Truth, Lies, and Drinking Games

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Pippin wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1548 :

<< As for the ambiguous debunkings...
Jo might feel that those who have taken the trouble to work things
out deserve a little acknowledgement, at least as much as she can
offer without giving everything away. She has to do it now.

If she says nothing, the fans who got it right, or almost right,
will get no recognition for sleuthing. It isn't so difficult to spot
clues once the mystery is revealed. >>

"She has to do it now" if she wants to give you "immediate
gratification". If her morality includes insistence on deferring
gratification, she and you CAN wait until after the mystery is
revealed, when us listies will turn to people who published their
theories in advance and say: "You were right."

Kneasy wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1553 :

<< No, this ineffable truth that he whitters on about seems to
be that damn Prophecy, which he interprets as meaning that either
Voldy kills Harry or vice versa. Bloody brilliant. I'd guessed that as
the eventual climax halfway through chap. 1, book 1, as did anyone who
doesn't get a nose-bleed spelling 'c-a-t' - and if Harry hadn't
reached the same conclusion yonks back then there must be troll blood
somewhere in the family. One might almost say that it's too obvious to
be true. Hmm. Do you think...? Nah. Can't be. >> 

I am a naively trusting reader, but I was quite disappointed in the
Prophecy. I had formed the opinion at the end of PS/SS that DD was
concealing a Prophecy known to LV that LV will die only when HP gives
his life to kill LV. It'd be tough to tell a child that the only way
to save the (wizarding) world is for him to die. If the child didn't
have Harry's heroic nature, he might decide that his life is more
valuable than those of all those other people, and run away to (ahem)
live as a Muggle. 

Neri wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1554 :

<< The fact is, until now we know about only ONE wizard who turned bad
and wasn't from Slytherin. Hagrid's statement IS a general (although
not categorical) Truth. >>

This naive reader thinks that Hagrid's statement was not a truth at
all, but merely Hagrid's opinion. We're had various survivors of VWI
tell us that in those days, you didn't know whom to trust. That means,
you couldn't trust your old friend just because he had never been a
Slytherin. Maybe your old friend sided with Voldemort to be on the
winning side. Maybe your old friend never sided with Voldemort, but
serves LV anyway because he is under the Imperius Curse. Lucius Malfoy
pursuaded the court that he had not served LV voluntarily, but rather
was under the Imperius Curse, and LM couldn't even have used the
argument: "You KNOW I would NEVER have served You Know You voluntarily
-- I was in Gryffindor when I was at Hogwarts!" That argument would
have made an impression on jurors (Wizengamot warlocks?) who shared
Hagrid's opinion, but not on other jurors.

*friendly wave to Amy Z in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1557 *

Kneasy wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1559 :

<< "Clang" for each prime number
"Pow" for perfect squares
"Zap" for powers of two
Thus 1, 2, 3, 4 would be expressed as "Clang Pow", "Clang Zap",
"Oink Clang", "Pow Zap". >>

Is 1 a perfect square? I've heard that 1 has been declared to be not a
prime, because if it were a prime, it would be an exception to some
Theorems about primes.

David wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1560 :

<< Error. 1 is "Pow zap". >>

Is 2-to-the-0 a power of two?