1) What do governments in London, Berlin, Ottawa, Amsterdam and Washington have in common?
a) they would all call a recess to attend an Eagles concert
b) if wishes were horses, burgers would fly
c) they’ve all begged President Hamid Karzai to please, please, please do something about the corruption in Afghanistan
2) What has Karzai’s response been?
a) burning all of his Eagles albums
b) to get a new English/frenemy dictionary (although, for some strange reason he can’t quite articulate, he wants to build a McDonald’s in Kabul so he can eat there)
c) he will definitely, absolutely for sure get to that…just as soon as that McDonald’s has been built in Kabul
3) A letter to the editor claims that the psychology driving criminal behaviour can be reconciled with the existence of evil in the world. How?
a) I’m not entirely sure, but I believe it involves a lot of squinting
b) I’m not entirely sure, but I feel certain that it involves a lot of psychological and legal academic jargon
c) by carrying the four – you’d be surprised how many people forget to carry the four…
4) The letter writer was a psychiatrist. Does this
a) give you less faith in psychology?
b) give you less faith in faith?
c) make you want to eat that Prozac-laced chocolate donut you’ve had your eye on all afternoon?
5) Who really speaks for Americans?
a) Dolly Parton
b) Ben Bernan – hey! Don’t be hating on Dolly Parton. She has been through a lot in her life and has come through it an inspiration to many people – ke
c) Hugo Chavez, although nobody can quite figure out how that happened
6) GE Hitachi has ordered its Canadian division to hermetically seal itself off from its US parent owing to concerns that, in the case of an accident at one of its Canadian nuclear power plants that spewed radioactive poison into the US, it could be sued by affected Americans. What should the slogan for its ad campaign be?
a) Canada – not a third world country, but we’re working on it
b) Canada – leave your cares behind at the border
c) Canada – a nice place to make profits from, but we wouldn’t want our company to live there
7) Throughout the debate on health care reform, progressives were told that they shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. At what point, however, does the good become bad enough that the perfect is justified in declaring war on it?
a) the point where the Republicans are actually seriously considering ending obstruction and going home for the holidays
b) the point where insurance companies are dancing on the grave of the public option
c) the point where somebody thinks letting Nancy Meyers continue to make movies is a good thing
8) Sherlock Holmes as a street fighting man? Sure. Elizabeth Bennett as a Victorian zombie killer? Why not? Still, if we are bent on desecrating out of copyright literary classics, we could probably do better. Which of the following plots would you consider to be the most outrageous?
a) Romeo, a vampire, courting Juliet despite the disapproval of his undead clan and her family (actually, why does that sound familiar…?)
b) Homer, in an anachronistic bit of self-reference, does a stand-up comedy routine trying to convince Odysseus that travel is overrated
c) Parliament actually agrees to eat the children of poor Irish immigrants because it is made up of flesh-eating demons from another dimension – as you can imagine, this puts Jonathan Swift in a bit of a dilemma…
9) After over three decades of support, the Canadian International Development Agency has refused funding for KAIROS, a multi-faith group that helps the world’s poorest countries cope with the ravages of global warming. The reason the government offered is that KAIROS’ programmes no longer fit with CIDA’s priorities. What are CIDA’s priorities?
a) supporting Canadian business abroad, such as oil exports from the Alberta tar sands
b) supporting Canadian business abroad, such as mining companies in Mexico
c) supporting Canadian business abroad, such as just about anybody doing business in China
d) supporting Canadian business abroad, such as all of the above
e) supporting Canadian business abroad, such as other
10) Who said “As the economy goes downward, I think people are going to be driven to religion.”
a) Tony Perkins, the right-wing evangelical president of the Family
Research Council
b) Tony Perkins, the knife-wielding psycho in Alfred Hitchcock’s film of the same name
c) when it comes to compassion, not much of a difference, really
11) Who or what is Ecphory?
a) I don’t know, but there must be a cream for it…
b) a rejected Harry Potter villain
c) it sounds awfully familiar…I bet…I bet I do know what it is, but it has been stored in my brain in such a way that I don’t actually recognize it as the answer…
12) According to former Bush Press Secretary Dana Perino, “But, you know, we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.” What was 9/11?
a) a very bad dream
b) an outtake from a lost Rambo movie
c) okay, look, what people don’t seem to understand is that the attack on the World Trade Center won’t actually happen until 2011, when Democrat Barack Obama is President, but the heat that it generated will be so intense that it will cause a vortex to throw the whole area back in time to 2001. You can’t argue with that – it’s science
13) Gee, how you see the world really depends on who is defining the terms, doesn’t it?
a) define “depends” (without making a diaper joke)
b) not when I’m defining the terms, it doesn’t!
c) seeing the world is overrated – as long as I’ve got my Sopranos boxed set, I really don’t care who is defining the terms
14) When I sneeze, it sounds like I’m trying to start a car with a dead battery in the middle of winter. Is that normal? That can’t be normal. Is that…is that normal?
a) it doesn’t sound normal – when was the last time you took your car in to an ear, nose and throat specialist?
b) it’s perfectly normal for this time of year – just call the AAA and ask them to give your nose a boost
c) Canadian humour just hasn’t been the same since the end of CodCo, has it?
15) Bonuses for bankers in the United States will reach a record $8.3 billion. A single person on welfare in Ontario gets a maximum of $7,020 a year. What could a banker do with what a person on welfare makes?
a) heat their various homes for an average of three days, 16 hours and 27 minutes
b) fly their company jet from London to Tokyo and halfway back
c) spend a night with a call girl (with a little left over to tip the concierge)
d) other
16) Supporters of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford used to say that he should be allowed to stay in office as long as he could repair his marriage. Now that his wife Jenny has filed for divorce, what is the new criterion on the right for allowing Sanford to stay in power?
a) lower his golf score to 12 under par
b) make no reference to “hiking the old Appalachian Trail” in speeches for at least a year
c) continuing to oppose gay marriage, health care reform and the Obama stimulus package
17) What is “American exceptionalism?”
a) when anybody from another country says, “I love America, except…”
b) when an American President says, “I love democracy, except…”
c) when an American President throws up on another world leader, instead of causing an international incident, everybody at the table laughs uproariously and a new standard in international diplomacy is born
18) According to a headline in the Globe and Mail, “If we skirt a double-dip, it could be a very happy new year for stock returns.” What would the best analogy to this sentiment be?”
a) “As long as I don’t lose my hands in an industrial accident, I’ll be able to play tennis with you this weekend.”
b) “If I manage not to burn the house down, we could have a party on New Year’s Eve.”
c) “If the world doesn’t end in 2012, you will be going to college, so I guess we should save some money for it.”
19) Is extraction from the Alberta oil sands worse for the planet than salad oil?
a) yes – techniques for extracting salad oil from the earth’s crust have improved far more dramatically over the last decade
b) no – oil from the tar sands travels better and lasts longer than salad oil
c) why do I expect Graham Chapman to appear in a military uniform and shut this question down for being too silly?
20) What does the phrase “Gott Mit Uns” mean?
a) it’s cold outside, so make sure you’re wearing warm clothing
b) the advertising campaign for milk is moving to a whole new level
c) I don’t know, but I bet it would sound better in French…everything sounds better in French…