| December 27, 2000 |
I hope everyone who celebrates it had as Merry a Christmas as I had, and I
hope you all have a Happy New Year!!
In retrospect, I should not have tried to stuff another issue in before Christmas.
I am sitting here two days afterward finishing up an issue that I started working
on a month ago.
There really isn't anything interesting to say about that except to say that
I took a Thanksgiving vacation for the first time in years and the usual Christmas
rush of singing events and parties led to no time for the szine.
Plus, the fall course that I teach had a later than usual final exam date,
so Christmas popped up just after that.
Thus, while this issue is very late, it is no indication of future delays.
Oh yes, I also didn't take my own advice very well in my last issue and got totally caught up in day to day issues of the Presidential recount, mostly because I had to HUNT for the real news since our national news media did such a terrible job of reporting it. The magnitude of my interest is expressed by some (dated) letters and commentary herein. As a quote up top, I liked best the one from the Temple mathematician, John Poulos, as quoted in the New Yorker: ``The margin of error in this election is substantially larger than any possible margin of victory." That has some rather nice subtleties as one mulls it.
The postal sub price is now
$1.50 per issue in the US and Canada,
STILL a bargain at twice the price.... but
you can double that for other foreign subbers (or $3.00 per
issue sent airmail).
Players in current games and standbys will
continue to get the issues for free, and future game starts
(except for Nuclear Yuppie Evil Empire Diplomacy, which is free) cost
$20.00 ($15.00 for a life of the
game subscription and $5 for the NMR Insurance).
NOTE: See the revised game start announcements below!
Some other options are out there.
Mark Kinney's szine also is finally out,
Mark is looking for standbys and players too.
Contact Mark NOW at 4820 Westmar Terrace #6, Louisville, KY 40222, (502) 412-3079;
alberich of iglou.com and get on his subscription list.
I'm in the game and you CAN'T miss watching ME play....
there or somewhere else.
Plus, we are preparing to ``take over the US hobby'' by adding significantly to my list of subszines. As Michael Lowrey already has announced, Carolina Command and Commentary will be opening a Southern branch office in TAP. This will give me better coverage of the Dixie hobby and provide Michael a congenial place from which to publish. Don Williams also wishes to make a comeback and quite a comeback it will be. He's starting a new game of Diplomacy with some classic ``old fart'' types and you'll see it as a subszine here. I won't let him start until he gets his endgame statement in for the last such game, Arsenic and Old Farts, which had Pete Gaughan as GM. I think Don is serious and finally will stop procrastinating on both of these, which he has been talking about for half a year. I will give him the rest of the ``announcement'' rights on what he is going to call the subzinny and who will be playing in it.
Check out the connections in the Diplomatic Pouch with all of the information you need to play Diplomacy on the Internet at:
/
Through Stephen Agar's (who is still in charge here) Postal portion of the Pouch:
/Postal/Zines/TAP/index.html
the szine resides in html format. Presently, issues from #190 to the current issue are there, and I will be updating the back issues gradually someday. Also, check out Stephen's more extensive efforts at (note the new address): http://www.diplomacy-archive.com
The most recent issue of TAP also can be accessed through Pete Sullivan's web page and very occasionally David Wang's:
1) David has grabbed and reserved the HIGHLY prized name: www.szine.com!! David Wang's site also allows you to follow (VERY, VERY badly) John Caruso's postal baseball league that I am in. John and Kathy Caruso are now up on E-Mail and if David doesn't get off his butt soon and start updating the page more frequently, John probably will go invent his own web page. This is a problem at the present time....
2) For the most recent issue of Pete Sullivan's subszine check out (this address will be changing shortly):
http://www.manorcon.demon.co.uk/octopus/index.html
Pete is looking for Railway Rivals standbys, but otherwise, he is full with games at the moment.
By electronic mail, through the Internet, subs are free and can be obtained automatically by sending the message: subscribe tap
to majordomo of diplom.org and messages can be sent to the entire electronic mailing list by mailing them to tap of diplom.org which will forward your message to all of the people currently on the list. The message:
unsubscribe tap
sent to majordomo of diplom.org gets you off the list. Please make careful note of that as well since you generally can get yourself off the list a lot easier than I can, and NOBODY likes to see unsubscribe messages sent to the entire list. A big, big thank you for David Kovar for setting this all up!!
| THE SEARCH FOR MARK BERCH |
I really thought we were going to find Gregory Stewart before the deadline. We did have a lead on his son that someone was pursuing, but I have no contact. You still can find Mr. Stewart for the twenty-five dollar prize.
Mark Berch's name has come up a few times lately. I'm sure more than one of you knows his current address - hell, it might not even have changed, Rod Walker's hasn't [speaking of Rod, Conrad von Metzke reports that Rod is recovering nicely from a heart attack; best of wishes to Rod Walker in his recovery; and interested parties may E-Mail Rod at: catullus of pacbell.net] - but getting Mark to write a letter to me is worth fifty bucks if you get him to do it before the deadline for Issue 245! Mark is famous for editing Diplomacy Digest for years and being one of the foremost students of wacky and devious strategies for winning Dip games for those with no scruples. We'd like to know how Mark is doing and catch up with him, so go to it!
Or feel free to spend the time looking for some of the backlog. Let's get Gregory, Kevin, Al, and Jerry found too!!! Note that Brenton Ver Ploeg would love to find Leslie Obata, the woman that Jerry Lucas used as his front too. This could be an easy way toward finding Jerry, though as Brenton notes, who is to say she has the same name now. This is a regular continuing feature of the szine and I will be introducing a new ``search for'' every five issues. Moreover, you can win a $25 prize for finding some previous target who went unfound in the original $50 period. That means that if Gregory Stewart or Kevin Tighe or Jerry Lucas or Al Pearson is ``found'' from now on it is worth $25.
Winners will receive credit for Dip hobby activities that I will pay out as requested by the winner. Subscribe to szines here or abroad, run your own contests, publish a szine, finance a web page, or whatever. Spend it all right away or use me as a bank to cover hobby activities for years. What must you do to win? Get me a letter to the editor for TAP from the person we're searching for.
This is very important, just finding them doesn't do it. They have to write me a letter. The final judge as to the winner of any contest will be the target himself and I reserve the right to investigate the winning entry. When you find someone I'm looking for, you should ask him to send me a letter for print that includes a verification of who ``found'' him.
| INTERNATIONAL SUBSCRIPTION EXCHANGE NEWS |
The British representative is the editor of Mission From God, John Harrington. John may be contacted at 1 Churchbury Close, Enfield, Middlesex EN1 3UW, UK.
E-Mail: fiendish of operamail.com or johnh of fiendishgames.demon.co.uk
Please include the full name and address of the foreign publisher with your order, if possible, as well as the szine title. Make your check in US dollars out to me personally or in GBP to John if you're doing things from that end. I will conduct business for Canadians as well, if I can, but prefer to deal in US dollars with them if possible, or Canadian dollars cash. To subscribe to American szines, the system works in reverse. There has been some interest in finding a new Australian representative. Should someone Down Under have an interest, or from anywhere else in the world, please contact me. We have added a European continental representative, most of this traffic likely will occur between Ronald Camstra (in the Netherlands) and John Harrington, but if anyone here in the US wants to get money into guilders or then into other continental currencies, we'll try to help you out. Ronald Camstra can be contacted at siedler of zonnet.nl and his home address is: Wielingenplein 48, 3522 PE Utrecht, the Netherlands. But in Holland it is most common not to send checks but to transfer money by bank. Dutch people can pay directly to Postbankaccount 4652247 of Ronald Camstra in Utrecht. Since he can see the name and address of the sender in his bankreceipt, people only have to mention the name of the zine and the editorial address along with their bank order. Ronald is obviously a huge Settlers of Catan fan. If you're interested in playing that game internationally by mail, I think Ronald can help you out.
| WORLDMASTERS00 SECTION (with letters AND a game!!) |
Worldmasters 2000 Email Diplomacy Tournament Goes ON!!
The main WWW site for Worldmasters can be found at http://worldmasters00.diplomacy.org.uk
Sign up for the conference board at
http://webforum.cloud-nine.com/~ worldmasters2000
The Conference board is where day to day communications and discussions take place.
Since the 2000 tournament is well underway AND the 1999 Finals (featuring
David Partridge) also has started, we have temporarily
suspended the Boasters! game.
I think this game will benefit from the break.
We plan to start it up again early in the new year.
Watch the 1999 Finals game, and my impromptu commentary, at:
http://webforum.cloud-nine.com/~ worldmasters99
FULL LINEUP:
Jon Crocker (Austria)
REPLACEMENT!!!! Lee Simpson (England)
Charles Steinhardt (France)
David Malloch (Germany)
Dirk Fischbach (Italy)
Dave Partridge (Russia)
Egbert Ferreira (Turkey)
Dirk's Italy is taking advantage of Charles' France and his petulance. David's Germany is playing a very delicate balance of power game while Lee's replacement England (for the infamous Toby Harris) has been the measured voice of calm. A late forming RT between David and Egbert has Jon in mucho trouble at the present moment. Still, it looks like France might be the first country out. Check it out and join the TAP rooters for our own David Partridge!!
| M2000 Boasters!, Worldmasters2000 Time Wasters Diplomacy |
TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED - STAY TUNED FOR THE RESTART!!!
Post-Winter 1902
AUSTRIA (O'Donnchu): has a ALB, a GAL, f GRE, a BUD, a SER.
ENGLAND (Setzer): has f ENG, f NTH, f NWG, a DEN.
FRANCE (Pérez): PLAYS ONE SHORT; has f BRE, a PIC, f MID, a GAS, a BEL.
GERMANY (Mehaffey): has a SIL, f KIE, f SKA, a HOL.
ITALY (Dennehy): has f ION, f TUN, a APU, a VEN.
RUSSIA (Harris): has a WAR, a MOS, a NWY, f SWE, f SEV, a UKR, a RUM.
TURKEY (Miszti): has f CON, a SMY, a BUL, f AEG.
Supply Center Chart
| AUSTRIA (O'Donnchu): | BUD,TRI,VIE,ser,gre | (has 5) |
| ENGLAND (Setzer): | LON,LVP,EDI,den | (has 4) |
| FRANCE (Pérez): | BRE,PAR,MAR,spa,por,bel | (has 5, PLAYS ONE SHORT) |
| GERMANY (Mehaffey): | BER,KIE,MUN,hol | (has 4) |
| ITALY (Dennehy): | ROM,VEN,NAP,tun | (has 4) |
| RUSSIA (Harris): | MOS,STP,WAR,SEV,rum,nwy,swe | (has 7) |
| TURKEY (Miszti): | ANK,SMY,CON,bul | (has 4) |
| Neutral: | none | (Total=34) |
Addresses of the Players
AUSTRIA: Fearghal O'Donnchu, fearghal.odonnchu of life.friendsfirst.ie
ENGLAND: Ray Setzer, mczet of acronet.net
FRANCE: Niclas Pérez, perez of astrogator.se
GERMANY: Mike Mehaffey, mehaffey of ape-i.com
ITALY: Brian Dennehy, brian.dennehy of iol.ie
RUSSIA: Toby Harris, Toby.Harris of equifax.com
TURKEY: Emeric Miszti, emeric of cloud-nine.co.uk
| DIPDOM NEWS SECTION (with letters) |
Obscure and not-so-obscure ramblings on the state of the hobby and its publications, custodians, events, and individuals with no guarantee of relevance from the fertile keyboard of Jim-Bob, the E-Mail Dip world, and the rest of the postal hobby. My comments are in italics and ((double quotation marks)) like this. Bold face is used to set off each individual speaker. I should also make a note that I do edit for syntax and spelling on occasion.
The game Diplomacy is a copyrighted product owned by Hasbro and all reproductions or other use of that material in this szine is intended to be personal use and not infringe on those rights in any way. All reproductions are done at a heavy financial loss to the editor and thus are without the remotest possibility of commercial intent, except to promote THE game, the Game of Diplomacy, which you all should purchase from Hasbro or other duly licensed distributors.
| Check out the new Diplomacy World - www.diplomacyworld.org |
We are still trying to sort out the old subscription information and so I will tell everyone more about that someday..... The Fall issue will be out shortly and features a doozy of an interview with Brandon Clarke of New Zealand. Also, the ``Ruffians'' demo game has a write up and introduction to the full negotiation history on the Diplomatic Pouch's Showcase web site. You can see how our very own Paul Rauterberg was screwed over by former World Champion Chris Martin not once, not twice, but at least THREE times. But Chris didn't win.... not that time. This one is in Stephen Agar's hands, so ask him gently if you want to know where it is!!
Speaking of Brits, I feel more connected to the Brit hobby these days than my own, so I thought I would print the results of Ryk Downes Brit Zine Poll and the announcement for votes for the Pimley Award. I plan to vote and you can too by sending an E-Mail to Ryk at Ryk of Downes.com and note that the Brits have separate votes for ALL PBM zines AND for those with significant devotion to Diplomacy. With E-Mail I've been noting lots more Americans participating in the Brit szines. As an added attraction this year, the web pages are in a separate poll.
Ryk Downes (Tue, 14 Nov 2000 01:32:00 -0000)
Here are the results of the 2000 Zine Polls
The 2000 Amateur PBM Zine Poll
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
1 (2) Sprouts of Wrath
2 (3) For Whom The Die Rolls
3 (1) Backstabbers United Monthly
4 (6) The Cunning Plan
5 (4) Back to the Dark Ages
6 (9) Ode
7 (10) Cut & Thrust
8 (5) Greatest Hits
9 (27) Where is my Mind?
10 (19) Variable Pig
11 (7) Hopscotch
12 (16) Dolchstoss
13 (29) Smiffy's Magnificient Electronic Games
14 (14) The White Cat
14 (12) Underneath the Mango Tree
16 (11) Bloodstock
17 (28) Flights of Fancy
18 (20) Dreams Never End
19 (22) The Premier League
20 (18) GAME
21 (-) GZine
22 (8) Serendipity
23 (21) Obsidian
24 (-) Strangitude
24 (26) Open Season
26 (17) Shadowplay
27 (-) 90 Minutes
28 (-) Pigbutton
28 (30) Striker
30 (-) Minstrel
The 28th Diplomacy Zine Poll
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
1 (1) Sprouts of Wrath
2 (3) The Cunning Plan
3 (4) Ode
4 (4) Dolchstoss
5 (2) Backstabbers United Monthly
6 (14) For Whom The Die Rolls
7 (8) Gentle Art of Making Enemies
8 (13) The White Cat
9 (11) Cut & Thrust
10 (-) Greatest Hits
11 (6) Back to the Dark Ages
11 (17) Bloodstock
13 (18) Box Frenzy
14 (20) Strangitude
15 (10) Obsidian
16 (-) Pen is Mightier than the Sword
17 (19) Serendipity
18 (-) Hopscotch
19 (-) Smiffy's Marvelous Electronic Games
19 (-) The Asylum Zone
The First Amateur Gaming Website Poll
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
1. keith.Thomasson.com
2. www.lancedal.demon.co.uk/dip2000/
3. Ryk.Downes.com
4. www.fbgames.co.uk/
5. www.diplomacy.co.uk/
*** PLEASE PUBLICISE THE PIMLEY AWARD BELOW ***
The 2000 Pimley Award.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Please vote for one of the following by the end of January 2001 from the following.
1. Neil Duncan
2. Keith Thomasson (For running For Who the Die Rolls and For Whom the Web Rocks)
3. Tom Tweedy (and his various GMs) for taking Diplomacy to the web and rekindling interest in it.
4. Ryk Downes (for running the zine poll with great (apparent) efficiency over the past eight years and producing over 600 issues of zines in).
5. Sandra Bond (For her triumphant return to the hobby)
6. No Award
| Ryk, Ryk of Downes.com |
((Just for the hell of it.... more Brit hobby news.... why can't more of us get together more often....))
Mark Stretch (Sat, 2 Dec 2000 17:27:42 -0000)
Hobby News - Settlers Series 2000 Results
As you are no doubt aware I've been compiling the results of settlers events through the year to find out an overall winner. With MiniCon II results in hand and TowerCon/KillerCon results seemingly lost I can now publish the final results. There should be a trophy presented at OxCon to the winner, and there will be a similar series next year. Without further ado onto the results:
Psn Player Cons Score Notable results
1 Dave Horton 3 94.74% Winner MSO, Runner-up ManorCon
2 Mark Stretch 2 94.56% Winner MiniCon II, Fourth ManorCon
3 Chetan Radia 4 89.65% Runner-up MSO, Third MiniCon I
4 James Pinnion 4 84.56% Winner OxCon, Runner-up MiniCon I
5 Phil Hannay 4 82.87% Winner MiniCon I
6 Doug Massie 4 77.59% Runner-up MasterCon, Third OxCon
7 Simon Bouton 3 65.57% Winner MasterCon
8 Malcolm Booker 2 63.87% Third= MiniCon I
9 John Blackwell 3 63.49% Third MiniCon II
10 Mark Sheiham 2 63.34% Winner ManorCon
11 Declan Waters 2 60.53%
12 Chris Dearlove 2 58.29%
13 Emannuel Hinterbauer 1 56.67% Runner up MiniCon II
14 Gihan Bandaranaike 3 56.08% Third MSO
15 Vick Hall 2 53.52% Third MasterCon
16 Jeff Edmunds 1 53.03% Third ManorCon
17 Suzie Horton 2 52.88% Runner-up OxCon
18 Tanya Fox 2 47.10%
19 G Simons 1 46.71%
20 D Thompson 1 45.39%
Full results (for all 126 players) are available on the smartgroups website in the database section.
http://www.smartgroups.com/database/viewtable.cfm?GID = 106626&sgTableId = 62388
Any suggestions and ideas for next year are welcome. See you all at a Con in 2001.
| Mark, mark of 34dartdrive.freeserve.co.uk |
((I am fixin' for a brief appearance at ManorCon and possibly World DipCon in 2001, how about you?? Here's some other international event info....))
Edi Birsan (25 Nov 2000 10:46:52 -0800)
Web site is http://members.home.net/stratage/diplomacy - Spread the word:
The Canadian Championships will be held in Calgary January 5-7. I have booked my flights from San Francisco and they are rather inexpensive at $US286 round trip (direct flight even!) The Canadians are doing everything they can to assist in out of towners including some limited amount of hosting at local player's homes, the best way to meet the local players.
