Calling Bluff Quotes

What are your choices when someone puts a gun to your head? What are you talking about? You do what they say or they shoot you. WRONG. You take the gun, or you pull out a bigger one. Or, you call their bluff. Or, you do any one of a hundred and forty six other things.

Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being.

That was just how we spoke. Every conversation a game of poker, every line a bet or a raise, a bluff or a call.

Ask me how I am and I’ll scream,” she said. “How are you,” said Camilla, who was a pill. “I see you calling my bluff and I resent it,” said Gideon.

Rule 1 for Mortals: Love the Lord your God (with every bit of you). Rule 2 for Mortals: Love your neighbor as yourself. Tip 1 for Mortals: Ask God to call your bluffs.

He closed the distance another tight inch. Her breasts pressed against his chest, and her nipples were hard little points stabbing out of the scarlet material, begging to be freed. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her perfume swamped his senses. He grew hard, and her eyes widened as his full length throbbed against her leg in demand. “I’m calling your bluff, baby.” Pure shock registered on her face as he removed one hand from the wall to casually unbutton his shirt, slide off his tie, then grasp her chin with a firm grip. “Prove it.” He stamped his mouth over hers, not giving her a chance to think or back off or push him away. He invaded her mouth, plunging his tongue inside the slick, silky cave, then closed his lips around the wet flesh and sucked hard. She grabbed for his shoulders, and made a little moan deep in her throat. Then she exploded.

The guy with the capacity to call a woman’s bluff with a confidence that implies she is to be worthy of him rather than the other way around is the Man to be competed for.

I called your bluff,' he said. 'I see that,' she answered. 'I'll be down in five minutes.' 'Right on.

And what if there are no damsels in distress? What if I knew that, and I called your bluff? Don't you think every kitten figures out how to get down, whether or not you ever show up?

Something about you caught me by surprise Though I always knew you’d be my demise. “I didn’t want you to love me Didn’t want you thinking of me   So I kept my distance Tried to ignore your existence I was blinded by my pride With you, the Jekyll to my Hyde   But that’s where you found me Baby, that’s where you unwound me   Loving you would be as easy as taking a breath But to look at you, that’s a dance with death   I’d risk it all, For you I would You’d make me fall, And fall I would   Loving you would be as easy as taking a breath But to be by you, that’s a dance with death. “I thought once was enough You turned to me and called my bluff, Maybe I should have walked away but I couldn’t resist, I needed replay after replay   Loving you would be as easy as taking a breath But to give you up, that’s a dance with death   We were over from the start I never said I’d give my heart So now it’s time for this to end After all, a friend is just a friend   Loving you would be as easy as taking a breath But to give you up, that’s a dance with death   So now it’s time for this to end After all, a friend is just a friend.

So this is what you two do when you’re up here,” Dean drawls. “All that deep, intensive tutoring.” He air-quotes the last word, chuckling in delight. “Actually, Garrett’s just helping me brush up on my make-out skills,” I tell Dean in the most casual voice I can muster. Dean snickers. “’That so?” “Okay…” Dean’s eyes gleam. “Then I’m calling your bluff, baby doll. Show me your moves.” I blink in surprise. “What?” “If a doctor told you you’ve got ten days to live, you’d go for a second opinion, wouldn’t you? Well, if you’re worried about being a crappy kisser, you can’t just take G’s word for it. You need a second opinion.” His brows lift in challenge. “Let me see what you’ve got.” “Stop being a jackass,” Garrett mutters. “No, he has a point,” I answer awkwardly, and my brain screams, What? He has a point? Apparently Garrett’s body-melting kisses have turned me into a crazy person.

I have faced death this night, and I have called his bluff.

Headache, hmm?" His expression went serious. "Do you know what's the best cure for that?" "What?" "Orgasm." He said it so matter-of-factly I had to sputter a laugh. "Multiple, if possible," he continued. "It's a proven medical fact that one physiologic event, like orgasm, can cancel out the effects of another physiological process, such as a headache." His expression was perfectly serious, but I said, "You're full of shit." "Perhaps. If so, you should call my bluff. Just open the door and we'll test it out.

Why do you hate Indians? You know white people are are much worse, don't you? It isn't as though there's some kind of international bar you're not reaching out here. We're terrible at everything. Lasting much past forty-five. Learning more than one language. It's a miracle, actually; sickly prematurely aging worryingly inbred horsey idiots have managed to convince everyone else their way is best by no other means than firmness of manner and the tactical distribution of flags. I can't believe no one's called our bluff yet.

Nine-tenths of every attack is bluff. The art is to know when to call it.

Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge.

Especially when ultimate decisions of peace and war are involved, a strategist must be aware that bluffs may be called and must take into account the impact on his future credibility of an empty threat.

Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness; the old year was preparing, like an ancient philosopher, to call his friends around him, and amidst the sound of feasting and revelry to pass gently and calmly away.

Crucial to Lee’s plan was the defense of that part of Long Island directly across the East River and particularly the imposing river bluffs near the tiny hamlet called Brooklyn, which was also spelled Breucklyn, Brucklyn, Broucklyn, Brookland, or Brookline, and amounted to no more than seven or eight houses and an old Dutch church that stood in the middle of the Jamaica Road, the main road inland from the Brooklyn ferry landing.

It was like finding a long-lost brother who farts in the same key.

But what if black America simply refused their offers? What if we formally rejected the victim narrative, thereby rejecting the slow poison of leftist policies? What might happen if black America collectively called the Left’s bluff on racism—thereby reducing their claims of

Thought he had it all before they called his bluff Found out that his skin just wasn't thick enough Wanted to go back to how it was before Thought he lost everything Then he lost a whole lot more

They both continue to stare at each other, expressionless, motionless, in the weirdest standoff I've ever seen almost as if they're calling the other's bluff. It is the way you'd look at a perfect stranger, although if they were actually strangers someone would break down and exchange a pleasantry after such prolonged eye contact. I start to wonder if maybe I shouldn't reintroduce my own parents.

Whatever rules you make, you better stick to them. Your son or daughter depends on it. They will call your bluff on everything. Don't you budge. Changing the rules only confuses a young, developing mind.

Jesus is calling the bluff of the religious. He says, why play this game? Why call me Lord as if you care who I am or what I want when you don't bother really knowing me or doing what I say? And then Jesus tells the story about the builders and their two houses. The homes they build represent their lives--their beliefs, convictions, aspirations, and choices. Jesus is telling us that there are stable and unstable foundations on which to construct our lives. Regardless of our intentions, it's possible to base our confidence and trust--the very footing of our lives--on what is insecure and faulty. On shifting sand.

