Weekly News Quiz!

I might try to do this every week....I might not, hopefully I'll be able to write my own questions, but this week, I am posting the Weekly News Quiz from The Chicago Tribune, with a question of my own added. Post your answers in comments and let's see how many people out there have been paying attention to the world this week! I'll post the answers over the weekend!

Here we go...
1. Why did a Florida college professor sue "American Idol"?

A. He argues that royalties should be paid to songwriters for all the pieces used by contestants in their auditions -- no matter how badly they sing
B. He asserted that the concept of the show was stolen from a short story he wrote in 1982 entitled "Singing Beyond the Shower"
C. He alleged that nasty "Idol" judge Simon Cowell was "negatively impacting the self-esteem of a generation of American singers"
D. The 50-year-old alleged age discrimination when he was not allowed to audition for the show

2. Which of the following names does NOT appear in Norway's current telephone book?


A. Donald Duck
B. Osama bin Laden
C. James Bond
D. Harry Potter
E. All these names are listed

3. According to the annual Lemelson-MIT Invention Index Survey, which of the following gadgets did more people say they could not live without?
A. Car
B. Cell phone
C. Computer
D. Microwave oven
E. Toothbrush

4. With the opening of a section of the Boston's Big Dig tunnel, motorists can now drive on what road from Boston's Logan International Airport to Seattle, Wash., without leaving the highway?
A. Route 66
B. Interstate 90
C. Interstate 80
D. Interstate 10
E. It is still not possible to make this trip

5. Millions of Cubans voted Jan. 19 in elections where all 609 candidates ran uncontested. Who was NOT a candidate?
A. Elian Gonzalez's father, Juan Miguel
B. Track star Ana Fidelia Quirot
C. President Fidel Castro
D. Folk singer Silvio Rodriguez
E. All these candidates ran and won

6. The U.N. Human Rights Commission, the organization's human rights watchdog, elected a diplomat from what country as president, despite concern about the country's poor record on civil liberties?
A. Libya
B. Iraq
C. North Korea
D. China

7. What large city became the first to outlaw the Segway (that little scooter "IT" thing) on its sidewalks?
A. Detroit
B. San Francisco
C. New York
D. Seattle

8. British police continue their investigation into an armed Algerian group suspected of planning an attack in England using what deadly poison, which was found in a London apartment Jan. 5?
A. Ricin
B. Anthrax
C. Smallpox
D. Plague

9. Which is the nation's largest minority group for the first time ever, according to a Census Bureau report released on Jan. 21?
A. Hispanics
B. Blacks
C. Asians
D. American Indians
E. Native Hawaiians

10. Who won the women's U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Jan. 18?
A. Jennifer Kirk
B. Ann Patrice McDonough
C. Sarah Hughes
D. Michelle Kwan
E. Sasha Cohen

11. Super Bowl Sunday has become one of the nation's biggest days for avocado consumption. But the NFL championship ranks only third in avocado-eating events overall. What event is first?
A. Memorial Day weekend
B. Cinco de Mayo
C. 4th of July
D. Labor Day weekend
E. No one keeps track of this type of thing

12. On the avocado theme, if you were to cover a football field, end zone to end zone, with the amount of avocados that are consumed on Super Bowl Sunday, how deep would the pile be?

A. 1 foot
B. 5 feet
C. 7.5 feet
D. 15 feet
E. 50 feet

13. According to 74 Italian weight loss experts interviewed for an article in an Italian health magazine, what is the best way to shed pounds?
A. Eat only candy and cake
B. Exercise at least four times a week
C. Diet
D. Drink red wine daily
E. Fall in love

Happy Friday!

Here's the answers to a fairly revealing Friday Five for ya this week...

1. What is one thing you don't like about your body?
I have short wrinkly fingers. The reason I pick this as the one this about my body that I don't like is because there is absolutely nothing I can do, no amount of exercise or diet, will change the way my hands look.

2. What are two things you love about your body?
I love my hair and my eyes.

3. What are three things you want to change about your home?
It's location, the number of bedrooms and the lack of a basement! (I don't think that's what they're getting at here) Seriously...I love my house, it just needs a little more storage since I am a great collector of stuff!

