What the Heck Do You Know? Was Cooler Than You In High School
541) Israel claimed its invasion of Lebanon was in response to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. However, it has been revealed that Israel had been planning top invade Lebanon for two years, and kept the White House informed of its military exercises for at least a year. What up with that?
a) well, you see, in 2004, some Israeli scientists got in their time machine and – what, you didn’t know about Israel’s time machine? I’m not surprised; it’s a much better kept secret than Israel’s nuclear weap – uhh, yeah. You probably weren’t supposed to know that. Let’s just say that two years ago, Israeli scientists had a hunch that two soldiers would be captured and warned the military that it should be prepared
b) that’s all it was: a hunch
c) not that it matters; by the time you read this, an Israeli will probably have gone back in time and stopped me from wri
542) Republicans are now claiming that the various wars in the Middle East are the onset of World War III. They appear to believe that stoking voter fears in this way will help them win the midterm elections. The problem with invoking the spectre of WWIII, aside from being wildly inaccurate, is where can they go if the tactic doesn’t work?
a) World War IV, in which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the actual reincarnation of Adolph Hitler and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is a reincarnated version of Benito Mussolini, which would make President Bush…an analogy too horrible to contemplate
b) intergalactic war with the Cylons
c) local wars with rocks and stones
543) How did hardcore Conservative Republicans ensure that a Senate bill proposing an increase in the minimum wage would fail?
a) they attached a rider to it that would substantially cut the estate tax
b) they attached a rider to it that would make vultures the national bird
c) they attached a rider to it that would make Tucker Carlson’s bow tie Speaker of the House
544) What is Pearl Jam?
a) a nice schmear for a bagel or piece of chalah
b) an oyster delicacy
c) I don’t know – why don’t you ask Pearl?
545) What’s a nice Jewish boy like David Brog doing as the executive director of an organization called Christians United for Israel?
a) he thought he was joining the Borg, which, although he’s a little unclear on the name, isn’t too far wrong
b) trying to fulfill the role of “house kike,” you should pardon the expression
c) that’s not very nice! What if his mother read this?
546) What if David Brog’s mother read this column?
a) I would apologize for calling her son a house kike. I meant, of course, to call him a house hymie
b) I would suggest that she should have given more attention to toilet training him when he was a child
c) woo hoo! I could claim that Les Pages aux Folles has four readers!
547) American soldiers gang raped a 14 year-old Iraqi girl, then killed her and her family. This has been described by the military as “embarrassing.” On the scale of personal embarrassment, how bad is the incident?
a) realizing you forgot to brush your teeth before a big date embarrassing
b) realizing you’ve got spinach between your teeth while in the middle of an important job interview embarrassing
c) realizing that you left your business card at the scene of the massacre of the farm family embarrassing
548) According to Vice President Dick Cheney, the fact that Ned Lamont beat Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary will aid the terrorists. How so?
a) Lamont will vote against repealing the estate tax, which will mean Paris Hilton will only inherit a fraction of her family’s wealth, which will result in a massive drop in sales of Gucci handbags on Rodeo Drive, which will slow the growth of the American economy, WHICH WILL MEAN THE TERRORISTS HAVE WON!
b) the more attention Cheney is forced to give to domestic elections, the less time he’ll have to plan WWIII, WHICH WILL ALLOW THE TERRORISTS TO WIN!!
c) Lebanese children who are deciding on whether to go to grade school or become suicide bombers will take a Lamont victory as a sign of weakness on the part of America and decide to become terrorists, AND THEY’RE COMING FOR YOU EVEN AS YOU READ THIS!!!