Calgary has been very isolated from the mainstream face to face hobby and they made a major effort to come to the Baltimore World DipCon X last August and I think we should make a major effort to reach out in response.
I look forward to seeing other hobby travelers turn up at Calgary so we can build more ties between this far flung and fascinating hobby we all share.
| Edi Birsan, edi of mgames.com |
((I believe Robert Vollman is one of the organizers up there and I found him to be a good Dip player and a fun person. I hope lots of you make late plans to go. Unfortunately (heh, heh) I will be in New Orleans that weekend.))
Edi Birsan (Wed, 13 Dec 2000 09:51:46 -0800)
Hasbro Interactive (the folks who put out the Diplomacy computer game) has been sold to Inforgames of France. I have been in contact with both companies and currently no one knows for sure what it means for the hobby. The best indications at the moment is that for the short term nothing will change. Diplomacy does appear to be in the titles sold but only the CD game. As Hasbro does not have the source code of the game and company that developed it for Hasbro went out of buisness and the code is `gone' the only approach would seem to be to redo Diplomacy in total. Considering the sales of the CD game that is probably not going to happen so the hobby will be supported via the Board Game side which still remains in Hasbro USA.
We have gotten some new people and contacts through the Hasbro web sites and expect this to be continued via Inforgames as soon as they settle down on what they are doing in detail, which will take several months.
Edi Birsan, edi of mgames.com
((Well, that closes the curtain on what must be said to be one of the hobby's biggest all-time fiascos! The Computer Game product was a dog from day 1. This shows the danger of subcontracting to neophytes. It is possible that something will be resurrected from this, but most likely it means that the Judges and their related progenitors are going to dominate play of Diplomacy on the Internet. And the rest of us, will likely not be affected at all. Oh well, parts of the graphics of the Computer Game product looked promising, but under the time pressures they had and the talent that Hasbro turned the job over to, it was doomed from the start. Here's to hoping that the next try will have more intellectual support from our hobby that is needed to supply it. I am not one who thinks that Artificial Intelligence play of Diplomacy is possible, at least until a more general AI problem of mimicking the human brain is solved, but the Hasbro Interactive product even underwhelmed me for incompetence!))
Manus Hand (Tue, 26 Dec 2000 15:10:12 -0800 (PST))
Fifty-two days to DipCon Denver...
DipCon XXXIV (the North American Diplomacy Championship) is coming soon! Less than eight weeks from now (from 16-18 February), you should be in Denver watching your back and making other people watch theirs! If you haven't yet told me (at manus of diplom.org) that you will be, what can possibly be stopping you???
It can't be that pre-registration hasn't started yet, because it has. GenghisCon (the host convention) is the largest gaming convention in the Rocky Mountain area - something for everyone and a big hit with all the out-of-area attendees of last year. You can pre-register for Genghis and the included DipCon at: http://www.denvergamers.com
The cost is forty dollars.
So that can't be it.
It certainly can't be a shortage of information. You can get most anything you need to know at the Website for the Association of Rocky Mountain Area Diplomacy Adversaries (ARMADA):
/armada
And what you can't get, you can get from me by mailing manus of diplom.org.
So that can't be it.
It can't be because you don't know where to stay. You can request the special GenghisCon rate of only seventy-nine dollars per night (occupancy limited only by your own comfort :-) when you get in contact directly with the hotel at this address: http://denver.hyatt.com/denve
If you want or need to make other arrangements, let me know and I'll see how the ARMADA can help.
So that can't be it.
It can't be that you can't get an airline seat. Book now for the best possible rates during ski season! A number of attendees have had luck arranging airfare through priceline.com and qixo.com, saving up to one hundred and fifty dollars over the prices quoted by the airlines!
So that can't be it.
It can't be that you don't know how to get from the airport to the event. Just say the word and an ARMADA member will be at the airport to pick you up.
So that can't be it.
So I really can't think of a single reason (short of scheduled to become a parent on or about that weekend - hi, Bruce!) why everyone reading this mail isn't on my list of definite DipCon attendees. A lot of people ARE on the list, though! Here's just a quick list of ten, taken from the top of my head:
David Hood: DixieCon director, past DipCon winner.
Edi Birsan: Last year's winner, inventor of the Lepanto, etc., etc.
Mike Hall: Third-place last year, down from Canada.
Chris Martin: 4th-place last year, 1998 World Champion, 1999 Grand Prix.
Yarden Livnat: Sixth at the World Championship, current ARMADA champion.
Tom Kobrin: Yeah! He won the negotiation with his wife!
Rick Desper: You know, Rick Desper. Of PBEM fame.
Larry Peery: Long-time DW publisher, hobby legend.
Buz Eddy: ADR maintainer, will present the 2000 Grand Prix.
Matt Shields: Current ADR leader, 3rd at the World Championship.
Put yourself on the same list as these people and a whole lot more. Mail me with the happy news that you'll be attending DipCon XXXIV - the only DipCon ever to have the same Roman numeral as the number of SC's on the Diplomacy board!
| Stab you soon, Manus, manus of diplom.org |
| MUSIC SECTION (WITH COMMENTS ON OTHER ARTS AND SOCIETY) |
Comments on the 1999 year in music are now completed. I'm calling for 2000 comments now! Tell me anything you like about the year of 2000 in music. List a top two, a top ten, or a top 100, I don't care, just tell me something!! I've got a fair bit of musical commentary in this issue.....
Bruce Geryk (Mon, 13 Nov 2000 00:59:43 -0600)
Hey Jim-Bob,
Since I never write anything, I thought I'd mention that I thought of you the other day when I was moving/reorganizing my CDs (recently bought a much larger CD bookshelf thing) and came across my old Close Lobsters CDs which I haven't listened to since about 1992. That in turn got me thinking about the Housemartins, which reminded me to tell you that you should pick up the new Beautiful South album, Painting it Red. It's no Quench, but it's pretty good and has a bit of a new sound to it. Zarse loves it, but he loves anything that's got Heaton in it. He (Zarse) and I saw the band last month on their tour supporting the new album, and the show was excellent even though Jackie Abbott had a sore throat and had to stay behind at the hotel. The highlight of the show was Dave Hemingway taking Jackie's place opposite Paul on vocals in ``Perfect 10," prompting Dave to preface the song with the statement, ``for this song, just pretend I'm gay."
That's all far more info than you probably need. ((Indeed, but thanks!))
| -B, ceremony of net66.com |
Mike Barno (Sat, 02 Dec 2000 11:18:19 -0500)
I recently heard my first live music since the Ithaca Festival (of which I don't think my music notes made print)... ((My error, see below....))
WALKIN' JIM STOLTZ. Lives near Big Sky, Montana, just west of Yellowstone. Walks all summer, a thousand miles a year, packing a little trail guitar, singing and composing songs of the trails and the Earth. Plays little concerts moving from town to town in fall and winter to earn a living. A slideshow of his photos was played during his music. Some were from trails I've hiked in Yellowstone, the Tetons, the Beartooth Mountains, and Canyonlands. Great pictures that give an idea why some of us love it. Several CDs out; I bought Oh, What A Life (1997, Wild Wind Records, Big Sky). For a grin here are some of the lyrics to ``The Food Chain Song": ``A little butterfly, she is so neat, with her fancy wings and her dainty feet, Oh, she flutters here and there just like a queen, and if you saw her there, you know what I mean, And no one can replace her, no no no, she's the most special creature flying under the sun, But then you think about the food chain, and along comes a hungry crow: chomp chomp chomp, gobble gobble gobble, gulp gulp gulp, she's gone." (then similar verses with ``fawn"/``coyote" and ``hiker man"/``griz"...) ``Fat or skinny, short or tall, you don't have to worry at all, You don't have to be dressed in style to get a taste or get tasted by the wild, Just think about the food chain, and along comes something bigger, Chomp chomp chomp, gobble gobble gobble, gulp gulp gulp, you're gone!"
| Mike, mpbarno of lightlink.com |
Mike Barno (Wed, 07 Jun 2000 23:46:47 -0400)
The part of the Ithaca Festival I attended was nice - Sunday 3-8 pm - except for parking. Walked a mile up Fall Drive to Stewart Park. Met Leaf at the pavilion, she was later than I was. She's one of my loved ones from Yellowstone, now living in Hawaii but visiting grandparents in Dryden. Her parents were married at the Haunt and she grew up in Ithaca. Also met her new (Feb 14 2000) baby daughter Lotus. We heard bits of a few bands and a lot of a drum circle. Way brief reviews:
- The Ithaca Ageless Jazz Band (20 or so players, mostly horns, behind the pavilion facing Cayuga Lake) played mainstream standards. Technically okay, not real tight; but they definitely lacked the zip to make it sound lively instead of like an AM car radio.
- Fe Nunn (5 players, diverse instruments, all acoustic out in the open) had a really neat sound that I didn't analyze enough to describe. I just enjoyed it. I think they're Navajo and I think some of their instruments are as well. It wasn't very much like anything else I've heard. Long instrumental jams, no vocals in the pieces I heard while trying to find Leaf at the first gig I mentioned. I'd like to hear more.
- A couple of unexciting bands on the big soundstage with plenty of amplification. Unimpressed with most of the song selection and execution. We mostly didn't stay long in this area.
- A drum circle that was going almost all afternoon in a more open part of the park. Five to ten hand drums such as congas, frequently a dancing crowd of five to ten more people including kids, and fifty to a hundred people hanging around listening. This was always fun. The dynamic highlight was when a woman taught a couple of other people (in series, not in parallel) a two-person freeform dance where each person has two drumsticks. They fight a mock battle, whacking each other's drumsticks and wheeling roundhouse kicks over each other's heads in time with the drum circle's beat. It was fun. (Presumably with three or more people you'd have to seriously choreograph and practice to avoid smacking and hurting each other.) The beauty of this dance is that it can be spontaneous as each picks up on whatever the other starts and does the same. It was much like a martial art demonstration. Someone also brought a couple of didjiridoos (sp?) but I didn't hear one played enough to form an opinion whether it's as weirdly affecting as some recordings would suggest.
Elsewhere in the park, the stiltwalkers (who were completely apolitical in the Saturday parade) put on a ``passion play" (because ``we're passionate about what we're talking about") featuring Buttermilk Falls and The Forest battling Big Box Store who threatens to overrun the former Southwest Park, ruin the view from the Buttermilk Falls gorge trail, and create a potential disaster on a flood plain.
A good time. Would you believe this is my first live music of 2000? Jeez.
| - Mike, mpbarno of lightlink.com |
((I didn't get to much live music this year either. Damn, if the Internet doesn't do that to you.... ;-) I've been trying to get out more lately and have been succeeding. I also meant to print this note from a friend of yours. It's kinda fun..... and you responded to: ``I know we have precisely the same agenda here.'' with:))
Mike Barno (Sun, 30 Jul 2000 17:01:24 -0400)
Sounds like a Masonic comment to me! We elected one Anti-Masonic President and if we have to we'll elect another! And throw out secret cabals who pack juries and rig elections!
Dave Klokner (Thu, 13 Jul 2000 19:43:32 -0400)
to all my friends
I don't know how many of you have heard of ``The Cuckoo Egg Project", but I just read bout it today for the first time. It has been going on for a few days now on Napster. A Self proclaimed indie artist (Stephanie Fix) has been taking upon herself to foil the Napster community by pirating songs and then altering them. They sound normal for a few seconds and then either turn to silence or play an annoying Cuckoo bird sound or some other nasty thing (Sometimes they have even replaced the song with one of Stephanie Fix's own songs and then mislabel it as something more popular). I personally find this heinous and terrible, mainly because by pirating and altering other artist songs I think they are doing far more damage than simply stealing the music in the first place! Whiny bastard like Metallica and Everclear (who I am a fan of, but I personally dislike them for their anti-Napster views) don't seem to realize that they are 1:) just making more publicity for Napster, 2:) what they are doing to other artist music is worse than just stealing it, and 3:) I thought the whole point of the indie-music scene was to avoid entities like the RIAA, not pander to their whims and profits.
http://www.inside.com/story/Story_Cached/0,2770,6160_12,00.html
http://www.zdnet.com/zdtv/freshgear/commentary/story/0,3679,2601648,00.html
http://www.suck.com/daily/2000/07/11/daily.html
though one thing that I did read in the above articles was about the Springsteen song 41 Shots/American Skin .. the `Uncensored' version of the song on Napster with the lines ``Kill Fucking Cops" at the beginning is probably an altered fake... but nobody I talked to knew, and I don't know of any comments from the Boss himself. I personally think its a spoof added to the song, but who knows?
these people need to be taken out!!
http://www.stopnapster.com/index.html
http://www.hand-2-mouth.com/cuckooegg/
http://www.evolution-control.com/culturejamming.html
http://www.stefaniefix.com/
and though her music is actually pretty good (very folk/pop Indigo Girls/Dixie Chicks type music) this is a terrible abomination. These people are whores to the RIAA and need to be shot! How can you call yourself an Indie recording artist and then basically pirate and alter others music for your owns ends!?!?!
| Ranting and Ragingly Yours, dave, dklokner of penguinputnam.com |
p.s. Please forward this rant and these links on to anybody you think would care (or especially those who don't care).
((I'm sure lots of readers in this szine qualify on the last score. I haven't checked to see if any of those URL's are now dead, but try 'em if you like.))
Mike Barno (Sat, 02 Dec 2000 13:10:24 -0500)
1) Yeah, the Anti-Masonic bit resonates more now.
2) You might add to the Stoltz letter a mention of his site ``www.walkinjim.com".
| Thanx bro, mpbarno of lightlink.com |
((That gets us into the Cabal section of the szine. George W. Bush - baseball - Masonic rites..... all fits together. Pages and pages of good stuff from my view, hope you enjoy it! Starting off, Peter Sullivan, Keith Sherwood, and all you filkers unite....))
Warren Goesle (Tue, 14 Nov 2000 20:57:15)
Jim-Bob,
Well, another season has come and gone, and I'm betting on the Yankees to win again next year. How 'bout you? Per your recommendation, here's a little ditty I wrote to remind us all of how Baseball is, and will be for some time. Apologies to Lennon & McCartney:
The baseball teams all say they want to win,
But most have lost before the season begins,
There's nothing that they'll say, but they've learned how to play the game,
It's easy...
The better players go for the bigger bucks,
Which only some teams have, and I think it sucks,
If you want to win today there's only one way to do it,
It's easy,
All you need is cash; All you need is cash,
All you need is cash, cash; Cash is all you need.
The Dodgers and the Mets, the Braves and Yanks,
All send Commish Bud Selig many thanks,
They buy up all the players, and win another crown,
It's easy...
All you need is cash; All you need is cash,
All you need is cash, cash; Cash is all you need.
Hey Jude, if you want to join this Fool on the Hill and his Revolution, just take the Long and Winding Road. My socialist solution may have originated from Back in the USSR, but I bet it can get by With a Little Help from My Friends. No longer can we Let it Be. Only Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds can win a World Series today, and those teams on Penny Lane struggle for mediocrity.
Come together, right now, over me.
| Goz, gozcorp of iquest.net |
((Beautiful, you have your campaign song..... let's go backwards ;-) and see how I got Goz to put his creative juices on the line.....))
Warren Goesle (Tue, 31 Oct 2000 21:50:24 -0500 (EST))
Jim-Bob,
``All you need is cash, all you need is cash, cash, cash is all you need.... [Beatles music to fade]
((I'm really terrible at this sort of thing, but it really needs to be a ``filk". If you did it, I'd publish it.))
``filk"?
``The Rutles", a Beatles parody dreamed up by Eric Idle of Monty Python fame beat me to ``All You Need Is Cash". I don't remember if they released a song by that or just a fake album cover, and I can't read the small print on my CD to tell me.
((There's a recorded song..... That type of parody (putting new related words to an old song) is called a filk. I remember the Rutles but had forgotten that they did that. We would want to change the words to be more baseball oriented. The Yankees are talking about signing A-Rod and putting him at 3rd! And if they don't how much you want to bet that the Mets get him! And Cleveland loses Manny Ramirez to the Yanks nearly for sure.... hey what, I'm making YOUR argument.... whasup???))
ESPN's Peter Gammons says that the Mets get A-Rod. I was driving back from Ohio yesterday and heard him on the radio for about 10 minutes talking about all the free agents out there and where they might go. He never mentioned the Twins once. Go figure.
((And Peter is the God. That's where I think A-Rod goes too, but expect the Yankees to make a run just to keep him away from the Mets. [[new add, shows what great prognosticators WE are....]]
((Will all of the other teams have to band together and collude behind an ``anointed one" to defeat the NY teams??))
That's an interesting and very ugly thought.
((But possible.))
How so? Will all the other AL owners (or a significant majority of them) meet in a room and decide which games get thrown to what teams, just to make sure the Yankees have a worse record than someone and don't make the playoffs? Or will they all decide to deal all their good players and enough money to finance them to one team so that the Yankees have someone to compete with them in the playoffs? Yuk.
((The latter, I would guess. Believe me, it WILL happen if the Yankee dominance goes on much longer. Do you think the Detroit or KC GM will have infinite patience???))
Are you ticked off because I was right, or because you didn't see I was right, or for some other reason?
((I'm just ticked off because it somehow seems that the whole game has gone up one more level. I thought that there were about a dozen teams going into this year that had a chance to get to the World Series and I didn't really think that was so bad. Admittedly teams like Montreal and Milwaukee had NO chance of getting into that dozen, but teams like the A's showed that there was a way.... but now I actually get the feeling that these teams (Oak, SF, St. Louis, Chicago, Red Sox) at best are becoming playoff warm-ups to the main event. I seriously think it is likely that we will have another Subway Series next year.))
It's been going this way since just before the last strike ('94). The early 90s are where the salary escalation really took place, anything since is a logical progression. The good players want the good money, and there's only a few teams that can give it to them. Some other good players want to play in October, so they negotiate with teams that can get them there...see above. Junior is the lone exception, but I'll still take his paycheck for a month and take the next 10 years off too. But the Reds are strapped for cash for a while, so he doesn't have much to help him.
((Yeah, but Junior has to be Junior first. I think the Reds would have given St. Louis a run if Junior had had a better year.))
So it comes down to money. The big market teams have it, and the small market teams get publically financed stadiums to try to compete (Cincy's opens in '02). Might work for a couple of years, like the Marlin/Padre plan, but then Steinbrenner will get some help either from NYC itself or a corporate partner and the Yankees will have a $250M payroll.
((Soon, soon, they go up to half that easy for next year.))
