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Abducted

by knowqout on July 22, 2011

In 1912, Lessie and Percy Dunbar took their two sons, Bobby and Alonzo, on a fishing trip into the swamplands of Louisiana.  Bobby, then age 4, disappeared.  The disappearance garnered national attention — a prominent Louisiana newspaper at the time called the suspected kidnapping the crime of the century (albeit in a century of a mere 12 years).

The search for Bobby Dunbar was extensive, especially by the standards of the era.  The family’s home town offered a $1,000 reward for his return (over $20,000 in today’s dollars), no questions asked.  The family mailed postcards describing their child, with coverage throughout the southeast and as far west as central Texas. The lake his family was visiting was systematically blown up — literally dynamited — in hopes of jostling loose the boy’s body, or at least clearing out the alligators who frequented the body of water.  These same alligators and others in the area were killed and flipped over so that the soft undersides of their bellies could be cut open, in hopes of finding young Bobby’s body.  But these efforts proved futile.

Eight months later, a travelling piano tuner by the name of William Cantwell Walters was stopped by authorities while in Mississippi.  He had in tow a travelling partner — a young child, roughly age 5 (shown in the picture), and meeting Bobby Dunbar’s description.  Walters claimed that the boy was C. Bruce Anderson, the son of Julie Anderson, a single mother (which at the time, was a big deal) who worked for Walters — and that Ms. Anderson had given Walters permission to bring the boy with him on his trip.  Nevertheless, the Dunbars were brought to the young boy and — depending on what account you believe — either instantly recognized him as their dear Bobby or, a day later, made the positive ID.  (After all, a child can grow a lot at that young age.)  Either way, Bobby Dunbar was found, and he was coming home, to much fanfare. He’d never see Walters or Anderson again.

Walters was accused of kidnapping, a charge he staunchly denied.  Anderson, per newspaper reports, was asked to pick “her son” out of a lineup of five similarly aged children and was unable to — which not only harmed her credibility, but buttressed allegations that she was of questionable morals, having given birth to two other children out of wedlock as well (both of which had died).  With Anderson not much of a witness, Walters was convicted of kidnapping.  He’d serve two years in prison for his crime, but won an appeal which required he be tried anew.  The prosecution, citing very high costs, declined to retry him, and Walters was set free.  Anderson, for her part, eventually married and started a new family.

Neither Walters nor Anderson ever confessed to making up the tale of Bruce Anderson.  Walters, to his death, maintained his innocence.  Anderson continued her believed that she, and not the Dunbars, was the victim, and that her boy Bruce was kidnapped by them (and not the other way around).

They were probably right.

In 2004, Bob Dunbar, Jr. — the son of the boy pictured above — consented to DNA testing.  His DNA was compared to that of Alonzo Dunbar, Jr. — the son of Bobby’s younger brother — and the test conclusively determined that the two were not related.  Most likely, the boy taken from Julie Anderson was, indeed, her son Bruce.  And almost certainly, William Cantwell Walters was not a kidnapper.

The whereabouts and fate of the real Bobby Dunbar were never determined.

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Richie Rich: O$ama

by knowqout on May 4, 2011

We all know that OBL was a rich man, thanks to his inherited wealth, but how rich? And did he actually live like one. Let’s find out.
Born in 1957, OBL was 10 when he inherited $300 million, when his father Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden died in a helicopter crash, thus countering the myth that poverty breeds terrorists. Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was an illiterate dock worker in Yemen who saved enough money to start a construction company.  Born in 1908, he emigrated to Saudi Arabia at a young age. In 1930, he began a construction company, and after coming to the attention of first monarch of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, he eventually achieved such success that his family became known as “the wealthiest non-royal family in the kingdom.”   The company, now the Saudi Binladin Group, is worth in excess of $5 billion.
Well saying that Papa Laden was worth a ton of money, shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that he had to feed a huge number of mouths. Papa Laden had 22 wives who, combined, bore him at least 54 children. Osama himself was believed to be the 17th child overall, the only child of Mohammed bin Laden and his tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas.
Coming back to Li’l Osama, his exposure to radical Islam began after he shunned Western universities and studied at a university in Saudi Arabia, where he learned from Muslim preachers that following strict Islam was a defense against corruption and Western decadence. And with 1993 and 2001 already under his belt the more he succeeded in killing, the more radical he became. He also started issuing fatwas, with the most infamous being Muslims should kill Americans – including civilians – anywhere in the world.
And as the world absorbs the news of Osama bin Laden’s death, government warnings of counter strikes show that the death of one man won’t kill Al-Qaeda. One reason: the terrorist group doesn’t need bin Laden for money.
Contrary to popular opinion, the death of bin Laden does not strike a blow to the organization’s financial health. OBL did not support Al-Qaeda through a personal fortune or a network of businesses. He did not utilise his business resources for Al-Qaeda’s operations, they essentially lived hand to mouth.
How Al-Qaeda survives has kept the world’s top intelligence agencies in a pretty pickle. This game of swat-a-fly has changed the way global institutions function. Banks must now take responsibility for knowing who their customers are and also keep a strict eye on any unusual behaviour.
Though Bin Laden’s death is an important moral blow to Al-Qaeda, but is it an irrecoverable blow is yet to be seen.

