Q: A confession: I quietly love flying. This year, I've done 163,581 miles of it. I love that when you fly a lot, the airport social media staff say 'hello' on Twitter when you arrive and the cabin crew on your home route (or even on the Brisbane-Dubai non-stop route) recognise you from last time. I like getting great service, and see so many things about systems-thinking that work well in airlines, that I'm happy to forgive small indiscrepancies when they occur. All that said, flying strangles our planet as much as eating too much red meat, and for many, many reasons, I've wanted to stop flying quite so much, while not restricting the spread and growth of the ideas from our firm, NoTosh. I'm quite sure that nobody reading this blog really cares about how much I travel, but keeping an annual count on it has become a new year habit. When I started working at Channel 4, and then continuing when I created NoTosh, I wanted to keep track of what seemed like an interminable number of miles on the road and in the air. By 2012, 2013 and last year, I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever be able to get the number of miles down when they seemed to represent even more trips to the moon and back each and every year. When you run a company based in Edinburgh with a great team living in Melbourne, you could easily spend your life on a plane - one flying to Melbourne feels better than two or more flying to Edinburgh. Indeed, in 2012, 2013 and 2014 it felt like I really did spend my life on a plane, as I went to the moon and back in my annual travel, with anything up to seven trips a year to Australia. Why does the author fly to Melbourne? - that's where the NoTosh clients are located - that's where the NoTosh team is located - that's where they are originally from - not enough information
A: that's where the NoTosh team is located

Q: I was driving on Highway 35 on my way home from work. Up in front of me was a giant billboard advertising yet another jeweler, in ten-foot letters and bright silver watches like massive alien machines. The traffic slowed and stopped on the ramp as it bottlenecked further into the city, and my head turned to examine the sign and the blocked view of the cityscape and land beyond. Past it was another billboard, with the name of a casino as its only text, filled with collaged images of money, plush rooms, and dancers. A quarter mile further brought me to an advertisement for business management solutions. Another few hundred yards and I was urged to try the new sandwich at the new sandwich place. The sun set and the signs stayed bright as automatic light switched on. The city grew dark and the hills beyond feebled out, existing only in our minds and finally not even there. All that remained were the well-lit and shiny reminders that lawyers were standing by to take my case to court, and that somebody's air conditioners would outlast somebody else's. I had an idea. I made the call the next day. It would put me back a good half grand, but it would be worth it. There would be no design meeting; I sent them the image and it was printed. A few weeks later it went up. Now on my commute, when I paused in the crush of metal bodies, I looked up and saw mountains by Maxfield Parrish, reaching up to the clouds in impossible cragginess, rivulets and gushing streams painted down their sides, with the sun striking vibrant oranges and reds into the shadows of the rocks. There were trees in copper-patina green and still pools quieter than the middle of winter but warm as the first day of summer. No doubt people thought it was the first part of a two-stage advertising gimmick, or a filler to be used when no one was renting space on the sign. But I was happy. Who drives on Highway 35? - not enough information - A lawyer. - The narrator. - A jeweler.
A: The narrator.

Q: Young undocumented immigrants seeking permanent status in the United States received an unexpected boost Thursday on Capitol Hill as a small group of House Republicans mounted a last-minute effort to bring up an immigration vote in Congress. The group of eight Republicans some freed from political considerations by upcoming retirements and others facing tough re-elections races defied their own party leadership, quickly persuading 10 more Republicans to sign on to a petition that would force debate on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. With all 193 Democrats expected to sign on, Republicans will have to persuade just seven more members of their own party to join the petition to trigger a vote on several immigration bills on the House floor. But Republican leadership said the effort would be wasted if the end result is a presidential veto. "I think it's important for us to come up with a solution that the president can support," House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters Thursday. These types of petitions are rare and seen as a threat to leadership's ability to direct legislative action. "It's better to use the legislative process," Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters Wednesday. But that argument appears to be losing sway with House members who see an opportunity for legislative action in a mid-term election year. The growing group of House Republicans are joining Democratic colleagues who have long criticized Ryan for not bringing immigration bills up for a vote. "This is about making sure we're not consolidating power in the White House," said Representative Mia Love, a Republican from Utah and one of the first lawmakers to sign petition. The immigration issue had all but died after an effort to pass a DACA fix collapsed in the U.S. Senate earlier this year. The program has been the focus of fierce negotiations on Capitol Hill since last September, when President Donald Trump announced he was ending the 2012 Obama-era program and called for a legislative fix. Who thinks it's important to come up with a solution that the president can support? - not enough information - Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy - Representative Mia Love - House Speaker Paul Ryan
A: House Speaker Paul Ryan

Q: The U.S. State Department has asked American embassies and consulates around the world to identify certain groups that should get extra scrutiny when they apply for visas. A series of directives also instructs U.S. diplomatic posts overseas to review the social media accounts of visa applicants who are suspected of terrorist ties or of having been in Islamic State group-controlled areas. The diplomatic cables sent by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson directed embassies to convene security and intelligence working groups to determine criteria for "population sets" that would warrant increased scrutiny before traveling to the U.S. Even if the applicant otherwise qualifies for a visa, those identified as meeting the criteria would require additional scrutiny, leading to a possible visa denial. It is the first evidence of a plan for the "extreme vetting" of foreigners entering the United States that President Donald Trump promised during his campaign. The four cables sent between March 10 and March 17 do not define which groups would be considered among the "population sets" requiring more scrutiny. But in the first glimpse into what "extreme vetting" may look like under the Trump administration, one of Tillerson's memos would have added to the interview process questions about an applicant's workplaces, employers, addresses and travel history going back 15 years, as well as all email addresses and social media handles used in the last five years. The questions were withdrawn in a following memo, pending approval of the list by another federal agency. The directives, first reported by Reuters, quickly drew criticism from rights groups and others who've accused Trump of discriminating against Muslims through his now-suspended ban on travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. "These measures could provide license for discrimination based on national origin and religion,'' human rights group Amnesty International wrote in a letter to Tillerson on Thursday. "They... What foreign policy did Tillerson try to instigate? - a travel ban - muslim vetting - not enough information - extreme vetting
A: extreme vetting