Then what? Don't look at it, it's ugly. Kansas City and Montreal in next year's Series. You heard it here first.
((I did, but I don't believe it. 1000-1 odds are unfair against you.....))
Why? Aren't those the two teams that everyone will throw the games to?
((No, sorry..... ;-) ))
Only 360 more days until the Yankees win their 4th in a row. Mark that down now.
| Goz, gozcorp of iquest.net |
((Yuck.))
Warren Goesle (Thu, 30 Nov 2000 19:24:09)
Mussina to the Yankees for $88.5M for 6 years.
Are you ready to be my campaign manager for MLB Commissioner yet?
| Goz, Joan of Arc heard voices too, gozcorp of iquest.net |
((Wait, now I see what the problem is. You sent THIS message at 6:00PM last night, and that's the date on it, but it is FILED with my computer as though you sent it at 6:00PM on the PREVIOUS DAY (Thursday). Before you even sent it! That is what keeps confusing me. Interesting.....))
Warren Goesle (Sat, 02 Dec 2000 11:44:13)
Jim-Bob,
Well, being an engineer I can ses LOT of practical applications of you being so far behind the times. Tell you what, I'll let you know who wins the football games today, and you place the bets with your bookie yesterday. We'll split the profits.
| Goz, gozcorp of iquest.net |
PS: I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today...
PPS: A seminar on time-travel will be held two weeks ago at the Sheraton in downtown Indianapolis. RSVP NLT 30 October 2000.
((GOZ for Commissioner..... GOZ for Commissioner.))
Warren Goesle (Sun, 3 Dec 2000 16:39:22)
Jim-Bob,
Actually, that's kinda frightening to see in print.
((Go for it.... You know, the likelihoods are increasing that there will be NO BASEBALL played in 2002. The Player Contract is up and that is the only chance for meaningful change.))
I wouldn't say it's the *only* chance. The 82nd Airborne could always drop in on MLB headquarters.
((Unlikely, they don't defend against invasions of the US any more ;-) ))
I don't really see any ``meaningful" change happening. Do you think that Fehr will agree to *any* kind of cap, let alone a hard one? Do you think the owners will agree to any large-scale revenue sharing? I expect they'll make noise, pass some small concessions, but no real reform. And in 2005 the Yankees will have a $250M payroll while the Royals and Twins won't have a $25M payroll combined. Bet?
((If they lose the ENTIRE season and the playoffs (and according to the people who know like Peter Gammons, that is what the owners are working on), so they lose an entire year of salaries (and it will take that) I bet you're wrong. If the owners give in again and don't agree to lose the entire year of 2002 for baseball, then I agree with you. Is that the bet you want to take??))
Yep. For the reason that the owners will give in again. They always do. I'm not real sure why, because they don't let me audit their books.
((Steinbrenner is supposedly pissed at the other owners that they don't negotiate harder for better radio-TV deals. He agrees that they will never equal his deal for the Yankees, but he thinks they can all make 20-40% more than they do. That doesn't solve the problem, but it does suggest that the solution will include NATIONAL-LOCAL TV deals, using the satellites/cable/Internet to make all games more available at the ``right" price for MLB, rather than the present hodge-podge of individual deals.))
It's all well and good for Mr. Steinbrenner to upbraid everyone else for not getting enough money out of their teams, but I still don't think that the Expos are going to be able to catch up unless they loot the Quebec treasury (or maybe Northern Virginia's). Essentially it's George saying, ``look, I'm playing by the same rules that you are and *I* can make it work". Sorry. Same world, different planet. I don't think that the Twins are going to get a lot of money even if they get a cable TV deal for all of MN, IA, SD, ND, and MT.
MLB has been granted an antitrust exemption by Congress. It's time to make them earn it. They're 1 company with 30 divisions. I want someone besides Bud ``Puppet" Selig as CEO.
| Goz, gozcorp of iquest.net |
((I believe that it is true that the Royals and Twins actually are spending LESS money on player salaries than they are collecting JUST from the current ``luxury tax'' on payrolls of teams like the Yankees. At least PART of the solution, must include a MINIMUM amount to spend on salaries and if these teams can't make it, they should be disbanded.))
Warren Goesle (Sun, 10 Dec 2000 10:37:36)
Jim-Bob,
Today's paper says that the idea of eliminating teams from MLB is making the rounds, possibly as a bargaining chip by the owners against the Player's union as a threat of losing some jobs. The idea would be to eliminate 2-6 teams from the current 30, with the teams most often mentioned being Minnesota, Montreal, Kansas City, Tampa Bay (didn't they just come in?), and Florida (didn't THEY also just come in?...AND win the last non-Yankee WS?).
STOP THE INSANITY!!!! Vote for Goz for Commissioner NOW!!!
| Goz, gozcorp of iquest.net |
((The Red Sox spent big money for Manny Ramirez and I am happy, so I don't care..... ;-) We're goin' after the Yankees.....))
Warren Goesle (Tue, 12 Dec 2000 17:43:44)
Jim-Bob, Bet? I'll give you the Sox AND Tampa Bay.
((PS You're right of course, the gap between have and have-not is not staying constant or shrinking, it is growing, and perhaps growing fast.))
So what happens? 2 teams fold? 6 teams fold? Strike this September or Lockout next March? If so, when do the owners cave in again? And when do the fans come back? DO the fans come back? Does Bud ``Puppet" Selig go lie to Congress again? Does he ask for a federal bailout? Will the next reality show be a celebrity deathmatch between Selig & Fehr?
Or will sanity somehow prevail? Heck, will it be mentioned in public by any of the players?
Ok, so Ramirez signs for $21M/yr, for 12 years. I guess $21M doesn't really buy that much anymore. You can only get one ballplayer. You could also pay the salaries of the US President (whomever he is), the US Vice President, and all 100 Senators, plus have enough money leftover ($400K) for a ticket to Fenway, as long as you didn't get a hot dog or beer.
| Goz, Future MLB Commissioner, gozcorp of iquest.net |
((Now we have some Presidential Election material, some of it courtesy of r.g.d commentary. I am going to start with a furriner, just so we can see how we are perceived by the cogniscenti elsewhere.... I, myself, thought that the BBC did a better job of getting correspondents ON THE GROUND in Florida doing REAL reporting than ANY domestic outlet. We oughta be ashamed!! Pete started this by asking me about what happens if there is a ``deadlock'', wouldn't we be paralyzed? I responded: No, there is a process where the House of Representatives and the Senate choose the next President and VP, more like YOUR ;-) system.))
Pete Duxon (Wed, 8 Nov 2000 23:43:47 -0800 (PST))
There have been comments over here about how anachronistic the electorial college is, which is a bit rich when you consider Scotland gets more MPS per voter than England and Wales because of placating the Scots Parliament in the act of union of 1707 !!
And anyway Governments have got in here with less of the popular vote than the main opposition.
I found it amusing that Oregon votes by post !! and that the media overthere were saying even the BBC got it wrong when the Beeb was using American network polls.
Oh you've got to laugh.
(([He also asked me if Clinton could stay...] ))
Well, a bit of a nail biter over there isn't it? What happens if they get a deadheat in Florida? Does Clinton carry on?
(([so I answered:] Clinton is out regardless.....))
Just kidding.
((The problem might come over a COURT battle about Florida. [prescient, wasn't I??]))
All presided over by Jeb !?
2004 G Bush V H Clinton
2008 J Bush V H Clinton
Will Chelsea stand, is there a Kennedy in the wings....
Ever considered a consitutional monarchy. It has its flaws but it is cheaper than your elections AND you get lots of tourists :))
I took a day off last week and did the tourist bit: St Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, loads of Wren churches. You would think I was in somewhereville USA given the number of accents (ok I exaggerate a bit but it was October !!!!!).
Anyway it looks like George W (god help us).
| Pete, pduxon of yahoo.com |
((Too soon to tell much. At least it was at that point...... let's skip ahead to December for most of the rest of this....))
Paul Windsor (Sat, 02 Dec 2000 15:39:29 GMT)
The USSC Justices pretty much behaved according to form.
Justice Thomas, consistent with his view that oral arguments are a useless artifact of a bygone era, didn't ask a single question.
Justice Scalia, consistent with his adopted role of the reincarnation of the spirit of Hugo Black, asserted that, read literally, the Florida statutes had no ambiguity, and therefore required no interpretation. Amusingly, he also turned this argument against Olson vis a vis his reading of federal statutes, and Olson replied that he didn't think that ``parts of the statutory scheme should be read in isolation from the whole". That, of course, is precisely what Olson would have the Court do vis a vis the Florida election laws. Oops. Your slip is showing.
Justice O'Connor, consistent with her views on judicial restraint, questioned the jurisdiction for the USSC reviewing this case at all. Though O'Connor has often had her way by holding out for the narrowest possible ruling, it doesn't look like she enjoys the support of her fellow conservatives, who are her traditional constituency in arguing for exercising judicial restraint.
Souter, as is his wont, tended toward professorial hypotheticals. It appears that Souter is receptive to the argument O'Connor pursued that the USSC has no business deciding this case.
Kennedy and Rehnquist were hard on the Dems and easy on the Reps, while Ginsburg was hard on the Reps and easy on the Dems. Both Kennedy and Rehnquist were extremely agressive in their questioning of Tribe. Tribe, in fact, lost broad chunks of his time to argument between justices that didn't involve him.
Ginsburg displayed the greatest sensitivity to the Republicans attacks on the legitimacy of the FSC opinion. At one point, Bush attorney Ted Olson, caught up in the spirit of his political views, described the FSC as ``bound and determined to reach a predetermined result" and Ginsburg interrupted him and basically cut him off at the knees. She had no desire to listen to that kind of assertion. Olson then had to backpedal furiously from this temporary lapse into spinmeistering before he could continue with a genuine legal argument.
Stevens was hard on everyone. He loves to bust chops in oral argument, but then writes opinions that address completely separate issues.
The most unfortunate aspect of yesterday's oral argument is that the lion's share of time with Olson and Tribe was spent on the issue of the USSC's jurisdiction in this case. But only O'Connor and Souter pursued that issue, and Rehnquist and Kennedy defended it with equal vigor. Thomas is a candidate for a third justice who might be inclined to rule on the basis of lack of jurisdiction, but it's hard to see the USSC taking this case, only to make a statement that they can't decide it. No other justice seemed inclined to make a ruling on this point.
That leaves precious little other material in this oral argument from which to divine how the USSC is inclined to rule. Scalia was the only Justice who levelled a direct attack on the substance of the FSC opinion, which he saved for Tribe's time. His attack elicited an animated defense from Souter and one of the few instances in which Breyer jumped in with qestions. Stevens and Ginsburg then leapt into the fray. So for a good 10-15 minutes of Tribe's time, the Justices spent their questions arguing with each other about the merits of the FSC case. In that dynamic, Scalia and Stevens appeared to be on the attack and Souter and Ginsburg on the defense. Breyer's professorial hypotheticals were, as usual, inscrutable.
The only thing that was clear to me was that most justices seemed to assume the correctness of the Tribe brief's view that 3 U.S.C. 5 is a ``safe harbor" and not a mandate. So it appears that, if the Republicans are to win this appeal, it's going to have to be on Article II grounds, not federal statutory grounds. This is illustrated by the fact that Scalia pushed Article II arguments exclusively in his contentious questioning of Tribe.
Summary: 2 justices seemed to defend the FSC; 2 seemed to attack it; 4 spoke nearly exclusively on the subject of the Court's jurisdiction-split 2/2 on that issue; 1 justice spoke not a word, but went straight to his work . . .
| Paul Windsor, pnkwindsor of msn.com |
Rick Desper response on rec.games.diplomacy
Tribe used the ``photo-finish" analogy in his arguments. But he did not cite my post to r.g.d.! :)
I don't want to guess what the ruling is, but a look through the transcript (available at cnn.com) shows that they really ripped Ted Olsen to shreds. Even Scalia joined the frenzy, though he and O'Connor also had tough questions for Tribe as to why the Court moved the certification deadline.
| Rick, rick_desper of yahoo.com |
Eric Ozog (Mon, 4 Dec 2000 23:37:02 -0800)
This is my own take on the election situation:
If the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of George W. Bush, where can Al Gore appeal the decision? The World Court of the United Nations. But what would Al Gore do in case the UN also rules in favor of Bush? He could appeal to the United Federation of Planets.
| Happy Holidays, Eric, elferic of juno.com |
Paul Rauterberg (Sun, 3 Dec 2000 15:22:27 -0600)
He could defect to the Klingons and/or Romulans, or could always just become a spice addict on the planet Dune. I think that he could appeal to the Foundation, citing Bush's violations of the Three Laws of Robotics.
Earthly affairs can seem mighty petty if one expands his vision far enough.
| -P.G. Rauterberg, trauterberg of wi.rr.com |
Dwayne Shreve (Mon, 4 Dec 2000 04:35:02 -0800 (PST))
It's all a big mess. My stocks are getting gored, but my brother says his are getting bushed.
| Dwayne, dwayneshreve of yahoo.com |
Rick Desper (Tue, 28 Nov 2000 22:20:48 -0800 (PST))
My ``opinion":
Carl Bernstein is on Larry King tonight, serving as a very visible reminder that a party which thinks it is getting away with something has to be very careful. As he says, in the next couple years, you are going to see some very detailed exposes of all of the things which have happened in the past few weeks. He, of all people, should know.
Dick Cheney was, of course, on Larry King tonight, talking about how the number of votes lost in Miami-Dade county was not terribly unusual. The attitude ``sure, there were 10,000 votes marked as `no vote' for the Presidency, but that kind of thing happens all the time". All of the Republicans' arguments are missing a circuit here or there. They are blithely ignoring the closeness of the race, and trying to pretend that things should be treated as "business as usual". Sure, nobody would blink if 10,000 votes were left uncounted, if the winner took the state by 45,000 votes, as normally would be the case.
The news media is taking itself entirely too seriously during the past few weeks. You think they would have learned their lesson on Election Night. But they are covering the whole process with Gore as though the election had not already happened. Gore has watched Clinton and learned: in a situation like this, it is far more important to be on sound legal ground than to be winning the PR war.
Something Bush supporters should think about: do they think that Bush would have ``won" the vote certification had Katherine Harris (or a similar stooge) not been acting as SoS, using all of her power to short-circuit the recount process? ``Death of Outrage" is a favorite Republican term. Where is the outrage now? They have invented the idea that machine recounts are more accurate than hand recounts, that hand recounts can only be done if the machine is broken, that hand recounts MUST be done within a week (an idea which was true between the years of 1951 and 1979, but hasn't been true for more than 20 years), etc. etc.
I seem to recall, as a child, that the fundamental value of any democratic system was the importance of accurately counting the votes. But, as soon as the Bush team saw the results, they decided to do everything in their power to AVOID an accurate counting of the votes. Rather than using their power to ensure that there are orderly, accurate counts, they have taken every step to smear the Democrats. Basically, they are saying ``we cannot trust the Democrats to do a recount without cheating, so we're going to stop them".
So now, I am part of the underprivileged. I am part of a set of people not trusted to accurately and honorably count votes.
A reading of the Florida Supreme Court's decision of last week is quite interesting. It would be very interesting if the media, instead of swallowing all the explanations being spoon-fed to them, would instead read this decision and look very closely at it.
So many people are getting into the idea that the election process is a team sport. They think it is legitimate for the Republicans to use all of their powers to stop the Democrats, and vice versa. This is really short-sighted thinking. People wonder why Generation X and younger people don't vote. It's because, when we were children, our formative experience with the American government was either the Vietman war or Nixon's resignation.
Two days after the election, or maybe three, Gore made a simple request: a hand recount of the four counties: Volusia, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward. Here it is, three weeks later, and these recounts are not done. Why not? Well, the answer is obvious. If they are all done, fairly and accurately, Bush will lose. Both sides know this. The fact that Bush has ignored this, and has chosen instead to try to steal the White House, should serve as clear evidence that the man has no ``moral authority".
This is not something that people will forget. People talk about ``the country needs to heal", but, as we all know, a bullet wound cannot heal properly until the bullet is removed. What does this mean? A lot of people are going to be really angry for a long time if those recounts are simply suppressed.
((I'd really like to publish this in TAP, and hope you sent it to me for that reason. I entirely agree with it and actually think that Gore may well still be President before this all is over.))
Yeah, that would be fine. I think the odds are good that Gore would be awarded a victory by the Florida courts. Then, if the Florida legislature tries to do something to negate the court, you will see more outrage than you could imagine. On the other side, since so many Republicans have believed all the propaganda, they would not be happy at all with a Gore presidency. One poll suggests that Democrats would be more accepting of a Bush presidency than Republicans of a Gore presidency. I believe this poll, but take it more as a sign of the intolerance of the Republicans. After all, their agenda for the past 8 years has be to attack Clinton at every opportunity.
((You saw my exchange with Paul on r.g.d, the Supreme Court is going to READ THE BUSH TEAM THE RIOT ACT on Friday. They will be blistering once they get hit by ``so-called Republicans". The USSC knows that it is fighting for its credibility in history and the world, something the media doesn't seem to care about.
[Note how wrong that was..... ;-) ]))
The most amusing thing about the Court case is how clueless the media are. The buzz among the talking heads is that, since 7 of the justices were appointed by Republicans, and since they agreed to hear this case, they might be ruling in favor of Bush. I have read through the Florida ruling - it seems pretty sound to me. There is no way that the Bush cause will win, the question only is what form the USSC will use to support the FSC. I imagine they will make it very clear to everybody that the judiciary does in fact have not only the power but the responsibility to review laws and to resolve disputes when two laws contradict each other. Hopefully they will say something about the rhetoric about how the Court ``legislated", but they might not want to embarrass Bush too much.
| Rick, rick_desper of yahoo.com |
Michael Sandy (Wed, 29 Nov 2000 14:26:54 -0500 (EST))
Watching the Gore lawyer Boies answering questions about the Supreme Court taking up the case, I had a vision of Brer Rabbit saying, ``Please don't throw me into the Briar Patch." I think that the Gore team wanted the Supreme Court to be invoked, but didn't want to be the side that called them in.
| Michael Sandy, mehawk of teleport.com |
Paul Windsor (Wed, 29 Nov 2000 16:35:49 GMT)
At least some conservative partisans are beginning to see that they are, indeed, in the briar patch now.
There is probably no more deeply conservative set of editorial pages in this nation than the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ is now urging Bush, via that editorial page to withdraw his appeal to the USSC.