Obligatory Questions:
1. Id this building. [And its connection to OBL]
2. The Ladyji please.

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The Run Machine

by knowqout on May 2, 2011

Charles Finley, the owner of Kansas City A’s, was a driving force behind night baseball (now the norm) and employing the designated hitter.  But one of his innovative ideas – a failure, at that – yielded an odd result: the MLB career of Herb Washington, a former world-class sprinter in the early 1970s.

Washington, the world record holder in both the 50 yard and 60 yard dash and winner of an NCAA title as a track star at Michigan State University, never had a plate appearance in the majors, never pitched or played the field. So when Finley signed Washington just days before the 1974 season, the question was imminent: what will this track champ be doing?  The answer: Run.  Run. And only run.

Finley brought Washington on board to be a designated runner. His role included neither coming to bat nor playing the field. Over the course of a two season career, Washington appeared in 105 games, scoring 33 runs and totalling 31 stolen bases (while being caught 17 times).  All 105 appearances were as a pinch runner — he ended his brief career with zero plate appearances and just as many innings in the field.

Whats more, even his baseball card, noted that he was a pinch runner.

Obligatory Question:

1. ID the guy more famous for his handlebar moustache-

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Associate Nations in the World Cup

by knowqout on February 25, 2011

Let’s start with the most competitive match yet in the 2011 World Cup. The England vs Netherlands game. Thanks to some alarmingly clumsy performance by the English fielders and some ‘skillful’ batting by Ryan ten Doeschate Netherlands posted the highest score by an associate nation against a test side in a World Cup.The professionalism that was abandoned by the English while fielding, they adopted while batting and saved huge embarrasment for themselves.
With associate cricket in the spotlight like never before following the decision by ICC to trim down the no. of teams to 10 from the next World Cup. This performance showed the sports second tier in the best and most timely light imaginable.
Let’s take a look now at both sides of the coin.
In the 2011 WC it is unreasonable to expect Associate Nations to beat the likes of India or Australia. The Dutch perhaps demonstrated the skill set that these cricketers possess and in the process gave a good example of why associate nations need to be there. In the coming weeks the associate nations will be playing for their future. Everytime they go out their on the pitch they need to show that they are capable of reaching the Quarter Final if they perform to the talent and self-belief that  they have. The Lorgats around the world feel that the world cup should take place amongst the absolute cream and thus should be trimmed to the best 10 for two reasons- to avoid the lopsided contests that we have seen in the past one week and the marathonesque length of the 14 nation Cricket World Cup vis-a-vis the 32 nation FIFA WC. The ICC has an agreement with its broadcaster Espnstar that there should be a minimum no of matches in the event. So it is irrelevant that the no. of teams that participate should matter but within reason. The 2007 WC was a 16 team 51 matches financially disastrous tournament, courtesy Bangladesh and Ireland’s heroics against India and Pakistan respectively. This time it is a 14 team 49 match tournament. And a 10 team tournament in all likelihood would be an all play all [like the arguably best high intensity 1992 CWC, arguments if any will be entertained only from South Africans citizens] which makes it a 48 game event. So trimming the teams without being able to reduce the length shoots the idea in the foot.
When it comes to cropping teams to avoid the one sided contests that we see in games featuring an Associate side the ICC should recall that in the last two world cups at least one Associate nation progressed to the latter stages of the WC. Seeing the rise of the Associate Nations the no. of competitive teams are not just 10 but more. 1996- 2003 Kenya was the best of the lot with Scotland picking up steam from 2004-2006 and of late we have Ireland surging up through the ranks. Afghanistan’s meteoric rise deserves a mention here as well. The ICC’s continuous funding to the High Performance Program is so extremely important that it ensures the consistency of these results. Sri Lanka, a former World Champion and Bangladesh, whose mere presence is not a celebration anymore, are what they are today because ICC allowed them to participate. These things take time. Extrapolating the future of the associate nations from just a couple of early results in the WC is slightly premature.
