Er, I don't have to *shoot* it or anything, I hope.

Hitchens cracks me up. He is a piece of work. A bit like P. J. O'Rourke but with more alcohol.

Au contraire, I think I have a strong verbal accent. Of course *I* can't even hear it ...

Yeah, the Hitch is a hoot, bless 'im. I've had no direct contact with him, but my brother knows him. They met in some drinking den in an Islamic State and bonded over obscure historical data from the Irish Civil War ...

Hitch plays the god argument as a rhetorical excercise -- I can admire such bravura performances, but I've never really trusted them. I didn't *do* debating at school or college, and I know the rhetorical tricks involved only too well.

Dawkins, on the other hand, gets worked up about the mismatch between science and various ontological arguments for religion. 'So what?' is my response -- *of course* it doesn't make sense, now ask yourself why. The really innaresting angles on this thing are the psychological ones, IMO.

Dennett grasps this, but still spends too much time mapping his philosophical tropes onto what he imagines might be the perspective of an unbiased believer. Which - as a little psychological investigation will demonstrate - is pretty much a contradiction in terms.

Most people don't actually have coherent beliefs -- but they hold fast to one system or another, out of loyalty, fear, hope, or some combination of these.

Nigel Short does that sometimes...

<What's the ugliest part of your body?

Some say your nose
Some say your toes
I think it's your mind ...>

How many Spacebar Masters does it take to ……?
What ………does say about Spacebar Masters?
Is it true ………Spacebar Masters …….?
What kind of ……..Spacebar Masters are?
……. Spacebar Masters….2011……? etc

What Peter Zhdanov does say about Spacebar Masters?
a) The question of whether they can be worthy opponents is like the question of whether submarines can swim.

b) They are like postage stamps, they try to succed through their ability to stick to computer lines.

c) …………….

What Space Masters do say of Peter Zhdanov?
a) A young and smart devil ready to take over the world.

b) Some people are wise and some otherwise.

Most of the prizes are memberships of various levels and durations, so I don't think I will actually enter, but I solved over half of them just noodling around this morning.

You might find questions 4, 8, 10, and 20 of interest, for various reasons. Question #10, which is a standard anagram question, has the wrinkle of having an extraneous letter added to each anagram. I wonder if CG might move in that direction at some point.

Or a Spoonerism, for that matter. Well, maybe if I took a *little* peek ...

I'd wondered why somebody on CG was asking questions about a 1920s novel.

I was amused by the 'best move'. Clearly a mate in one.

And the starting position. Would you agree with (8!)^2 x 2^6 ...? A little over 10^12, I think. Could be wrong.

On the whole, I prefer the restriction/ingenuity *here*, where every solution takes the same form (gid or players) but there are many ways to approach each question.

I suspected 'lieve' might not *quite* be the proper word. But Sherl's passions are known to include cocaine and violin-playing, and these sometimes lead to other things.

I think the general approach to the starting position question is correct, but I have not checked the math.

I do not recognize the young GMs (but of course recognized the dapper sepia-toned gent immediately), but I can tell the event from the backgrounds.

I see from some comments their quiz has gotten <harder>. If I can get over half of the answers in part of a morning, how hard can it be?