Poshlust,” or in a better transliteration poshlost, has many nuances, and evidently I have not described them clearly enough in my little book on Gogol, if you think one can ask anybody if he is tempted by poshlost. Corny trash, vulgar clichés, Philistinism in all its phases, imitations of imitations, bogus profundities, crude, moronic, and dishonest pseudo-literature—these are obvious examples. Now, if we want to pin down poshlost in contemporary writing, we must look for it in Freudian symbolism, moth-eaten mythologies, social comment, humanistic messages, political allegories, overconcern with class or race, and the journalistic generalities we all know. Poshlost speaks in such concepts as “America is no better than Russia” or “We all share in Germany’s guilt.” The flowers of poshlost bloom in such phrases and terms as “the moment of truth,” “charisma,” “existential” (used seriously), “dialogue” (as applied to political talks between nations), and “vocabulary” (as applied to a dauber). Listing in one breath Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and Vietnam is seditious poshlost. Belonging to a very select club (which sports one Jewish name—that of the treasurer) is genteel poshlost. Hack reviews are frequently poshlost, but it also lurks in certain highbrow essays. Poshlost calls Mr. Blank a great poet and Mr. Bluff a great novelist. One of poshlost’s favorite breeding places has always been the Art Exhibition; there it is produced by so-called sculptors working with the tools of wreckers, building crankshaft cretins of stainless steel, Zen stereos, polystyrene stinkbirds, objects trouvés in latrines, cannonballs, canned balls. There we admire the gabinetti wall patterns of so-called abstract artists, Freudian surrealism, roric smudges, and Rorschach blots—all of it as corny in its own right as the academic “September Morns” and “Florentine Flowergirls” of half a century ago. The list is long, and, of course, everybody has his bête noire, his black pet, in the series. Mine is that airline ad: the snack served by an obsequious wench to a young couple—she eyeing ecstatically the cucumber canapé, he admiring wistfully the hostess. And, of course, Death in Venice. You see the range.

None of us is ever really prepared for death. For something so finite. As human beings, we’re used to being able to control our lives. To extend them, to an extent. But death brooks no argument. No final plea. No appeal. Death is death, and he holds all the cards. Even if you cheat him once, he won’t let you call his bluff a second time.

This time, after a moment, he called her bluff. “Perhaps Philippa and I should be thrown together a little more. She might become attached to me if she knew me better.” Kate, brightening visibly, ignored the gleam in his eye. “That would make her sorry for you?” “It might. The object of any sort of clinical study deserves compassion, don’t you think?” “Snakes don’t,” said Katherine inconsequently. “I hate snakes.” “And yet you feed them on honey cakes and forbid them to defend themselves.” “Defencelessness is not a noted characteristic of serpents. Anyhow, I can’t have them lying rattling about the house. It gets on the nerves.” “It does if you handle it by rattling back.

Don't say that. Don't even joke about it! The idea of ten weeks with a single, locked-down girlfriend—even the fake kind—gives me all over body hives. Sue me for making a face about that. I don't think you've thought any of this through. It would involve all of our friends, parents—even if we don't use my real name—text messaging, emails—and a lot of time. Time is something I don't have to burn. Plus, it would kill the variety of…of…yeah…girl fun in my summer,” I imply, wondering if she'll call my bluff. The only real summer varieties I score are the extra odd jobs I pick up at the rink. She turns bright red and I have to hide my smile. “Disgusting,” she snorts and reverts back to rubbing her temples.

I dinna fook like a gentleman,” he told her gruffly. “There’ll be no pretty words and fine manners. I’ll throw a leg over, start the bed to banging, and when I’m done, I’ll give you a pat on the arse on my way out. If that’s what you’re after, tell me where your room is, and we’ll go at it.” But there was no outrage. No face slap. Just a brief silence before Merritt said helpfully, “It’s the last door on the right, at the end of the hallway.” She’d called his bluff. Her lips twitched at his expression. Damn it.

The United States thus achieved what no earlier imperial system had put in place: a flexible form of global exploitation that controlled debtor countries by imposing the Washington Consensus via the IMF and World Bank, while the Treasury bill standard obliged the payments-surplus nations of Europe and East Asia to extend forced loans to the U.S. Government. Against dollar-deficit regions the United States continued to apply the classical economic leverage that Europe and Japan were not able to use against it. Debtor economies were forced to impose economic austerity to block their own industrialization and agricultural modernization. Their designated role was to export raw materials and provide low-priced labor whose wages were denominated in depreciating currencies. Against dollar-surplus nations the United States was learning to apply a new, unprecedented form of coercion. It dared the rest of the world to call its bluff and plunge the international economy into monetary crisis. That is what would have happened if creditor nations had not channeled their surplus savings to the United States by buying its Government securities.

In order to live in victory, you must call the enemy’s bluff, pull the curtain back, open up your spiritual eyes, and remain continually aware of the one who’s truly behind a lot of the stuff you’re always blaming on your circumstances, your upbringing, your boyfriend, or whoever. Even on yourself.

It’s powerful advice. How often do we go off on someone for making a decision that we, personally, wouldn’t have made, calling them an idiot, fuming, getting angry? How much time and emotional energy we’d save if we simply learned to ask ourselves why they acted as they did, rather than judge, make presumptions, and react.

McCarthy would neither have become a sensation, nor ruined the careers of so many innocent people, had he not received support from some of the nation’s leading newspapers and financing from right-wingers with deep pockets. He would have been exposed much sooner had his wild accusations not been met with silence by many mainstream political leaders from both parties who were uncomfortable with his bullying tactics but lacked the courage to call his bluff. By the time he self-destructed, a small number of people working in government had indeed been identified as security risks, but none because of the Wisconsin senator’s scattershot investigations.

Phury laid a hard one on the male’s mouth, the kiss a punch between faces, not anything even remotely sexual. And he did it only to wipe the expression off the bastard’s face. It worked. The Reverend stiffened and growled, and Phury knew he’d called the guy’s bluff. But just to make sure the lesson was learned, he clipped the male’s lower lip with a fang.

I should’ve been a nun, he says, half aloud, as his feet leave the ledge.

It was a test. That was just how we spoke. Every conversation a game of poker, every line a bet or a raise, a bluff or a call. “Party

For example, your mother once called my bluff and said, ‘ANYTHING?’ and I said, ‘ANYTHING EXCEPT IKEA!!!’ and then she made me take

Crushes weren’t made of quick and dirty; they were made of romance and fantasies. What would she do if he called her bluff?

Both science and democracy encourage unconventional opinions and vigorous debate. Both demand adequate reason, coherent argument, rigorous standards of evidence and honesty. Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being.

What, then, should you do? With an excellent hand, you should bet: You lose nothing if your opponent folds, while giving yourself a good chance of winning a big pot if he calls. But with a middling hand, you shouldn't bet: If he has a bad hand, he'll fold, and you'll win the ante, which is what you'd have won anyway by checking; but if he has a good hand, he'll call and win. It's heads he wins, tails you don't. You should check instead, and hope your middling hand wins the ante. What about with a terrible hand? Should you check or bet? The answer is surprising. Checking would be unwise, because the hands will be compared and you will lose. It actually makes more sense to bet with these bad hands, because the only way he might drop out is if you make a bet. Perversely, you are better off betting with awful cards than with mediocre ones, the quintessential (and rational) bluff. There's a second reason for you to bet with terrible cards rather than middling ones: Your opponent will have to call a little more often. Because he knows that your bets are sometimes very weak, he can't afford to fold too easily. That means that when you bet with a good hand, you are more likely to be called, and to win when you are. Because you are bluffing with bad cards, your good hands make more money.

You just assumed he’d buy I was really your girl? What if he’d called your bluff? (Roya Clairen) But he didn’t. (Zayvier Bynum) How often have you used that trick? (Roya) First time (Zayvier)

I wish I'd learned then that when you call someone's bluff you usually win: it's simply not what the other person is expecting. And swimming along in the slipstream of another's current is no way to live.

Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness; the old year was preparing, like an ancient philosopher, to call his friends around him, and amidst the sound of feasting and revelry to pass gently and calmly away. Gay and merry was the time; and right gay and merry were at least four of the numerous hearts that were gladdened by its coming.

