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peterbirksWell, they can say what they like about this administration, but it's pleasing to see that they are taking a firm hand when it comes to law enforcement, and that attempted murder in the UK by a foreign national is now a deportable offence.
Firm, but fair.
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Pauly wrote something interesting about John Kalmer on his Tao of Poker site. Apparently John 'Skalie' Kalmer had not had a good run; his bankroll had been depleted so badly that he was on the verge of giving it up after a few years attempting to make it as a professional. But then came the run in the WSOP main event, and several hundred thousand pounds.
That set me thinking. How many 'other' Johns were there in that WSOP, who, if they failed to cash, would be jacking it in, and going back to the day job (if the day job would have them). We don't know. But if one of them made it to the final table, it would be fair to assume that he was not alone.
This game is littered with unpublicised failure. Blogs go silent, players "aren't seen again". The successes are rightly feted, and the failures understandably don't want to publicise the fact, but there must be an awfully large number of people who didn't make the cut.
Firm, but fair.
++++++++
Pauly wrote something interesting about John Kalmer on his Tao of Poker site. Apparently John 'Skalie' Kalmer had not had a good run; his bankroll had been depleted so badly that he was on the verge of giving it up after a few years attempting to make it as a professional. But then came the run in the WSOP main event, and several hundred thousand pounds.
That set me thinking. How many 'other' Johns were there in that WSOP, who, if they failed to cash, would be jacking it in, and going back to the day job (if the day job would have them). We don't know. But if one of them made it to the final table, it would be fair to assume that he was not alone.
This game is littered with unpublicised failure. Blogs go silent, players "aren't seen again". The successes are rightly feted, and the failures understandably don't want to publicise the fact, but there must be an awfully large number of people who didn't make the cut.
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-19 03:43 pm (UTC)The "women in the corridor" both gave a poker reporter a verbal volley for "being part of poker which is ruining my family" so the cracks are starting to appear...
Justice
Date: 2007-07-19 06:33 pm (UTC)It may well be that capital punishment will come back into fashion in the future. Larry Niven, if you remember, imagined even minor criminals being fed into the organ banks.
It seems a bit anomalous that human life is widely regarded as so valuable at a time when it's in such vast oversupply.
But this is just speculation, it remains to be seen...
-- Jonathan
Justice For All! And Painful Death To The Others
Date: 2007-07-20 08:05 pm (UTC)Larry Niven, and (as you didn't mention) Jerry Pournelle, are such wonderful examples of left-wing, humanitarian, EEC-friendly compassion that it's hard to know where to begin. Let's miss out the end-of-topic Hitler reference and just go to the PRC. Where they do feed criminals into the organ banks.
Funny, huh?
Almost as funny as Saddam Hussein feeding Kurds (and others) into meat-grinding machines (face down, but only if they confessed first).
Not quite as funny as Cambodia in Year Zero, where if you wear spectacles, you are ipso facto an intellectual -- or at least a member of the bourgeousie, and therefore able to afford spectacles. My, that one was a real laugh.
But let's take a detour sideways into the life of the "democrat" that every vicious loony wants to hate -- Bill "Tokin'" Clinton. A man who took two days off his campaign to be nominated the Deomcratic Jesus in order to fry a mentally sub-normal black kid.
Because it looked right.
But this is just speculation. I haven't read the Arkansas State documents yet.
Re: Justice For All! And Painful Death To The Others
Date: 2007-07-21 08:41 am (UTC)In case of misunderstanding, I should point out that my message above wasn't advocating any policy, just speculating about the way the future may go.
Nor would I attempt to describe Larry Niven as left-wing. Perish the thort.
However, I think it's fairly clear from his stories that he regarded the criminal-punishment implications of organ banks as unattractive.
When you predict that something may happen, that doesn't imply that you want it to happen.
-- Jonathan
Larry Niven, man of the people
Date: 2007-07-21 01:05 pm (UTC)I'm being mischievous. But in fact Niven as a young man seemed merely amiable and apolitical. Pournelle was a bad influence on him from the moment they teamed up.
-- Jonathan
Re: Larry Niven, man of the people
Date: 2007-07-24 08:08 pm (UTC)I stand by the PRC comment, however. Given the absurd range of things that get you executed in China (ant-farm malfeasance, anyone?), the corruption at high levels, the privileges of the nomenklatura, and the PRC tendency to buy up raw resources using good old-fashioned 19th Century mercantilism, I think it's only a matter of time until organ farming reaches a level that would make Niven puke.
I think what got to me was your "anomalous" comment. Human life might well be in "vast over-supply," but to state that strikes me as a sophomore argument at best. Apart from anything else, it morphs a theological or moral discussion into an economic one -- and one that makes no sense, even in its own terms. Where, exactly, is the "demand" side of this equation?
Re: Larry Niven, man of the people
Date: 2007-07-25 10:54 am (UTC)Population is a fascinating topic. The Black Death, for example, was the best thing that ever happened for the "working classes" in England, in that it shifted the economic value of a worker considerably higher (because much of the "supply" had died). Does this make the Black Death "a good thing"?
It's an interesting question, but one where the economic argument should not be confused with the moral one.
PJ
Tewkesbury? Drown the bastards!
Date: 2007-07-25 06:38 pm (UTC)Economically, however, there's a huge variance here. Complicated by "externalities," a lovely little term by which, as you know, economists are basically saying "this isn't a hard science at all. But we're going to hide that fact from you."
Peasant population down: good for remaining peasants. Also good for serfs, who could just walk off the land, and (if I remember my theory from twenty years ago) sheep. Lots more room for sheep. Thus, when the population bounced back, lots more reason for enclosures ... and ... well, it gets a bit messy after that.
A far better candidate for the Saviour of the English Working Class is, in fact, Bismarck. Otto single-handedly constructed the Prussian welfare state in order to fight Social Democracy. Lord Salisbury and the rest didn't have much choice but to follow, and hence we have, er, late period Gladstone, er, Keir Hardie, er, Lloyd George, er ... and so on down to Beveridge and the NHS.
Perhaps we have mislaid Bismarck's legacy somewhere along the way.
However, it's always nice to have someone agree with me that the claim that "there are too many people" is largely insubstantial. Or (not that you have agreed on this point) that the claim that we can solve the equally unquantifiable problem of global warming by, ahem, slamming economic growth in the Third World ... is actually morally indefensible.
When I hear the word "ecomomics," I reach for my Samuelson and Nordhaus...
PS: Title courtesy of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. And thank God Barnet happened soon afterwards.
Re: Tewkesbury? Drown the bastards!
Date: 2007-07-25 09:43 pm (UTC)Not a problem with mass emigration in the last three centuries.
Possibly mildly disturbing now.