What a Surprise - Prison Torture Continues in Iraq . . .

[Michael Tee]

 . . . and they don't even need the U.S. Army to show them the way.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/28/iraq-prison-torture-mutha_n_554748.html

Yep, it sure is a good thing they got rid of Saddam Hussein and his "rape rooms."  That kind of thing was intolerable.

Let's see now, how many "exploded" reasons for the U.S. invasion and occupation does that make?  Uhhh, there was Weapons of Mass Destruction, but that didn't work out so well.  There was "Saddam and his torture chambers are gone," and THAT didn't work out so well.  There was "Bringing Democracy" but that didn't work out either.   And there was "bringing peace and stability," but that didn't happen either.

Quick, guys, get the Rationalization Machine going again.  New reason please.  On the double.

[Plane]

Good cover .

Success is failure ,unless it meets this standard that I just now made up.

Was WWII really a success?

The French disrespected us and the British fired Chirchill and the iron curtain fell across Europe , we might as well have stayed home.

[sirs]

touche'

[Kramer]

Why not follow Communist China, the most successful current example of economic growth and institute a Communist dictatorship to tell businessmen exactly how much freedom they are to be allowed today and tomorrow and to execute any businessmen they feel are taking bribes or adulterating their products?

Mikey when you said this it seems like you don't really care about peoples rights. So which is worse to pull a few finger nails out or outright execution? Isn't execution, for tiny infractions, a bit like torture?

Boy you sure seem to be able to easily switch back and forth between caring for human life and being cruel and brutal and wanting to snuff it out. Does your poor wife walk around the house like she's waling on eggshells?

[Michael Tee]

<<Success is failure ,unless it meets this standard that I just now made up.>>

Success depends on one's POV.  From an Iranian POV, the Iraq war turned out well.   Saddam Hussein gone, the country that bombarded Tehran with missiles is now quite friendly and with Shi'ites in power, likely to remain so.   From an Israeli POV, also successful.  A major antagonist in the region gone, reduced to impotence, its standard of living ruined and its ability to threaten Israel destroyed.  

From the U.S. POV, partial success.   Bases?  Check.   Threats to denominate oil sales in euros or yen?  Creeping in elsewhere, but dead as far as Arab oil exporters are concerned.  Oil?  Depends on the details of the original plan, but probably successful.  Control wrested from the Iraqi government, INOC influence majorly downsized and contracts let publicly to diverse "international" oil companies, sub-contracts (where the real money is) successfully screened from any public exposure.  Probably within plan parameters.  WMD?  not a problem, never WAS a problem, just a smokescreen invented to hoodwink the rubes.  Torture in the prisons?  Never really a problem, the U.S. looked the other way under Saddam when he was in their good graces, pretended to view it as an abomination when they were trying to whip up war hysteria against him and in the end don't really give a shit one way or the other.

<<Was WWII really a success?>>

In the end, yes.  BIG success.  Soviet domination of Europe between U.S.S.R. and the Channel averted.  Didn't really unfold as planned, however.  Capitalist darling Hitler did NOT attack USSR first, actually surprised France and UK by attacking Poland and forcing them into a war they (and he) did not want at that time, and almost plowed them under BEFORE attacking the intended target, Russia.  Gave them some scary moments before they got their shit together and showed him who the REAL "Master Race" is in this end of the universe.  But how did it end?  The Bad Puppet who attacked his masters was reduced to kindling wood; the Soviet Union, terribly weakened by the Nazi assault, was not able to drive to the Channel; and the British and French lost their colonial empires, which was not entirely displeasing to the Americans.

The French "disrespected" you?  Are you shitting me?  Cry me a fucking RIVER, the French disrespected you.  For christ sake, what else did they do to you?  Not ask you to the prom?  And then Churchill was fired?  And this is a BFD why exactly?  He needed the money?  And an "iron curtain" fell across Europe?  Like this also is some ball-breaking catastrophe, how exactly?  Your interests in Poland and Bulgaria were all ruined?  

Personally, I think you guys did quite alright out of WWII.  You shed the least amount of blood, came late to the party, suffered zero bomb damage, did not lose any overseas empire as a result of it and had about thirty years as the dominant economic power on the planet because of it.  Yeah, on balance, it was a huge success for you.  Maybe you could show me another Allied power that did better than you?

[Michael Tee]

<<Mikey when you said this [Why not follow Communist China, the most successful current example of economic growth and institute a Communist dictatorship to tell businessmen exactly how much freedom they are to be allowed today and tomorrow and to execute any businessmen they feel are taking bribes or adulterating their products?] it seems like you don't really care about peoples rights. So which is worse to pull a few finger nails out or outright execution? Isn't execution, for tiny infractions, a bit like torture?>>

Huh?  Kramer, you pulled that quote from a different thread.  In context, that was pure sarcasm, directed at your absurd view that all of socialism could be judged by the misfortunes of two over-leveraged countries that you chose to depict as socialist (Greece and Spain) even though both countries are mixed-economy.

the logic of my sarcasm was that if you pick the problems of two mildly socialistic nations as proof that "socialism" won't work, it's illogical not to pick the success of a major communist country with rigidly controlled capitalistic features as proof that communism was the way to go.  I did not mean literally that the U.S. should become a communist dictatorship like China.

<<Boy you sure seem to be able to easily switch back and forth between caring for human life and being cruel and brutal and wanting to snuff it out. Does your poor wife walk around the house like she's waling on eggshells?>>

No, I do.  She's very pro-Israel and will yank my ears if I say one word against the bastards.  Her sister moved there.