The ICC needs to have a longer term view not and just the World Cup even though the WC is the most obvious parameter of their progress. The Associate nations should also understand that the ICC’s continuous support to these nations should not be the be all and end all but should only be a stop gap arrangement till they are able to create internal funding for their domestic structure. Developing a series of activities around the men’s senior squad, creating a professional structure [so that they get a lot of fixtures or you will have cases like Ed Joyce, Eoin Morgan and Gavin Hamilton], launching a cricket television channel, and a more active website, all this will attract sponsors which in turn will help creating a pool of thousands of professional cricketers.
Do all this and it won’t be long before we see a 16 nation[or more] best play best ideal WC structure that the viewers and the sponsors demand. But if ICC has its way with a 10 team 2015 WC they should atleast have a proper qualification structure instead of a set of 10 pre-ordained teams. The associate nations should be given an opportunity to qualify by getting a chance to play against the Test nations. The Test nations won’t want it but it would be an impartial process and would give the world a more fairer and a more competitive WC, like the 92 WC which was a screamer of a WC with England and NZ qualifying through to the semi-finals with ease and the eventual winners Pakistan scraping through to the Finals and South Africa being a surprise package just as Ireland, Bangladesh or Netherlands can be this time around. But the structure of international cricket is such that the top nations call the shots and the rest just pick up the scraps.
Tweaking the format to suit the needs of the sponsors and viewers should be the way ahead for the ICC. Since a few want ‘the world in the WC’ and the powers that be think a competitve structure is conducive to a succesful WC commercially how about keeping the current format but just have the top 2 in each group go straight to the Semis. Imagine how competitive it would be, watching top level Cricket teams like Aus-Eng-SL-SA fighting with each other just to stay alive. Keeps both the schools of thought happy.
Here’s a look at the qualification structure in some of the other team sports.
Football-
The FIFA World Cup was expanded to 24 teams in 1982, and then to 32 in 1998, allowing more teams from Africa, Asia and North America to take part.
Hockey-
The qualification stage has been a part of the Hockey World Cup since 1977. All participating teams play in the qualification round. The teams divide into two or more pools and compete for a berth in the final tournament. The top two teams are automatically qualified and the rest of the berths are decided in playoffs.The final tournament features the continental champions and other qualified teams.
Rugby-
The 2011 World Cup will be contested by twelve automatic qualifiers/seeds (the teams who finished in the top three of the groups at the 2007 World Cup) and eight qualifiers.
The qualification system for the remaining eight places will be region-based with Europe and the Americas allocated two qualifying places, Africa, Asia and Oceania one place each, with the last place determined by a play-off.
As always, Obligatory Questions:
1. He is one of India’s finest spinners never to have played an official test for the country. He is famous for his exploits in the 1973 low scoring Ranji Final between Mumbai and Tamil Nadu where he took 13 wickets steering Mumbai to victory. He is also Mumbai’s highest wicket taker with an astounding 589 wickets to his name. Identify the player.
2. The 1975 East African World Cup team was a coterie of 4 nations. Identify all four.

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Bharat Mata Ki Jai

by knowqout on January 11, 2011

After the earth shattering and IPLesque success of QuizInfo we are back with Bharat Mata Ki Jai. Click here to participate. Send in your answers to contact@knowqout.com.
Bharat Mata Ki Jai an initiative of Know-Q-Out and Dial-a-book is an online India Quiz, thats it. In the year of its inception,i.e, 2011 we look forward to a lot of you participating and contributing and in the process making history, geography or pani puri. Whatever suits you.
BMKJ is a collaborative quiz, thus we request all of you to start sending your questions(with answers) to contact@knowqout.com preferably in a ppt format.{due credits will be given to the question setter}
Unlike what we believe in BMKJ is not a quiz for quizzing sake. With small rather insignificant prizes sponsored by Dial-a-book Bharat Mata Ki Jai is guaranteed to be better than the rest.
So what are you waiting for, Christmas??