A decision has been called for. The Nodders sit paralyzed. The Men crouch in their various holes. Tradition and Revolution, having spoken, perch high and unflinching. Fear and Loathing quietly cha-cha down the table’s length. A distant referee’s whistle.

I dinna fook like a gentleman,” he told her gruffly. “There’ll be no pretty words and fine manners. I’ll throw a leg over, start the bed to banging, and when I’m done, I’ll give you a pat on the arse on my way out. If that’s what you’re after, tell me where your room is, and we’ll go at it.” But there was no outrage. No face slap. Just a brief silence before Merritt said helpfully, “It’s the last door on the right, at the end of the hallway.” She’d called his bluff. Her lips twitched at his expression. Damn it. Exasperated, Keir took her upper arms in his hands and held her apart from him. “If I stayed, no harm would come to me—only to you. I’d pay any price to have you, but I won’t let you be the one to pay it.” “I’ll take responsibility for my own decisions.” “Are you so daft, lass, that you think one night with me would be worth risking everything?” he demanded. Merritt shrugged and lowered her gaze, but not before he saw the impish gleam in her eyes. “I’d like to find out.” Unable to stop himself, Keir jerked her close and kissed her roughly.

Violet,' Xaden groans against my mouth. The plea in his tone floods my veins with a whole different form of power. Knowing he's just as affected by our attraction as I am is a rush. 'This isn't what you want.' 'It's exactly what I want,' I counter. I want to replace the anger with lust, the death of the day with the pulse-pounding assurance of my own life, and I know he's capable of delivering all that and more. 'You said to do whatever I need.' I arch my back, pressing the tips of my breasts against his chest. His breathing changes, and there's a war in his eyes that I'm determined to win. It's time to stop dancing around this unbearable tension and break it. He leans down, his mouth only inches from mine. 'And I'm telling you that I'm the last thing you need.' The barely leashed growl of his voice rumbles up through his chest, and every nerve ending in my body flares to life. 'Are you suggesting someone else?' My heart races as I chance calling his bluff. 'Fuck no.' The unmistakable flare of jealousy narrows his eyes for a heartbeat before his hips pin mine to the door, and my instant relief at his answer is replaced by a jolt of pure lust. I can see that infamous control of his hovering on the edge, balancing precariously on the point of a knife. All he needs is one. Little. Push. And I'm about to shamelessly shove. 'Good.' I tilt my head up to his and draw his bottom lip between mine, sucking before gently nipping him with my teeth. 'Because I only want you, Xaden.' The words breach something within him, and he gives. Finally. One mouths collide, and the kiss is hot and hard and completely out of our control.

You’re playing with fire, little girl,” he says quietly. “I’m not one of your toys, and I’m not interested in what you’re offering.” “I’m not offering anything.” I retort, even though his words sting. “I like my men more…refined.” His grin calls my bluff. “You sure about that?

...and hidden somewhere inside every bluff or quiet man and woman I know ... is the fully formed, but uncompleted, little boy or girl that once was and will always remain as it always has been, suspended lonesomely inside its own past, waiting hopefully, vainly, to resume, longing insatiably for company, pining desolately for that time to come when it will be safe and sane and possible to burst outside exuberantly, stretch its arms, fill its lungs with invigorating air, without fear at last, and call: "Hey! Here I am. Couldn't you find me? Can't we be together now?

Are you falling asleep before midnight?" Cassie leaned over the edge of the couch to look at Jack. He was stretched out on the floor, his head resting against a pillow near the center of the couch, his eyes closed. She was now wide awake and headache free. He wasn't in so good a shape. "The new year is eighteen minutes away." "Come kiss me awake in seventeen minutes." She blinked at that lazy suggestion, gave a quick grin, and dropped Benji on his chest. He opened one eye to look up at her as he settled his hand lightly on the kitten. "That's a no?" She smiled. She was looking forward to dating him, but she was smart enough to know he'd value more what he had to work at. He sighed. "That was a no. How much longer am I going to be on the fence with you?" "Is that a rhetorical question or do you want an answer?" If this was the right relationship God had for her future, time taken now would improve it, not hurt it. She was ready to admit she was tired of being alone. He scratched Benji under the chin and the kitten curled up on his chest and batted a paw at his hand. "Rhetorical. I'd hate to get my hopes up." She leaned her chin against her hand, looking down at him. "I like you, Jack." "You just figured that out?" "I'll like you more when you catch my mouse." "The only way we are going to catch T.J. is to turn this place into a cheese factory and help her get so fat and slow that she can no longer run and hide." Or you could move your left hand about three inches to the right right and catch her." Jack opened one eye and glanced toward his left. The white mouse was sitting motionless beside the plate he had set down earlier. "Let her have the cheeseburger. You put mustard on it." "You're horrible." He smiled. "I'm serious." "So am I." Jack leaned over, caught Cassie's foot, and tumbled her to the floor. "Oops." "That wasn't fair. You scared my mouse." Jack set the kitten on the floor. "Benji, go get her mouse." The kitten took off after it. "You're teaching her to be a mouser." "Working on it. Come here. You owe me a kiss for the new year." "Do I?" She reached over to the bowl of chocolates on the table and unwrapped a kiss. She popped the chocolate kiss into his mouth. "I called your bluff." He smiled and rubbed his hand across her forearm braced against his chest. "That will last me until next year." She glanced at the muted television. "That's two minutes away." "Two minutes to put this year behind us." He slid one arm behind his head, adjusting the pillow. She patted his chest with her hand. "That shouldn't take long." She felt him laugh. "It ended up being a very good year," she offered. "Next year will be even better." "Really? Promise?" "Absolutely." He reached behind her ear and a gold coin reappeared. "What do you think? Heads you say yes when I ask you out, tails you say no?" She grinned at the idea. "Are you cheating again?" She took the coin. "This one isn't edible," she realized, disappointed. And then she turned it over. "A real two-headed coin?" "A rare find." He smiled. "Like you." "That sounds like a bit of honey." "I'm good at being mushy." "Oh, really?" He glanced over her shoulder. "Turn up the TV. There's the countdown." She grabbed for the remote and hit the wrong button. The TV came on full volume just as the fireworks went off. Benji went racing past them spooked by the noise to dive under the collar of the jacket Jack had tossed on the floor. The white mouse scurried to run into the jacket sleeve. "Tell me I didn't see what I think I just did." "I won't tell you," Jack agreed, amused. He watched the jacket move and raised an eyebrow. "Am I supposed to rescue the kitten or the mouse?

One of the most important lessons of poker strategy, intimately connected to self-assessment, is this: sometimes, it’s the hands you don’t play that win you the title. We remember the hero calls. What about the hero folds? What you don’t do rather than what you do—that can be greatness. The art of letting go can be the truly strong one.

It’s called the description-experience gap. In study after study, people fail to internalize numeric rules, making decisions based on things like “gut feeling” and “intuition” and “what feels right” rather than based on the data they are shown. We need to train ourselves to see the world in a probabilistic light—and even then, we often ignore the numbers in favor of our own experience.

Faced with Russian menace and Ottoman collapse, Britain and France threatened war. Nicholas stubbornly called their bluff because, he explained, he was “waging war for a solely Christian purpose, under the banner of the Holy Cross.” On 28 March 1853, the French and British declared war on Russia. Even though most of the fighting was far away in the Crimea, this war placed Jerusalem at the centre of the world stage where she has remained ever since.f

He wants me to be charmed by him so that I will stay by his side and do what he asks of me. No doubt he believes that a little attention and a few smiles will be all it requires of him. He expects me to be as malleable as one of the ladies of the Court. So much of me wants to give in and pretend with him that it makes me hot with rage. If he wants to charm me, the least I can do is make it cost him. I won't settle for smiles and a dance. I am going to call his bluff, I am going to prove to myself- prove to us both- that his flirtation isn't sincere.

