VETO 2006, FARSIDE first packet tossups
TOSSUP 1
Six letters to Ronald McDonald. A list of all 3-letter legal Scrabble
words, plus one "non-regulation word". All the 5-digit prime numbers,
with one non-prime among them. The first hundred thousand digits of
pi, with exactly one digit wrong. Five assignments for a course
at Kwantlen College. All these are in a novel narrated by Ethan Jarlewski
about himself and five co-workers at a videogame company in Burnaby,
B.C., whose surnames all begin with the same letter. For 10 points,
name this 2006 book that begins, self-referentially: "Oh God. I feel
like a refugee from a Douglas Coupland novel."
Answer: JPOD
TOSSUP 2
According to his biographer, Hegesippus, his piety was such that he did not
drink wine, eat animal flesh, shave, or bathe.
According to Christian tradition, he was
the head of the first church in Jerusalem and the author of an epistle in the
New Testament that Martin Luther thought did not belong in the canon because of
its assertion that "faith without works is dead". For 10 points, who was this
brother of Jesus?
Answer: Saint JAMES the Just
TOSSUP 3
For the past two years, this country has had the highest real economic growth
rate in the western hemisphere. The expansion follows the country's deepest
ever economic contraction in 2002 and 2003, with low points including
a two-month general strike and the 47-hour presidency of
Pedro Carmona, who fled to
Colombia after his coup d'�tat
failed. For 10 points, what country is, not coincidentally, the
western hemisphere's biggest exporter of petroleum?
Answer: Bolivarian Republic of VENEZUELA
TOSSUP 4
"It would be appropriate to recommend strongly
that those who are destined for this country not be
in any way ill favoured by nature, that they not be outwardly repulsive, that
they be healthy and strong enough for country work or that they at least have
some skill in manual work." So wrote Jean Talon to Jean-Baptiste Colbert in
1670 about some recent arrivals in Quebec, who had been
recruited mostly from orphanages. Transportation costs and
fifty livres each were paid by Louis the Fourteenth to, for 10 points,
what prospective marriage partners of French settlers?
Answer: FILLES DU ROI
(or the KING'S DAUGHTERS)
TOSSUP 5
Its moment-generating function is the quantity one minus two t
raised to the power negative N over two, where N is an integer
parameter. Its mean is N, and its variance is two N.
If you take N independent random variables all with standard normal
distributions, then the sum of their squares follows, for 10 points,
what probability distribution that is used in
statistical tests of samples and goodness of fit?
Answer: CHI-SQUAREd distribution
TOSSUP 6
At one thousand five hundred and sixty metres above sea level, it's the highest
town in Europe. The location of a sanatorium where Thomas Mann set his
Magic Mountain, it also hosts the Spengler Cup international hockey
tournament every December.
Klaus Schwab is responsible for the town's main claim to fame since 1971:
a January event that brings together exactly
250 academics, 250 media leaders, 250 political leaders, and a
thousand business leaders — and does its best to keep anyone else away.
For 10 points, name this Swiss site of the World
Economic Forum.
Answer: DAVOS, Graub�nden, Switzerland
TOSSUP 7
It was established by a decree of Catherine the Great in 1791, and expanded in
1794 and 1795 after the second and third Partitions of Poland.
Caucasia and Astrakhan were added by Czar Alexander the First, then removed by
Nicholas the First, who also excluded the city of Kiev.
University graduates, retired soldiers,
merchants of the first guild and artisans
were allowed to live
outside it, but for 10 points,
what was the only part of the Russian Empire permitted for residence
by all other Jews?
Answer: PALE OF SETTLEMENT
(or CHERTA OSEDLOSTI)
TOSSUP 8
He started working for the United Steelworkers of America in 1967, but left
in 1978 to join the federal civil service. In 1982 he set up a
private practice in Vancouver that has had him working closely with
leaders in industries including
airlines, railroads, construction, grain handling, forestry,
pulp and paper, hospitality,
public safety,
health care,
and education.
The provincial government has appointed him to at least five
Industrial Inquiry Commissions. For 10 points, name this well-prepared
man who gets called in seemingly
every labour dispute in B.C. as a mediator.