Why in the world is the WSJ doing that? Because the WSJ is looking at the USSC questions for review the same way I am, i.e. that the USSC wants to take this opportunity to defend the legitimacy of judicial review against the Bush frontal attack on same.
But Bush won the battle to hold off enough of the recount by the deadline, so why should Bush and the WSJ care, even if the USSC upholds the FSC case? Isn't the point moot?
Nope. Litigation is getting under way in two different Florida counties on the subject of absentee ballot fraud allegations against Republicans. The litigation in Seminole County is especially fraught with danger for Bush. The evidence there is pretty solid that the Republican-controlled canvassing board allowed Republican Party members to handle, unsupervised, some 4,700 ballots of registered Republicans for the express purpose of fixing those ballots' failure to meet the technical requirements of election law pertaining to absentee ballots. This would be directly contrary to numerous election laws on the books designed to prevent voter fraud. Republicans are growing increasingly concerned that (i) they will be unable to convince the trial judge to delay the trial past Dec. 12th; and (ii) the allegations are provable.
The remedy being sought is for the court to throw out *all* the absentee ballots from Seminole County. There is solid judicial precedent for this, as this is exactly the remedy that was ordered in Miami's most recent mayoral election, when the absentee ballots were similarly tainted by voter fraud. If that is done, there would be a 5,000 vote swing in favor of Gore in Florida.
So what happens to Bush if (i) the USSC upholds the FSC, taking the moment to make a strong statement about the legitimate role of state courts in construing state election laws; and (ii) Florida courts throw out the Seminole County absentee ballots before the final deadline for certifying Electors? Would Jeb Bush and the Florida legislature be willing to defy the United States Supreme Court and certify GWB's Electors anyway? And would Congress go along with ignoring the nation's highest court? And how would the public react? For that matter, where stands the Republic, if the nation's highest office-holders feel justified in ignoring the nation's highest court?
The WSJ doesn't want to know the answer to those questions. It is urging Bush to withdraw his appeal to the USSC before these events can come about, returning the battleground for ignoring courts and accepting Electors to the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature, Florida Governor and US Congress. They'd prefer to keep this a purely political battle, and keep the USSC out of it.
Yep, just like old Billy said, when plotting the illegitimate overthrow of the government: ``The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." Or, at the very least, withdraw the appeal and keep them out of the loop.
This thing might just rise to the level of that ``constitutional crisis" media-hype yet.
| Paul Windsor, pnkwindsor of msn.com |
Rick Desper (Wed, 29 Nov 2000 18:35:05 -0500 (EST))
CNN has them available. I made one error with regard to the timing of the revision of the Florida statute (it was in 1989, not 1979) in my letter to you yesterday. The Republican brief is a mishmash of irrelevant facts without any direct line of argumentation. The Democratic brief has a clear line of argumentation which looks convincing to me. (Call it bias, if you will, but following a chain of logic is nothing subject to bias, which is something I have been trying unsuccessfully to argue on r.g.d.)
My favorite nugget: as early as 1868 we saw the Florida Supreme Court instructing the State Canvassing Board to include results from counties that had previously been excluded. :) Talk about an established precedent!
I'm finding the election far more interesting than my work. Maybe I should switch fields.
Long Live Hunter S. Thompson: Now that he's got a column at ESPN.com, I can't get enough!
The latest quote: ``And we wonder why the Election turned out so weird. The Pollsters knew nothing, because the people they talked to lied to them. Nobody wants to talk to a Pollster, anyway. They are Vermin. And they are getting paid to harass you with questions, but you're not getting a dime for it. You're not even getting on TV."
This is what I'd been feeling - that a lot of people, when polled, said they would vote for Nader, because they wanted to see Nader getting good numbers in the polls. But when election day came, a lot of these people realized the futility and danger of this approach, and reverted to Gore. I see no other explanation for a Gore victory when he was trailing in every major poll, many by 3 percentage points or more, during the week before the election.
| Rick, rick_desper of yahoo.com |
((Let's jump to Rick's reaction to the USSC stay of the Florida recount on Saturday the 9th.... first a couple of quick back and forths (obviously from the day before) between me and Rick before Rick's diatribe.))
Rick Desper (Sat, 9 Dec 2000 23:41:22 -0500 (EST))
((Are you watching.... 4-3 Florida Supreme Court Ruling in favor of Gore, starting manual recount of all ``noncounted" ballots (I believe statewide if I understand the initial reports). Interesting.....))
Yes, apparently there may be a problem finding the ``undervote" in the other counties. But at least people are trying to count votes.
((And now, of course, it's stopped again. What a story line....))
F***ing absurd.
Well, time to see how Kennedy and O'Connor rule. But I think the payback for this debacle is going to be huge. The Repubs had better enjoy the power while they have it, 'cause it's going to last less than two years.
The thing which bothers me the most is that a major part of the story is the fact that the Republicans sent Capitol Hill staffers down to Florida to ``shut down" the recount in Miami-Dade county. There are laws in place which would have done the entire process in two weeks had the Republicans not blocked the process through frivolous suits, partisan officials betraying their job duties, and simple mob intimidation. I feel that these are not the United States I thought they were. I think the Bush Presidency will signal the continuing decline of the country.
| Rick, rick_desper of yahoo.com |
((We'll break here into a bit of possibly confusing back and forth stuff.... I hope you'll all be able to follow it....))
Rick Desper: Just read the briefs. To my eye, it looks like on the one hand, we have a brief written by a law professor. On the other hand, we have a brief written by people who somehow made it through law school.
Robin Walters (Mon, 11 Dec 2000 04:15:35 GMT)
I have (another) question: Am I correct in thinking that, on the argument put forward by the Bush camp (that the recounts are unconstitutional because they give different treatments to different votes due to ünstandardised" methods of assessment), the entire Florida ballot was unconstitutional?
Rick Desper: One has to wonder how they could give the same treatments to all the counties, as there are different machines and ballots used in different places. In any case, the FSC simply could not have tried to impose a uniform standard, as that would have been ``legislating from the bench". Basically, on this issue, the Bush camp is taking a ``damned if you do and damned if you don't" stance. The Gore brief gives ample argument to support the ``intent of the voter" standard.
((This would be a ``reasonable argument", but that does not make it correct. Given US law and tradition, the local ballots can be different. Thus, the Bush camp would argue TWO things and both do have some reasonable level of veracity (and I wish that's what the courts were really considering):))
Rick breaks in before my two things: No, what the Bush camp is simply doing is starting from the result they desire, add the perceived logic of Scalia et al., and simply trying to assert that their case has merit. They throw in a lot of insults of the FSC for unknown reason. They complain that the FSC did not make any reference to the decision handed down by the USSC last week to vacate the previous FSC order. This type of sentence is only written for ignorant voters. The reason the FSC did not make any reference to the USSC ``decision" is quite simple - it doesn't exist. While the networks have been missing this point all week, the fact remains that the USSC did not ``rule against" Gore, they merely vacated a decision. Apparently the FSC has decided that, since Bush won the certified vote and we are now in a contest, that there is no reason to go back to the first decision, as the protest proceedings would supercede any result in the first case.
((1) All votes in each county should be treated precisely the same and the machine count is the most fair way to do this.))
Rick Responds: Well, see, that's not really fair. We know that the machines in the South have a much higher error rate. I would contend that anything short of a statewide manual recount (of the undervote, in this case) would constitute a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
((2) Since Florida votes as a state in the EC, no county should be treated differently (i.e. with an unstandardized method of assessment).))
((Rick Desper again: Other than ``voter intent", there is no way to have a standardized method of assessment. If the USSC wants to strike down ``voter intent" (a) they would declare as unconstitutional a large number of election laws in the US; (b) they sure picked a hell of a time to do so. If the USSC really insists on uniform standards, then I would contend that the entire election was unconstitutional. After all, in every single state, there was a lack of uniform standards. The Court could not conceivably take this step.
Finally Back to Robin: It seems that every county had a different ballot, with a range of methods of registering a vote and different equipment for recording votes, resulting in massively varying error rates from county to county. If that isn't guaranteed to give unequal treatment to different voters, I don't know what is. I think that in order to comply with GOP demands for ``standardised" counting of votes, the only conceivable remedies are (i) that all 6m votes be counted by hand; (ii) a statewide revote on a standardised ballot counted on a single machine type; (iii) annulment of the Florida election.
((And, of course all three are completely off the table, so we are talking about a series of ``evil" second or third bests.))
Rick Desper: The Gore side argues, convincingly, IMHO, that there is no reason to do a hand recount of the votes already detected by the machines. Furthermore, long-established Florida law states that it is proper for the court during the contest phase to do an examination of a subset of the ballots.
And Robin finishing up: Of course, in reality the Bush argument is baloney. Apart from anything else, the FSC stated very clearly that the basis for judging a vote was that in Florida statute. It may not be explicit (e.g. do/do not count pregnant chads), but it nevertheless is clear.
| Robin Walters, r.g.walters of sheffield.ac.uk |
Rick Desper: And, as you might imagine, the Gore brief was quite happy to cite the Texas statute in their brief. I think the Gore side is getting tired of the rampant hypocrisy and inconsistency from the Bush side.
((Since Republicans and Democrats watching the count need to agree. There still will be disputed ballots after that process. I wish we had been at the point we are today a month ago with this argument before the Supreme Court. The range of remedies at that point might have included (i). I'm not sure the other two ever would have been considered.))
Rick Desper:
In retrospect, Gore would have been better off demanding a statewide hand recount from the start. Of course, he was within his rights to do as he wanted to, but it would have saved some time in terms of the frivolous arguments he would have had to deal with.
I think Hunter S. Thompson is right. The Fix is in. It's the VRWC, just like Hillary said.
I think Tribe was simply astonished last time that Scalia was seriously arguing that the Florida Constitution should not be considered as grounds for an appellate ruling during a contest like this. He has had some time to think about this issue carefully. His brief argues (convincingly, IMHO) that there a) there is no foundation for this argument under the case (MacPherson?) that Scalia was citing b) even if there was foundation for this argument, the FSC did not rely upon anything other than statute and longstanding precedent c) there is simply no way to argue that the legislature has ``plenary" power which supercedes the state Constitution. The state Constitution and the state Legislature are inextricably intertwined.
The Tribe brief makes mention to a number of decisions written by Kennedy and O'Connor. My best guess? You have four justices that will definitely side with Gore: Souter, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Stevens. You probably have two that will side with Bush: Scalia and Thomas (though I will be extremely interested to see on what basis they decide to do such a thing). Likely Rehnquist will join them. I think that there is a reasonable likelihood that Kennedy and O'Connor voted for the stay simply to freeze the process, figuring that the issues had to be decided before the votes were counted, but that, given that the FSC stuck to the path proscribed to them last week, they are unlikely to rule for Bush.
A ruling for Bush, on the grounds they cite, would certainly inspire chaos. This ruling will go down with Marbury vs. Madison, Dred Scott, Brown vs. Board of Education, Roe vs. Wade, etc. I sure hope Scalia doesn't find four more votes to embarrass this court for posterity.
| Rick, rick_desper of yahoo.com |
Paul Windsor (Mon, 11 Dec 2000 11:22:23 -0500 (EST))
Two observations:
1. The ``voter intent" guideline, with specific standards to be established by local canvassing boards, is the law established by the Republican-controlled Florida state legislature.
The same Republicans who are now complaining that's a vague and inconsisitent standard are the ones who wrote that standard into law. The same Republicans who are complaining bitterly of the FSC's judicial activism are also complaining that the FSC didn't rewrite their own laws to provide the more precise guidelines that they wish they had written, but didn't.
Personally, I've grown tired of listening to the Republicans talk out of both sides of their mouths on this one. You take the election laws in each state as you find them. You don't walk away from trying to count votes because a legislature did a crappy job of writing the guidelines. You do the best you can and you sure as hell don't listen to the same people who wrote the crappy law lecture you for trying to follow it.
And this is the same issue that Bush already lost in federal district court, and on appeal to the 11th circuit, and which the USSC wouldn't even hear on appeal from there, in his failed attempt to have courts declare the Florida recount unconstitutional. To paraphrase: The Repbulicans lost this issue once, they lost it again, and they lost it a third time. It's time for them to give up for the good of the nation and admit that they've lost this issue.
2. The idea that ``fairness" is only achieved by uniform standards is a complete red herring.
We don't have uniform standards for voting in this country. In this past election, there were eight different types of voting mechanisms in use around the nation and countless hundreds of different ballot styles used for those mechanisms. In Florida, alone, there were five different mechanisms used: 1. Paper and pen ballots; 2. Scranton sheet style optiscan ballots; 3. Connect-the-arrow optiscan ballots; 4. Levered ballot machines; and 5. Punch-card machines. The rejected ballot rates for these mechanisms range from 0.3% (levered machines) to 3% (punch cards). Some require hand counting (pen and paper), some are easy to hand count (optiscans), some are impossible to handcount (levered machines, which record the total votes on mechanical dials inside the machine, but leave no other record), and then, of course, there are the punch cards.
((And some of those give ``instant feedback" on attempts to vote twice (at least 3. connect the arrow and 4. levered machines).))
If we accept the Republican complaint about different standards for counting being so inherently unfair that we have to forbid people from even trying, where exactly do we draw the line in that argument? If that argument forbids hand counting punch cards, why doesn't it forbid hand counting pen and paper ballots? Why doesn't it forbid the use of punch card readers entirely, since their error rate is so much higher than other mechanisms? And what does that say about a levered machine, that purportedly has the lowest error rate, but is impossible to recount?
((I still find it completely impossible to find anything in this argument except partisan feelings.))
It is insufficient to merely note that the standards are not uniform. The argument is not valid unless that observation leads to a quantifiable statement that the statistical reliability of the outcome is significantly jeopardized by the lack of uniform standards.
((Precisely, and I am a health economist who studies the quality of issues like Paul's analogy and I think it's great!))
Analogy time: The skill levels of thoracic surgeons are not uniform. Some are better than others, and as a rule, a layperson is not in a position to know which surgeon is better than which. But you suffer a heart attack, and need an angioplasty to relieve the blockage in your coronary artery. Do you, on the basis of knowing that not all surgeons are equally skilled and that it is impossible for you to know whether your own surgeon has the highest possible skill level, refuse to have any surgery at all? Of course not. Why not? Because you know that: (i) the vast majority of thoracic surgeons in this country operate at a high skill level; and (ii) the risk of trying to live with a blocked artery far outweighs the likelihood of botched surgery.
((And what people do is to use other information to infer this. For example, you might choose to wait for surgery for the physician that is really busy doing this surgery and has a long wait time (and there is data on the web in Australia that allows you to do this directly), because he is the one with the most practice and the most patients. Patience is a virtue ;-) ))
What is missing from the Republicans' complaints about non-uniform standards here is any meaningful analysis of the likelihood of botched surgery. They're trying to scare the hell out of you with propaganda, but at the end of the day, they don't have the evidence to demonstrate that their complaints amount to a statistical probability of error greater than not counting. But more importantly, at the end of the day, their argument is nothing less than saying that you ought to have so little faith in the democratic process in this country that you'd rather live with a crippled heart than take a chance on the operating theater.
((That's about it. Even REALLY trying to do this about surgery in real life is hard and the solution makes little sense.))
Do people really feel that way about it? Is our faith in the system really so small? 'Cause if it is, I'd say that we have a helluva lot bigger problem in this country than trying to agree on a standard for hand counting punch card ballots.
| Paul Windsor, pnkwindsor of msn.com |
((I really, really, hope not, but we might be getting there. I started all this six weeks ago with a great deal of faith in the process. Remember what I said at the top of the last TAP???))
Paul Windsor:
I'd like to say I'm surprised, but I'm not. This just demonstrates that
what we've observed for the last 20 years is true: the judiciary is now
merely a third political branch. And you can't unring the bell, recall the arrow
or (insert your favorite metaphor for permanent change here). After this
act, we won't see a judiciary above politics in this country again.
And the two party's political payback cycle just ``kicked it up a notch",
to quote my favorite cooking host.
The political fora that I monitor and participate in have absolutely
erupted in outrage.
Robin Walters: Question: If the judiciary is becoming more political, is it that the people being nominated are more political than their predecessors, or are those in post becoming more political themselves?
Paul Windsor: It's more the former than the latter. But it's a process that's been going on in this country for about 20 years, beginning with Reagan's explicit campaign promises about the kind of jurists he would promote to the bench. This began the process of open and explicit political litmus testing of judges. It's now something that's done on both sides. After 20 years of it, the process of replacing the entirety of the federal bench with people whose politics matter more than their skills is fairly mature. There aren't a lot of judges around who were sworn to the bench before 1980.
Robin Walters: If the FSC react in anything like the manner of Paul's legal circle, is it possible/likely that they will be motivated to respond in a retaliatory political way? Might they construe the law in a way which causes them to rule *for* the Democrats in Seminole and Martin counties? Basing their decision on Florida law and precedent, or course :-) The FSC has been thrust into a state vs Fed battle. How will they react?
Paul Windsor (Mon, 11 Dec 2000 04:35:37 GMT)
You aren't the first person I've seen speculate on this point. Judges are human beings too. Only time will tell. But this is a good occasion to report a development in that the ``stealth case" that I talked about before, the one seeking to toss out all absentee ballots counted after 7:00pm on 11-7 because there is no Florida law written by the legislature allowing that. There is only a court order (a consent decree) and an administrative rule written to comply with it. The theory is simple: if the USSC means what it says, that only the legislature writes election rules, and that any change to them by the courts is unlawful, then the rule allowing counting of late-arriving absentee ballots is void and any ballots counted, which arrived after the polls closed, should be tossed.
I reported before that this case had been removed to federal court, but that the federal judge was expected to issue a ruling in the case soon. He's ruled. Not surprisingly, Judge Paul ruled for the defendant state officials. The decision can be found at http://www.flnd.uscourts.gov/ORDER.PDF and I challenge anyone to reconcile it's reasoning with the Supreme Court's recent decision and stay. Judge Paul reasons that the administrative regulation allowing the counting of late-arriving ballots ``was the product of the state executive branch, the authorized representative of the state in a lawsuit against the state, enacting a measure to bring the state into compliance with a federally ordered mandate in a situation where the state legislature refused to do so." Thus, according to the Court, ``the administrative rule should be considered the equivalent of a federal court order detailing how a state statute conflicts with a federal statute and setting out what must be done about it. Thus, it is the statute which must yield when federal elections are involved."