For whatever reason, Missy is the only Robertson wife who doesn’t like beards. Willie’s wife, Korie; Jep’s wife, Jessica; and Alan’s wife, Lisa, all love my brothers’ beards, and I’m pretty sure my mom, Kay, couldn’t imagine Phil without a beard because he has worn one for so long. But Missy is consistent in her distaste for facial hair. I hoped that one day my beard would, ahem, grow on her, but it hasn’t. Missy once tried to get me to shave by threatening not to shave her legs or under her arms. It actually worked once, but the next time I decided to call her bluff, and, well, she was bluffing.

And as we pushed westward, patches of what the garage-man called "sage brush" appeared, and then the mysterious outlines of table-like hills, and then red bluffs ink-blotted with junipers, and then a mountain range, dun grading into blue, and blue into dream, and the desert would meet us with a steady gale, dust, gray thorn bushes, and hideous bits of tissue paper mimicking pale flowers among the prickles of wind-tortured withered stalks all along the highway; in the middle of which there sometimes stood simple cows, immobilized in a position (tail left, white eyelashes right) cutting across all human rules of traffic.

Whatever you wish, you shall have it. Whatever you desire, it shall be yours. I shall take or spare the lives of anyone you want. I will remake this world into a jungle oasis, if it would make you smile but once. I will wear that oafish and childish mask, wear a suit of wool and sculpt for you a home of ostentatious pride and glowing blinking lights if that is for what you yearn.” She called his bluff. “Then do it.” “I have made my fee known. Only if you agree to become my queen. Stand at my side. If you think I am such a vicious mongrel, then temper me. Show me how to better wield my power, if you think my ego is so insufferable.

She gave a little sob deep in her throat. 'Call it a prophecy, call it a prediction, call it fate - call it what you will. I fought against it hard enough, God knows. But the evidence of my own eyes, my own ears, my own senses, is too much for me. And the time's too short now. I'm afraid to take a chance. I haven't got the nerve to bluff it out, to sit pat. You don't gamble with a human life. Today's the 13th, isn't it? It's too close to the 14th; there isn't time-margin enough left now to be skeptical, to keep it to myself any longer. Day by day I've watched him cross off the date on his desk-calendar, drawing nearer to death. There are only two leaves left now, and I want help! Because on the 14th - at the exact stroke of midnight, as the 15th is beginning -' She covered her face with both arms and shook silently. 'Yes?' urged McManus. 'Yes?' 'He's become convinced - oh, and almost I have too - that at exactly midnight on the 14th he's to die. Not just die but meet his death in full vigor and health, a death rushing down to him from the stars he was born under - rushing down even before he existed at all. A death inexorable, inescapable. A death horrid and violent, inconceivable here in this part of the world where we live.' She took a deep, shuddering breath, whispered the rest of it. 'Death at the jaws of a lion.' ("Speak To Me Of Death")

Major Brown called on them to surrender; the Yavapais responded with hoots of derision—that is, until rocks rained down on them, hurled by soldiers who had clawed up the palisade to the bluff overlooking the cave. From inside came the baleful and monotonous intoning of death songs. Determined to finish the business rapidly, Major Brown ordered his men to ricochet bullets off the roof of the cave into the unseen mass of Indians. In three minutes, the cave fell silent. Lieutenant Bourke stepped inside. “A horrible spectacle was disclosed to view. In one corner eleven dead bodies were huddled, in another four; and in different crevices they were piled to the extent of the little cave.

I could make you beg,” Madi said casually, sliding his hand inside Az’s pants. He teased over the flared head and rubbed his thumb along Az’s slit, gathering the fluid there and working it just over the crown of Az’s cock until Az bucked desperately into his grip. Az rested his head on Madi’s shoulder so he could speak directly into his ear. “Is that what you need, motek? My submission?” He couldn’t stop the words falling from his lips. Madi didn’t speak, but his hand constricted around Az’s throbbing hard-on. “Does the thought of my begging for your cock turn you on? Is that what you need to cease this ridiculous ground rule?” Madi’s other hand trailed upward, twisting Az’s nipple until he hissed at the pleasure-pain that sent shocks along his spine. “Is it not enough I let you fuck me when nobody else can or that I surrender my flesh to your blade? Do you need the words now, too? If I beg, will you fuck me right here? Hmm? What if I call your bluff?

Both Cooper and Brennan got their start as extras. Like Brennan, Cooper had learned his craft by roaming around movie lots, absorbing the atmosphere and watching how things were done—especially the subtle interplay between actors, and between the best actors and the camera lens, which always picked up details that not even the most perceptive directors could spot before they were projected onto a screen. And like Brennan, when Cooper got his first two minutes of screen time, he was prepared. Watch him in Wings, playing an aviator about to go to his death, enter a tent and converse with the film’s two stars, Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen, who are immediately fascinated by his bluff allure. He is a hero without bravado. He is for those two minutes the picture’s star, the very embodiment of what Hemingway called grace under pressure. Cooper’s ability to convey composure just before a dogfight, to act with such quiet courtesy and aplomb, stuns Rogers and Arlen—and just that quickly Cooper takes the picture away from them.

They call me Mac. The name's unimportant. You can best identify me by the six chevrons, three up and three down, and by that row of hashmarks. Thirty years in the United States Marine Corps. I've sailed the Cape and the Horn aboard a battlewagon with a sea so choppy the bow was awash half the time under thirty-foot waves. I've stood Legation guard in Paris and London and Prague. I know every damned port of call and call house in the Mediterranean and the world that shines beneath the Southern Cross like the nomenclature of a rifle. I've sat behind a machine gun poked through the barbed wire that encircled the International Settlement when the world was supposed to have been at peace, and I've called Jap bluffs on the Yangtze Patrol a decade before Pearl Harbor. I know the beauty of the Northern Lights that cast their eerie glow on Iceland and I know the rivers and the jungles of Central America. There are few skylines that would fool me: Sugar Loaf, Diamond Head, the Tinokiri Hills or the palms of a Caribbean hellhole. Yes, I knew the slick brown hills of Korea just as the Marines knew them in 1871. Fighting in Korea is an old story for the Corps. Nothing sounds worse than an old salt blowing his bugle. Anyhow, that isn't my story.