Answer: Vincent L. (Vince) READY
TOSSUP 9
This poem won the Newdigate Prize at Oxford in 1845 and
made John Burgon's reputation as
a literary one-hit wonder, but actually only one
line of this work is ever usually quoted, and the second half of that line was
cribbed from a description of temples in Samuel Rogers' poem
"Italy".
For 10 points, name the poem that contains the couplet, "Match me such
marvel save in Eastern clime / A rose red city half as old as time."
Answer: PETRA
TOSSUP 10
Since its founding in 1931 under federal auspices,
researchers at this institution
have discovered the
antiproton and the antineutron and the first element ever named after a living
person, its long-time associate director, Glenn Seaborg,
the co-discoverer of nine other elements here including
those named after the institution's city and state.
For 10 points,
what U.S. Department of Energy facility boasts
ten Nobel laureates and dramatic views of the Golden Gate
and San Francisco from
above the campus of the University of California?
Answer: (Ernest Orlando)
Lawrence BERKELEY National LABoratory
(or LBL or LBNL)
(Do not accept University of California, Berkeley; that is separate)
TOSSUP 11
The person who made it up said that learning it takes only
seven weeks. In 1943, Winston Churchill put forward a suggestion that it be
put to use in the Atlantic Charter,
but Franklin Roosevelt's answer was that the most good form of
Churchill's old talk of note would then
be "blood, work, eye water and face water".
For 10 points, give the name of this simple language of
only eight hundred and fifty words,
that was the invention of C.K. Ogden.
Answer: BASIC ENGLISH
Host: "That whole tossup was written in Basic English."
TOSSUP 12
On April 9, 2006, he celebrated his 74th birthday and received a special
comedian award from the International Comedy Film Festival of Pe��scola
["pen-YEE-sko-la"], Spain. Now in retirement in Palm Springs, he has taken up
painting in his own genre dubbed "ape-stract art". For 10 points, name this
four-foot-tall
film actor who has outlived his 1930s co-stars Maureen O'Sullivan and Johnny
Weissmuller from "Tarzan".
Answer: CHEETA the chimpanzee
TOSSUP 13
"You cannot legislate against geography."
(pause)
"More revolutions have been caused by Conservative obstinacy than by Liberal
exaggeration."
(pause)
"For us, sons of France, political sentiment is a passion;
while, for the Englishman, politics are a question of business."
(pause)
"The nineteenth century was the century of the United States.
I think we can claim that it is Canada that shall fill the twentieth
century."
These are all
quotes by, for 10 points, what turn-of-the-century prime minister?
Answer: Sir Wilfrid LAURIER
TOSSUP 14
It is the partial derivative of the Gibbs free energy with respect to area
when pressure and temperature are held constant. Empirically, it's
proportional to the difference between the temperature and the critical
temperature, divided by the two-thirds power of the density of the liquid.
Arising from a force that tends to minimize area, for 10 points,
what is this property that results in liquids forming spherical droplets and
allows insects to walk on water?
Answer: SURFACE TENSION
TOSSUP 15
It teaches "one's relationship to the two basic laws of life —
mathematics and language — and ... how everyone can benefit through this
wisdom." Founded in 1930 by Alfred J. Parker in Vancouver, it claims that
one's "thoughts, desires, opinions, likes, dislikes,
reactions" can all be measured by linking mathematics to one's name, and its
website contains analyses of seven hundred and sixty-six thousand names.
For 10 points, what is this self-styled Philosophy based on
"Advanced Numerology"?
Answer: KABALARIANism
TOSSUP 16
Previously
discharged from military service for being a certified imbecile, he is
making a living selling mongrel dogs with forged pure-bred pedigrees when he
is again drafted into the army as war breaks out.
He finds that a lunatic asylum offers "real freedom"
where "you can be whatever you want: God, the Pope, the King of England, or
Saint Vaclav ['VATS-laff'], although the last was constantly straitjacketed."