[Plane]

<<Success is failure ,unless it meets this standard that I just now made up.>>

Success depends on one's POV.  

You strike a lot closer to right this time.

Did you know that LosVegas is built on winning 52% of the games? Huge buildings and huge light bill and huge staff all depending on 2% advantage.

The house, by winning a steady 2% better than the players, dependably strips 90% of the winnings from 90% of the players because they all play repeatedly getting 2% behind each time over and over . The longer the games go on , the less 48% losses matter.

[Michael Tee]

Now that I know the secrets of the gaming industry, I think I'm going to open a little casino of my own.  Actually, I knew the house had a very small edge, but I never really knew how small.

Did you know that the card counter in blackjack games has an edge over the house, which is why card counters are banned from play?  Most people know that, but did you know that the edge only applies if the counter plays without error over reasonable minimum periods of time, and that many counters lose out because they can't sustain an error-free play over ther period of time that they play?

[kimba1]

I do

it`s like counting to a hundred quitely in your head repeatedly ,eventually you`r gonna forget where your at .

it`s very difficult to maintain that kind of concentration for long periods of time.

[Michael Tee]

I have a card counter friend who quit his business to make a living at blackjack in Vegas.  This was many years ago.  He did well at first, but it wasn't long before they caught on to him and he was barred from playing blackjack in all the casinos there.  Once you're caught in one place, your photos and ID are circulated to all the others and it's game over.  But before they caught on to him, he pampered himself with rest, steam baths and massages every day, and restricted serious play to 20 to 30 minutes daily, so that he'd always be at the top of his form.  Luckily, he was able to re-establish himself in his old business here in Toronto.  This guy has one of the fastest math brains I've ever seen - - I can be working out some calculation on the calculator and he does it in his head faster than I can feed it into the machine, always with the right answer too.

[Amianthus]

Did you know that the card counter in blackjack games has an edge over the house, which is why card counters are banned from play?

Card counting is not banned (how could they ever do that?) - what is banned is using a device to help counting cards, or setting up card counting teams (the counter makes small wagers and when the table is about to get hot signals another team member who plays the big bets).

The only way they could ban card counting is if they wiped your memory between each hand. After all, card counting is just keeping track of which cards have been played, which every good card player does.

[Plane]

   Card counting is not something everyone can do , when the house advantage against the public disapears the casino will stop playing that game.


     The point is that as long as the players are playing the house choice of game they are makeing succer bets , wining ten in a row doesn't worry the house as long as the game continues long enough for  the players to run out .

     Did we loose 40% of our targets in Iraq?

      Do tell.

[Michael Tee]

<<Card counting is not banned (how could they ever do that?) - what is banned is using a device to help counting cards, or setting up card counting teams (the counter makes small wagers and when the table is about to get hot signals another team member who plays the big bets).>>

That's not true.  They will ban an individual counter who plays alone and uses no devices.  My friend, for example.

<<The only way they could ban card counting is if they wiped your memory between each hand. After all, card counting is just keeping track of which cards have been played, which every good card player does.>>

It's more than that.  It's a theory that also analyzes the number of cards still potentially in the deck and characterizing the deck as "rich" or "poor" in certain cards (or in simplified format, in certain card groupings.)   Play is influenced by determining the richness or poorness of the deck in terms of the specific cards or card groupings.

As I understand it a card counter will bet and play in a unique pattern which if continued can be identified correctly as card counting play.  In other words, no other player who is NOT card-counting would bet and play the way the card counter does.  It's formulaic.  Actually, the casinos originally fought card counting first by increasing the number of cards in the deck, from 52 to 104 with further increases achieved by adding whole decks, then by randomizing the number of cards in play by inserting a blocker card somewhere in the stack of cards being dealt from and only playing to the blocker card.  But with each increase in the number of decks played, good counters learned to train their memories to accommodate the additional numbers and it was still necessary to ban them.

As my friend tells the story, one night as he was quitting play and cashing his chips, a  well-dressed  man walked up, gave him a business card introducing himself as a VP of the casino, and said, "Mr. _______, I'd just like to congratulate you on your style of play."   That's all it took.  It's very smooth.  My friend understood the game was up.  He didn't push it.   That was the end of his card-counting career.

[Amianthus]

As my friend tells the story, one night as he was quitting play and cashing his chips, a  well-dressed  man walked up, gave him a business card introducing himself as a VP of the casino, and said, "Mr. _______, I'd just like to congratulate you on your style of play."   That's all it took.  It's very smooth.  My friend understood the game was up.  He didn't push it.   That was the end of his card-counting career.

Pretty good information here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_counting#Legal_status

[Michael Tee]

Yeah that was an interesting article.  I recall my friend often mentioning Uston, and I don't really know if my friend's Vegas experience was before or after Uston's court victory over the Atlantic City casinos.  I didn't realize that the measures of combating counting (increased no. of decks, randomization of number of cards to be played before the next shuffle, etc.) were in response to Uston's victory.  I did get the impression, however, that Vegas casinos were a law unto themselves in Nevada, that they were the ones who made the laws and ultimately enforced them (or not) as they saw fit through their control of the state government.  The casinos seemed to operate pretty much on their own, and my friend (a Canadian lawyer, BTW) was not interested in raising legal challenges to the powers that be.  He's still a welcome guest in the casinos and hotels there - - we've been to Vegas with him and his wife a few times, and they still comp him  everywhere he goes.