There followed a three-year spectacle during which [Senator Joseph] McCarthy captured enormous media attention by prophesying the imminent ruin of America and by making false charges that he then denied raising—only to invent new ones. He claimed to have identified subversives in the State Department, the army, think tanks, universities, labor unions, the press, and Hollywood. He cast doubt on the patriotism of all who criticized him, including fellow senators. McCarthy was profoundly careless about his sources of information and far too glib when connecting dots that had no logical link. In his view, you were guilty if you were or ever had been a Communist, had attended a gathering where a supposed Communist sympathizer was present, had read a book authored by someone soft on Communism, or subscribed to a magazine with liberal ideas. McCarthy, who was nicknamed Tailgunner Joe, though he had never been a tail gunner, was also fond of superlatives. By the middle of 1951, he was warning the Senate of “a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man.” McCarthy would neither have become a sensation, nor ruined the careers of so many innocent people, had he not received support from some of the nation’s leading newspapers and financing from right-wingers with deep pockets. He would have been exposed much sooner had his wild accusations not been met with silence by many mainstream political leaders from both parties who were uncomfortable with his bullying tactics but lacked the courage to call his bluff. By the time he self-destructed, a small number of people working in government had indeed been identified as security risks, but none because of the Wisconsin senator’s scattershot investigations. McCarthy fooled as many as he did because a lot of people shared his anxieties, liked his vituperative style, and enjoyed watching the powerful squirm. Whether his allegations were greeted with resignation or indignation didn’t matter so much as the fact that they were reported on and repeated. The more inflammatory the charge, the more coverage it received. Even skeptics subscribed to the idea that, though McCarthy might be exaggerating, there had to be some fire beneath the smoke he was spreading. This is the demagogue’s trick, the Fascist’s ploy, exemplified most outrageously by the spurious and anti-Jewish Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Repeat a lie often enough and it begins to sound as if it must—or at least might—be so. “Falsehood flies,” observed Jonathan Swift, “and the truth comes limping after it.” McCarthy’s career shows how much hysteria a skilled and shameless prevaricator can stir up, especially when he claims to be fighting in a just cause. After all, if Communism was the ultimate evil, a lot could be hazarded—including objectivity and conventional morality—in opposing it.

Blast. This day had not gone as planned. By this time, he was supposed to be well on his way to the Brighton Barracks, preparing to leave for Portugal and rejoin the war. Instead, he was…an earl, suddenly. Stuck at this ruined castle, having pledged to undertake the military equivalent of teaching nursery school. And to make it all worse, he was plagued with lust for a woman he couldn’t have. Couldn’t even touch, if he ever wanted his command back. As if he sensed Bram’s predicament, Colin started to laugh. “What’s so amusing?” “Only that you’ve been played for a greater fool than you realize. Didn’t you hear them earlier? This is Spindle Cove, Bram. Spindle. Cove.” “You keep saying that like I should know the name. I don’t.” “You really must get around to the clubs. Allow me to enlighten you. Spindle Cove-or Spinster Cove, as we call it-is a seaside holiday village. Good families send their fragile-flower daughters here for the restorative sea air. Or whenever they don’t know what else to do with them. My friend. Carstairs sent his sister here last summer, when she grew too fond of the stable boy.” “And so…?” “And so, your little militia plan? Doomed before it even starts. Families send their daughters and wards here because it’s safe. It’s safe because there are no men. That’s why they call it Spinster Cove.” “There have to be men. There’s no such thing as a village with no men.” “Well, there may be a few servants and tradesmen. An odd soul or two down there with a shriveled twig and a couple of currants dangling between his legs. But there aren’t any real men. Carstairs told us all about it. He couldn’t believe what he found when he came to fetch his sister. The women here are man-eaters.” Bram was scarcely paying attention. He focused his gaze to catch the last glimpses of Miss Finch as her figure receded into the distance. She was like a sunset all to herself, her molten bronze hair aglow as she sank beneath the bluff’s horizon. Fiery. Brilliant. When she disappeared, he felt instantly cooler. And then, only then, did he turn to his yammering cousin. “What were you saying?” “We have to get out of here, Bram. Before they take our bollocks and use them for pincushions.” Bram made his way to the nearest wall and propped one shoulder against it, resting his knee. Damn, that climb had been steep. “Let me understand this,” he said, discreetly rubbing his aching thigh under the guise of brushing off loose dirt. “You’re suggesting we leave because the village is full of spinsters? Since when do you complain about an excess of women?” “These are not your normal spinsters. They’re…they’re unbiddable. And excessively educated.” “Oh. Frightening, indeed. I’ll stand my ground when facing a French cavalry charge, but an educated spinster is something different entirely.” “You mock me now. Just you wait. You’ll see, these women are a breed unto themselves.” “These women aren’t my concern.” Save for one woman, and she didn’t live in the village. She lived at Summerfield, and she was Sir Lewis Finch’s daughter, and she was absolutely off limits-no matter how he suspected Miss Finch would become Miss Vixen in bed.

Suddenly, I caught a glimpse of something moving behind me. When I turned, I saw two coyotes standing in an ambush positon. They were watching my brother Jep, who was working as our cameraman and was positioned to the right of us. The coyotes saw Jep moving, but because he was so camouflaged, they apparently didn’t realize he was a human. Our guide in Nebraska had warned us that he’d seen several coyotes jump from the top of the bluffs to the ducks below for a quick meal. The landowner was having a lot of problems with the coyotes, which were suspected of killing some of his farm animals. He even feared a few of them might have rabies. Evidently, the coyotes heard us blowing our duck calls and believed we were actual ducks. Now they were ready for their next meal. We had accidentally called in two predators using our duck calls and in essence became the hunted instead of the hunters! The two coyotes were licking their chops and were about to attack the only unarmed member of our hunting party! It was like a scene out of a bad horror film called Killer Coyotes. I looked at Jep and realized he was oblivious to what was going on behind him. I jumped out of our makeshift blind and ran toward the coyotes. One of the coyotes took off running, but the other one ran about twenty feet and stopped. It turned around and started growling at me. It looked at me like, “Hey, you want some of me?” I raised my shotgun and shot it dead. I had planned on shooting only ducks, but it’s a bad move when a coyote decides it wants to fight a human. Once it stood its ground and said, “You or me,” I wasn’t going to take a threat from a wild scavenger. It was a prime example of what happens when animals become overpopulated and lose their fear of humans. The lesson learned: don’t bring claws and teeth to a gunfight.

Fighter" [Spoken:] After all that you put me through, You think I'd despise you, But in the end I wanna thank you, 'Cause you've made me that much stronger Well I thought I knew you, thinkin' that you were true Guess I, I couldn't trust called your bluff time is up 'Cause I've had enough You were there by my side, always down for the ride But your joy ride just came down in flames 'cause your greed sold me out in shame After all of the stealing and cheating you probably think that I hold resentment for you But uh uh, oh no, you're wrong 'Cause if it wasn't for all that you tried to do, I wouldn't know Just how capable I am to pull through So I wanna say thank you 'Cause it [Chorus:] Makes me that much stronger Makes me work a little bit harder It makes me that much wiser So thanks for making me a fighter Made me learn a little bit faster Made my skin a little bit thicker Makes me that much smarter So thanks for making me a fighter Never saw it coming, all of your backstabbing Just so you could cash in on a good thing before I'd realize your game I heard you're going round playing the victim now But don't even begin feeling I'm the one to blame 'Cause you dug your own grave After all of the fights and the lies 'cause you're wanting to haunt me But that won't work anymore, no more, It's over 'Cause if it wasn't for all of your torture I wouldn't know how to be this way now and never back down So I wanna say thank you 'Cause it [Chorus] How could this man I thought I knew Turn out to be unjust so cruel Could only see the good in you Pretend not to see the truth You tried to hide your lies, disguise yourself Through living in denial But in the end you'll see YOU-WON'T-STOP-ME I am a fighter and I I ain't gonna stop There is no turning back I've had enough [Chorus] You thought I would forget But I remembered 'Cause I remembered I remembered You thought I would forget I remembered 'Cause I remembered I remembered

