LRRcast - Kathleen Trivia (October 2015)

[Graham]

Join Kathleen as she tests the skills of Graham and Ben vs. Cameron and Andy in this edition of Kathleen's Trivia Challenge.

Support this show (and other things!): http://Patreon.com/loadingreadyrun

[Bergie]

Arguably the first Team Needs a Haircut could have been Huntington's. Progressive neurological diseases have a lot of very similar symptoms.

Also Serbia wasn't a country at that time.

[ritchards]

Hey, Better Off Ted was two seasons!

I did well in the first few rounds, but after that... not so much.

[jkefka]

Halfway through. Judaism 101 time! The biggest Jewish holidays:

Rosh Hashanah: Jewish new year (usually in September or October because weird self-correcting lunar calendar). Typically celebrated with apples, honey, and circular raisin-filled challah (the bread normally eaten on the sabbath that usually looks braided, but during the high holy days it's round).

Yom Kippur: Day of atonement (Yom = day). A day of fasting, always ten days after Rosh Hashanah. No particular food associated with it, for obvious reasons.

Passover: Celebration of the exodus from Egypt, the prototypical "they tried to kill us, we lived, let's eat" holiday. That's the feast of unleavened bread, nominally because the hebrews did not have time to let the bed rise when leaving Egypt, but more realistically coincides with an ancient Canaanite festival of unleavened bread that was the point in every year when they got rid of their sour dough (which was used instead of yeast) as an expression of faith in the next grain harvest, and so no bread was gonna be rising for a week or so. Conveniently, when the hebrews ended up in Canaan...etc.

Those are the biggest three, though there are many, many others.

Re: Village Goy: Andy is 100% right. This is a thing. A lot of synagogues still have a "Shabbas goy". You can't ask someone to do something you aren't allowed to do explicitly, but if, of their own accord, they felt like turning off the lights in the synagogue after the service, well who are you to stop them.

[Phi]

Congratulations for once again making me burst into laughter in the bus, making everyone around me stare in discontent (no cynicism here, I find it funny when it happens)

Point of order about Yok Kipur (I am not Jewish, but lived in Israel most of my life): "Yom Kipur" literally means "Day of Atonement", so I think if they didn't have to know the Japanese name of White Day, it is unfair to expect them to know the Hebrew name of Day of Atonement.

Also, on the topic of commercialized "Love" day, there is a Jewish version of this that usually happens in August, but Valentine's Day is also celebrated, so Buy Chocolate day is actually two separate days in Israel, for extra money spending.

[Master Gunner]

I think Yom Kipur is more well known by the Hebrew name than the English one in North America though. I've heard of Yom Kipur many times, but was only vaguely aware of the English name/meaning.

[Mothra Fighter]

Yeah, I knew the name Yom Kippur but, like Master Gunner, wasn't really aware of its English translation.

So, operations. The history of the Balkan states since the breakup of Yugoslavia (or, specifically, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) is really interesting. Looking it up, Operation Silver Wake happened during a rebellion in Albania in 1997. According to Wikipedia, it "was an uprising sparked by Ponzi scheme failures. Albania descended into civil disorder and violence in which the government was toppled and 2,000 people were killed." Silver Wake, meanwhile, was only one of three operations to evacuate foreign nationals from Albania. There were also Kosmas and Libelle (the later of which was apparently the first time since WWII that German soldiers "fired shots in combat").

Other NATO operations that took place in the Balkans:

- Operation Deliberate Force, as opposed to careless or unintentional force?
- Operation Deny Flight.
- Operation Sharp Guard.
- Operation Essential Harvest.

Unrelated to NATO operations in the Balkans, there was an actual Operation Drop Kick. The name was used by General Turgidson in Dr Strangelove, but it was also a real thing. I did not know that.

There were also two different operations by the US military to test entomological warfare called Big Buzz and Big Itch.

Interestingly enough, in X-COM (Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within), the random mission name generator can create the name "Unceasing Justice".

I'll stop now. But these operation names were too wild not to share.

[greatgodom]

As an observant Jew, I found it very amusing to see you guys try and muddle through the Jewish calendar and the various Jewish terms.
I think Yom Kippur is more famous than the other festivals because of the Yom Kippur war, between Israel and its neighbors in 1973.

[greatgodom]

Congratulations for once again making me burst into laughter in the bus, making everyone around me stare in discontent (no cynicism here, I find it funny when it happens)

Point of order about Yok Kipur (I am not Jewish, but lived in Israel most of my life): "Yom Kipur" literally means "Day of Atonement", so I think if they didn't have to know the Japanese name of White Day, it is unfair to expect them to know the Hebrew name of Day of Atonement.

Also, on the topic of commercialized "Love" day, there is a Jewish version of this that usually happens in August, but Valentine's Day is also celebrated, so Buy Chocolate day is actually two separate days in Israel, for extra money spending.

The Jewish equivalent of Valentines day, Tu Be'Av, actually predates St Valentine by about 500 years.
It is celebrated on the 15th day of the month of av, which usually comes out at about July-August. It's origins are that in the temple period in Israel (The kingdom, not the state) young girls would go out to the fields in the "Sunday best" so to speak and try and ensnare a groom.
Nowadays it has been commercialized beyond recognition, much like Valentines Day!!

[Phi]

Congratulations for once again making me burst into laughter in the bus, making everyone around me stare in discontent (no cynicism here, I find it funny when it happens)

Point of order about Yok Kipur (I am not Jewish, but lived in Israel most of my life): "Yom Kipur" literally means "Day of Atonement", so I think if they didn't have to know the Japanese name of White Day, it is unfair to expect them to know the Hebrew name of Day of Atonement.

Also, on the topic of commercialized "Love" day, there is a Jewish version of this that usually happens in August, but Valentine's Day is also celebrated, so Buy Chocolate day is actually two separate days in Israel, for extra money spending.

The Jewish equivalent of Valentines day, Tu Be'Av, actually predates St Valentine by about 500 years.
It is celebrated on the 15th day of the month of av, which usually comes out at about July-August. It's origins are that in the temple period in Israel (The kingdom, not the state) young girls would go out to the fields in the "Sunday best" so to speak and try and ensnare a groom.
Nowadays it has been commercialized beyond recognition, much like Valentines Day!!

I used to work in a chocolate shop when I lived in Israel, so.. yeah. Those two days in the year were our equivalent of Black Friday.