Expelled for faking lunacy and put back on duty, he gives himself up to the
Russians. For 10 points, who is this title character in a novel
by Jaroslav Hašek ["HA-sheck"]?
Answer: the Good Soldier ŠVEJK ["shvaik"]
TOSSUP 17
The probability that it could have arisen by chance is
one in ten to the two-hundred-and-thirty-fourth power,
according to William Dembski, a mathematician at Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary.
Touted by biochemist Michael Behe as an example of
"irreducible complexity", it consists of a short hook, a reversible rotary
motor embedded within the cell wall, and a long helical filament that acts
as a propeller. For 10 points, name this organelle used for motion by
bacteria.
Answer: bacterial FLAGELLUM
TOSSUP 18
He picked up a giraffe in Africa, which he visited from
the Mozambique Channel up through the Red Sea to Egypt.
In Ceylon he picked up King Alagonakkara and brought
him home as a prisoner too.
His explorations took him through the Persian Gulf, along the Arabian coast,
and throughout the islands of southeast Asia. Commanding
over three hundred ships
and twenty-seven thousand people, for 10 points, who was this admiral during
the Ming dynasty?
Answer: ZHENG HE
or CHENG HO or MA SANBAO
TOSSUP 19
On the website urban dictionary dot com, this four-word phrase is defined as
"a complete and total screw-up." It's the title of Calvin Trillin's 2006
book of poetry subtitled "More of the Bush Administration in Rhyme".
First applied to the work of
Bob Riley, Haley Barbour, and Kathleen Blanco on September 2, 2005,
for 10 points, what ambiguous
phrase did President Bush most memorably also apply moments
later to the accomplishments of FEMA Director Michael Brown?
Answer: a HECK OF A JOB
(Accept as much as "Brownie, you're doing a HECK OF A JOB",
as long as the last four words are given.)
TOSSUP 20
Nalbant in Turkish,
Sepp�nen ["SEP-pan-en"] in Finnish,
Haddad in Arabic,
Pandai in Indonesian or Tagalog,
Kuznetsov in Russian,
Kovar in Czech,
Kovacs ["KO-vatch"] in Hungarian,
Gough ["goff"] in Irish,
Ferraro in Italian,
Herrera in Spanish,
Lefevre in French,
and Schmidt in German
are all, for 10 points, names referring to what profession?
Answer: SMITH (accept BLACKSMITH)
TOSSUP 21
Their lowest layer is seventy million years old,
made of shale from the Bearpaw Sea. During the Ice Age,
glaciers flattened the surrounding terrain, but these features remained
unglaciated. They reach their highest elevation of one thousand four hundred
and sixty-six metres above sea level at Head-of-the-Mountain, which is the
highest point in Canada between the Rockies and Labrador. For 10 points, name
this residual plateau in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Answer: CYPRESS HILLS
TOSSUP 22
Despite being Muslims, the women are unveiled, but adult men in this culture
do wear veils covering their whole faces except their eyes, using a garment
called a tagelmust made of indigo dyed cotton.
Traditionally nomadic camel herders, for 10 points, who are these
Berber-speaking "blue people" of the Sahara?
Answer: TUAREG
TOSSUP 23
In warfare,
the signal to summon an ally to battle was nine sets of five beats of it.
The farthest distance that its sound could travel was traditionally held
to define the
border of a village, or mura.
As important as the beats of it is the period of silence between the beats,
called ma, which in the oroshi style begin long and get
shorter as the player speeds up the hits.
Played with a wooden stick called a bachi,
for 10 points, what is this Japanese drum?
Answer: TAIKO drum
TOSSUP 24
It was defined by Morton Grodzins in 1957 as a measurable quantity
in the phenomenon of white flight.
White residents would leave a neighbourhood in large numbers
only after the proportion of black residents had reached a certain threshold.
More generally, it has been described in terms of
positive feedback mechanisms and epidemics. For 10 points, what is
this metaphor from balancing an inverted pendulum that is the
title of a book by Malcolm Gladwell?
Answer: the TIPping POINT
Vancouver Estival Trivia Open, 2006, FARSIDE team, first packet