thepsychchic chips clips ii If you think of yourself instead as an almost-victor who thought correctly and did everything possible but was foiled by crap variance? No matter: you will have other opportunities, and if you keep thinking correctly, eventually it will even out. These are the seeds of resilience, of being able to overcome the bad beats that you can’t avoid and mentally position yourself to be prepared for the next time. People share things with you: if you’ve lost your job, your social network thinks of you when new jobs come up; if you’re recently divorced or separated or bereaved, and someone single who may be a good match pops up, you’re top of mind. This attitude is what I think of as a luck amplifier. … you will feel a whole lot happier … and your ready mindset will prepare you for the change in variance that will come … 134-135 W. H. Auden: “Choice of attention—to pay attention to this and ignore that—is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences.” Pay attention, or accept the consequences of your failure. 142 Attention is a powerful mitigator to overconfidence: it forces you to constantly reevaluate your knowledge and your game plan, lest you become too tied to a certain course of action. And if you lose? Well, it allows you to admit when it’s actually your fault and not a bad beat. 147 Following up on Phil Galfond’s suggestion to be both a detective and a storyteller and figure out “what your opponent’s actions mean, and sometimes what they don’t mean.” [Like the dog that didn’t bark in the Sherlock Holmes “Silver Blaze” story.] 159 You don’t have to have studied the description-experience gap to understand, if you’re truly expert at something, that you need experience to balance out the descriptions. Otherwise, you’re left with the illusion of knowledge—knowledge without substance. You’re an armchair philosopher who thinks that just because she read an article about something she is a sudden expert. (David Dunning, a psychologist at the University of Michigan most famous for being one half of the Dunning-Kruger effect—the more incompetent you are, the less you’re aware of your incompetence—has found that people go quickly from being circumspect beginners, who are perfectly aware of their limitations, to “unconscious incompetents,” people who no longer realize how much they don’t know and instead fancy themselves quite proficient.) 161-162 Erik: Generally, the people who cash the most are actually losing players (Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan strategy, jp). You can’t be a winning player by min cashing. 190 The more you learn, the harder it gets; the better you get, the worse you are—because the flaws that you wouldn’t even think of looking at before are now visible and need to be addressed. 191 An edge, even a tiny one, is an edge worth pursuing if you have the time and energy. 208 Blake Eastman: “Before each action, stop, think about what you want to do, and execute.” … Streamlined decisions, no immediate actions, or reactions. A standard process. 217 John Boyd’s OODA: Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. The way to outmaneuver your opponent is to get inside their OODA loop. 224 Here’s a free life lesson: seek out situations where you’re a favorite; avoid those where you’re an underdog. 237 [on folding] No matter how good your starting hand, you have to be willing to read the signs and let it go. One thing Erik has stressed, over and over, is to never feel committed to playing an event, ever. “See how you feel in the morning.” Tilt makes you revert to your worst self. 257 Jared Tindler, psychologist, “It all comes down to confidence, self-esteem, identity, what some people call ego.” 251 JT: “As far as hope in poker, f#¢k it. … You need to think in terms of preparation. Don’t worry about hoping. Just Do.” 252

Taylen,” Glate whispered, wrapping his arm around my waist. “Are you okay?” Was I okay? No. I was a complete and utter wreck, but there was no way in hell I was going to show him that. “I’m dandy.” “You’re a terrible liar.” He propped himself up on his elbow, and leaned in closer, resting his chin on my shoulder. My body was well aware of how close he was, and it took everything in me to fight the urge to turn and face him. Teenage hormones were the absolute worst. “You know how I can tell?” he asked, running a single finger down my arm. “How?” the word barely escaped my lips. “Your voice trembles,” he whispered. Glate moved his hand to my hips and pulled me back towards him. “Whenever you lie, you get this slight tremble in your voice. It’s almost as if you’re scared to admit the truth, so you try to conjure up a lie, but the fear engulfs your words on the way out, calling your bluff.

Fuck,” I moan. I’m just at the peak, trying my hardest not to let go, when his phone begins to vibrate in his front pocket. The sensation intensifies and the vibrations are an added bonus to my already throbbing clit. I lose my battle and I bite down on Peters lip, letting my orgasm shoot through me. “Shit, shit… Shiiiiit,” I repeat, forgetting how good it feels to let go. The buzzing stops. But then starts again, tickling my sensitive center. “Sit up,” Peter says, digging his phone out of his pocket, he looks at the screen. “It’s your sister.” Shit! He presses the green button, and puts the phone to his ear. “Hey, Agnes,” he speaks, but you can tell his voice is strained. “Yeah, I know where she’s at.” What! My sister would kill me if she knew what I was doing! I slap him on his chest! I mouth no, while shaking my head. Smiling, he says, “Agnes, hold on, I have another call.” He pulls his phone away to mute it. “Go out with me.” “What?” “Go out with me. Let me take you to dinner. Or… I tell your sister you’re in here with me and I just gave you an old fashion orgasm.” I gasp. “Are you blackmailing me, Peter Parker?” He laughs, “Its Wesley, and yes. Yes, I am.” I can’t believe him. I call his bluff and shake my head no. When he asks me if I’m sure, I stick to my ground and say yes. He just shrugs his shoulders, and brings the phone back to his ear and tells my sister that I am currently sitting on his lap.

SUMMARY OF THE DARE RESPONSE FOR PANIC ATTACKS If you feel the beginnings of a panic attack, respond to those initial waves of anxiety with a “so what/whatever.” You’re safe. Your body can handle it! As the waves increase, accept and allow all the uncomfortable anxious thoughts and sensations to just be. Don’t resist them. Bob up and down with them. Repeat to yourself, “I accept and allow this anxious feeling.” If a wave of anxiety peaks into a panic attack, run toward it. Tell yourself that you feel excited and then call fear’s bluff by demanding more! Ride up and over the wave of adrenaline. Once the initial flood of adrenaline has passed, understand that there may be a few more minor waves of adrenaline

For conservatives too the explanation was obvious: Reagan had called the Soviets’ bluff by upping the arms-race ante and now Gorbachev was folding. It

She scrambled up the bluff and slipped into the woods. The moon was still up, still full. Americans called this time of year “October” or, sometimes, “Autumn,” but the librarians reckoned time by the heavens. Tonight was the seventh moon, which is the moon of black lament. Under its light the shadows of bare branches flashed across her scars. A

By the time Columbus discovered America, the Indians were already using beads for decoration. Beads were made from shells, bones, claws, stones, and minerals. The Algonquin and Iroquois tribes of the eastern coast made beads from clam, conch, periwinkle, and other seashells. These beads were used as a medium of exchange by the early Dutch and English colonists. They were called “wampum,” a contraction of the Algonquin “wampumpeak” or “wamponeage,” meaning string of shell beads. The purple beads had twice the value of the white ones. The explorer, followed by the trader, missionary and settler, soon discovered that he had a very good trade item in glass beads brought from Europe. The early beads that were used were about 1/8 inch in diameter, nearly twice as large as beads in the mid-1800’s. They were called pony beads and were quite irregular in shape and size. The colors most commonly used were sky-blue, white, and black. Other less widely used colors were deep bluff, light red, dark red, and dark blue. The small, round seed beads, as they are called, are the most generally used for sewed beadwork. They come in a variety of colors. Those most commonly used by the Indians are red, orange, yellow, light blue, dark blue, green, lavender, and black. The missionaries’ floral embroidered vestments influenced the Woodland tribes of the Great Lakes to apply beads in flower designs. Many other tribes, however, are now using flower designs. There are four main design styles used in the modern period. Three of the styles are largely restricted to particular tribes. The fourth style is common to all groups. It is very simple in pattern. The motifs generally used are solid triangles, hourglasses, crosses, and oblongs. This style is usually used in narrow strips on leggings, robes, or blankets. Sioux beadwork usually is quite open with a solid background in a light color. White is used almost exclusively, although medium or light blue is sometimes seen. The design colors are dominated by red and blue with yellow and green used sparingly. The lazy stitch is used as an application. The Crow and Shoshoni usually beaded on red trade or blanket cloth, using the cloth itself for a background. White was rarely used, except as a thin line outlining other design elements. The most common colors used for designs are pale lavender, pale blue, green, and yellow. On rare occasions, dark blue was used. Red beads were not used very often because they blended with the background color of the cloth and could not be seen. The applique stitch was used. Blackfoot beadwork can be identified by the myriad of little squares or oblongs massed together to make up a larger unit of design such as triangles, squares, diamonds, terraces, and crosses. The large figure is usually of one color and the little units edging it of many colors. The background color is usually white, although other light colors such as light blue and green have been used. The smallness of the pattern in Blackfoot designs would indicate this style is quite modern, as pony trading beads would be too large to work into these designs. Beadwork made in this style seems to imitate the designs of the woven quill work of some of the northwestern tribes with whom the Blackfoot came in contact.

