1) Republicans crowing that all but three of their members of Congress voted against President Obama’s stimulus package is like…
a) Nero applauding his own musicianship as Rome burns.
b) Dewey boasting about what a magnificent cabinet he will put together before finding out he lost to Truman.
c) Marie Antoinette bragging that she can bake a delicious angel food cake as she is driven to the guillotine.
d) other
2) The rationale for the Republican rejection of the…sorry, I can’t find a term starting with the letter “r” – $787 billion stimulus package is that they are the party of fiscal responsibility. The Republicans. Who, in eight short years, took a small surplus and worked it into a trillion dollar deficit. The Republicans. The party that handed out insanely inflated no-bid contracts to its friends for the Iraq War, and whose eagle-eyes didn’t prevent it from losing a pallet of Iraq reconstruction money. The Republicans. The party of fiscal responsibility. What is a proper response to this argument?
a) laughing until the milk your friend is drinking pours out of your nose
b) I wouldn’t trust John Boehner to balance a pair of pebbles on a table!
c) it would be like me claiming to be fiscally responsible after going into debt to buy weapons to trash a house across the street
3) Oh, that wasn’t us, the Republicans insist, that was George W. Bush, who hijacked the party and took it away from its fiscally responsible roots. What is the proper response to this argument?
a) laughing until the milk your friend is drinking pours out of both your noses
b) Are you serious? George W. Bush couldn’t hijack a plane if somebody tattooed instructions on his arm, handed him a gun and walked him directly into the cockpit!
c) it would be like me claiming to be fiscally responsible after going into debt to buy weapons to trash a house across the street, then saying it was my three year-old daughter’s fault
4) What is the next entry in the series:
U2: “Put On Your Boots”
USS: “Laces Out”
?
a) UB40: “Keep On Moving”
b) Blink182: “Reebok Commercial”
c) Tommy James: “Draggin’ the Line”
5) Research in Motion has agreed to settle a case brought against it by the Securities and Exchange Commission in which four executives were accused of illegally backdating executive options. They have agreed to pay penalties totaling $1.425 million. According to technology analyst Carmi Levy, this was “a good news story for RIM.” How so?
a) President Obama got to keep his Blackberry
b) the sun came up in the morning as it always has
c) do you mind if I Tweet you the answer?
6) According to New York Magazine, Demetri Martin is the comedy equivalent of President Barack Obama. How so?
a) they both like to use charts to explain things
b) they both just got a new dog
c) I want the drugs that they apparently take in the editorial offices of New York Magazine
7) What is “green fatigue?”
a) getting tired every time you see a soldier in camo gear
b) how the Alberta government hopes to be able to deal with criticism of tar sands extraction (and, isn’t it good to have a plan?)
c) I’d tell you, but I get weary just thinking about it…
8) What is “x-phi?”
a) The X-Files for the Twitter generation
b) an organic root too disgusting to be referred to by its full English name
c) eXtreme PHIlosophy, which includes such activities as pondering Kant’s categorical imperative while snowboarding down a mountain and arguing for the ultimate unknowability of the universe while skateboarding in the wake of a space shuttle
9) You are standing by a railway line when you see a train hurtling towards you, out of control; the brakes have failed. In its path are five people tied to the tracks. Fortunately, the runaway train is approaching a junction with a side spur. If you flip a switch you can redirect the train onto this spur, saving five lives. That’s the good news. The not-quite-so-good news is that another person is tied down on the side spur of the track. The man on the tracks isn’t Edwin Meese, but he does look a lot like him. It’s hot, and you haven’t eaten in several hours. The people tied to the tracks are singing Cyndi Lauper’s “She Bop.” Your wife just announced that she’s leaving you because she has become disillusioned with the size of your…retirement fund. Monaco has just invaded Kyrgyzstan, and you have a tough time caring because you don’t know where either of them are. What do you do?
a) send the train down the spur with the single man because you never want to think about the Reagan presidency again as long as you live
b) go look for something to eat, because you really can’t solve complicated moral questions on an empty stomach
c) go look for cotton for your ears, because you really never liked Cyndi Lauper
10) What if the single man on the line is fat?
a) well, that changes everything! If that’s the case, you can live with Cyndi Lauper’s music
b) nope, you still don’t care about Monaco’s invasion of Kyrgyzstan; now, if the man had had a world map tattooed to his forehead…
c) you don’t divert the train because the man probably knows where the nearest gourmet restaurant is
11) A reporter for the New York Times actually asked President Obama: “Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?” What do you wish he could have been free to respond?
a) “Are you a newspaper, as your masthead claims?”
b) “Oh, yeah, and I’m coming for your children! OOGA BOOGA!“
c) “You know, Karl Marx had a great response to that question…but, if I quoted him, that would probably freak you out, so why don’t we forget I mentioned it?”:
d) other
12) How many tapes of torturing suspects has the CIA erased?
a) enough to contain all of the episodes of the first run of the TV series WKRP in Cincinnati…at least three times over
b) 92 is the new 42
c) the CIA doesn’t use the term “erase;” it prefers the term “enhanced expungement technique”
13) Why are newspapers losing readers faster than bulimics lose weight?
a) the Internet is a shinier object
b) I blame Cathy cartoons (even if the newspaper doesn’t carry them)
c) it’s a liberal plot to undermine their own propaganda machine!
d) their idea of investigative reporting is an in-depth article on which restaurant in the city has the best lemon meringue pie, their columnists are mostly right wing hacks whose idea of a solution to the problems of a tanking economy, unwinnable wars and root rot is tax cuts and their editorial positions make Attila the Hun look like Anne of Green Gables – obviously, they’re just too high-brow for their readers!
14) At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Rush Limbaugh was given the “Defender of the Constitution Award.” Which Constitution, exactly, has he defended?
a) Pamela Anderson’s constitution
b) not his own constitution, obviously, because [CENSORED: GRATUITOUS WEIGHT JOKE]
c) the constitution of water: two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom is the way god made water, but if the liberal media succeed in their campaign against it, water could be redefined as the combination of two hydrogen and three einsteinium atoms!
15) What criticism of the Israeli government can one make without being labeled an anti-Semite (or self-hating Jew)?
a)
b)
c)
d) other
16) What the hell is Googlejuice?
a) the title character of a supernatural comedy starring Michael Keaton
b) the dead insects you get on your screen if you drive too fast down the Information Superhighway
c) what you have to clean off Sergey Brin’s jeans whenever he looks at the price of his company’s stock
17) Louisiana Senator David Vitter had a few choice words for an airport worker who wouldn’t let him on a plane after he arrived late and the doors had been closed. Why?
a) it was all a misunderstanding – he was just trying to lighten the mood by doing his crazy Japanese woman impression
b) they were closed on his foot
c) there are words they don’t allow you to say on the floor of the Senate that just pile up in your vocabulary and, if you don’t eventually use them, can lead to colon cancer
18) Everybody knows that the United States is sending drones and Special Operations forces across the Afghanistan border into Pakistan. What, exactly, is “covert” about this war?
a) ssh! You wouldn’t want to wake up the American people!
b) the Generals send orders to attack while snuggled comfortably under their blankies
c) the accountability part
19) What is “irregular warfare?”
a) battles fought with paper kites
b) battles fought against paper kites with helicopter gunships and long range ballistic missiles
c) warfare waged by the cast of Revenge of the Nerds
20) Why would pastors in Arkansas want to repeal a law that banned concealed weapons in religious institutions?
a) they believe in turning the other cheek…to get a better grip on their hidden .45s before they come back at you
b) they don’t want the state telling them what to do (that’s what the Pope is for!)
c) nearer, my god, to thee