WEEKLY WHINE

Stump Edvard

Yes, girls and boys, "Dynamite Eating" Edvard van de Kamp is back! Past Weekly Whines on GoobNet have shown us much about Edvard van de Kamp:

• Don't Try This At Home, SUN 11 JUN 2000
• Don't Let Them Confuse You, SUN 01 APR 2001
• On Tour with Edvard, SUN 08 APR 2001
• The Life and Times of Edvard, SUN 27 MAY 2001

Last week we took questions for Edvard, and he's had four days to review them and look up the answers. Here goes:

Dear Edvard: This week Alejandro Toledo will be sworn in as president of Perú. Why does he claim to have a PhD in poverty? - Phil Nivina, Eugene, OR, USA

Dear Phil: Toledo is descended from the native Peruvian community and earned a scholarship to the University of San Francisco. He earned a bachelor's and a master's there, and he finished his education at Stanford with a PhD in education, which is not poverty. Actually, I suppose that education may be poverty depending upon where you get your education, but that could hardly be said to be true at Stanford. Surrounded by the affluent young people who make up much of Stanford's student body, Toledo may well have considered himself relatively poor. Hence, perhaps he did get his PhD in poverty after all.

Dear Edvard: What happened to the ASTRO-E observatory that the US and Japan say they'll replace? - Linda Fïllar, Stockholm, Sweden

Dear Linda: ASTRO-E was launched on an M-5 booster by Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science. Liftoff occurred at 01:30 UTC, THU 10 FEB 2000. The first stage of the three-stage launcher had some sort of failure, probably a crack in the nozzle of that stage's engine. As a result, the first stage's attitude was far enough off that the upper stages couldn't throw ASTRO-E high enough, and a signal was never acquired from the spacecraft. ASTRO-E plunged back into the atmosphere and burned up. It would have specialised in X ray spectroscopy, adding its talents to those of NASA's Chandra X Ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton. NASA, which provided the X Ray Spectrometer for ASTRO-E, will build another copy for the replacement, now called ASTRO-E2, that is scheduled for launch in FEB 2005.

Dear Edvard: Why hasn't anyone ever scored a hat trick at an MLS All Star Game? - Betty Caunvey, Providence, RI, USA

Dear Betty: That's a very good question, but unfortunately it's no longer valid. Yesterday, Landon Donovan of the San Jose Earthquakes scored four goals, an All Star record. The last was the last second equaliser that earned the West a 6-6 draw with the East. Donovan, playing in front of his home crowd, scored the historic hat trick and made a different type of history - this was the first MLS All Star Game to end in a draw.

Dear Edvard: Why was the FIFA Club World Championship cancelled? - Carlos Zaragoza, La Coruña, Spain

Dear Carlos: Because they're dumb.

Dear Edvard: Is Montana part of the West? - Mike Strumpf, Rochester, NY, USA

Dear Mike: According to the United States Census Bureau, yes. The Census Bureau divides the US into four census regions: the East, South, Midwest, and West. Montana is included in the West. Curiously, these are the same four regions into which the NCAA men's basketball Division 1A tournament is divided.