Dubois and his guards are locked in the butler’s office. He says he’ll die before give up the location of the book. Rowan seems eager to call his bluff.

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That peculiar light just before sunset, before gloaming: it is then that Essa sees for the first time the famous dunes at Avanue, which roll like fat people in their sleep, and shift restlessly forever. “They cast long shadows, these sleeping giants, and Essa shivers. She has walked too far—after the trip north she was so grateful to be out of hospital—her hands and feet are cold, and she is dizzy with exhaustion. She sits down on the ragged grass at the edge of the bluff which overlooks the dunes, and tries not to hate them. “Her mother’s words, remembered in a dream, sound like water flowing in her thoughts. There is no water here. The grasses under her are dry and stiff, and they grow in sand so fine it grits through her clothing against the skin of her ass. The sea is too far away to see or smell. But at least she is alone. “Though she is shivering, it is still a hot day, and the sun has warmed the sand. The ground radiates heat into her body. She lies down flat on her belly, her head to one side so that she can still see the dunes, and puts her hands beneath her; gradually they warm. “Gradually her body comes back into balance and she starts to see an eerie beauty before her. The sun is fully down when she sits up, brushes the sand away as well as she can, and hugs her knees to her chest. She puts her chin on her knees and watches darkness descend over the low rolling landscape. “This is unlike any cliff on which she has rested yet. It is low and gives no perspective. The dunes come up almost to her feet. Yet the demarcation is quite abrupt: there is no grass growing anywhere after this brief crumbling drop-off, and she can see as the land-breeze begins to quicken that ahead of her the sand is moving. In fact, she realizes, she can hear it, a low sweeping sound which has mounted from inaudibility until it inexorably backs every other sound: sounds of grasses moving, insects scraping, birds calling from the invisible sea far beyond her viewpoint are all subsumed in one great sand-song. “It is a sound so relentlessly sad that Essa can hardly bear to listen, but so persistent that she cannot ignore it now that she has become aware of its susurration. She pulls her sweater—the one her mother made by her knitting—around her and waits. “When it is fully dark and the wind has died again, she rises and begins the long walk back to town in the dim light of stars and crescent moon.

I feel good. And victorious. And the feeling lasts. A few weeks after my first poker win, I’m approached by a magazine to write an article. I look back through my old emails. I’ve played with this opponent before: she’s asked me to write in the past, multiple times. It was always a little too small a sum for the effort required, so I’d never actually written anything. Every time I mentioned money, she walked away. Part of me just wants to accept this assignment: it’s interesting, I’ve done a lot of work on the background already, and the money isn’t all that bad. I’ve been offered worse. It would actually be a nice and needed boost at this precise moment. But on some level, part of me must remember: you can’t play scared. You can’t be afraid of how you look. You can’t be afraid someone will walk away because of what you do or don’t do. You have to play smart. And so I decide to check back: I’m not really doing much freelance work these days, I respond. I’m working on my next book. Not a refusal, but something that leaves the action open. Turn the decision momentum so that the power of position is on my side. Do nothing without first gauging my opponent’s reaction. Reveal nothing about the strength of my hand until I have to. A day later, I receive another email: What if we paid you more than we’ve offered in the past? This is an opening, and old me would have jumped at it. New me decides I don’t actually have to jump at anything; the smarter strategy might lie in another direction. I’m not sure that would be enough, I counter, since I really need to be paid more than I am at my home magazine to make it worth my while given the constraints on my time. In effect, I’m calling the bet, but I don’t raise. I simply stay in the hand to see what will happen. Three dollars a word, comes the next email. Done. I’ve won the hand and extracted more value than I ever thought I could from it.

After I’d called the journalist’s bluff, he went silent.

No. None of us is ever really prepared for death. For something so finite. As human beings, we’re used to being able to control our lives. To extend them, to an extent. But death brooks no argument. No final plea. No appeal. Death is death, and he holds all the cards. Even if you cheat him once, he won’t let you call his bluff a second time.

It is ironic that racist European scholars invented history for themselves to claim Sanskrit and created two fake races called Aryans and Dravidians as part of that story. It is more tragic than ironic that Indians have internalized and believed this bluff to the extent that political parties have been formed based on a race-name cooked up by racist Europeans.

Get on your knees.” His brows lift momentarily before he nods, sending a jolt down my spine. “Here, or would you like to come in a place with a little more privacy?” My jaw unhinges while a large part of me aches to call his bluff. “I was kidding, Kinkaid.” “I’m not.

Koch’s oil gathering division delivered a steady flow of cash and profits into the company. This money gave Charles Koch a chance to put his management theories to the test. He encouraged his employees to look for new growth opportunities and to act like entrepreneurs. He wanted to lead by example. In his first years as head of Koch Industries, Charles Koch put together one of the most brilliant and profitable deals in the history of Koch Industries. The deal involved an oil refinery. Since the late 1950s, Fred Koch had owned a minority share in the Great Northern oil refinery outside of Minneapolis, near the Pine Bend Bluffs natural reserve. The other shareholders in the refinery were an oil tycoon named J. Howard Marshall II and the Great Northern Oil Company. In 1969, the refinery didn’t look like a gold mine. Competition in the sector was fierce, with new refineries being put into production monthly. But the Pine Bend refinery, as everyone called it, had a secret source of profits. And this source of profits could be traced to exactly the kind of government intervention that Hayek hated most. In the 1950s, President Dwight Eisenhower capped the amount of oil that could be imported into the United States, in one of the federal government’s many ploys to protect domestic oil drillers. (Imported oil was often cheaper than domestic oil, so US drillers wanted it kept out.) But there was a loophole in that law that allowed unlimited imports from Canada. As it happened, Canada was the primary source of oil processed at the Pine Bend refinery. Pine Bend was one of only four refineries in the nation that was able to buy cheaper imported oil in unlimited quantities, giving it a huge advantage over firms that were forced to buy mostly domestic oil.

She’s offering one time, but I’m going to call her bluff because now I’m addicted.

The Soviets, in an unprecedented gesture, published the entire address—which called for mutual disarmament—in Pravda. A sense of hope and possibility briefly flared in Washington and Moscow, and other capitals around the world.

