[space race quiz] american and soviet programmes

1. On January 31, 1958, Satellite 1958 Alpha was launched. What was it more commonly known as? Hint: E.....

2. To be fair, the Soviets had been first with the First intercontinental ballistic missile in 1957. What was it called? Hint: Letter and number or the Russian name S.....

3. On May 5, 1961, which astronaut, one of the seven Project Mercury astronauts selected as pilot for this mission, became the first American in space when he piloted Freedom 7 on a 15-minute suborbital flight? Hint: AS

4. In 1960 the first dogs went into orbit aboard Sputnik 5. We often erroneously say that Laika went into space but that is the type of dog. There were actually two dogs - what were their names? Hint: B&S.

5. On December 11, 1972, who were the last astronauts to [allegedly] land on the moon? Hint: EC & H[J]S


Answers

Explorer 1; the R-7 Semyorka; Alan Shepard; Belka and Strelka; Eugene Cernan and Harrison H. "Jack" Schmitt

[over there] two tales from the other side

Don't know about you but I always liked the more surreal bits of The Young Ones. The first is dedicated to my new pagan friends, especially lilith and her Turkish delight:



But in the interests of fairness, equality and positive discrimination, we can't forget my own religion either, especially the apocalyptic bits:



To the Americans attempting to watch this ... er ... sorry ...

[caption time] fancy chinese this evening?

[definition of a moron] bill maher

"Never underestimate the ability of a tiny fringe group of losers to ruin everything [by finding the real birth certificate]." Bill Maher

Losers, birthers, truthers - liberally use mud but don't dare put yourself out, Richard Cranium, to examine the evidence. That's the Maher way.

They're saying it's now been found but it had already been allegedly sighted by a reporter [correction here] well before the election and the Kenyan government then shut down the communication channels, stripped the reporter of his equipment and deported him. Fox News rescued the guy and ran a report on it at the time.

Why has it now supposedly been found again? Who took off the shackles? How has it miraculously appeared?

Either way, now Obama may be pressurized to produce his real birth certificate, the long version, for once and for all. So that's a positive.

Further reading

Update 15:07 The document being debunked is last week's obvious forgery, complete with spyware, not the Taitz document.

The Post Chronicle says:

Anyone who surfs the web has by now become at least nominally aware that a rapidly growing segment of America is quite dissatisfied with the vetting of the President. The question is largely centered on Barack Obama's refusal to release what is known as the long form of his Hawaiian birth certificate.

Equally disconcerting is the fact that some high profile conservatives like Bill O'Reilly and Governor Mike Huckabee think Obama is perfectly OK with the COLB he displayed on Snopes.com We have to wonder why they are so sure about something they have never seen either.

The birth record is only one of many documents that have raised suspicion about the President's past. It is ridiculously un-complicated because the commonality of every document in question is the same; they are still missing, or at least unseen by anyone except those who are reported to be holding them.

15:31: Vanderbilt University

“I believe that the president should end the speculation by being transparent about all aspects of his background,” [Professor of Political Science and Law] Carol Swain said. Swain said that what is posted online for the president is a certificate of live birth. “It is the failure to release the long form that keeps suspicion alive.”

Other sealed records that Swain has called for the president to release include those pertaining to his education, foreign travel and state legislative business.

It's a very simple matter to resolve - release the long copy of the Birth Certificate. No calling people nutters or birthers or writing long articles about "oh no, the birthers are at it again". Forget the ridicule and solve the issue for once and for all:

Release the long copy birth certificate.

[novel solution] to one of the world's greatest problems

The problem of flight finally solved!

Check out a better solution.

[good characterization] can get you through 1168 pages

Commenting on Ayn Rand being adept with her prose, Tom Paine commented:

That's true, but she's a hopeless novelist, and for precisely the reason Juliette nailed in the first quote. Rand cannot create a convincing character. Having slogged painfully through 1168 pages, I admire her as a thinker but I cannot begin to imagine why she chose this vehicle for her thoughts.

Tom continues:

Great writers create living, breathing characters. Sherlock Holmes is as real as you or I and will outlast both us and his author. Dickens populated a small town with his characters, each of them - even the minor ones - a recognisable individual. John Irving is the greatest living author in English precisely because he creates magnificent characters we can love, hate and care about.

He hits the nail on the head with "we can love, hate and care about". Indeed and not only that but the author has to let his characters run free, to emote freely. There's nothing worse than a contrived plot where the characters are so obviously controlled by the prejudices of the author, like marionettes on a string.

An example is this:

"There won't be any revolution in America," said Isadore. Nikita agreed. [Linklater, Juan in America, 1933]

Chesterton was one to contrive to place characters woodenly, have them stand or sit, immobile in one place, get them suddenly angry and then drop back to being calm again. P.G. Wodehouse was not immune either. I've just conceded defeat on Money for Nothing and The Girl in Blue.

The trouble is characterization. There is a female, Pat, whose first move is to urge her male friend to confront a bull in a field, just to see if the bull is as dangerous as depicted. Even if we overlook the no doubt lovely name Pat, lovely in real life but hardly the thing for a novel, there is her nasty nature and she's one of the central protagonists.

I lost all interest at that point. There was no anger, no resentment, just indifference to anything she subsequently did or how many men were going to die for her. And when a succession of Johns and Hughs and whoever then appeared, that was that - the books will be returned to the library today.

So, it's quite a thing to engage the reader.

In my own novel, the problem, it seems to me, is not in the action - things happen at random and I don't direct them but just type and record them as they unfold ... but the problem is in the characters and in the basic premise in the first place. Not everyone wants to read the doings of a glutton for punishment and the feisty females around him, especially if, erroneously, they think the main character is the author. Also, the premise that society is progressively disintegrating and the characters are trying to adjust to that, seems far fetched to many.

It's a fine line, this matter of which characters "grab" us and which we can take or leave. Maugham had this habit of making himself obnoxiously cold and unforgiving in his short stories. This from the Lotus Eater:

On the way he asked me what I had thought of Wilson.

"Nothing," I said. "I don`t believe there`s a word of truth in your story."

"Why not?"

"He isn`t the sort of man to do that sort of thing."

"How does anyone know what anyone is capable of?"

"I should put him down as an absolutely normal man of business who`s retired on a comfortable income from ill-edged securities, I think your story`s just the ordinary Capri tittle- little."

This was upfront near the beginning of the story. Now I can tell you, if I had a "friend" like this, he'd soon be an ex-friend. It's all well and good not to believe someone but he could have said, "Well, let's wait and see," or "Well, I don't know if I can agree with you there," or, "I'd be interested to know for sure."

As it is, one loses all interest in what Maugham's first person character thinks after that. It's so difficult to engage a reader in the first person, unless it is a brave tale of woe.

So yes, Tom, 1168 pages of Ayn Rand seems a tall order to me as well. 1168 pages of Dreiser would also seem a tall order. 1168 pages of, say, Josephine Tey, would be a delight.