549) A jury has told Merck & Co. that it must pay $51 million to a retiree who claimed its Vioxx painkiller caused his heart attack. Meanwhile, a US federal judge ruled that cigarette companies violated racketeering laws by deceiving the public about the dangers of tobacco. At this moment in time, which would you rather be: a pharmaceutical company CEO or a cigarette company CEO?
a) oh, definitely a drug executive, because when an adverse judgment is handed down, I have access to all sorts of wonderful things that can ease the pain
b) a cigarette company executive, because we can always make up the financial loss from an adverse judgment by increasing our sales in developing nations
c) I don’t want to be an executive, I just want a golden parachute
550) Why did Prime Minister Harper refuse to attend an international conference on AIDS in Toronto?
a) as far as the Prime Minister is concerned, Toronto is a black hole out of which, if he was ever to fall into it, he would never escape
b) for some reason, Harper’s brain trust convinced him that queers and druggies were not a constituency he needed to court to get a Conservative majority
c) dead people don’t vote Conservative, especially if they live in Africa
551) Well known Middle East expert Bernard Lewis predicted that on Tuesday, August 22, Iran would launch a devastating offensive against Israel. How silly does he look now?
a) accidentally crushing a woman’s dog under a piano during a big date silly
b) getting ketchup on your tie before an important job interview silly
c) feeding apocalyptic fears that have contributed to massive death and destruction around the world silly
552) Joe Lieberman, who, with his wife Hadassah, made $366,084 in 2005 and own assets worth between $465,000 and $1.9 million, belongs in the “middle class” the same way:
a) arsenic belongs in the list of safe drinks to give your children
b) rusted out car batteries belong among balls used in sports
c) Alice in Wonderland belongs among the great works of positive constructionist philosophy
553) How is the Bush administration ensuring that the funding it gives religious organizations through its Faith-Based Initiative is being used effectively?
a) uhh…that’s a good question
b) shh…don’t ask, won’t tell
c) the government has to make sure the funding it gives religious organizations through its Faith-Based Initiative is being used effectively? Really? Who knew?
554) What is white phosphorous?
a) the new drug of choice at raves
b) the name of Jack White’s new band
c) I don’t know! Do I look like I live in Lebanon?
555) Why did Israel just buy two nuclear submarines when everybody knows that Israel has no nuclear weapons?
a) they make great plantholders…if you’re planning on growing a small, glowing forest
b) to send a message to Iran (yeah, I know, a telegram would have been much less expensive, but it’s hard to get some nations’ attention)
c) the three nuclear submarines it already has were getting lonely
556) How does making sure military spending is directed towards specific provinces help Canadian “national security?”
a)
b)
c)
d) other
557) Is it too soon?
a) that’s a rather personal question, isn’t it?
b) how soon is now?
c) definitely. I won’t be able to deal with puberty for at least another 30 years!
558) What is the difference between the fact finding mission three MPs undertook to Lebanon and the 14 fact-finding missions other politicians have taken to Israel in the past year?
a) Israel: sipping pina coladas in a spa on the Dead Sea; Lebanon: trying not to throw up your lunch looking at the dead
b) Israel: appreciating the modern architecture; Lebanon: negotiating the modern rubble
c) there’s not much difference, really: they’re both propaganda exercises. It’s just that one country is so much better at it than the other…
559) Why did Joseph Lieberman lose the Democratic Party nomination battle in Connecticut?
a) his support for Neanderthal judicial appointees like John Roberts and Samuel Alito – to the point of actively working against a filibuster that might have derailed them – had nothing to do with it: it was because of his support for the Iraq war
b) voting for legislation that handed financial companies a windfall to their already bloated profits at the expense of working people had nothing to do with it: it was because of his support for the Iraq war
c) you would think that telling raped women who have been refused emergency contraception at Catholic hospitals “in Connecticut, it shouldn't take more than a short ride to get to another hospital” might have been a contributing factor, but you would be wrong: it was because of his support for the Iraq war
d) as ranking Democrat on the Government Affairs Committee, Lieberman helped ensure that there was no investigation of the government’s part in the Enron scandal, but this isn’t even on anybody’s radar: he lost because of his support for the Iraq war, and that’s that
560) Who taught you to live like that?
a) John Hughes: everything I need to know in life, I learned from Home Alone
b) John Huston: everything I need to know in life, I learned from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
c) Mission Control in Houston: everything I need to know in life, I learned from the Challenger disaster