Well, I hope not everything. Shay has some racy books in her collection.” Cam pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. Blaine wanted nothing but to claim those lips and other parts of her. “She does not. And how would you know?” He lifted a brow, calling her bluff. “You borrowed some of them.” “Pft. Whatever.” She pulled out her Smartphone and opened an app then handed it to Max. “They’re not racy. They are bedtime stories for adults.” “Exactly.

A LITTLE AFTER FIVE, he went out to the Lexus SUV that he drove outside the Cities, and took off for Wisconsin. He was not in a mood for the scenic tour, so he went straight up I-35 to Highway 8, then east through Chisago City and Lindstrom and past Center City to Taylors Falls, then across the St. Croix into Wisconsin, north on Highway 82, off on River Road and finally, down a dirt lane lined with beech and oak trees to a redwood house perched on a bluff over the river. The front door was propped open with a river rock. The governor was sitting on a four-season porch, already closed in for the winter, that looked over the river valley. When Lucas banged on the screen door, he called, “Straight through to the porch. Get a beer out of the kitchen, or make yourself a drink.

1. Stop leading with weak pairs. Don’t try the old check-call flop, bet turn small line. Don’t try the variation where you just bet small on the flop either. Just don’t do it. 2. Instead, go ahead and check your weak pairs. Call small early bets with them (like the $20 on the flop in the above example), but fold if your opponent starts betting big money. You might feel like you’ll be pushed around if you play this way, but you won’t. First, most of your opponents at the small stakes will be too timid to try to push you around, and while they’ll take a stab for $20, they won’t try to blow you off your hand for $60 or $100. Second, when your opponents are aggressive, you just help them out with your weak leads. You tell them when it’s safe to bluff. 3. If you see someone else make this play, raise! You know how some players will tell you, “I’ll fold if you raise?” Well, this weak lead play tells you the same thing non-verbally. When someone bets out like this, they’re saying they plan to fold if you raise. So do it.

Radatz described MK12’s first week on the job, ‘We felt like kid astronauts with keys to an actual shuttle, like someone was going to call our bluff at any minute.’139 MK12’s initial creative brief was to explore the element at the heart of the film – water: We learned that we’d been thinking about the film from an opposite perspective than that of Marc and the producers: where we saw water as the central theme, they saw the lack of water as Bond and Greene’s motivation. Our initial concept set Bond in a landscape made of backlit female forms submerged in water. After mulling over random ideas for a few days, it occurred to us that the same technique could be transplanted to a desert scenario, with the female forms instead becoming sand dunes.

shoulders touching in a way that’s only mostly platonic. It’s inevitable, she supposes, that God would call her bluff.

I’ll jump off a bluff, or a cliff, so don’t call my bluff, or call me Cliff.

I have the whole team just around the block! One call and they'll ride in here like cavalry! Riding on... robots! Giant robots! Well, not giant robots, like in Egan, but... but... big enough robots!

The decorative arms race finally caved in under the sheer absurdity of Augustus the Strong (1670–1733), the Elector of Saxony who, with money pouring in from his hideous porcelain factory and from defrauding the Poles (whose king through chicanery he had become), decided to go for broke. When many of his contemporaries were sharpening up and reforming their armies, he spent much of his revenue on mistresses, lovely palaces and daft trinkets. He was aided in this last aim by the services of the great Badenese goldsmith Johann Melchior Ding-linger, who blew astounding sums making such monstrosities as a giant cup made from a block of polished chalcedony, dripping with coloured enamels and metals and balanced on stag horns, or creating repulsive little statues of dwarves by decorating mutant pearls, or a mad but magnificent object called The Birthday of the Grand Mogul Aurangzeb in which dozens of tiny figures made from precious stones and metals fill the tiny court of the Mogul, itself made from all kinds of spectacular and rare stuff. This delirious thing (not paid for by Augustus for many years as the money sort of ran out when a Swedish invasion swept through a virtually undefended Saxony) simply ended the tradition. Looking at it today in the head-spinning Green Vault in Dresden, Dinglinger’s fantasy seems a long way from the relative, bluff innocence of a yellowy whale tooth in a little display box – but it was the same tradition endlessly elaborated. Aside

The Poverty Mentality If I give you something, it costs me what I gave you. The more you have, the less I have. The more I share, the more I lose. How long have you had an approach to stuff or ideas or time that sounds like this? We've been taught it for a long time. Digital goods call our bluff. If you read my e-book, we both win. If you share it, so do your friends. Attention is precious, and if you're willing to trade your attention for my idea, we both thrive. But it goes far beyond that. When you give something away, you benefit more than the recipient does. The act of being generous makes you rich beyond measure, and as the goods or services spread through the community, everyone benefits. But that's a hard thing to start doing, because you've been taught that what's yours is yours. If you don't have enough (and who does, say the marketers), then how can you possibly give away what you have? And yet, every day, successful people race to give away their expertise and to spread their ideas.

l’after-shave, le badge, le barbeque, le best-seller, le blue-jean, le blues, le bluff, le box-office, le break, le bridge, le bulldozer, le business, le cake, la call-girl, le cashflow, le check-in, le chewing-gum, le club, le cocktail, la cover-girl, le cover-story, le dancing, le design, le discount, le do-it-yourself, le doping, le fan, le fast-food, le feedback, le freezer, le gadget, le gangster, le gay, le hall, le handicap, le hold-up, le jogging, l’interview, le joker, le kidnapping, le kit, le knock-out, le label, le leader, le look, le manager, le marketing, le must, les news, le parking, le pickpocket, le pipeline, le planning, le playboy, le prime time, le pub, le puzzle, se relaxer, le self-service, le software, le snack, le slogan, le steak, le stress, le sweatshirt, le toaster and le week-end.

The shithole he’s referring to is an area known locally as the Bluff—five square miles of drug houses, flophouses, abandoned buildings, squatters, drugs, violence, desperation, and the constant woop-woop of sirens. The Bluff is Atlanta’s answer to Compton, to Chicago’s South Side, and to the Heartland’s countless and nameless meth-riddled trailer parks. It is where all of Atlanta’s heroin is sold and most of its crack is consumed. People here live in aging projects or derelict bungalows; when they aren’t getting into trouble, Pike says, they’re calling 911.

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!   Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!   Thy mists, that roll and rise! Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff! World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!   Long have I known a glory in it all,   But never knew I this;   Here such a passion is As stretcheth me apart, – Lord, I do fear Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year; My soul is all but out of me, – let fall No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

Kevin Banner. He’s rehabbing the old Parkerson place up on Point Bluff for you. Best pals, birth to earth. Well, earth’s a ways off, unless you kill me with that tire iron, but we’ve known each other since before we could walk. You can call him, get my bona fides if it’ll loosen the grip you’ve got on that thing.

action such as a call or raise intended to deceive others about the cards a player has in hand; a lie told to others or to oneself

The purpose of this manifesto is not to magically extinguish your fear. Our purpose is to call fear’s bluff. Identifying the “fear of go” is the first step on the road to making the fear go away. If you can embrace the idea that your success and happiness are tied up in defeating the fear that’s holding you back, you’re 90 percent of the way to where you need to go, because no, we’re not kids, and no, this is not a bike.

Madness calls literature’s bluff by going beyond it and falling short of it at the same time. When Bloom wrote that “schizophrenia is bad poetry, for the schizophrenic has lost the strength of perverse, wilful, misprision,” he meant that in order to read something “wrong,” there had to be a way to read it right. There had to be truth, whether or not you acknowledged it, instead of mere illusion.