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QuizInfo Review

by knowqout on December 27, 2010

The season was lazy, the weather festive and the mood foggy. And yet, these men were not deterred.  No retreat, no surrender. They were prepared for strutting their stuff and racking their brains. That was their hope. Should any free soul come across their way they stood their ground, unnerved, and shot the weapon all feared-”Bhaiya, Shahpur Jat?? ” The prey was numb, speechless, he had no clue. And yet, these men were not deterred.  No retreat, no surrender. They were late, very. But they found that the QM was kind. Unlike the cruel weather, who demanded that they shiver… the QM required only that they have tea with the Christmas cake. Everything on the house!

Intro checklist-

  • Was it 300 inspired- check
  • Was it confusing- check
  • Did it seem like a full-hearted attempt at self-depreciating humour- check
  • Was it a piece of crap, that too of a bull- double check

Everyone came well prepared. The prelim round was a close affair. But only six teams made it to the finals.

The finals opened with Quiz Bingo where knowledge and luck both were important. At the end of it only 2 points differentiated the first and the last.

The next round was the tried and tested Infi Bounce which saw some crazy answers and near misses.

The last round was Super Over. The team batting first could only manage four runs with a wicket down. The wicket came at the last ball where they charged down the track but a beautiful googly knocked the bails off. The chase didn’t last long and the victory was a smooth affair for ‘Kabhi Humein Bhi Khidmat Ka Mauka Do Rani’ consisting of Saumya Pande and Shashank Malik. Utkarsh Bhardwaj from Gunners was adjudged the Best Quizzer.

The prizes were given away by Dial-a-book founder Mr. Mayank Dhingra.

The next quiz by Know-Q-Out will be announced soon.

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Bosman’s indelible mark

by knowqout on December 19, 2010

An Oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines two contradictoryterms. The English Premier League swoops into the mind as a good example. Given the swarm of foreign players that have flooded the league over the past decade (seems a long time but yes, we’ll be entering a new decade), I begin to wonder maybe it should be marked as the “Expats” Premier League. Before the football “connoisseurs” lash out by presenting their case of this one-way exchange program making the league more technical and pleasing to the eyes, there are two primary arguments as to why this isn’t boding well. Firstly the whole system of producing players in the academy from bottom down, a method popularised by the likes of Ajax, West-Ham and Barcelona, is increasingly becoming extinct as the richest clubs are stockpiling the best players and clubs have fewer incentives to give a genuine chance to home-grown players. This trend is exacerbated by the ability of many European clubs to ‘poach’ young players from the age of 16 from across the EU. Secondly, it has commoditised players and now the notion of a one club player is a myth of a time gone by. Players are switching clubs as frequently as Dame Liz Taylor changed husbands.
The foundation stones of this new age of commercialisation of football are laid in the singular case of Bosmanvs RFC Liege, Belgian FA and UEFAwhen a Belgium player called Jean-Marc Bosman’s contract with Belgium club side RFC Liege had run out and he wanted to be transferred to French club Dunkerque. Liege, however, refused to let Bosman leave without the payment of a transfer fee which Dunkerque was unwilling to pay. Bosman claimed that as a European Union citizen, he possessed the right to “freedom of movement” within the European Union if he wished to find work (Art. 39 of the EU Treaty). The transfer system prevented him exercising his right to freedom of movement and Bosman argued that the system should be changed so that players who were out of contract with their club could move to another club without the payment of a transfer fee. The European Court of Justice made the decision in favour of Bosman and there were two important implications- transfer fees was deemed to be illegal for out of contract players where a player was moving from one EU to another and more importantly the ‘quota-system’ was abolished so that clubs could play as many foreigners from other EU states as they like (although limits on players from outside the E.U could still be imposed)
Because out of contract players are sought after, the players can demand higher wages, and move to the club that offers the best wages. If effect, the Bosman case has increased ‘player power’ considerably and infused greater movement of players across clubs, thereby, I believe undermining the academy system which has had a cascading effect on standard of international football as is evident from the diminishing quality of football at the world cups with the most recent display of martial arts by the Royal Oranje in this year’s World-Cup Final that would have put Kill Bill to shame.
It is time that the EU and UEFA take measures to restructure the existing law by placing a ceiling on the maximum number of foreign players that can be part of the club squads in the domestic leagues and also making it compulsory for a player to play in his regional league for atleast an year before moving on. Even though its recognition under EU law is still unclear due to its rather indirect form of discrimination reminiscent of the former ‘quota-system’, UEFA’s home grown player rule will come a long way in achieving its objectives of increasing the quality of the academy systems.

