*Question*
Article: When Sally Ride was ten years old, she had no idea that she would some day grow up to be one of America's first woman astronauts. In fact, if you had asked her then what wanted to be, she would have said, " I want to play shortstop for the Los Angeles Dodgers." Sally collected baseball cards by the boxful, and she knew the name and batting average of every player in the National League. But major league baseball didn't seem much of a possibility for a girl, even an athletic one like Sally, so her father and mother talked her into taking tennis lessons when she was twelve. At first she hated to trade in her baseball bat for a tennis racket, but it wasn't long before she started to win tournaments in her new sport. " Tennis became much more fun when I started winning," Sally remembers. Soon a row of trophies replaced her box of baseball cards, and tennis star Billie Jean King replaced Dodger shortstop Maury Wills as her sports idol. Sally first became interested in the space program in 1962 when astronaut John Glenn orbited the earth in his Mercury space capsule. Sally was ten years old at the time, but she remembers the launch and the splashdown as if they happened yesterday. The girl who used to memorize batting averages became a space fan. She quickly learned the name of every NASA astronaut(there were only eight of them in 1962), the date of every launch, and the name and number of every spacecraft from Freedom 7 to Skylab 3. She could tell you the speed of light (186,300 miles per second), the distance to the moon (238,860 miles), and the names of the three nearest stars( the Sun, Alpha Centauri, and Barnard's Star). By the time she was sixteen, Sally had decided to become an astrophysicist, a scientist who studies space. She had also become a nationally ranked tennis player. She remembers yawning through an important tennis match on June 20, 1969, after staying up all night to watch Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon. Sally lost the match. As Sally got older, many of her friends started playing... Question: Sally Ride lost the match on June, 1969 just because _ . Yes or no, is the answer "she was tired"?
**Answer**
Yes

*Question*
Article: They're WILD animals By Ernst-Ulrich Franzen March 11, 2010(3) Comments The story about the woman who lost some fingers while feeding a bear at a zoo in Manitowoc, after she ignored warnings and barriers , reminded me of the story I heard about a couple who put their baby on the back of a wild horse in South Dakota to get a really cute picture. We all do silly things at times -- no one is immune -- but treating wild animals as lovely pets has to fall into a special category. Teddy bears and Disney movies aren't actually representative of real bears. Comments (3) View Comments 3 Comments _ 1. TosaLeft - Mar 11, 2010 10:46AM Don't you think that maybe, just maybe some alcohol was involved? 2. tk421 - Mar 11, 2010 11:09 AM It was already approved that alcohol was involved. Stories that begin with a drunk person saying "Hey, I got an idea, watch this!" rarely end well. 3. Tristan Kloss - Mar 11, 2010 11:41 AM Alcohol certainly isn't involved when people decide to keep "pets" like chimpanzees, baby tigers, etc. Stupidity, definitely. Dogs are pets because of thousands of years of domestication. Even farm animals, which have been kept by humans for thousands of years as well, aren't let in the house. So why keep animals that treat human contact with, at best, indifference(, ) and, at worst, violence? Question: What does Tristan Kloss think of people treating wild animals as pets? Yes or no, is the answer "Stupid."?
**Answer**
No

*Question*
Article: Generally speaking, government regulations normally ban anything from smoking in public places to parking in certain zones. But officials in the Brazilian town of Biritiba Mirim, 70km (45miles) east of Sao Paulo, _ . They plan to prohibit residents from dying early because the local cemetery has reached full capacity. There's no more room to bury the dead, they can't be cremated and laws forbid a new cemetery. So the mayor has proposed a strange solution: outlaw death. Mayor Roberto Pereira says the bill is meant as a protest against federal regulations that prohibit new or expanded cemeteries in preservation areas. "They have not taken local demands into consideration", he claims. A 2003 decree by Brazil's National Environment Council forbids burial grounds in protected areas. Mr. Pereira wants to build a new cemetery, but the project has been stopped because 98% of Biritiba Mirim is considered as a preservation area. Biritiba Mirim, a town of 28,000 inhabitants, not only wants to prohibit residents from passing away. The bill also calls on people to take care of their health in order to avoid death. "I haven't got a job, nor am I healthy. And now they say I can't die. That's ridiculous," Amarido do Prado, an unemployed resident said. The city council is expected to vote on the regulation next week. "Of course the bill is laughable, illegal, and will never be approved," said Gilson Soares de Campos, an assistant of the mayor. "But can you think of a better resolution to persuade the government to change the environmental decree that is prohibiting us from building a new cemetery?" The bill states that "offenders will be held responsible for their acts." However, it does not say what the punishment will be. Question: What is the bill to be proposed by the officials in Biritiba Mirim? Yes or no, is the answer "Prohibiting residents from dying early."?
**Answer**
Yes

*Question*
Article: I grew up in Jamaica Plain. My best friend Rose and I used to dream about raising a family of our own someday and living next door to one another. Our dream remained alive through school and beyond. Rose was my maid of honor when I married Dick. Later, Dick was stationed in Alaska and we moved. Rose was sad to see me leave, but wished me the best of luck. We remained in touch for a few years before we lost track. I thought of her several times over the years. All of my children now have families of their own, and Dick passed away a few years ago. Basically, a lifetime has passed. Then one day, near my 80th birthday, I received a phone call "Hi Natalie, it's Rose," the voice on the other end said, " I don't know if you remember me, but we used to be best friends in Jamaica Plain when we were kids." We have spent hours on the phone catching up. Even after 52 years of separation our personalities and interests are still extremely similar. We both share a passion for several hobbies that we each picked up independently several years after we lost touch with one another. It almost feels like we are picking up right where we left off. Her husband died a few years ago as well, but she mailed me several photographs of her family that were taken over the years. It's so crazy, just looking at the photos and listening to her description of her family reminds me of my own: a reasonably large, healthy family. Part of me feels like we led fairly similar lives. I don't think the similarities between our two lives are a coincidence either. I think shows that we didn't just call each other best friend; we truly were best friends and even now we can be best friends again. Real friends have two things in common: a compatible personality and a strong-willed character. The compatible personality is what starts the connection between two people. A strong-willed character at both ends is what maintains the connection. If those two ingredients are present in a friendship, the friendship is for real, It can pass the tests of time and... Question: The author thinks that _ . Yes or no, is the answer "they both have a compatible personality and a strong-willed character"?
**Answer**
Yes