The Joy of Hopelessness.Nothing feels so good as getting down and feeling bad.

National Review ^ | september 24, 2004 | Denis Boyles

[orangelobster]

A long time ago, when I was living in California and pretending to write movies that never got made, I would get together with a bunch of Hollywood guys in Sammy Davis Jr.'s old house — the one with all the gold faucets — to "play poker." That's a euphemism for buying a new Toyota every 12 months or so for some people who wouldn't be caught dead driving one. It was my way of learning the zen of defeat. Twice over the course of a couple of years, I held four queens — and lost both times to a royal flush. My winning nights were so rare that I began to despise the intermission from guilt they brought the other regulars, since my only pleasure came from my victimization. If that didn't make me a Democrat, I realized nothing would.

After a while, I began to look for the hand that would turn the night against me, and when I spotted it, I would feel a slight frisson of pleasure, the kind of comfort that comes to you on four little words: "I told you so." Eventually, I quit playing. After all, you can only take joy in wallowing in defeat for so long — unless you're Bob Shrum.

But tell that to the French, our allies of the future, according to John Kerry. There, the most popular article at the moment in Le Monde, according to its website, is a little Kerry-like screed by Eric Fottorino, one of Le Monde's legion of interchangeable Yank-bashers, who takes great pleasure in describing the "énorme statistique de mortalité violente" that he says is Iraq today. Fottorino buttresses his argument with the 1,000 dead GIs and the announcement by Kofi Annan that the war in Iraq, fought ostensibly to give ...

[Uncle George]

You just described "ELEANOR CLIFT" (PMS)

[goldstategop]

Kerry was us to imitate French hopelessness and run up a white flag. Come to think of it, there's a bumper sticker in there somewhere: "America Ought To Listen To France."

[sittnick]

Unless there are wildcards (and only sissies play poker with wildcards), it is impossible to have all four queens in one hand and a royal flush in another from one deck, as every royal flush has a queen in it.

[wife-mom]

Thanks for pointing that out. I quit reading when he wrote that. How dumb is this guy, to hold four queens TWICE in two years and to lose to a Royal Flush both times? Sheeeeeesh!

[Anti-Bubba182]

"..Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier was telling France 2, that French troops would go into Iraq "ni aujourd'hui, ni demain." In words the French-talking Kerry can easily understand, that means "not today, not tomorrow." The French can't make it any clearer: Even with Kerry in the White House, they would not send their armed forces to Iraq..."

So much for Kerry's coalition building, if anyone was stupid enough to believe him in the first place. We stay and cope with the same allies we have now, minus any that quit. Much was made of the coalition in the first Gulf War and absolutely it was better. But at the end of the day, it was mostly Americans and British doing most of the fighting.

[RipSawyer]

Besides that four queens BEAT a royal flush. A royal STRAIGHT flush is needed to beat four of a kind.

[sittnick]

A royal flush is, by definition, a straight flush. A regular ol' flush means that all cards are the same suit. The "Royal" means that it is a straight flush, Ace high.

See:

http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/royal+flush

[RipSawyer]

OK, I haven't played poker in many, many years. I thought if the low card were a 9 it would still be a royal flush, just not a straight flush.