Obligatory Questions:

1. Id the deadly duo.

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Know-Q-Out QuizInfo

by knowqout on December 15, 2010

On the auspicious occasion of Vajpayee and Trescothick jayanti Know-Q-Out on behalf of all important invite you to QuizInfo, The Sports Quiz. Come out and celebrate this festival with like minded, self-proclaimed between-the-ears-encyclopedias. A one of its kind sports quiz with new formats and newer questions.
Plus you get to see Rafa and CR7 in Armani Underwear[no Megan Fox sorry]

Anyone coming may also get friends and family along. We shall welcome them as long as they are pretty females and average looking males. No person of the ‘Haan Bhai’ category will be accepted inside the premises of our highly esteemed Shahpur Jat(Near Asian Games Village mind you)

Teams: any combination of two homo sapiens-Education/Hair Colour/Sex/Caste/Political Views/Facebook Relationship Status/Body Type/Sexual Orientation

Tea/Coffee, snacks and prizes on the house.

Prizes sponsored by http://dialabook.in/

Oath:

1. I will not question the quizmaster.

2. I will assume that the QM is the smartest guy around.

What do I do to win the quiz?
Get pally with the quizmaster. Buy him lots of boy-toys. Appreciate anything and everything he does. Laugh at his stale sense of humour. Get him the front-door-keys-to-the-playboy-mansion. Hack your pretty sister’s facebook account and send the quizmaster a friend request. You get the drift, don’t you.

IMPORTANT: If you are coming please confirm your attendance on facebook event[click on I'm attending tab] or post a comment here or[for the wikileaks employees]write to us at contact@knowqout.com, so that we can make arrangements at the venue accordingly.

PS: Punctuality and cool team names will be appreciated.

Obligatory Questions:

1. Complete the ‘Daily Mail’ headline from May 2007: ‘Cheapskate Chelsea sign up Brazil man Alex for ____?

2. Which goalkeeper announced his retirement from international football in 2010 saying he was unhappy at being a third choice for England?

3. Which injured forward was replaced by Geoff Hurst during the 1966 World Cup finals?

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Quizzing- It is not a GK test

by knowqout on April 4, 2010

To most, quizzing is a General knowledge test. You either know the answer or you don’t. If you don’t, the quiz is terribly boring. There might be a climax about stealing the straw from the horses’ mouth, but beyond that narrative, your brain isn’t being made to work. You might as well watch a soap opera.

Quizzing for the hardcore quizzers transcends over knowledge to problem solving and thinking abilities. A good quiz question will always have subtle hints that make you rack your thinking cap and draw your Eureka moment. It keeps you perpetually involved and makes you hunt down the small tidbits that you may have pocketed in the pockets of your brain. It is not only about knowing, but locating and reproducing what you know. Quizzing is about knowledge rather than cramming up drab facts like the capital of Slovakia or the head of state of Georgia. And as Rancho said in 3 Idiots, gyaan har taraf hai, jahan se mile lapet lo (Knowledge is all around, immerse yourself in it).

Good quizzes are not only academic. The top-notch quizzes can test our capacity to recollect from the most improbable of sources. Collating facts with lateral thinking and forming a well-thought hunch go a long way in making a successful quizzer. Quizzing is a continuous brain-challenging playfield which individuals from different walks of life come together for a ridiculously captivating heady cocktail of information and entertainment. Expressions of the contenders are an added glamour, exuding from confidence to blandness. Fist-punching the air, mild brawls between team-mates and moving heads to hysterical convulsions especially when the quiz reaches its climax is routine. While all this happens on-stage, off it the audience too is drawn into the trance till the very end as they sometimes try and involve themselves by assuming themselves to be sitting in place of a finalist on stage and thus keeping a track of their own score.  I would like to end with the lines of the Mastermind winner J Ramanand, who expressed the fantastic experience that quizzing provides beautifully when he wrote: “Working out answers is sometimes like tugging at the loose thread in a sweater. A decent yank & the whole thing unravels magically.”

Examples:-

  • Phineas T. Barnum, an American entertainer, once sent an agent to buy this hoping to use it as a circus attraction. When it arrived in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the public was not impressed and Barnum had to keep it hidden while he tried to decide how to recover some of the high cost. What expression originated from this incident?

-White Elephant

  • The first X was performed in Berlin in 1901 by Eugene Hollander and is now the seventh most popular aesthetic surgery in the world. Technically, it is known as Rhytidectomy. What is X?

-Facelift

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