Jam – who doesn’t love it on a sandwich with peanut butter? And, there are dozens of fruits just waiting to be plucking from their trees or vines, mashed into pulp, chemicalized, canned and shipped to foreign climes to be sold for outrageous prices. Yes, jam is a triumph of the capitalist system – and tasty, too!
But, how much do you know about jam? Really? To find out, we have put together the following questionnaire about currant affairs. Simply answer the questions to the best of your ability in order to determine your jams, jellies and marmalade intelligence quotient (JJMIQ). But, whatever you do, don’t send completed surveys back to us! We hate responding with our mouths full.
1) How can you justify making procreation the defining aspect of marriage?
a) by ignoring childless marriages
b) by ignoring relationships other than marriage involving children
c) by ignoring the fact that advances in technology have made it possible for gay men and lesbian women to have children
d) please! Anti-gay bigotry requires no justification
e) all of the above
2) Do you have any idea what will happen if you try to put that up your nose?
a) Sheila Copps will beat Paul Martin in the Liberal leadership race?
b) I’ll become an urban legend?
c) blood will spurt all over the table and I won’t have to eat your cauliflower surprise…NEAT!
3) Members of the Bush administration have been trying to convince people that attacks upon American soldiers in Iraq are being conducted by foreign terrorists, even though soldiers on the ground see little evidence of this. What are they trying to divert people’s attention away from?
a) President Bush’s claim, in a press conference with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, that part of the reason for the war on Iraq was that Saddam Hussein wouldn’t let UN weapons inspectors back into the country, even though he did
b) the fact that Iraqis might not like being killed in raids on the wrong houses
c) the premier of Roseanne Barr’s new cooking show
Current affairs? We could have sworn the questionnaire was on – oh, well…enjoy it anyway.
4) Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz insists that the war on Iraq was part of the war on terror because who knows what Saddam Hussein would have done if he hadn’t been stopped. What should his nickname be?
a) The Boy Who Cried Wolfowitz
b) The Wolfowitz at the Door
c) The Wolfowitz Who Would Be Secretary of State
d) Nostrawolfowitz
e) Muttonhead
5) How do you know what you know?
a) the brain pixies have been working overtime
b) if I didn’t know what I know, I would know something else, even though I wouldn’t know what I now know, and I wouldn’t even know that I didn’t know what I now know. You know?
c) the light bulb over my head goes off. Of course, I’ve been in the dark for a very long time…
d) my neural pathways have no four-way intersections
6) What was the worst thing about the power outage of 2003?
a) it gave President Bush another undeserved photo op
b) I missed a rerun of Star Trek: Deep Guts Nine
c) it cannot be blamed on the Harris/Eves policy of energy deregulation
7) What is “torture lite?”
a) Molson’s latest beer, to be drunk warm, flat and, of course, in large quantities
b) forcing grade school children to read the Darkness At Noon pop-up colouring book
c) all the rage in Guantanamo Bay this season, and sure to be a trend that fashionable dictators the world over will be imitating
8) AOL Time Warner is considering dropping the AOL from its name. If it really wanted to get out from under the image of a company teetering on the brink of financial ruin, what would it change its name to?
a) Steve’s “Head” Case
b) Another Day Older and Billions In Debt
c) The Little Vertically Integrated Transnational Entertainment Conglomerate That Could
9) According to a team of academics that analyzed 238 quotations from 195 famous philosophers, poets and used condom salesmen, what is the meaning of life?
a) 42
b) be good to yourselves and each other and never buy prescription glasses from a guy on a street corner named Butch
c) entering a trance-like state while watching Survivor: Scarborough
d) other
10) What is umbilicoplasty?
a) what happens to people who do too much navel gazing
b) a new Fruitopia flavour
c) a procedure you’re going to see in excruciating detail on the next episode of Nip/Tuck
11) According to US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, “We have never claimed that Saddam Hussein had either direction or control of 9/11.” Gee, Condi, where could 70 per cent of the American people have gotten the idea?
a) not from Fox News, that’s for darn sure!
