Challenge Set #9

It is time for the Challenge to return. However, I have decide to update the rules. You still cannot use Google or another general web search engine to do research and so on. The big change is that I am no longer going to limit the Challenge to one winner. I may substitute, at my discretion, a different prize of a similar value for the next winner after the first one, but there is no reason to give up if you are behind. Keep at it and you too will eventually get a prize. (Well, I'm not promising unlimited prizes, but you know what I mean.). Additionally, Kevin has said he does not want the initial prize, so don't let his 215 points discourage you.

If you are new to the game since it last occurred, I highly recommend you read the information on the aformentioned link so that you can understand exactly how this works and so on.

Scoreboard
Kevin: 215 (up from 190 on February 13)
Flip: 105 (up from 70 on February 13) — earned points from “Photo Game” (here, here)
Christopher: 70
Jason: 35
Josiah: 30
Eduardo: 20
Ed: 10
Chris (answering vicariously for his wife): 10

Note: I've placed the answers to the previous, still pending questions on the permalink/comment page for this entry (just incase anyone here has been up at night wondering what the answers were).

New Questions

9.1) Who is the current president or prime minister of Romania? Explain the basic connection between those two offices (5 pts. for each of the three things you can answer here).

I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing?

9.3) What is happening at 6:00 PM, 13 days from now (presently, it is April 16). (5 pts.)

9.4) What happened on this day (again April 16) in 1178 B.C. that may have been of interest to Homer? (15 pts.)

9.5) What bill has made it to the President's desk in recent days that has the support of retailers and is hated by some consumer advocates? (5 pts.)

House Cleaning
Let's answer the unfinished questions of the past:

7.4.) Who was the one clergyman to sign the U.S. Constitution? What was his affiliation? (5 pts.) Whoops, I should have asked for a signer of the Declaration of Independence instead. The answer then would be John Witherspoon, who was president of what is now Princeton University for a time.

7.5.) What are the two parts of AT&T, other than Baby Bells, that will be reunited if the SBC-AT&T merger is approved by regulatory agencies? What makes this merger such an interesting contrast to AT&T's 1998 acquisition of Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI)? (10 5 pts.) If you check the numbers, AT&T paid sizably more for the upstart TCI than SBC is paying for the telephone company, Ma Bell, just a few years later.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

8.3.) Name the ties of the apostate UCC denomination to the Puritans and eighteenth century Methodists. (10 pts.) BONUS: Link it to the German Pietists as well for 5 pts. The Congregational Christian church resulted from the merger of a part of the eighteen century Christian movement (which in turn came from Methodist/Revival influence) and the Congregational Church, the church of the Pilgrims. This new church merged with the Evangelical and Reformed church, which traces part of its roots back to the German Pietists that settled in Missouri and elsewhere.