Sorry, but that doesn't pass the laugh test. There is no federal/state supremacy conflict here. There is only a state court and a state law. And the USSC has been quite emphatic on the point on two occasions during the last week that state courts can't rewrite state election laws. Judge Paul's rationalizations are just a bunch of beside-the-point gobledygook. And the reasoning Judge Paul gives on why the case must remain in federal court stinks. He states that the original complaint, which has since been amended to remove all federal claims, must control. He does this despite the fact that the Supreme Court emphatically disclaimed the so-called ``artful pleading" rule a year and a half ago.
Anyone want to give me the odds on the USSC granting an immediate appeal in this case to correct Judge Paul's reasoning on the role of courts in construing election law?
| Paul Windsor, pnkwindsor of msn.com |
Rick Desper (Mon, 11 Dec 2000 22:38:13 -0500 (EST))
It seems that the USSC is rejecting what I had feared worst, the idea that the legislature in this issue was somehow ``unmoored" from judicial review. It seems that the court is stuck on the lack of standards. This is hardly something they can blame on Gore, though, or on the FSC. They have big problems with the FSC moving the certification date, and with the FSC not getting back to them about the vacated decision. But they can hardly hold their problems with the FSC against Gore.
It seems that the Court almost wants to declare the manual recount system unconstitutional. I don't think that this would be a very good idea. To say the least. Yes, there are problems with the ``voter intent" standard, but they cannot simply say that Gore has no right to contest the election, because the law is poorly written.
Kennedy, for one, seems to be deeply troubled by the lack of standards. At one point, he says something to the effect that what they need is a law saying what the standards are. This is a nightmare for judicial restraint, and a perfect example of a type of situation where the Judge simply does not have the option of refusing to interpret the law.
This ruling would have been a piece of cake for the Warren Court. They would have walked in, decided upon standards of their own, and told the counters ``this is what you must do." This is anathema to Scalia et al. But what else can they do?
Are they, the champions of federalism and judicial restraint, simply going to walk in and declare the FSC's interpretation of state law as invalid, and leave it at that? There really is no question that Gore has a right, under Florida statute, to contest a set of ballots. The only question is, how? Simply saying that there is no way to look at the ballots is patently unacceptable. I think even Scalia would concede that.
I think that it might take a while to get a ruling. I think the reason that the count was stayed was due to a majority disliking the fact that the standards were so unequal. But that does not, by itself, imply that they are willing to simply terminate the count completely.
I feel that, ultimately, even though this may be distasteful to the conservative wing of the court, that they will proscribe standards for counting votes, and tell the Florida Supreme Court to finish the recount. Possibly they will ask that the counties which did recounts earlier also be forced to join, if they really want total uniformity, then this step would seem to be required. Ultimately, they are treading onto very untenable ground if they say that the recount cannot be done because of a lack of uniform standards. A lack of uniform standards is a fact of life, with every state having no standard, state-wide election system. I agree that this is unacceptable, but I think we're stuck with the current system at least for this election. Otherwise they would have to throw out all of the election.
If they say ``voter intent" is insufficient, then 33 states have unconstitutional laws. Are they going to that step, now, under these circumstances?
Justice Kennedy suggested that the FSC could ask the Secretary of State to declare a standard for counting votes. This is an interesting idea, even if it is not what the Democrats want. Boies suggested using the Texas standard. One could argue that, since Bush signed this into law, it would be plain hypocrisy for him to disagree.
I've given up on CNN - now I watch CSpan. ((Not having cable, I missed them all ;-) so I just read r.g.d!!!))
Well, let's count the votes: Breyer, Ginsburg, Stevens, Souter - will not vote to stop, are clearly behind FSC Kennedy, O'Connor - have serious problems with the lack of standards, do not buy the idea that the FSC has made any errors in statutory construction Scalia - wants to argue that Article II of the Constitution means that the FSC does not itself have appellate authority in this case. Seems to be alone here. Really doesn't like the lack of standards. Rehnquist - was mostly quiet Thomas - I think he might have been reading a book today. I really dislike this guy.
The Bush supporters probably are not going to be happy, since the USSC would seem to be unlikely to merely say ``you're not allowed to count the votes". Somehow, some way, these votes are to be counted.
| Rick, rick_desper of yahoo.com |
((But then a little bit later you ranted along like this:))
Rick Desper: This is a gonzo decision. What the USSC is saying is that ``we think that the FSC has said that the intention of the state legislature was to have a Dec. 12 deadline and we will remand to the FSC for clarification. Oh, and by the way, the recount procedure is unconstutional".
((I think this very next piece is the single most cogent, intelligent piece I have read on the entire affair and fittingly ends the discussion here for now.... apologies for some of Paul's legalese, but ask one of the lawyers around here to interpret for you if you need it. ;-) ))
Paul Windsor (Wed, 13 Dec 2000 16:47:43 GMT)
Rick, I'm going to snip the rest of your post and start a new line here.
What the per curiam /1/ opinion of the USSC has held, in lawyerly terms, is that the failure to define an exact standard for determining the ``intent of the voter" on a recount is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
/1/ Though per curiam decisions have no author, this one was fairly obviously authored by O'Connor.
As you note in the part of the post I snipped, this is a novel occasion. It's the first time in the history of this version of the Court that all five of the Court's conservative justices, Scalia, Thomas, O'Connor, Rehnquist & Kennedy (hereinafter ``STORK") have all agreed that an Equal Protection violation occurred in a case before them. Even more remarkably, they ruled that the 14th Amendment controls here because there is a ``right to vote", even though their previous per curiam decision stated emphatically that Article II of the constitution grants no right to vote, and that to the extent that the prior ruling of the Florida Supreme Court relied on such a concept, its decision was invalid.
To merely state that these two opinions present some irreconcilable inconsistencies requires a talent for understatement that I've not yet mastered. This was a judicial exercise in ``bait and switch". The first opinion sternly cautioned the FSC against adding to Florida election law in any way, lest they transgress Article II. The second opinion now states, under a legal theory that the USSC expressly declined the opportunity to hear the first time /2/, that the FSC was required to rewrite the Florida election code and was derelict in its duty for not doing so.
/2/ They denied cert on Bush's Equal Protection claims case, which he lost at both the District Court and Appellate Court levels) on the same day that they granted review of the first FSC case. This is doubly egregious, as the equal protection claims were not briefed or argued at the circuit court or FSC level in this case, presumably because they'd already lost. Normal appellate procedure would forclose any further opportunity to even argue such claims. Just a week ago, Justice Thomas dissented from deciding a 4th Amendment case involving police road blocks on precisely these grounds. But on this occasion, he joins the per curiam opinion without raising the issue.
In back to back decisions, the USSC has now ruled that: (i) there is no merit in claiming that Florida election law must be modified to extend recount deadlines, because there is no right to vote; and (ii) Florida election laws governing recounts cannot be enforced, and should have been rewritten by the FSC (but, alas, now there is not time to do so) because, as written, the laws violate the right to vote.
The Supreme Court has now remanded for further proceedings consistent with its holdings. Anyone who knows how to be consistent with those holdings, please raise your hand.
Actually I do have an idea for what the FSC can do.
Further proceedings consistent with this new view of Equal Protection law seem obvious to me. Based on the reliance the per curiam opinion places on the ``one man, one vote" standard, together with the Court's admonition about updating voting machines, the FSC should hold that it has no choice but to find that Florida's county-by-county use of vastly different voting technologies, with vastly different error and ballot rejection rates, constitutes an EP violation, and that, in fact, no election was held in Florida at all.
I know this doesn't change the result, since the Florida Legislature has already named the Bush slate in the event of a failed election, but I'm not result-oriented in thinking that the FSC should so hold. I just want to force STORK to face head-on the issue of why there is a ``one man, one vote" EP violation in the micro-issue, but there isn't one in the macro-issue. I want STORK to explain why gross variations in *counting* standards, such as rejecting up to 25% of ballots, solely due to the machines in use, in some predominantly minority and poor voting precincts, is OK, but allowing much slighter variations in RE-counting standards is not OK. I want them to expalin why the plenary power of the legislature allows the former, but is insufficient to justify the latter. This will instructively highlight the point that STORK simply glides by the reality that we would never be in a position of discussing whether there were variant counting standards for a recount, if there weren't much more grossly variant counting standards for the initial count. The per curiam opinon is in the goofy position of holding that we should let stand a much more serious violation of ``one man one vote" equal protection standards created by the machine count, because the proffered remedy contains a much less significant violation of those same standards.
The FSC has an opportunity to write their own ``dissent" on this point. I know it won't be upheld, but it should help the media to focus on the right issue for a change. If nothing else, it would make for entertaining reading.
Thankfully, the media is getting one thing right. Pretty much wholesale, they are rejecting the per curiam decision's patently false claim to being joined by 7 justices. The media seem to be pretty universally proclaiming this a 5-4 decision split on political lines. That much of what they are reporting, at least, is correct.
| Paul Windsor, pnkwindsor of msn.com |
Dwayne Shreve (Thu, 12/21/00, 7:23PM)
Jim,
I belatedly noticed a mention of the Diplomacy Encyclopedia in your November issue and took a look at it. In it I was surprised to see a mention of a zine, Mass Murders from 1983 and attributed to Bob Osuch. Sure, I attributed it to Bob at the time, but it was a spoof. It had intentionally bad spelling, included a player named Eric Ozog Sr. and had some typos that were occasionally unintentional and complained about not having a Boardman number yet for the Gacy game.
I sent a note to Jim Meinel to clarify this, but he doesn't appear to be ready to do any updates any time soon. Oh well. I did have some chuckles over the memory and oddly enough, among all my papers, I was able to put my fingers on what is probably the last remaining copy.
Jim Meinel, meinel of alaska.net, wrote:
(Thu, 21 Dec 2000 14:19:33 -0900)
Hi Dwayne - it's nice to see someone reading the EOZ after all these years. I had planned at the time to do updates, but it never happened. Thanks for writing. Jim
D R Shreve wrote:
Hi, I noticed that you have Mass Murders in the Dip Encyclopedia listed as Bob Osuch's zine. I did it and it was only a spoof and was all of one page in length. In it I listed some of of my co-workers along with Frost and Ozog as players. Osuch even got a note from Kendter in response to its complaint of having no Boardman Number, in that he needed to apply for one before he complains about not getting one.!
Bob took it well whe I told him who did it. He even named a game ``Mass Murders" after it. But it was just a spoof. I am sending you a copy.
| Dwayne, dwayneshreve of yahoo.com |
((And for all of your entertainment, I am printing the scanned copy on the next page - not especially readable, but should be OK to get the idea. Now let's finish a long letters section with another of Rusnak's lawyers jokes. I'll keep printing them until the Lawyers step up to the plate and start the new game!))
Russ Rusnak (Thu, 7 Dec 2000 20:53:48 EST)
An American, traveling on a train in Europe, met a Cuban tobacco grower, a Russian vodka distiller and a lawyer. While they were talking business, the Cuban took out four cigars and passed them around. After lighting his own cigar, the Cuban took one drag and then threw it out the window, explaining that cigars were of no consequence in his country since there was such an abundance of them. After dinner, the Russian passed out bottles of vodka. After taking just one swig, he threw the bottle out the window, explaining that vodka was of no consequence since, in Russia, it was so plentiful. The American businessman sat in quiet contemplation for several minutes then arose and threw the lawyer out the window.
| Russ, RRRRRUSNAK of AOL.com |
| LAWYERS: THE AMATEUR DIVISION - 2000G - GUEST GM: RUSS RUSNAK |
2000G No Lawyers Allowed, Wanted, Accepted, or even liked Game, Winter1901
Austria Bob Osuch ROsuch4082 of aol.com Build F Trieste & A Budapest, Also has F Greece, A Serbia, A Vienna
England Rick Davis redavis914 of aol.com Has F Channel, F North, A Yorkshire
France Scott Munson samunson71 of hotmail.com Build F Brest & F Marseilles, Also has A Spain, A Portugal, F Mid Atlantic
Germany Mike Barno mpbarno of lightlink.com Build F Kiel & A Berlin, Also has F Denmark, A Belgium, A Munich
Italy Jim Burgess burgess of world.std.com Build F Naples, Also has A Tunis, F Tyrrhenian, A Piedmont
Russia Randy Ellis Bukowski1964 of aol.com Build A Sevastopol & A Moscow, Also has A St Pete, F Sweden, A Rumania, F Black
Turkey Kent Pollard awargamer7 of hotmail.com Build F Smyrna, Also has A Bulgaria, A Armenia, F Constantinople
New E mail address for Turkey & Russia
Supply Center Chart
Austria Vienna, Trieste, Budapest, GREECE, SERBIA 5 build 2
England Liverpool, Edinburgh, London 3 even
France Brest, Paris, Marseiles, SPAIN, PORTUGAL 5 build 2
Germany Kiel, Munich, Berlin, BELGIUM, DENMARK 5 build 2
Italy Rome, Naples, Venice, TUNIS 4 build 1
Russia St. Pete, Moscow, Warsaw, Sev, SWEDEN, RUMANIA 6 build 2
Turkey Constantinople, Ankara, Smyrna, BULGARIA 4 build 1
neutrals Holland, Norway
Spring 1902 due date is Friday, December 22
(french world press release): ``it has been noted by our military advisors that some of the foreign powers that be seem to be of a aggressive bent. not wishing to point fingers or anything, let's just call the leader of the offending country....ohhhh....let's call him "jimmy-dick-bob." now, i am not at, nor do i want, a war with this "jimmy-dick-bob." but it might be beneficial for all involved if some lines of communication opened up. is this a fair assumption? i do not think i initiated this little border dispute, so i feel you may wish to explain, rectify the situation, etc..."
(france to germany): you are a man of your word.
(france to england): yes, it is your channel, so i guess you deserve to control it. i wish no bad feelings between us.
(Ambassador Hisam-Al-Kent-Po-llard to the World) My Nation has been involved in a Bloody Revolution!!! At present I and I alone am the sole Representative of the Nation of Turkey!!! Many High Ranking members of the Political and Military Elite have been shot, including the Sultan himself....Only through the grace of Allah have I been spared!!!! My country is being stabilized and reorganized even as I send out this message...We intend to make strong our commitment of a Non-Aggressive policy which I hope will satisfy All..... May Allah forgive this bloodshed and steer us onto the True Path....not all the Way....
2000G Nobody likes Lawyers, Spring 1902
Austria Bob Osuch ROsuch4082 of aol.com F Trieste -ALBANIA, F Greece -BULGARIA SC A Vienna - GALICIA A SERBIA support F Greece-Bul sc, A BUDAPEST support A Serbia
England Rick Davis redavis914 of aol.com F Channel - BELGIUM F NORTH S F Channel - Belgium, A Yorkshire-WALES
France Scott Munson samunson71 of hotmail.com F Brest - CHANNEL, F Mid Atlantic - IRISH SEA, A Spain - GASCONY A Portugal - SPAIN, F MARSEILLES - Gulf of Lyon
Germany Mike Barno mpbarno of lightlink.com F Kiel-HOLLAND, F DENMARK holds, A MUNICH holds, A Berlin-KIEL A Belgium (dislodged) S F Kiel-Holland,
Italy Jim Burgess burgess of world.std.com A Tunis - NORTH AFRICA, F NAPLES - Tyrrhenian Sea F TYRRHENIAN SEA - Gulf of Lyon, A PIEDMONT - Marseilles
Russia Randy Ellis Bukowski1964 of aol.com A Sevastopol - CONSTANTINOPLE, F SWEDEN support A St Pete-Norway, A RUMANIA Support Aus A Serbia-Bulgaria, A St Petersburg-NORWAY F BLACK convoy A Sevastopol-Constantinople, A Moscow -WARSAW
Turkey Kent Pollard awargamer7 of hotmail.com A ARMENIA - CoAnstantinople via Russian F Black Sea, A bulgaria (destroyed) h, F Smyrna to EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN, F Constantinople - AEGEAN
Summer 1902 due date is Thursday, December 28
Fall 1902 due date is Wednesday, January 24
Press
(JESUS KNEW ABOUT LAWYERS): Änd He said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers, for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers." (Luke11:46)
Moscow to Ankara: Well, let's see. I lied to you by telling you that I'd convoy your army to Bulgaria. You lied to me when you told me you would get your orders in for Fall 1901. Well, sir, I guess we're even...
VIE-CON: You should go far in this game, and the sooner you start, the better
VIENNA: Authorities here have given orders to batten down the hatches in the face of the dreaded "Good Ol' Boys" alliance. An emergency meeting left the heads of state emerging from the palace conference room wearing broad smiles. When asked why spirits were so high in the face of the impending invasion, the Kaiser replied "Thank God the Turk is incompetent."
(Ambassador Hisam Kent Po-llard to the World) Allah has given my people a second chance.....and it shall not be wasted!!! I'f War is to come to my country, then let the Battle begin!!!
Boob to Kent-Bob-Boy: You walk and you talk, but not for long....
(A Desert Hermit who speaks alone) If one embraces Death, then there is little to fear in Life...
Boob to Scottie Boy: I meant it when I said that I didn't want to attack you..... fine, don't believe me. Take this!!
French dogs to the world: we may not be destined to live in this world long, but damn it man! let's have some fun while we're here!
Boob to Mykey: Boy, you sure know how to make your order screw up affect the strategy of some of your neighbors to THEIR detriment!
Frog to brit: sorry, but i'm trying to create opportunities here...
THE ADVENTURES OF JIM-BOB (part three): Jim-Bob paged through his tomes of literary efforts and reminisced to a happier time. A time when he fancied himself to be the author of important transcripts. A time long ago. Never one to be easily discouraged, Jim-Bob had enrolled at the John H. Masters School of Bad Writing and Plagiarism. He passed the entrance exam with flying colors, submitting a poorly written piracy of his favorite poet, Rod McKuen. Yes, old Jim-Bob had discovered his calling. He soared to the top of his class, culminating his education with his Masters thesis, a pitiful abortion entitled "Worms I Have Known". The Library of Congress would later dub his masterpiece the worst piece of literature ever written. He graduated in June of 1978, SUMMA CUM OBNOXIA.
(CHICAGO WASN'T THE ONLY THING CARL SANDBURG UNDERSTOOD): "Why does a hearse horse snicker, hauling a lawyer away?"
Boob to ALL the Lawyers: Where are you, chicken??
