appointed him guardian.
Our legal system works pretty well, most of the time for most people.
No system made by man can be perfect, and sometimes the innocent are hurt, but that is part of the price of having the best legal system ever designed.
At some point, there has to be finality of judgment or a legal system is just a joke, incapable of deciding anything.
Terri Schiavo seems to have gotten crushed in the gears, but it is not the fault of the judicial system, or any overreaching by judges. It is the fault of a badly written custody law, similar to those in most states.
A judicial activist judge would have reached right beyond the norms of the law and granted custody to her parents, and been just as wrong as any other judge stretching the law to suit his feelings.
SO9
A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money. (With apologies to Everett McKinley Dirksen.)
Nice post but I disagree about Social Security. I don't want to save it. I want it to end. It's a rip off, a lie, a scheme, and totally against every principle of freedom known to man.
It's my money. I'll do with it as I please. And if I don't prepare for myself when I'm older I'll either have to work until I die or rely on my family or the charity of others. But it's fascism to force compassion upon me with my own money because others don't want to see me begging on the street if I'm dumb enough not to take care of myself when I'm 70 years of age.
I think that Ike played bridge, but he can be included in the card playing crowd.
There's something to be said for gamers who know when their opponents mouth goes dry.
Not always, it depends on the "pot odds". If the ratio of money in the pot to the amount of the bet is greater than the odds of making the winning hand, then it is appropriate to make the bet. Such calculations are the key to winning in poker over the long haul. It is easy to understand why you were unable to do better than break even.
Poker experts and professional gamblers understand the odds, practice discipline and win over the less informed. Not every hand, but over the long haul, because they only put money in the pot when they have favorable odds.
Successful poker theory applies to life in general.
The fatal attraction of an inside straight isn't the bet, it's the rush you get when you (rarely) hit it. This is as true for politics as it is poker, assuming that the two can be differentiated.
You're gettin' good, John! ... I'd love to play poker with you someday.
My father, a lifelong poker player, calls that "I came to play! syndrome." As long as you view your gambling as entertainment, you haven't "lost" unless you're short more money than you would have spent on dinner and a movie, the opera, or a baseball game.
I'd say "well done" but they always are.
I think I've read about another President who has a reputation for being a pretty good poker player-- it seems that some people have a tendency to "misunderestimate" him...
: ^ )
Also, the bullying of the AFL-CIO is nothing but grandstanding, media-driven extortion. The campaign of a has-been like John Sweeney is sickening because it adds nothing to the debate about what will become of retirement planning long after he and his ilk are gone. The media lets him get away with saying that Wall Street firms will make a trillion dollars from fees from private accounts. Such a lie--and never confronted.
It guess that it ultimately boils down to the power of the media. The more people know about the details of the Schiavo case, the less inclined they were to support her husband's position. That is why the polls showed a 13% drop in support of ending her life from the first week of March to her death. Even Morton Kondracke, who said on a Friday night FNC show "Pull the plug", corrected himself the next day by admitting that his research into the case had changed his opinion. Did people know that she really wasn't hooked up to anything? Did people know that she probably wasn't in pain until the starvation began? Did people really know that she would not have died a natural death soon unless she had been starved to death? Do people know that this isn't so dissimilar from thousands of other cases of disabled citizens and court-mandated forced starvation for her sets a precedent for alot of other people? Were people aware of the timeline of Michael's interest in his wife, her condition, the money settlement, his new girlfriend and the sudden "reclaimed memory" of her comment about a tv movie about life support?
Whoever controls the media, controls the message.
Great Article.
Your political analysis is spot on.
Your poker analogy shows why you only break even.
The first rule of poker is to learn to compute pot odds. Going for an inside straight can be a good move if the pot odds warrant it.
Second, you have to calculate the odds of your opponent beating your hand even if you fill the straight. Third you have to figure out how to make your opponent believe you have already filled the straight. Finally, you must have the courage to call what you think is a bluff.
I think number 5 is what separates the good poker player from the average player.
In fact, I think having the courage to make the call is the characteristic which separates many successful people from the rest of the pack.
Good article. However I disagree with the analysis in the last 2 sentences of the above excerpt. I believe that the MSM used the 'guardian/custodial' contest as a diversionary tactic to obscure what I see as the "real" problem - the legal definition of 'LIFE' vs. the actual reality of life.
Scientific advances and breakthroughs are now coming so fast, that the legal definition must be changed. Recent experiments (non-human) have shown that stem cells can become new brain cells or almost any other body part and generate new tissue to repair damaged tissue.
Soon, probably within the next 10 years (my layman's estimate), we may be able to completely heal someone who is in the same condition as Terri Schiavo was, and perhaps completey heal and repair badly damaged hearts and kidneys, etc., as well. If this comes to pass, how will Judge Greer's and Michael Schiavo's actions be judged, hmmm? (Most of us already see them as her executioners, at least I do.)
How will a future world and society view the starving to death of an innocent handicapped person that could have, in just a few short years, been fully restored to a normal life?
Perhaps that might not have occurred; perhaps stem cell therapy is only a pipe dream; but what if ... ?
I believe that congress now MUST pass legislation that makes it a federal felony to remove life support of any kind without the signed written permission of the individual, witnessed by 3 disinterested parties and notarized (i.e. a living will).
Unfortunately, the costs (when insurance runs out) will ultimately be shifted to government entities (cities, state, federal) and thus to the taxpayers. Any such legislation must include ways to prevent fraud, abuse, and corruption (which inevitably take place) with heavy penalties and fines for each. No, I'm not in favor of more taxes, but it's going to happen - watch.
If stem cell therapy (hopefully minor or less invasive surgery) works and becomes widespread, medical costs should decline rapidly, as the cost of treatment vs. other less successful treatments will be much lower. IMO, probable results would be that the black market in transplant organs would dry up overnight and the length of dependence on life sustaining equipment would decline sharply.
Again, the real problem is 'how do legally define life' or should we even try?
Those who, like me, believe in God (not allah) know how to answer that question. The atheists and agnostics will only be confused and befuddled. For example:
In the '60s and '70s, there were books on how to make your houseplants grow larger, stronger, and healthier by playing classical or soft music and talking lovingly to them several times during each day. Experiments showed impressive results, including poor results when playing loud harsh rock music and yelling with anger at them. The question raised at that time was: "Do plants have feelings?"
And, yes, many animals can be taught some amazing tricks and other things. Just ask any PETA member and they will almost surely tell you that animals are more valuable than humans.
I believe that God gave each of us life and a soul, and an obligation to sustain both as long as we possibly can.
JMHO
RT
Let’s examine that claim. The people whose SS benefits will be paid by those bonds, are already alive. The law that says how much they will get is already written. The position that this is “new” debt means that
Exactly! The claim that the debt is "new" is absurd; the only responsible way of accounting for that debt is for the government to buy private assets to cover it. Anyone can write an IOU for 2 trillion dollars, and put it in a safe somewhere and claim to have the money to cover the Social Security Trust Fund all by themselves.That's what the government has done; the only difference is that when the government does it it has the effect of printing dollars. Notice I didn't say "money" but "dollars;" printing dollars on that scale would have a huge inflationary impact and the dollars printed wouldn't be nearly as much actual money as you would otherwise expect.
The rules of poker never change, nor do the odds.