b) radio waves beamed directly into their brains by the same Martians who were portrayed in the classic Twilight Zone episode “The Monsters Do Maple Street”
c) a fortune cookie gone terribly, terribly wrong
12) Why has Microsoft decided to eliminate its free chat rooms and replace them with paid subscription-only chat rooms?
a) so that no kitten or cute puppy must find itself lost ever again
b) it’s the first step on the road to finding a cure for cancer
c) so Microsoft customers will only be spammed on Hotmail
d) $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
e) other
13) How can you tell the Progressive Conservatives are desperately afraid they are about to get trounced in the Ontario provincial election?
a) Premier Eves has started to blame the media for bad poll results
b) Premier Eves has started to throw around cliches like “There’s only one poll that counts…and that’s the one on election day” and “It ain’t over till the fat lady has her hernia operation…”
c) when updating their resumes on the Internet didn’t get them anywhere, Conservative campaign officials started auctioning off toner cartridges on eBay
d) Conservative Cabinet members have been ordered to memorize a pamphlet they just received from the civil service instructing them on which documents they can and cannot shred
14) If the recent war on Iraq was not about oil (in whole or in part), why was the oil industry the only one the Americans announced would not be privatized?
a) are you some kind of troublemaker?
b) a hoot ‘n’ a holler’ll get ya a dollar
c) oil…oil is such a gooey, slippery, toxic thing…
15)What’s the best way to torment David Blaine, who is in the middle of a 44 day fast suspended in a clear plastic box over the River Thames?
a) flash your behind at him (well, maybe not yours, sir)
b) read him all of Roberta Ecklers’ National Post columns in a slow, earnest voice
c) surround him with thousands of starving African children and tell him that if he doesn’t eat something soon, he’s next
16) An advertisement for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix features bikers. What other demographic should J. K. Rowlings’ publishers be going after?
a) slaughterhouse workers
b) death row inmates
c) lawyers
d) divorce lawyers
17) What is the most effective part of Canada’s anti-terrorism legislation?
a) the part that allows police to arrest anybody on a suspicion that they might, sort of, kind of, maybe tangentially be part of a terrorist cell. That would be the part that was responsible for the arrest of 19 Arab men who appear to have had nothing to do with terrorism, but may have been in Canada illegally. This will certainly make illegal immigrants think twice…
b) the part that allows police to seize funds from anybody who crosses the border into Canada who fails to report possession of more than $10,000. That would be the part that was responsible for the seizure of over $435,000 from a Canadian man who accidentally crossed the border into the US on his way from Toronto to Winnipeg. This will certainly make travelers considering going by car think twice…
c) the part where terrorists (if there are, in fact, any in Canada) are so busy laughing their asses off they don’t have time to develop new attacks
18) American Treasury Secretary John Snow told global bankers and economists that his government’s deficit would be halved by the end of 2008. What was he smoking?
a) PCP
b) rubber tires
c) Dristan nasal spray
d) economic forecasts (which have been conclusively shown to cause mental confusion in lab rats, but, incredibly, have yet to be banned in America’s War on Drugs)
19) Why did the Progressive Conservatives get trounced in the provincial election?
a) because of the stellar candidates they fielded, including Mario Giangioppo (who was disbarred for misappropriating clients’ funds) and John Adams (registered to run for mayor of Toronto, only to withdraw a day later, so that he could preserve a $32,000 municipal campaign surplus held in trust since 1997). A strong campaign requires a strong team
b) Premier Ernie Eves said he would cut Ontario’s consulting fees drastically, immediately losing the critical cutthroat lawyers at the public trough demographic
c) Public Safety Minister Bob Runciman asked for (and was given) a postponement of the trial in the wrongful death lawsuit concerning the shooting of native activist Dudley George at Ipperwash, not because it would embarrass the Tories in the middle of the election, but because
20) Canadian National Railways has decided to call itself CN in order to distance itself from its Canadian roots. If it was really serious about renouncing its Canadianness, what could it have done?
a) have its President shoot a beaver on national television
b) send out a press release headlined: spike the last spike
c) move all of its rails and rolling stock to a maquiladora in Mexico