In a race with national implications, Democrat Conor Lamb declared victory in a very close special congressional election held Tuesday in Pennsylvania. Officially, the race has not been called for Lamb, who holds a lead of 627 votes over Republican candidate Rick Saccone, a strong supporter of President Donald Trump. It’s possible Saccone and his supporters may request a recount, given the close vote. Even though Lamb’s apparent victory is narrow, the Pennsylvania result could broaden implications for Republicans looking to defend their congressional majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate in the November midterm elections. Lamb ran surprisingly strong in a district that Trump carried by nearly 20 points, campaigning as a moderate Democrat. “We fought to find common ground, and we found it, almost everywhere. Democrats, Republicans, independents — each of us, Americans,” Lamb told supporters early Wednesday. Saccone was not ready to concede the race. “We are going to fight all the way to the end. You know I never give up.” The Pennsylvania race follows Democratic victories late last year in Virginia and Alabama, fueled in large part by what some analysts see as an anti-Trump theme that continues to build. “The opposition to Donald Trump is as intense as I have seen since the last year of [Richard] Nixon’s presidency," said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato via Skype. “It is so intense, it is so hot, that it could result in a much bigger turnover than we think in the midterm elections to the Democrats and away from the Republicans.” Saccone cast himself as the president’s “wingman,” and Trump campaigned on his behalf at a rally last Saturday when Trump urged Republicans to get out and vote. “We want to keep the agenda, the make America great, going. You have got to get him in. This is a very important race,” Trump said. Democrats were thrilled with the result, while some Republicans saw the race as a “wake-up” call for what could be a devastating midterm in November. How long has Donald Trump probably been in politics? - over a decade - not enough information - over 7 years - about a few years
about a few years

(Question)
I end this small run of blog posts with the question posed by Professor Brian Boyd at the beginning of our evening: Do we want to close the achievement gap? We know we can close the gap. It’s been done or almost been done before in Scottish education, but the answers have been ignored as they pass us by. The simple clue is this: poverty is single biggest predictor of achievement, and according to research (Hammonds sic, reference required), aged 10, a child living in poverty is 60% less likely to get to university. Boyd borrowed from his own mother’s report card to ask us what kind of education we desire. Is it the academic success at all costs route, or is there another option we need to value as much, if not more? His mother’s report card, one that prevented her from becoming a secondary school pupil in Glasgow, is filled with G and FG, until the last point: Character and conduct - excellent. What kind of pupils do we want to develop in Scotland? What do we value in our assessment system? Opening up opportunity for all is a tough game to play when the examination system rewards only certain types of behaviour, few of them related to what the Curriculum for Excellence says we stand for. In his own small community in East Kilbride, three secondary schools enter a period of meltdown as the local rag sets about creating its own local league table of performance, with those three ‘teams’ in competition for the top spot (or at least not the bottom one). Therefore, we must stop basing “the gap” largely on attainment. First of all, Boyd would like us to remove the traditional, and non-sensical academic/vocational divide. Is the law or medicine degree we value not vocational? (Are all General Practitioners not Plumbers, as Dr Murray on the panel suggests?) In whose own small community in East Kilbride is the writer referring to? - Hammonds - not enough information - Dr. Murray - Professor Brian Boyd
(Answer)
Professor Brian Boyd

Ques: I showed up at the address on Columbine's invitation just before eleven; it was a converted warehouse in an industrial zone on the city's north side. Since it was a Saturday night, everything else was empty for miles. The parking lot was filled with sports cars, hybrids, and shiny suburban tanks. The door facing the parking lot was open, spilling out muted lights and the din of yuppie chatter. It cast a somewhat foreboding aura over the entrance. The first thing I noticed as I approached was the beefy refrigerator in a rented tux blocking the doorway. The second thing was the surveillance camera perched on the wall above his head. I had stopped home and changed first, so I was sure I was dressed mostly appropriately for some rich faux-hipster art party - charcoal gray pinstripe jacket over a TV on the Radio t-shirt, skinny cuffed jeans, Docs, and a black fedora. I certainly didn't look any worse than the other idiots I saw filing in and out of the door. I even had an invitation. So I was fairly confident I'd be able to gain admission to this thing without incident. "No, absolutely not," the doorman said, pressing a meaty palm into my chest. "I was invited!" I said, exasperated. "I have documentation." I waved the rave card in front of his face. "No dice." I stepped aside to let a couple of aging goths through the door and wondered for a moment if the doorman somehow knew who I was. Then I noticed the ear piece he was wearing and my eyes darted back to the surveillance camera. "Motherfucker," I spat and raised both arms to flip off the camera. I didn't know it at the time, but at that moment Dylan Maxwell was sitting in front of a wall of monitors, laughing his ass off. Who was standing under the surveillance camera? - The doorman - Hipster - not enough information - Dylan
Ans: The doorman

Ques: Sheila split open and the air was filled with gumballs. Yellow gumballs. This was awful for Stan, just awful. He had loved Sheila for a long time, fought for her heart, believed in their love until finally she had come around. They were about to kiss for the first time and then this: yellow gumballs. Stan went to a group to try to accept that Sheila was gone. It was a group for people whose unrequited love had ended in some kind of surrealist moment. There is a group for everything in California. After several months of hard work on himself with the group, Stan was ready to open a shop and sell the thousands of yellow gumballs. He did this because he believed in capitalism, he loved capitalism. He loved the dynamic surge and crash of Amazon's stock price, he loved the great concrete malls spreading across America like blood staining through a handkerchief, he loved how everything could be tracked and mirrored in numbers. When he closed the store each night he would count the gumballs sold, and he would determine his gross revenue, his operating expenses, his operating margin; he would adjust his balance sheet and learn his debt to equity ratio; and after this exercise each night, Stan felt he understood himself and was at peace, and he could go home to his apartment and drink tea and sleep, without shooting himself or thinking about Sheila. On the night before the IPO of gumballs.com, Sheila came to Stan in a dream. She was standing in a kiddie pool; Stan and his brothers and sisters were running around splashing and screaming; she had managed to insert herself into a Super-8 home movie of Stan's family, shot in the late 70's. She looked terribly sad. "Sheila, where are you?" Stan said. "Why did you leave me, why did you become gumballs?" "The Ant King has me," Sheila said. "You must rescue me." What did Stan sell in his new shop? - yellow gum - gumballs - not enough information - Yellow hankercheifs
Ans:
gumballs