Russ Rusnak 1551 High Ridge Parkway Westchester, Il 60154
GM 708 409-0718 RRRRRUSNAK of AOL.com
Bob Osuch 19137 Midland Ave. Mokena, Il. 60448 AUSTRIA 708 478-3885 ROsuch4082 of aol.com
Rick Davis POB 1753 Santa Ynez, Ca. 93460 ENGLAND 831 678-4470 redavis914 of aol.com
Scott Munson PO Box 1042 Gardiner, Mt. 59030 FRANCE 800 828-9080 samunson71 of hotmail.com
Mike Barno 634 Dawson Hill Road Spencer, NY 14883 GERMANY 607 589-4906 mpbarno of lightlink.com
Jim Burgess 664 Smith Street Providence, RI 02908 ITALY 401 351-0287 burgess of world.std.com
Randy Ellis 3116 McGee, Apt 1N Kansas City, Mo. 64111 RUSSIA 816 931-8406 Bukowski1964 of aol.com
Kent Pollard PO Box 5726 Fresno, Ca. 93755-5726 TURKEY 559 243-0897 awargamer7 of hotmail.com
| THE ABYSSINIAN PRINCE GAMES SECTION |
``So I called up George and he called up Jim, I said let's make a deal.
He said he'd talk to him. Gonna start a church where you can save yourself,
You can make some noise, When you've got no choice...
You told me useful things, what people think of me, I guess I should thank you.
It's true, then I agree... I'm all alone, I've got no choice,
I'm all alone, I've got no choice."
From ``Got No Choice" by the incomparable Mark Cutler, from the CD Mark Cutler and Useful Things.
If you want to submit orders, press, or letters by E-Mail, you can find me through the Internet system at ``burgess of world.std.com''. If anyone has an interest in having an E-Mail address listed so people can negotiate with you by computer, just let me know. FAX orders to (401) 277-9904.
Standby lists:
Bruce Linsey, Mike Barno, Dick Martin, Brad Wilson, Jack McHugh, Glenn Petroski, Steve Emmert, Mark Kinney, Vince Lutterbie, Eric Brosius, Paul Rauterberg, Stan Johnson, Randy Ellis, Bob Acheson, Heath Gardner, Phil Reynolds, Paul Kenny, Dan Gorham, and John Schultz stand by for regular Diplomacy.
Phil Reynolds, Chris Trent, and Jim Sayers stand by for the Colonial Diplomacy game.
Brad Wilson, Jack McHugh, Phil Reynolds, Jim Sayers, and Kurt Ozog stand by for the Modern Diplomacy game.
Art Schleinkofer and Harold Reynolds stand by for Colonia. Help, more are needed for this game, maps are provided for free by me.... or by Harold Reynolds just ask.
Let me know if you want on or off these lists, especially OFF. Standbies get the szine for free and receive my personal thanks.
| GAME OPENING INFORMATION |
LAWYERS GAME: Steve Koehler, Stephen Agar and Steve Emmert already have signed up. We're searching for lawyers, contact me if you have any leads! We've invited Thomas Libby and Edwin Turnage. Plus I'm still looking for a current address for Mark Franceschini. Official standby for the game is David Hood.
Eric Ozog will be running Air-Sea Diplomacy some time in the future. You can contact Eric at ElfEric of Juno.com if you are interested in the game. I'll publish the rules closer to a time when Eric wants it to start.
REGULAR DIPLOMACY GAME OPENING: Why not? I find them cake to run, let's open another regular game too..... I especially encourage foreigners to join and others with E-Mail. James Alan Tretick and Don Williams are signed up.
The other Diplomacy oriented opening left that I am GMing in this szine is an opening for a game of Star Trek Diplomacy! See Stephen Agar's rules on his web page at (new location, and including that little typo on ``start trek''):
http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/resources/variants/rules/start_trek.htm
I decided how I will treat the Star systems and the ``revolving rings'' rule. I will keep the map as a ``code" and the real locations (which I will provide as names from Star Trek) will rotate through the coded spaces. This WILL make it easy to make up maps. The game start is open now, and since I want to STRONGLY encourage press, you can sign up and ``claim'' a race. Jack McHugh claims the Federation, Chris Trent claims the Ferengi, Stephen Agar claims the Borg, and Jody McCullough claims the Romulans. Buddy Tretick and Roland Sasseville, Jr., also are set to play. The other races in the game are the Klingons, Cardassians, Species 8472, and the Vulcans. We ONLY need two more, let's get this one going.
John Harrington is offering to guest GM a game of Office Politics. Any interest in that?? Let me or John know!
Also, I am going to design some postal rules for Devil Take the Hindmost, and Chris Lockheardt is pulling out of that opening too, so I need three players. Eoghan Barry is signed up. Postal rules from me will be forthcoming shortly, on my never ending to-do list. I will get them in SOON!
I also am taking names for the new NYEED and Breaking Away games. I am going BACK to the designer rules for Breaking Away that allow cards of greater than 15 to be replenished. I printed the original postal rules in Issue #239, if you need a copy and don't have that issue, just ask. Breaking Away has Jim Tretick signed up thus far.
Stephen Agar runs a British Diplomacy mailing list and has a new broader web postal gaming web site too at: http://www.postalgames.org.uk
and if you are interested, contact Stephen Agar at stephen of meurglys.com who still heads up The Diplomatic Pouch postal section or or join the Brit hobby mailing list at (aw, you guessed it, another new address): http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/about_this_site.htm
| FANTASTIC VOYAGE: 1999K, Regular Diplomacy |
THE DUE DATE FOR FALL 1904 IS JANUARY 13TH, 2001
Summer 1904
AUSTRIA (Rauterberg): has a GAL, a BOH, a BUD, a VEN, f TYH, a SIL, a APU.
ENGLAND (Biehl): has f IRI, f NAF, f MID, a BEL.
FRANCE (Davis): has a BRE, a MAR, f SPA(SC), a GAS.
GERMANY (Shreve): has a MUN, a PAR, a BER, f ENG, a PIC, a BUR.
ITALY (Tallman): has a NAP, a PIE.
RUSSIA (Tretick): has a LVN, a MOS, f NWG, a WAR.
TURKEY (Ellis): has a BUL, f ION, a ARM, a RUM, f BLA, a SEV.
Addresses of the Participants
AUSTRIA: Paul Rauterberg, 3116 W. American Dr., Greenfield, WI 53221, (414) 281-2339 (E-Mail)
trauterberg of wi.rr.com
ENGLAND: John Biehl, 8809 Delwood Drive, Delta, BRITISH COLUMBIA, V4C 4A1 CANADA,
(604) 589-9124 ($10); jeen of telus.net
FRANCE: Rick Davis, 1130 Hevrin Cr., Soledad, CA 93960.
(831) 678-4470
redavis914 of aol.com
GERMANY: Dwayne Shreve, 739 Union Church Road, Elkton, MD 21921 ($5)
dwayneshreve of yahoo.com
ITALY: Terry Tallman, 3805 SW Lake Flora Road, Port Orchard, WA 98367, (360) 874-0384 ($3)
terryt of sinclair.net
RUSSIA: Buddy Tretick, 9607 Conaty Circle, Spotsylvania, VA 22553, (540) 582-2356 (E-Mail)
bernietretick of earthlink.net
TURKEY: Randy Ellis, 3116 McGee, Apt. 1N, Kansas City, MO 64111, (816) 931-8406 ($10)
bukowski1964 of yahoo.com
Game Notes:
1) Despite rumors to the contrary, Buddy has NOT resigned.
2) Randy Ellis has changed his E-Mail address ever so slightly, so it matches up better to what I assume is his birth year. And Rick Davis has moved his postal address. I'm not sure if that phone number is still good, but I'll list it until Rick tells me not to do so. E-Mail for him remains the same.
3) Note Paul Rauterberg's new E-Mail address.
Press:
(ST PETERSBURG, JULY 27, 1904): Czar Nicholas II narrowly escaped assassination six days ago. It was initially believed that the assassination attempt had succeeded. As a result, several days passed where the government of Russia was paralyzed while local army detachments put down an armed insurrection. The `Decembrists', a radical anarchist league has claimed responsibility following the capture, deaths and subsequent executions of large numbers of the movement's adherents.
(BERLIN): The kaiser will be touring Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras from January 4th to the 18th. Traveling incognito by chicken bus and ferry, he will be surveying various Maya ruins and sampling a number of cervezas Centroamericanas.
| (Sometimes I Feel Like) FLETCHER CHRISTIAN: 1999Cgh013, Colonia VIIb Diplomacy |
THE DUE DATE FOR WINTER 1755 IS JANUARY 13TH, 2001
THE DUE DATE FOR SPRING 1756 IS FEBRUARY 3RD, 2001
Fall 1755
AUSTRIA (Prosnitz): a manaus-MATTO GROSSO, a vienna-VENICE, f south pacific ocean-CORAL SEA,
f ricefe-BAHIA, f IONIAN-eastern mediterranean, a peru-BOLIVIA, a burgundy-TOULON,
a bosnia-BULGARIA, f SAMOA h, a bavaria-RHINE, f GREECE S a bosnia-bulgaria,
a AMAZON S a peru-bolivia, f NEW ZEALAND-tasman sea, a papal states-SAVOY,
a SWISSE S a papal states-savoy, a VENEZUELA h, f LIGURIAN SEA S a burgundy-toulon,
f ECUADOR h.
CHINA (Acheson): f amoy-EAST CHINA SEA, f taiwan-SOUTH CHINA SEA, a KASHMIR-mahratta,
a TIBET S a nepal, f SEA OF JAPAN S f east china sea-japan, a nanking-SZECHUAN,
f east china sea-JAPAN, a chinghai-WUHAN, a burma-bengal (d r:laos,otb),
a NEPAL S a kashmir-mahratta, a siberia-MANCHURIA,
f SEA OF OKHOTSK S f east china sea-japan.
ENGLAND (Power): f GULF OF GUINEA C a angola-ghana, a siam-BURMA, f irish sea-EAST
ATLANTIC OCEAN, f north atlantic ocean-HUDSON BAY, f ANDAMAN SEA S a siam-burma,
a ASHANTI S a angola-ghana, a antwerp-FLANDERS, a benin-FEZAN,
a paraguay-brazil (d r:argentina,otb), f BAY OF BENGAL S RUSSIAN f west indian ocean-goa,
f grand banks-QUEBEC, f east atlantic ocean-CENTRAL ATLANTIC OCEAN, f ENGLISH CHANNEL
S a antwerp-flanders, f SW ATLANTIC OCEAN S a paraguay-brazil
a congo-ANGOLA, a bolivia-CHILE, a angola-GHANA, f CEYLON S RUSSIAN
f south indian ocean-west indian ocean, f HAGUE h, f central atlantic ocean-SURINAM.
FRANCE (Alme): a ONTARIO S a yukon-manitoba, a VOLTA-dakar,
a flanders S a savoy-burgundy (d ann), a savoy-BURGUNDY, f vancouver-oregon
(d r:gulf of alaska,alaska,otb), f BRITTANY-bordeaux, a ohio S a yukon-manitoba
(imp; d r:missouri,massachusetts,otb), f ghana-dakar (d ann), a toulon-bordeaux (d ann),
a SAHARA-timbuktu, a yukon-MANITOBA, a PARIS S a savoy-burgundy, a alaska-yukon (nsu).
NETHERLANDS (O'Donnell): f ARAFURA SEA h, f TASMAN SEA h.
OTTOMAN (Johnson): f GULF OF ADEN-ethiopia, f guam-central pacific ocean (d ann),
a ARMENIA-caucasus, a suez-EGYPT, f ARABIAN SEA-somali sea,
f BLACK SEA S f bulgaria(ec), f VLADIVOSTOK h, a afghanistan-PUNJAB, a egypt-SUDAN,
f RED SEA S a egypt-sudan, f bulgaria(ec) h (d r:istanbul,otb), a kazakstan-PERSIA,
a URAL-kiev, f libya-eastern mediterranean (d ann), f WAKE-central pacific ocean.
PORTUGAL (Stimmel): f CANARIES S f azores, a matto grosso-PARAGUAY,
f goa S RUSSIAN f west indian ocean (d r:nizam,circars,otb), a MAHRATTA-kashmir,
f MID-ATLANTIC OCEAN-sw atlantic ocean, f AZORES S f canaries, a manitoba-VANCOUVER,
a OREGON S a manitoba-vancouver, a BHUTAN-nepal,
a BRAZIL S a matto grosso-paraguay, f IFNI S f canaries.
RUSSIA (Rauterberg): f mozambique-NATAL, f japan-WEST PACIFIC OCEAN,
a ST.PETERSBURG-moscow, a CRIMEA S a romania, a PRUSSIA S a hanover,
f south indian ocean-WEST INDIAN OCEAN, f north pacific ocean-HAWAII, f west indian
ocean-GOA, f sweden-NORWAY, a KIEV-moscow, a CAUCASUS-armenia, a ROMANIA S
AUSTRIAN a bosnia-bulgaria, a HANOVER h, a BENGAL S PORTUGUESE a bhutan-nepal,
a kalahari-MOZAMBIQUE, f norway-BARENTS SEA.
SPAIN (Partridge): f florida-SARGASSO SEA, f manila-SUBIC BAY, f SOMALI SEA S
f somalia-gulf of aden, a LEON-bordeaux, a ARAGON S AUSTRIAN f ligurian sea-toulon (nso),
f SOMALIA-gulf of aden, f SOLOMON SEA S f polynesia-guam, a TAUREG S a numidia-timbuktu,
f CALIFORNIA S PORTUGUESE f oregon, a kenya-NUBIA, f polynesia-GUAM,
f EAST PACIFIC OCEAN-wake, a lagos-LISBON, f MOROCCO S f western mediterranean,
f PHILIPPINE SEA S f manila-subic bay, a ETHIOPIA-sudan, a louisiana-OHIO,
a numidia-TIMBUKTU, a TUNIS S a sudan-libya, a VIRGINIA S a louisiana-ohio,
a sudan-LIBYA, f WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN S f morocco, f TARAWA h.
Supply Center Chart
| AUSTRIA (Prosnitz): | BUD,VIE,TRI,TAH,ven,bav,bel, | (has 18, bld 4) |
| NAP,vza,col,nwz,pps,fij,sav,ecu,peru,gre,sam,bah,bol,tou,bul |
| CHINA (Acheson): | PEK,WUH,XIA,AMO,tib,tai,NAN, | (has 11 or 12, bld 2(r:otb) or 1) |
| sin,jap,manch,mon,kor,nep |
| ENGLAND (Power): | NIG,MLA,EDI,LON,kam,sia,ire, | (has 19 or 20, bld 4(r:otb) or 3) |
| jav,gab,sum,con,hag,fez,ant,uga,arg,bur,cey,togo,sur,que,gha,ang |
| FRANCE (Alme): | PAR,DAK,BDX,mas,ont,ala, | (has 7 or 8 or 9, bld 1(2r:otb) or rem 1) |
| vol,manit |
| NETHERLANDS (O'Donnell): | MEL | (has 2, rem 1) |
| OTTOMAN (Johnson): | IZM,JER,BAG,IST,persia,egy, | (has 12 or 13, even(r:otb) or rem 1) |
| afg,yem,wak,oms,vla,sud |
| PORTUGAL (Stimmel): | BRA,mah,azo,kha,ric,ore,ifn, | (has 10 or 11, rem 2(r:niz,otb) or 3)) |
| van,niz? |
| RUSSIA (Rauterberg): | MOS,KIE,CAP,STP,CRI,pol,moz, | (has 16, bld 3) |
| swe,mal,zam,den,rom,han,die,nwy,haw,goa,nat,ben |
| SPAIN (Partridge): | MAD,MEX,SOM,VAL,MAN,cal, | (has 23, bld 5) |
| tun,rab,bor,eth,hon,tex,nwg,cam,ken,lis,lag,flo, |
| lou,iwo,num,mor,tau,ohi,vir,gua,tar,tim |
| Neutral: | cub,niz? | (Total=136) |
Addresses of the Participants
AUSTRIA: Gene Prosnitz, 2600 Netherland Ave., Apt. 1116, Riverdale, NY 10463, (718) 601-8131 ($5)
ProsnitzE of aol.com
CHINA: Bob Acheson, 807-556 Laurier Ave., Ottawa, ONTARIO K1R 7X2, CANADA ($5)
racheson of magma.ca
ENGLAND: John Power, 8201 Featherhill Rd. #301, Perry Hall, MD 21128, (410) 933-8827 ($5)
natjohn2 of home.com or jrpower of bechtel.com
FRANCE: Hank Alme, 506 Paige Loop, Los Alamos, NM 87544
almehj of swcp.com
NETHERLANDS: Sean O'Donnell, 2219 Grafton Road, Grafton, OH 44044
sean_o_donnell of hotmail.com, seanside of snap.com
OTTOMAN: Stan Johnson, 2401 W. Southern Ave. #56, Tempe, AZ 85282, (602) 454-9356 ($5)
PORTUGAL: Robert Stimmel, Apt. #57, Casa de Sherry Apts., 2462 North Sycamore Blvd.,
Tucson, AZ 85712-2541, (520) 326-8369 ($5)
RUSSIA: Paul Rauterberg, 3116 W. American Dr., Greenfield, WI 53221, (414) 281-2339 (E-Mail)
trauterberg of wi.rr.com
SPAIN: Dave Partridge, 15 Woodland Drive, Brookline, NH 03033
rebhuhn of rocketmail.com
Game Notes:
1) Just a note: in the Spring, France tried to have F Vancouver support Army Yukon. That should have failed, since there is no way for a fleet to get to Yukon, but I missed it. Since it was not attacked, there was no effect.
2) It takes me a long time to adjudicate this, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. I hope I have everything right. If anyone has trouble with my conditionals on the Supply Center Chart, just ask. If Portugal retreats to Nizam, then Cuba will be the last Neutral Supply Center left and it looks like Spain is a fixin' to nab it next year.
Press:
(RUSSIA to OTTOMAN): Are you getting bored with this ridiculous war with me yet? You are due for rapid shrinkage, and I am SO sorry....
(MADRID): Bestowing great honor upon them, the Admiral Siesta of the Manila Fleet and General Snooze of the Kenyan Corp were invited to lead the annual running of the bulls. Unforunately it seems that someone spilled a cask of olive oil on the streets in front of them and both dignitaries were gored and trampled. Meanwhile, in other news, the permanent billets in Manila and Kenya were dismantled today as troops there prepared to move out as their new commanders issued the first movement orders seen this year.
