Saturday, July 2, 2011

Planes, Light, & Citizens

The answer to yesterday's quote of the day was Thomas Paine. The quotes will return Monday.

Where do old airplanes go to die?

http://news.travel.aol.com/2011/06/29/airplanes-find-second-careers-as-homes-hotels-photos/?icid=main%7Chp-laptop%7Cdl6%7Csec1_lnk1%7C217701

Let's shed some light on the world:

http://news.yahoo.com/bright-galaxy-sheds-light-early-universe-170731884.html

A couple of us were discussing in e-mail that we probably couldn't pass the citizenship test to become citizens her in the good old U.S.A. Here is on author's view on citizenship:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-06-30-citizenship-lesson-july-4_n.htm

Comment away.

4 comments:

Pat said...

Love the airplane houses!

Amazing how astronomers just keep finding things. I wonder if it's just persistence and luck or if telescopes keep getting better and better. Of course sending Hubble into space got us a lot of info.

The writer is going to not take for granted the privileges of citizenship any more, she says. But will she study and learn all the things a new citizen needs to know that most of don't? Yes, I admit I'm one who thinks I couldn't pass the test.

Lady DR said...

Fascinating article/pictures of the recycled airplanes. Especially the Hughes plane, which eventually became a houseboat.

Pat asks an interesting question about learning all the immigrants had to learn about our history and country. A friend's husband is preparing to apply for citizenship, but scared stiff he couldn't pass the test. So... we pulled the test off the web and she and I went through it ourselves. We did pretty well, but I have to admit we did some guessing and we sure didn't get it all right. We then sat the hubster down and proved to him he knew a lot more than he thought. In addition, although I don't remember the exact numbers, of the 100 or so questions, the interviewer pulls something like 12 or 15 and you have to get 8 or 10 of them right, as I recall. Nonetheless, since one has no idea which questions one will be asked, one needs to know all the answers, a matter of memorization. And I must admit, some of those questions were pretty obscure and I suspect the majority of citizens couldn't answer a few of them.

William J. said...

Hi Pat

My favorite airplane was the first one.

The astonomers do keep finding things but I wonder if it isn't a product of newer and better equipmment.

I'm also one that couldn't pass the citizenship test. I doubt if the author could pass the test either.

Bill

William J. said...

Hi DR

One of Hughes plane, The Spruce Goose, is parked about twenty miles from my house so the Hughes planes did kind of have an interest to me.

You did better than a lot of Americans did on the citizenship test. I found an article that said they gave the test to one thousand Americans and 380 failed. Nobody got a perfect score. I am going to share that article on Monday's blog entry.

Bill