4. What are four books you want to read this year?
Just four? As we speak, I have a shelf of 11 books that I bought and haven't read yet. I finished a book last night, so this evening I'll probably start Jeffrey Archer's new book, I'll follow it with The Blessings by Anna Quindlan, I would like to read David Frum's book The Right Man (about Dubya), and as soon as Jeff's done with the book he's reading right now, The Bureau and the Mole, I'd like to read it.

5. What are five promises you have kept to yourself?
Marry only for love.
Never lose touch with the important people in my life.
Keep my faith.
Go to college.
Never give up on my dreams.

I can think of a MILLION things to do with this money...

From Reuters

Heartbroken by Divorce, Man Burns Family Assets

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Swedish man, desolate after his wife filed for divorce, converted the family's shares and mutual funds into cash and burned the money -- $81,300, a newspaper reported Thursday.
"Bitterness is not uncommon in connection with divorces but it is almost unique that one of the spouses puts fire to all their wealth," Bengt Svensson, public prosecutor in the town of Jonkoping in southern Sweden, told the daily Aftonbladet.

DNA Music

Think you don't have a musical bone in your body? Well, you might not, but at the very least, you could have your DNA set to music. Check this out. Further proof that there is someone interested in everything...

The Process

I'm going to let you in on a secret...I am a geek. I am married to a geek. We talk about geek things, we enjoy doing geeky activities and we are proud to be geeks. I let you on this secret because the following information is further proof that I am a geek.

Like the majority of the people who author blogs, I am extremely interested in politics. However, where my interest really leads me is to a fascination with the political process. I spend hours scouring the web for information on how our government works. Not the stuff we all learned in civics class or from School House Rocks about how a bill becomes a law, and the checks and balances. But exactly how the gears of Washington work. For example, a few weeks ago I was fascinated by the the process of setting up a new Senator's office, the hiring of the staff, the office selection process, the orientation week in November for the freshman, the seminars on security that spouses have to attend, and on and on and on.

My newest fascination? The process of crafting the State of the Union Address. The process that the President's staff goes through to write any speech is interesting, but when we're talking about (allegedly) the most important speech a President makes in a year the process is extensive. I found this article on CNN.com that does a good job of summarizing a lot of what I've read around the web about the process. It talks about how in December, the President meets with his speechwriting team to decide on the major themes and basic construction of the speech. The President doesn't actually get his hands on the speech until it's fully written, when last weekend the speech was delivered to him at Camp David. So, Bush sits down with his sharpie marker and goes to town. From there he has been working with the speech writers very closely the last few days and the hope is that the final revisions will be completed in the next day or so, to give Dubya four or five days to rehearse the speech.

I have high expectations for this years State of the Union. Ari Fleischer is quoted as saying, in reference to the address and it's timing "A lot of history has to be made in the next few days." The State of the Union address comes one day after United Nations inspectors report their initial findings from Iraq. The White House considers that a crucial milestone as Bush tries to rally allies against Saddam and brace the public for war that could begin within weeks.

A Solemn Day

Today, as everyone knows, marks the 30th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade legalize abortion in the United States. The abortion issue is probably the single most debated topic in our country, and today the blogosphere is full of commentary about the anniversary. (Jeff has a well thought out piece on his blog and Jaime McDonald comments on the protests in Washington today, he also links this column that brought tears to my eyes. )

When I start to think about abortion, about the numbers of helpless infants who have been taken from this world because their parents were too scared to take responsibility for them, the number of people who were conceived all whom had an individual personality, a individual fate, friends to meet, soccer games to play and children of their own to give conceive but who instead were murdered, makes me feel physically ill.

Every day on my way to work I drive past an abortion clinic, often there are protestors or supporters picketing outside exercising their beautiful American right to make their voices heard. I pray for all of them, protestors and supporters alike. I pray for the women I see going into the clinic, the choice they have made is one that they will have to deal with one day when it's their turn to face their Father.

I have friends who have had abortions, I have friends who vehemently support a woman's right to chose, and friends who agree with me that life is not a choice. All of these people are my friends. I will never berate a woman, stranger of friends, for choosing an abortion, because it is not my place to judge, it is my place to love everyone as I have been loved. It is Someone much more important than me who will judge these women. I pray for them when that time comes.