(RUSSIA to CHINA): Are you getting bored with coddling the Sultan yet? He is hardly worth your trouble.
(NETHERLANDS-BOARD): As one of Netherlands' in Melbourne, our last holdings in the Pacific and our only defense of one fleet, we as a people have decided that we would rather be eliminated at peace then at war. Therefore our power has decided surrender. ((Sean, I'll let you do this, but.... you could have made it more exciting. You still have at least one more year to defend Melbourne.))
(SEAN-JIM): Sorry, but I can't find a way around my inevitable collapse. It is time to surrender. I wouldn't call a standby to cover my lone fleet it'll be pointless and a waste unless Austria and him decide to rebuild the Netherlands as a power to deal with the future. The chances of that is slim to none.
| SECRETS: 1999D, Regular Diplomacy |
THE DUE DATE FOR SPRING 1906 IS JANUARY 13TH, 2001
Winter 1905
ENGLAND (Sayers): bld f lon; has f LON, f NWG, f NTH, f BRE, f SKA, f SPA(SC).
FRANCE (Sasseville): rem f apu; has f WES, a PAR, a MAR.
GERMANY (Johnson): has a BER, a KIE, f HOL, a BUR, a BEL.
ITALY (Schultz): R a bud otb; has f ROM, a VEN, f TUN, f TYH,
a TRI.
RUSSIA (Trent): has a STP, f NWY, a WAR, a SIL, f DEN, a SWE, a SEV.
TURKEY (Munson): bld a con; has a CON, f ION, f ADR, f GRE, a ALB, f AEG,
a BUD, a SER.
Addresses of the Participants
ENGLAND: Jim Sayers, 15 Holdsworth Street, Woollahra 2025, AUSTRALIA ($10)
100233.513 of compuserve.com
FRANCE: Roland Sasseville, Jr., 38 Bucklin Street, Pawtucket, RI 02861, (401) 481-4280 ($3)
roland6 of home.com and ICQ: 40565030
GERMANY: Stan Johnson, 2401 W. Southern Ave. #56, Tempe, AZ 85282, (602) 454-9356
ITALY: John Schultz, PO Box 1322, Valparaiso, IN 46384, (219) 462-0474
RUSSIA: Chris Trent, 3536 Watt Avenue, #B205, Sacramento, CA 95821, (916) 489-6138 ($5)
chrisimaus98 of hotmail.com
TURKEY: Scott Munson, P.O. Box 1042, Gardiner, MT 59030, (406) 848-2102 ($5)
samunson71 of hotmail.com
Game Notes:
1) All quiet on the build and removal front....
Press:
No press! You should be ashamed, ashamed of yourselves!! Get busy!!!
| SADDAM HUSSEIN: 1999Arn42, Nuclear Yuppie Evil Empire Diplomacy - Black Hole Variant |
THE DUE DATE FOR FALL 1907 IS JANUARY 13TH, 2001
Summer 1907
AUSTRIA (McCullough): has f ALB, a SER; and nuked CON, ANK(2), GOB, DEN(2), GM(2).
ENGLAND (Weiss): has f NWG, f ENG, a WAL; and nuked NAP(2), ROM(2), POR, BRE, STP(2).
FRANCE (Reichert): has f MID, a GAS, a SPA; and nuked EDI, LVP, LON(2), ROM(2), NAP(2).
GERMANY (Schultz): has a PRU, a RUH, f HEL; and nuked STP(2), MOS(2), WAR, SEV(2), NWY.
ITALY (Gardner): has f ION, a TUS, a TYO; and nuked LON(2), PAR, BER(2), ANK(2), VIE.
RUSSIA (Barno): has f FIN, f RUM; and nuked GM(2), BUD, HOL, DEN(2).
TURKEY (S. Kenny): has f BLA, a BUL, a ARM; and nuked MOS(2), SEV(2), MUN, BER(2), KIE.
Addresses of the Participants
Sandy Kenny, 23 East Coulter Avenue, Collingswood, NJ 08108-1208
Jody McCullough, 1071 Brown Avenue, Lafayette, CA 94549-3153
jodymc of home.com
Richard Weiss, 2246 Gateway Oaks Dr. #307, Sacramento, CA 95833, (916) 924-7966
diplomat of higherquality.com
Sara Reichert, 20805 Margaret, Carson, CA 90745-1224
sarareichert of aol.com
John Schultz, PO Box 1322, Valparaiso, IN 46384, (219) 462-0474
Heath Gardner, 3017 Mayview Road, Raleigh, NC 27607, (919) 834-4832
hgardner of prodigy.net or TankYouVeddyMuch of aol.com
Mike Barno, 634 Dawson Hill Road, Spencer, NY 14883
mpbarno of lightlink.com
| Current Standings |
| 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | TOTAL |
| SANDY KENNY | 4 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 16 |
| JODY MCCULLOUGH | 3 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 17 |
| RICHARD WEISS | 4 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 15 |
| SARA REICHERT | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 14 |
| JOHN SCHULTZ | 0 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 19 |
| HEATH GARDNER | 5 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 11 |
| MIKE BARNO | 0 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 19 |
| Black Holed | 15 | 15 | 16 | 11 | 16 | 11 | 22 | 106 |
| Neutral | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 9 |
| Total | 34 | 34 | 34 | 34 | 34 | 34 | 22 | 226 |
| Times GM Nuked | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 14 |
| Ind. Prison Off. | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| Greenland | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Iceland | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Kurt Ozog | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Beale St., SF | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Game Notes:
1) Unless superceded below, all rules are as in regular Diplomacy.
2) The game lasts seven game years (measured Winter to Winter, 1901 to 1907), with each player rotating through the powers in alphabetical order (AEFGIRT), playing each power for one game year. At the end of each game year, the game board and positions are fully reset to the initial positions.
3) Initial Positions: All units and supply center ownership are as in regular Diplomacy, except that each player has five nuclear weapons (except for Russia which has only four nuclear weapons).
4) Firing Nuclear Weapons: Each nuclear weapon (nuke) is fired at a specific province (land or sea) according to orders submitted by their owners immediately FOLLOWING the Spring moves (nuke orders are submitted with those moves and cannot be made conditional on any outcomes or moves in the Spring turn). Nuclear weapon strikes destroy the supply center in the targeted province, if any, as well as any units in that province following the Spring turn.
5) Effects of Nuclear Weapons (Black Hole Variant): The effects of the nuclear weapon strike are equivalent to those in the Black Hole variant designed by Conrad von Metzke (Conrad is the unofficial ombudsman for adjudication of paradoxes caused by this rule). Any provinces adjacent to a nuke strike province are now themselves adjacent. The effect of nuke strikes on adjacent provinces creates a cumulative effect such that all provinces adjacent to an a contiguous string of nuke strike provinces are all simultaneously adjacent. This effect applies to moves, supports, retreats, and convoys. Coastal provinces that are nuked transmit their coastal status to all adjacent provinces, which also is cumulative in effect. These coastal status changes do not interfere with any army supports, retreats, or moves between two land provinces separated by a contiguous string of nuke strike provinces.
6) Victory Conditions: The game ends at the end of the seventh winter adjustment season. Victory points are garnered by cumulatively adding supply centers owned at the end of each of the seven game years. The player with the most victory points at the end of the game wins. Ties are broken by sequentially comparing victory points owned in 1907 followed by each preceding year. Players earning precisely the same number of victory points in each of the seven game years remain tied.
7) I am taking reservations for the Edward Teller game, which will be the next NYEED 7x7 game in this series. Join THE most fun game in all Dipdom. Harry Andruschak is on board.
Press:
(ANDRUSCHAK-GM: TAP-239 with a deadline of 25 November arrived on 20 November. I am, of course, pleased that you will be using my suggestion for the name of the next NYEED. Sign me up. I do have a two-week vacation to Egypt coming up in February, but that should not be too much of a distraction.
(JOHN THE BAPTIST MAJOR to MITTERAND): Caught ya with ya pants down (ole boy. Tough luck ole chap. Better luck next millennium.
THACKERY DACKERY DOC, THE DOC RAN OUT THE CLOCK - FATHER TIME): Nyeh, nyah, you didn't catch me. I have three units where the sun never sets ready to wreak havoc on the civilized world. Since France doesn't fall into that category and can't win anyway, beware those who can.
(JOHN BOY to BARNO): Foiled again - playing second fiddle to the Master.
(ALLEN IVERSON to X-RATED (The rapper with 4 CD's released since being incarcerated for murder)): Lend me some lyrics.
(JOHN BOY to BOOB): This ain't that jumping through nukes thing, is it? ((You would know better than I.... sorry, couldn't resist ;-) ))
(HARRY ANDRUSCHAK-RICK DESPER): I note your comments on European cities. I have just returned from a vacation that included 3 nights in Vienna and 1 night in Amsterdam. I had a great time in Vienna, helped out by not caring one way or another about the politics of Austria. I went to a couple of Palaces, a couple of Museums, and spent an entire afternoon in the Prater, which included a ride on the famous Ferris wheel. Alas, I was unable to obtain any last-minute tickets to the opera or symphony. But we did tour the Vienna State Opera House and saw the backstage preparations for THE NUTCRACKER. As for Amsterdam, we only stayed one day, so I saw only the Van Gogh Museum.
(SANDY BEACHES - MIKEY LIKES IT): Beware the tides of Rumania. Flee to Sweden like all good pilots from Catch 22.
(HARRY-CAROL ROBERTS): I am starting a campaign fund for your race for Florida Governor next election. Way to handle the recount. I love those politics.
(BLACK MIKE to BIG AL): Way to steal the elections baby.
(HARRY ANDRUSCHAK-ALLEGED WEISS): Well, somebody wrote ``if you can still read after wanton drug doing in Europe" and my first reaction is ``Oh, lighten up, will ya". OK, it is true that in Amsterdam they have these coffee shops that also serve a variety of plants to smoke. Rest assured that, as a sober member of AA since Saint Patrick's Day of 1984, I did not bother with that stuff. In any case, somebody like you might be more interested in the Red Light District.
(RICHARD to ALL): Great fun. Thank you.
WINNIE THE POOH CHURCH UP THE HILL - CATHERINE): I think the horse fell on you again.
(RICHARD to JIMBOOB AND THE FREETHINKER SARA): I am an agnostic atheist. If I'd only known your religious views earlier - I would have nuked the GM more and you less, Madam Freethinker. Power to the Freethinkers right on. And, to those who quote Barlow/Weir - we are about to feel a touch of gray, all of us. (They always took turns as you know).
(BOOB to RICHARD): Oh, yeah, go ahead and nuke the Christians, why don't you?? Nuking me serves no useful purpose.... ;-)
(HARRY ANDRUSCHAK-GM): This round seems to be the poorest as far as use of Black Holes goes. Turkey can attack Sweden with his units in the Black Sea and Armenia using the 4 Black Holes of Sevastopol, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Norway. Both Italy and Germany can also attack Sweden using the 4 Black Holes of Munich, Berlin, Kiel, and Denmark. However, it may be that Germany will use his units to prevent England from taking Belgium.
| COME AND HAVE A GO (If You Think You're Hard Enough): 1998V, Diplomacy |
THE DUE DATE FOR FALL 1907 IS JANUARY 13TH, 2001
Summer 1907
AUSTRIA (Pollard): R a rum-BUD; has f ADR, a WAR, a MOS, a SER, a UKR, f BUL(SC),
a LVN, a BUD.
ENGLAND (Tallman): R f nth-YOR; has f YOR, f GOB, f NWG.
FRANCE (Morris): has a MAR, f ENG, a SIL, f NTH, a RUH, f HOL, a BUR, a WAL.
GERMANY (Sayers): has a MUN, a BER.
ITALY (Munson): has f ION, a TRI, a PIE, f AEG, f CON, f EDI, f MID,
a TYO, a VIE.
RUSSIA (Reynolds): has a STP.
TURKEY (Barno): has f BLA, a RUM.
Addresses of the Participants
AUSTRIA: Kent Pollard, PO Box 5726, Fresno, CA 93755-5726 ($4)
ENGLAND: Terry Tallman, 3805 SW Lake Flora Road, Port Orchard, WA 98367, (360) 874-0384 ($3)
terryt of sinclair.net
FRANCE: Scott Morris, 12110 Shelbyville Rd., Louisville, KY 40243, (502) 893-8260 ($5)
Scottm221 of aol.com
GERMANY: Jim Sayers, 15 Holdsworth Street, Woollahra 2025, AUSTRALIA ($10)
100233.513 of compuserve.com
ITALY: Scott Munson, P.O. Box 1042, Gardiner, MT 59030, (406) 848-2102 ($5)
samunson71 of hotmail.com
RUSSIA: Phil Reynolds, 2896 Oak Street, Sarasota, FL 34237, (813) 953-6952
preyno of yahoo.com
TURKEY: Mike Barno, 634 Dawson Hill Road, Spencer, NY 14883 ($5)
mpbarno of lightlink.com
Game Notes:
1) The AIF draw is rejected.
Press:
(MIKE to WILDERNESS FANS): People are joking that ``If Marc Racicot becomes secretary of the interior, he's planning on hunting in the [Yellowstone] park next year." Yeah, if the election debacle finally goes Bush's way, they can license Helen's buffalo-burger stands everywhere from the Alaska wildlife refuges to Jeb Bush's governor's mansion in Tallahassee.
(ENGLAND to ITALY): All is forgiven, just get the heck out of Dodge/Edi.
(ENGLAND to FRANCE): All is forgiven, get the heck out of England.
(WILD TURKEY to CORED AUSTRIA-HUNGARY): The Turkish people and their representatives have more memory than a gnat, and thus have not forgotten Austro-Hungarian perfidy in the violation of our erstwhile alliance. Nor have walls been cleansed of the blood from years of your policy involving increased Death status.
| SO GOOD IT HURTS: 1998 P, Regular Diplomacy |
THE DUE DATE FOR WINTER 1907 IS JANUARY 13TH, 2001
THE DUE DATE FOR SPRING 1908 IS FEBRUARY 3RD, 2001
Fall 1907
AUSTRIA (K. Ozog): f NAP S f aeg-ion, a tri-VEN, a VIE S a ser-tri, f aeg-ION,
a APU S a tri-ven, a ser-TRI.
ENGLAND (James): a BRE-par, f MID S a por-spa, f WES S a por-spa,
f ENG-bel, a por-SPA.
FRANCE (Kinney): f MAR-spa(sc), a spa-GAS.
GERMANY (Goesle): f kie-BAL, a boh-SIL, f nth-LON, f NWY S f ska-nth, a tyo-BOH,
a PAR-bre, a ven S AUSTRIAN a apu-rom (d r:pie,tyo,otb), f ska-NTH,
f edi-CLY, a WAL S f nth-lon, a BEL h.
ITALY (Rauterberg): f TUS S a rom, a ROM h.
RUSSIA (Rusnak): a GAL S AUSTRIAN a vie, a STP-nwy, a SMY S f bla-con,
a rum-UKR, f bla-CON, a BUL S f bla-con.
TURKEY (Emmert): f TUN-ion.
Supply Center Chart
| AUSTRIA (K. Ozog): | vie,bud,tri,ser,rum,gre,nap, | (has 6, bld 1(PLAYS ONE SHORT)) |
| ven |
| ENGLAND (James): | bre,por,spa | (has 5, rem 2) |
| FRANCE (Kinney): | mar | (has 2, rem 1) |
| GERMANY (Goesle): | ber,kie,mun,den,hol,par,swe, | (has 10 or 11, bld 2(r:otb) or 1) |
| bel,lvp,lon,edi,nwy |
| ITALY (Rauterberg): | rom | (has 2, rem 1) |
| RUSSIA (Rusnak): | mos,war,sev,ank,smy,bul,con,stp | (has 6, bld 2) |
| TURKEY (Emmert): | tun | (has 1, even) |
| Neutral: | none | (Total=34) |
Addresses of the Participants
AUSTRIA: Kurt Ozog, 391 Wilmington Drive, Bartlett, IL 60103, (630) 837-2813
heyday6 of yahoo.com
ENGLAND: Drew James, 8356 Radian Path, Baldwinsville, NY 13027-9357, (315) 652-1956 ($5)
kjames01 of twcny.rr.com
FRANCE: Mark Kinney, 4820 Westmar Terrace #6, Louisville, KY 40222, (502) 412-3079
alberich of iglou.com
GERMANY: Warren Goesle, 3907 Cedar Ridge, #1B, Indianapolis, IN 46235 ($5)
gozcorp of iquest.net
ITALY: Paul Rauterberg, 3116 W. American Dr., Greenfield, WI 53221, (414) 281-2339 ($5)
prosit of execpc.com
RUSSIA: Russ Rusnak, 1551 Highridge Avenue, Westchester, IL 60154-3428 ($5)
RRRRRUSNAK of aol.com
TURKEY: Steve Emmert, 1752 Grey Friars Chase, Virginia Beach, VA 23456-5436, (757) 471-1842 ($4)
steve.emmert of home.com
Game Notes:
1) Wow, lots of blood this turn!
Press:
(ENGLAND to FRANCE / TURKEY / ITALY): Who will be gone first? Who will still be alive when Germany gets to 18? I think Turkey has the best chance as he is furthest from the steamroller.
(TURKEY to AUSTRIA): Finish me off? And why, exactly, would they go out of their way to do that? I mean other than my oh-so-valuable dot.
(GERMANY to RUSSIA/AUSTRIA): Ok, I found out who was lying, and who I owed the apology to. I think.
(STEVE to JIM-BOB): I figure all the Dipping lawyers are intimidated by the level of the competition and are unwilling to sign up for a butt-whippin' by joining The Professional Division.
(BOOB to STEVE): I have had some trouble recruiting them to sign up for sure. I think I can convince Edwin Turnage to get in now. Apparently, he's a College Football freak. I figured this issue should arrive on his doorstep right after the Bowl games, when he is weak..... and Bush should have chosen his cabinet and Edwin will be trying to drink away the pain of not being chosen.
(GERMANY to TURKEY): Secretary of Scotch-making doesn't appeal to you?
(ENGLAND to FRANCE): Well, I finally got both Portugal and Spain. I never thought I would lose everything else in the process.
