1. How are you planning on spending the money you save on taxes thanks to the Conservative income splitting break for families?
a) I’m gonna buy a pack of smokes, and I may even be able to afford another one in…six months…
b) I can afford to get an extra package of diapers for my baby girl…well, four extra diapers…as long as one of them is pre-peed in…
c) I’m going to fill the pool with caviar and have a weekend party for 100 of my closest friends that lasts for 12 days!
2. Which of the people answering Question One claims to be middle class, but is actually incredibly wealthy?
a) b
b) c
c) a
d) other
3. Which of the following government Acts is the most Orwellian?
a) the Common Sense Firearms Licencing Act, which made it easier for people to obtain semi-automatic rifles
b) the Fair Elections Act, which made it harder for some Canadians to vote
c) the Access to Information Act, that codified some Conservative practices that made it harder for citizens to find out what they were doing
d) the Privacy Act, that made it easier for the government, security organizations in particular, to collect information on citizens
e) you have offered me a smorgasbord of senselessness, and you really expect me to choose just one?
4. Who killed Boris Nemtsov?
a) some Islamic fundamentalist who objected to his support of Charlie Hebdo…even though he wasn’t especially vocal about it…and the Muslim charged with the crime wasn’t a fundamentalist…
b) forces abroad “trying to destabilize the country” (which is already about as stable as a top in a hurricane, but you know…)
c) anybody but Vladimir Putin or his lackeys in the secret police – jeeze, why would such a crazy idea even enter your koppe? Such grief you would bring down on all our heads if anybody in power ever found out you suggested such a thing!
5. Why is encryption a lawyer’s best friend?
a) akjhwhyi si hoqw bplw ip ghw feep
b) gry kgioug kyclop bg bp nbgerjbkutd tu ta bl greps
c) because you never know who is reading communications between you and your clients
d) other
6. Is an all girls school right for your son?
a) yes
b) no
c) is there something he’s not telling me?
7. Diverse underwater areas have been horribly degraded by human activity. How do we save the world’s coral reef systems?
a) claim that they’re under attack from terrorists and watch the government funding for their defence pour in
b) zone it for monster mansions (it’s a sort of we had to destroy the coral reefs to save them scenario…)
c) send a thousand snorkelling evangelicals in to convince the coral reefs to put their faith in the idea that Jesus will save them
8. Do you want to tell your husband that you are pregnant on an Emmy Award winning talk show?
a) I think I should wait to get pregnant first
b) I think I should wait until I have a husband first
c) I think I should wait until after the sex change first
d) I would rather coax a flatulent rhino through the eye of a needle
9. Why don’t Canadians want to talk politics?
a) it’s depressing
b) it’s really depressing
c) because they would have to talk to you, and you’re a moron
d) oh, myyyy gawd, is it depressing!
10. What is a humblebrag?
a) when you refuse to accept other people’s insistence that you look fabulous in the clothes of the opposite gender…no, wait – that’s a humbledrag
b) when you boast about how good your tote bag is…no, wait – that’s a dufflebrag
c) when you create a new word by combining two existing words to describe something that really didn’t need a new word in the first place…no, wait – that’s a pointless portmanteau neologism
11. A former Nazi guard at Auschwitz has stated, “I want to tell those deniers that I have seen the crematoria, I have seen the burning pits, and I want to assure you that these atrocities happened. I was there.” How will Holocaust deniers respond?
a) “Are you kidding me? He’s 93 years old! He can barely remember what happened seven seconds ago, let alone 70 years!”
b) “Yeah, yeah – pay me enough money, and I’d be happy to hum the Israeli national anthem…out my butt!”
c) “He didn’t say that, and you have no credible evidence that he did.”
12. Saudi Arabia is Canada’s second largest market for military arms. You know – Saudi Arabia? The country that only allows women to drive cars when they’re dead? The country that could teach Guantanamo jailers a thing or two about the tragic frailty of the human body? The country that has no word for democracy in its native language? That Saudi Arabia? How can such arms sales by Canada be described as “principled?”
a) with the money the country is making, we can afford a lot of philosophers to debate the how principled we were when we made it
b) have you seen how much they add to the principle in the country’s bank account?!
c) by people who are unprincipled, of course
13. What does “Jade Helm 15” stand for?
a) Jawdropping Anomalous Daredevil Evil Hoping to Eliminate Legal Manatees 15
b) Jenocidal Aristocrats Determined to Evade Healthy Engineers Losing Meritocracy 15 (hey! nobody said conspiracy loonies could spell!)
c) Jackrabbit Armageddon’s Delicious Emollient Has Everybody Looking for Mudpacks 15
d) the best opportunity Texas Republicans have to co-opt conspiracy loonies to help promote their political agenda this election cycle
e) other
14. What is the difference between an emoji and an emoticon?
a) when emoticons appear as squares in your Twitter feed, it’s because your browser couldn’t read them; when emoticons appear as squares in your Twitter feed, it’s because you’re not cool enough to read them
b) three letters (which you could use in a tweet for words such as “sit,” tar” or “recommendatory”)
c) one of the words is derived from the Ventrosian language, and, ever since the Squiggle invasion, most people would rather use a Japanese word
15. Republican Presidential perspirant Jeb Bush was asked if he would have acted any differently if he knew before the Iraq War started what he knows now. What does Bush know now that he didn’t know then?
a) the square root of -1 is an irrational number (and, no, I’m not going there – too easy)
b) the capital of Iowa is Scranton
c) that his party could pin the horror show that is current Iraq on President Obama
16. The Harper Government of Canada has set new targets for reducing greenhouse gasses. However, the Alberta tar sands are exempt from the targets. This is most like…
a) starting a diet without putting limits on how much chocolate you plan on eating.
b) deciding you are going to finish writing your novel by the end of the month without using verbs.
c) announcing that you are going to give up consuming Internet porn…except for the sites you have already bookmarked.
d) other
17. What are we doing in Iraq?
a) the Foxtrot
b) we have no idea, but at least we have the consolation of knowing that whatever we’re doing, we’re doing it really badly
c) actually, it’s more like a tango…with several different partners at once, many of whom are trying to kill us, or whom we will be trying to kill eventually
18. Where will oil prices go next?
a) up
b) down
c) up, then down
d) down, then up
e) sideways and out the front door
f) into the twelfth dimension, never to be seen or heard from again
19. Is Saddam responsible for ISIS?
a) yes, because he had the bad grace to die when we executed him, so he was no longer there to keep them in check!
b) absolutely! If he could go back in time to create the Bubonic Plague, start the 100 Years War and green light Ed Wood’s Plan Nine From Outer Space, he could go forward in time and create a Muslim terrorist organization before he had the bad grace to die when we executed him
c) wow, the denial sure is strong in this one…
20. Could you write an entire novel in nine days?
a) absolutely! …As long as we redefined “novel” to mean anything over…say…20 pages…
b) you mean, like, with words and sentences that other human beings could understand and stuff?
c) I’ve been working on my first novel for 17 years – I think I might be able to write most of a medium-sized paragraph in nine days…