Ever Had One of THOSE Days...

You know the ones...
...when everything you try to do takes twice as long as it should...
...when you feel like you look like a dishelved mess...
...when every thought or idea that comes in your head somehow turns negative...
...and everyone around you just grates on your nerves...
...One when you wish you could just go to bed and get up again on a different day, in a different place, or as a different person, just so that something was different???

Yep...having one of those myself today....

My Weather Pixie Lies

If my Weather Pixie were to tell you the actual temperature of where I am, she would be shown wearing a bikini, because it is currently 3 degrees cooler than the surface of the sun in my office. AND MY COWORKERS JUST TURNED THE HEAT UP AGAIN! The thermostat is now set at 82 friggin degrees.....Seriously people I can not work under these conditions!

Official TLC Statement:

Saturday night, after a lovely evening of good food and great company with our friends Mr and Mrs Steele, Jeff and I came home and watched the late night showing of the Trading Spaces Live Reveal from Las Vegas! We watched the entire episode and we were fairly excited to see the Reveal because both designers finally designed cool rooms (in the same show...that never happens) when much to our dismay the "reveal" portion of the show was HORRIBLE. It kept rewinding and playing again, the crew was on screen talking rather than the homeowners and we never actually saw a reveal. I kept hoping that this wasn't the way the original airing of the reveal came off because for a network like TLC to have a live segment go this poorly would be such an embarassment. Alas, it was not the way the actual "live" reveal went. This morning on the TLC website they issued the following statement regarding the midnight showing:

"TLC experienced a technical failure during the midnight (late night) repeat airing of the Trading Spaces live reveal on Saturday, January 18th. The problem occurred out of TLC's originating facility and interrupted the final segment of the program during the east coast feed. We sincerely apologize to all of our viewers who were inconvenienced by this interruption. TLC will reair the program in its entirety at 10:00 p.m. (ET/PT) on Sunday, January 26th, 2003 (tentative). We hope you will check the website to confirm the date and time later this week."

Whew....I can rest easier at night now that I know that!

A Fresh Look at the Tax Cuts

Come one, Come all, and listen to a tale made simple. A tale of tax cuts, put into terms that everyone can understand!

John Williams, the drivehome jock on the greatest radio station in the country (Chicago's WGN radio) read the following story on the air Friday night. Every American should read this, it's lengthy, but stick with it, it brings the proposed tax cuts, the ones that "benefit the rich," into a perspective that anyone who's split a dinner tab between a group can understand! If I were Dubya I would use some of my budget to print this out and mail it to every single American... Happy reading and please pass this on!

Let's put the proposed tax cuts in terms everyone can understand.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to
$100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something
like this.

The first four men -- the poorest -- would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1,
the sixth would pay $3, the seventh $7, the eighth $12, the ninth $18, and the
tenth man -- the richest -- would pay $59.

That's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every
day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement until one day, the owner threw
them a curve (in tax language a tax cut).

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost
of your daily meal by $20." So now dinner for the ten only cost $80.00.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.

So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what
about the other six -- the paying customers? How could They divvy up the $20
windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted
that from everybody's share, Then the fifth man and
The sixth man would end up being PAID to eat their meal. So the restaurant owner
suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same
amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5,
the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52
instead of his earlier $59. Each of the six was better off than before. And the
first four continued to eat for free.

But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only
got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man,then, pointing to the
tenth. "But he got $7!". "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man, "I only
saved a dollar, too, ........It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!".

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man," why should he get $7 back when I got
only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!".

Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "We didn't get anything at
all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate
without him.

But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered, a little late what was
very important. They were FIFTY-TWO DOLLARS short of paying the bill! Imagine
that!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college instructors, is how the tax
system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a
tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just
may not show up at the table anymore. They might just take their business
offshore, or something; they're getting beaten up no matter what they do.
Where would that leave the rest?

A little Monday morning Humor

Jay Leno is quoted in the dead tree version of the National Review this week talking about the Peace demonstration in California a few days ago. He's talking about the demonsration where 50 women stripped their clothes off and shaped themselves into the word PEACE on an open field. Leno's comment "Right Idea, Wrong President!"....I thought that was hysterical! Happy Monday!