(SPIDER ALUMNUS to ORANGE ALUMNUS): Richmond has announced it's leaving the Colonial Athletic Association, effective next summer, to join the Atlantic 10. The Colonial is so happy about that, they have banned us from the postseason basketball tournament, so the only way we can make the NCAA's is to earn an at-large berth. Too bad; we're predicted to be the best team in the conference, with every player (not just starters; everybody) returning from last year's 18-12 team. 22 wins isn't out of the question, but it will take some doing. I'm frankly hoping we can play the Bluebellies (UNC) in the finals of the holiday tournament we play in this year. (Hey, it's okay to dream, right?) At least we've got size; the smallest starter is 6-4, and everyone else is at least 6-7.
(BOOBISH BASKETBALL BRILLIANT BON-MOTS): I think the A-10 will be better for having Richmond. Another slam dunk success for the best Conference Commissioner who isn't a man, Linda Bruno, and might be one of the best overall. The A-10 is very down in basketball this year, but will parlay that into improvements next year. One feels a bit sorry for John Chaney.... I only wish the best for Temple playing it ``their way''. The Big East also is a bit down (despite the high rankings of some of the teams at the moment), but you can count on Boston College MAKING the Tournament and the local PC Friars ending up as one of those 65th teams just missing it. Both teams have been building up really impressive team play outings that will surprise those ranked Big East teams when January comes. Both teams are benefiting from players returning from injuries. John Lenihan for PC, being the point guard and leader, was the biggest of those losses. Looks like another fun college basketball season upcoming....
(CANADIENS FAN, WITH A BAG OVER HIS HEAD): When does baseball season start?
(LONDON to WELLINGTON): Hold on, you are your country's last best hope.
(EMMERT to RUSNAK): Are YOU still around? Hey, say something; I want to see if it's true that you only lie when your lips move.
(JAMES to THE NON-GERMANS): Come on, you can coordinate better than that. Did anyone at least ask the Turk to stay out of the Ionian so the Austrians and Russians can get out of Turkey? If not, why not?
| RACE FOR MILLENNIAL APOCALYPSE: Breaking Away, V2.3 |
THE DUE DATE FOR TURN 14 IS JANUARY 13TH, 2001
| Turn 13 |
| 113 (replenish with a 3): | March Hare |
| 112 (no replenishment): | None |
| 111 (no replenishment): | None |
| 110 (no replenishment): | None |
| 109 (no replenishment): | None |
| 108 (replenish with a 3): | White Rabbit |
| 107 (replenish with a 4): | Matthew |
| 106 (no replenishment): | None |
| 105 (no replenishment): | None |
| 104 (replenish with a 3): | Alfred the Great |
| 103 (no replenishment): | None |
| 102 (no replenishment): | None |
| 101 (no replenishment): | None |
| 100 (replenish with a 3): | Broke Leg Meg |
| 99 (replenish with a 4): | Barkin' Larkin' |
| 98 (no replenishment): | None |
| 97 (replenish with a 3): | John Logie-Baird |
| 96 (no replenishment): | None |
| 95 (replenish with a 3): | Mark |
| 94 (replenish with a 4): | Luke, John, Sir Isaac Newton, Darrell B, Pestilence |
| 93 (replenish with a 9): | Pollution |
| 92 (replenish with a 10): | Mock Turtle, Shane the Chain |
| 91 (replenish with a 12): | Will Shakespeare, Mad Hatter |
| 90 (replenish with a 14): | War |
| 89 (replenish with a 15): | Darrell C, Darrell A |
-S-P-R-I-N-T- -F-I-N-I-S-H- -L-I-N-E-
| 80 (no replenishment): | None |
| 79 (no replenishment): | None |
| 78 (replenish with a 3): | Chasin' Jason |
| 77 (no replenishment): | None |
| 76 (replenish with a 3): | Famine |
| 65 (replenish with a 3): | Buhrt |
Addresses of the Participants - Their Team and Their Cards
(x) is played card this turn
TEAM 1 (The Wrecking Crew): Harry Andruschak, PO Box 5309, Torrance, CA 90510-5309, (310) 835-9202
(1 point) sarareichert of aol.com
| Team Leader: Thanatos |
| A: War | 3 3 14 (6) |
| B: Pollution | 6 3 9 (9) |
| C: Pestilence | 7 3 4 (12) |
| D: Famine | 3 3 3 (3) |
TEAM 2 (The Evangelists): Eric Brosius, 53 Bird Street, Needham MA 02492
(18 points) 72060.1540 of CompuServe.COM
| A: Matthew | 3 12 6 4 (15) |
| B: Mark | 6 8 3 (4) |
| C: Luke | 15 4 4 (7) |
| D: John | 12 8 4 (7) |
TEAM 3 (Brit Pack): John Harrington, 1 Churchbury Close, Enfield, Middlesex, EN1 3UW UK
(19 points) johnh of fiendishgames.demon.co.uk, fiendish of operamail.com
| A: Alfred the Great | 3 9 6 3 (12) |
| B: Sir Isaac Newton | 9 8 4 (7) |
| C: Will Shakespeare | 3 3 12 (3) |
| D: John Logie-Baird | 4 4 3 (4) |
TEAM 4 (Amateur League Inciting Cycle Exchange): Tom Howell, 1011 West 18th Street #1,
(28 points) Port Angeles, WA 98363-7413; off-the-shelf of olympus.net
| A: White Rabbit | 3 12 3 3 (14) |
| B: March Hare | 8 4 3 (15) |
| C: Mad Hatter | 14 4 12 (3) |
| D: Mock Turtle | 10 3 10 (4) |
TEAM 5 (The Mainiacs): David Partridge, 15 Woodland Drive, Brookline, NH 03033
(7 points) rebhuhn of rocketmail.com
| A: Darrell A | 3 8 10 15 (3) |
| B: Darrell B | 9 10 4 (8) |
| C: Darrell C | 15 10 15 (3) |
| D: Buhrt | 3 3 3 (3) |
TEAM 6 (The Flat Wheel Society): John Schultz, PO Box 1322, Valparaiso, IN 46384, (219) 462-0474
(5 points)
| A: Broke Leg Meg | 6 3 8 3 (9) |
| B: Shane the Chain | 4 3 10 (4) |
| C: Barkin' Larkin' | 3 4 4 (6) |
| D: Chasin' Jason | 3 3 3 (3) |
Game Notes:
1) When I add your replenishment card from now on, it always will be the LAST card in your list.
Press:
(ANDRUSCHAK-WORLD): MAYFAIR GAMES INC., whose web site is http://www.coolgames.com/, has licensed EDEN STUDIOS to produce a computer game version of IRON DRAGON. This is a fun game. Visit http://www.irondragon.org for more information, updates, and to download a demo version.
(DARRELL to JOHN): Nice to see you again. Your turn to move along I think?
(RABBIT to HARE): Wait for me! I'm supposed to take first!
(TFWS): At least I can say I've been running with the big boys for little while.
(BUHRT to MARK): What was that? Where are you? All I can see is a dust cloud. Just a minute, got to stop for another beer.
| FEAR AND WHISKEY: 1998Ers31, Modern Diplomacy |
THE DUE DATE FOR SUMMER 2004 IS JANUARY 13TH, 2001
THE DUE DATE FOR FALL 2004 IS FEBRUARY 3RD, 2001
Spring 2004
BRITAIN (Schultz): f NOR S a lap-swe, f NWG-nth, a lap-SWE, f EDI S f nwg-nth,
f BAL S a lap-swe, f LON S f nwg-nth, f NTH-eng.
EGYPT (J. O'Donnell): f ALE-lbs, f ION-eme, a SYR S a irk, a TUN S SPANISH a alg-lib,
f auv S SPANISH f bar-gol (d ann), a IRK h, f AEG-izm.
GERMANY (Rauterberg): f ber-BHM, a fra-SAX, f DEN-swe, f swe-FIN,
f BEL-eng, a mun-AUS, a pic-ALS, a BOR S a par-auv, f HOL-bel,
a lit-lat (d r:gda,otb), a CZE S a mun-aus, a WAR S a kra, a par-AUV, a SWI S a mun-aus,
f HEL h, a LYO S a par-auv, a KRA S a war.
ITALY (Ozog): f gol-TYS, f MAL S f gol-tys, a cro-SER, a aus-VEN, f LIG S a mon-mar,
a PIE S a mon-mar, f LBS S f izm-eme, a mon-MAR, a rom-NAP, f IZM-eme.
SPAIN (S. O'Donnell): f bar-GOL, f mor-ALG, a alg-LIB, a mar h (d ann),
f WME S f bar-gol, a NAV S a mad-bar, a mad-BAR.
UKRAINE (Partridge): a ode-POD, a vol-CRP, f wbs-IST, a ANK S f wbs-ist,
a ada-ANA, a IRN S a arm-ada, a mos-BIE, a pod-SLO, a LAT S a bie-lit, f ebs-WBS,
a gor-MOS, a bie-LIT, f GRE-ion, a arm-ADA, a rum-BUL, a HUN S a pod-slo.
Addresses of the Participants
BRITAIN: John Schultz, PO Box 1322, Valparaiso, IN 46384, (219) 462-0474
EGYPT: Jeff O'Donnell, 402 Middle Ave., Elyria, OH 44035-5728, (440) 322-2920 ($4)
FRANCE: Harry Andruschak, PO Box 5309, Torrance, CA 90510-5309, (310) 835-9202 ($5)
Tapmdfrance of aol.com
GERMANY: Paul Rauterberg, 3116 W. American Dr., Greenfield, WI 53221, (414) 281-2339 (E-Mail)
prosit of execpc.com
ITALY: Eric Ozog, PO Box 1138, Granite Falls, WA 98252-1138, (360) 691-4264 ($4)
ElfEric of Juno.com
POLAND: Roland Sasseville, Jr., 38 Bucklin Street, Pawtucket, RI 02861, (401) 481-4280 ($5)
roland6 of home.com and ICQ: 40565030
RUSSIA: Randy Ellis, 3116 McGee, Apt. 1N, Kansas City, MO 64111, (816) 931-8406
surfeit of swbell.net
SPAIN: Sean O'Donnell, 2219 Grafton Road, Grafton, OH 44044 ($5)
sean_o_donnell of hotmail.com, seanside of snap.com
TURKEY: Kent Pollard, 1541 W. San Jose, Fresno, CA 93711, (209) 225-0957 ($10)
UKRAINE: Dave Partridge, 15 Woodland Drive, Brookline, NH 03033 ($8)
rebhuhn of rocketmail.com
Game Notes:
1) Check out the Modern Dip web page at: http://www.modernhof.webprovider.com/
Press:
(THE MEKONS QUOTE OF THE MONTH): ``I drank and drugged myself in the taverns and the alleys; I don't know what I have inside me, something wants to come out; I absolutely had to leave, I was sick of violent scenes; they don't mean a fucking thing to me. Flowers of flesh in starry fields uncurled, stretched out alone; I'll take the smell of your skin back to my room. Where do murderers go man? Who's to doom when the judge is up for trial? I cannot tell a lie; I cannot tell the truth.'' From ``Lyric'' off of Curse of the Mekons.
(PAUL to STARTREK MAN): Isn't it the Romulans who have the cloaking device, or have the Klingons been advancing behind my back?
(JEFF to JIM): I hate to complain, but last move's first Star Trek log was a re-run and the log that you had missed from the previous move is still missing. In a way, having a re-run makes this a little like the real Star Trek. ((Hyork, hyork, hyork!!!)) Is it possible that the person doing your data entry is from Palm Beach, Florida?....
(BOOB to JEFF): Impossible!!! I've never been to Palm Beach!!!
(JIM-BOB to JEFF): Seriously though, I'm not sure what happened, and I can't seem to find the one that was missing. It really wasn't intentional and I'll try to keep up in the future. Sure you don't want to send the press via Sean's E-Mail ;-) No, I guess not.... then again, I COULD be ``Q''!!
(UKRAINE - GERMANY): In response to your plea for help we are sending a top notch force of accountants and tax lawyers to straighten out your mess. Our first assessment is that you have over diversified and should divest yourself of some of your acquisitions. We will assist you in implementing this new business plan to the best of our ability.
(KIRK to STARFLEET): Captain's Log Supplemental; whatever that means. We are preparing for our next battle, but we have another problem. We have been getting interference from ``Q'' again. He blocked my Captain's Log to Starfleet two cycles ago and when I attempted to reinitiate the message and send it back to fleet headquarters, he changed it to a previously submitted log. I can't keep copies of these logs because we are saving our energy reserves for only essential systems (I don't have a copier). I'm thinking the best thing for me to do now is resubmit the log.
Mr. Spock stole a cloaked Klingon scout ship along with Mr. Checkoff. And a few guys wearing red shirts flew to the mouth of the wormhole to gather intelligence on Romulan/Ferengi maneuvers. Spock forgot to put his bifocals on and accidentally de-cloaked the ship, allowing the Romulans to capture him and everyone on board. Rumor has it they are torturing Spock by making him go without sleep while forcing him to watch pro wrestling 24 hours a day. The idea is to break Spock into revealing Federation long range tactical plans. Of course most of our long range plans have phrases like ``we surrender'' and/or ``Scotty, get us out of here'', so I'm not too worried. The Romulans have also apparently destroyed Voyager although it wouldn't surprise me if Captain Janeway got the crew out. Too bad, I really wanted to do, I mean meet, 7 of 9. Kirk out...
(ROME): Take that, you nasty O'Donnells you!
(UKRAINE - SPAIN): Was this the him you were referring to?
(THE GREATER REICH to SPAIN): Balance of power. That's the key.
(SPANISH NATIONAL NEWS): The modern war has evoloped across the world with little means of slowing its tide while the three super powers of Italy, Germany, and Ukraine make way to conquering all of Europe. The people of Spain rejoice over the takings of Mar from the Italian warlord Eric Ozog and a allied victory in African soil of Tunisia of the complete obliteration of two Italian forces.
(ITALY-SPAIN & EGYPT): I'm not worried and am able to scavenge for myself. Marseilles will slip through your fingers and there will soon be Egyptian depots available to ease my hunger.
(SPANISH TRIBUNE): General Mark Phillips commandering officer of Mar was interviewed before any part of battle could take place when asked what was the possibility of losing Mar to the Italian warlord. ``Mar has many chances of falling pending on the planning of powers that be decide to plan its attack." In further extent of the war for Europe all seems lost in terms that the Spanish Empire under President Sean O'Donnell Commander and Chief of Spain. The President has only said that his attack teams have now been put into Special forces known as the Klingon strike force. When asked why the Klingons for the name he only said, ``The name from Spanish text means men of Pride and skill."
(ITALY-GERMANY): Pull my strings baby!
(EGYPT to ANYONE): Wouldn't it be cool if Ukraine and Germany and Italy attacked Italy this move? Wouldn't that be great??? ((I wanna see Italy attack himself....))
(SPAIN-ITALY): 1,2 I'm coming for you, 3,4 better lock your door, 5,6 grab your crucifix, 7,8 don't stay up late, 9, 10 you'll never sleep again.
Eric looks at me, ``Did you say something" he asked.
``No, just saying someone is coming for you." said Sean.
``Who?" asked Eric.
``Destiny." said Sean.
Eric's eye's flooded with pride thinking of taking over the world.
``Yeah, but what if Ukraine double crosses you." said Sean...
(ITALY-SPAIN): I may very well die, but I will try to take you and Unca Jeffrey down with me.
(ROME-GM): What is with all this ``Klingons circling Uranus" press anyway? ((Beats the hell out of me.... as I understand it, it is a response to my Mekons press.....))
(SPAIN-EGYPT): Hang on we're coming.
(HARRY ANDRUSCHAK to THE WORLD): I've been watching the election recount fiasco and at this point I have to go on record that I do not support Al Gore's effort to steal this election. I think the best thing to do is accept the mechanical recounts and wait for the overseas ballots to come in. I feel that the Palm Beach butterfly ballot issue is a classic case of the social disease penetrating our society whereby no one who ever does anything stupid ever takes responsibility for their own actions. I want no part of it.
(TO THE BLACK PRESS WRITER): Can't you think of something else for me to be saying than perpetually ``help"? I can help myself quite well, thank you.
(BRITAIN-GERMANY): I'm thinking, I'm considering!
| SHOW ME THE MONEY: 1997Mea04, Colonial Diplomacy |
SHUT IT DOWN, A HOLLAND/JAPAN/RUSSIA DRAW IS DECLARED
Final Supply Center Chart - From Last Season
| BRITAIN (York): | DEL,HK,SIN,mal,cey,aden,ban,mad | (has 8) |
| FRANCE (Sasseville): | TON,may,u.bur,ass,bom, | (has 7, PLAYED ONE SHORT) |
| ben,can,ran |
| HOLLAND (Desper): | BOR,SUM,JAVA,SAR,new,dav, | (has 11) |
| mna,cebu,for,ann,coc |
| JAPAN (K. Ozog): | TOK,KYU,OTA,KYO,vla,fus,sak, | (has 12) |
| p.art,seo,sha,mac,pek |
| RUSSIA (Williams): | MOS,OMSK,ODE,rum,mon,ang,tab, | (has 17) |
| con,chu,shi,egy,per,tas,kag,sik,kar,kam |
| TURKEY (Tallman): | sud,bag | (has 2) |
| Neutral: | none | (Total=58) |
Addresses of the Participants
BRITAIN: Andy York, PO Box 201117, Austin, TX 78720-1117
wandrew of compuserve.com
CHINA: Rich Goranson, 4351 Chestnut Ridge Road, #7 Amherst, NY, 14228-3227 ($5)
ForlornH of aol.com
FRANCE: Roland Sasseville, Jr., 38 Bucklin Street, Pawtucket, RI 02861, (401) 481-4280 ($5)
roland6 of home.com and ICQ: 40565030
HOLLAND: Rick Desper, 703 Monroe Street, Apt #302, Rockville, MD 20850, (301) 545-0143 (E-Mail)
rick_desper of yahoo.com or desper of math.rutgers.edu
JAPAN: Kurt Ozog, 391 Wilmington Drive, Bartlett, IL 60103, 630-837-2813
heyday6 of yahoo.com
RUSSIA: Don Williams, 27505 Artine Drive, Saugus, CA 91350, (661) 297-3947 ($4)
wllmsfmly of earthlink.net
TURKEY: Terry Tallman, 3805 SW Lake Flora Road, Port Orchard, WA 98367, (360) 874-0384 ($0)
terryt of sinclair.net
GM: Jim-Bob Burgess, 664 Smith Street, Providence, RI 02908-4327, (401) 351-0287
Game Notes:
1) Hey, we're already late.... SC chart forthcoming sometime. I'm waiting for Don Williams.... ;-)
Press and End Game Comments:
Personal Note to You: