Dr. Malthus, Call Your Office     I’m reading this story about a refugee camp in Kenya. The refugees are from Somalia. The interviewer finds one of the earliest arrivals, Mohamed Nur Hajin, who’s been in the camp since 1991.

I have no hope of returning now. I have to stay here. Every day there are 500 new arrivals, so it shows you that there is nothing to go back to.

Things are rough in the camp.

Our life here in the camp is peaceful, but it is still very difficult . . . There is a severe shortage of water, and the food ration is not enough for everyone. It is very hard here.

There are consolations, though:

When I came here, my family consisted of three, but thanks to God, I have had six more children so now we are nine.

		Steyn: The Superbower Blase: A Medicaid Buy-Off Sanders: Blanche Lincoln’s Balancing Act Costa: Saturday Night Fever Miller: The Man Who Would Kill Lincoln Hibbs: Just Bite Her Already Goldberg: We Need Your Help Spruiell: Welcome to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy Editors: End It, Don’t Amend It Goldberg: Palinophobes Hate First, Ask Questions Later Murdock: Medicare: A Glimpse of the Future? Krauthammer: Travesty in New York Charen: Holder’s True Motive Lowry: Barack Obama’s Chump Diplomacy Spakovsky: Criminalizing Health-Care Freedom Anderson: Roadmap to Victory

Math Corner     The solution to last month’s puzzle is here.

This month’s puzzle was sent in by a longtime correspondent with a name distinguished in the luggage business.

Ken and Bob find themselves in possession of three blank-sided dice. These are ordinary cubic dice, with six faces each.

Ken writes the numbers from 1 to 18 on the sides. No number is repeated. Each side of each of the three dice now shows a number from 1 to 18.

Bob then chooses one of the three dice. Ken chooses one of the other two. The third die is discarded.

The two men then play a game of dice war. The war consists of a hundred “rounds.” In each round, first Ken rolls his die, then Bob rolls his. The man with the highest number showing on the topmost face of his die, wins the round.

Whichever man wins the larger number of rounds, wins the war.

Question:   If both men followed the strategy that gave them the best mathematical chance to win this war, what would the numbers on the dice look like?

I’ll admit I haven’t tackled or Googled this problem, so there’s no guarantee I’ll come up with a solution. Furthermore, my intuition suggests it’s much harder than it looks. Let’s see.

— John Derbyshire is an NRO columnist and author, most recently, of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism.

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