621) Which of the following exit strategies from Iraq makes as much sense as anything in the James Baker report?
a) NASA invents a time machine that allows a crack team of commandos to go back to 2002 and plant weapons of mass destruction in Baghdad
b) George W. Bush wakes up one morning to find that he is the commissioner of baseball, and the last six and a half years were just a dream
c) Private Mishi Gauss paints his combat boots red, clicks them three times and shouts above the IED explosions that “There’s no place like home! There’s no place like –”
d) sadly, all of the above
622) What is Operation Together Forward?
a) the Pentagon’s code name for potato sack races
b) the name of a mashup of the classic song by the Beatles, the classic magazine about radical leftist politics and guide dogs, and the classic Milton Bradley board game
c) a welcome change from Operation Backwards Separately
623) Who or what is “Flat Daddy?”
a) a description of the thinness of the portrayal of fathers in today’s sitcoms
b) a two-dimensional foam board replica of soldiers in Iraq that are meant to comfort their families back home (without the danger of anybody having to deal with PSU: post-traumatic stress unpleasantness)
c) Flat Mark’s secret gay lover (and, won’t Paul Martin be surprised by his invitation to the coming out slash wedding party!)
624) What is the toughest measure the Congress has passed to fight political corruption?
a) to bar former lawmakers-turned-lobbyists from the House floor and gym
b) politicians must wait six months before lobbying the government…unless they have a note from their mother saying what good people they are
c) the first billion is a gimme
625) What is ISG?
a) the one eyed man leading the blind out of the burning building (and, yes, I could have mixed a few more elements into that metaphor, but it wouldn’t have resulted in anything tasty)
b) the International Soya Group, of course
c) no, it isn’t! Everybody knows it’s the Itinerant Society of Gourmands
d) says you!
e) wanna make something of it?
f) any time, any place, pal! SOYA RULES!
626) What is “Psy-ops Journalism?”
a) what people who don’t work for the CIA laughingly refer to as “propaganda”
b) newspaper coverage of one-eyed giants (and, let’s be honest, they have historically been an overlooked demographic)
c) a polite way of suggesting to Bill O’Reilly that he get back on his meds
627) What is PNAC?
a) a nice, light snack
b) a lonely four letter acronym in a three letter acronym world
c) President Bush’s folksy nickname for two thirds of his cabinet and several of his top level advisors (the President does love his nicknames)
d) another colourful Quebecois blasphemous oath
628) What is “information dominance?”
a) when you back information into a corner, propping yourself up against the wall with your arms around it so that it can’t get away and speak to it in a low but menacing voice
b) when you tell the grade school bully, “Oh, yeah? Well, my information can beat your information any day!”
c) propaganda’s older, more sophisticated brother
629) President Bush has rejected the Iraq Study Group’s description of conditions in that country as “dire and deteriorating.” How does he see conditions in Iraq?
a) fluffy and friendly
b) achingly alliterative
c) the next President’s problem
630) Katie bar the door? Katie bar the – just who is this Katie and why would anybody want her to bar the door?
a) a waitress at the Plankton and Firkin who has been ordered not to serve Spongebob because he drinks like a…you know…
b) what, Katie? Ah, she’s a feisty lass, laddie. Aye, and it’s a magical sort of door that only opens when it’s part of a pub in bonny old Mississauga
c) Katy is short for Katydid (and she has to bar the door because boy did she ever!)
631) Although it does not have diplomatic ties with Syria – indeed, it has condemned Syria’s human rights abuses – the United States has sent prisoners to that country to be tortured. What does Syria get out of the deal?
a) a fruit basket and a Bush family card every Christmas
b) a forward with a gimpy knee and a third round draft pick to be named later
c) President Bush will stop pretending to be out when Bashir Assad calls
632) Prime Minister Stephen Harper called Hamas a “genocidal” organization. How did he think this would help the development of peace in the Middle East?
a) he thought members of Hamas would read his comments and, slapping themselves in the forehead, say, “genocidal? Of course! Why didn’t we understand that before? We really must be dumb. Really dumb. Too dumb, in fact, to be allowed to chart a course to a future for our people in our own best interests…”
b) by countering the propaganda that Hamas was a “warm and fuzzy bunny” of a terrorist organization
c) by getting his Conservatives in thick with Canadian Jewish voters, which would help the development of peace in the Middle East by…umm…by ensuring that…umm…yeah, well, he hasn’t actually figured out that part yet…
633) What is the most appropriate reaction to the announcement that the American Food and Drug Administration has approved cloned animals for eating, despite fears that the animals are weaker and more prone to diseases and infections?
a) I’d let my clone respond to this question, but he hasn’t been the same since the neurons in his brain started firing randomly and he decided that he was Queen Victoria
b) what, now animals can’t reproduce enough on their own? Maybe we should put the money being spent on cloning research into buying chocolates and sexy underwear for cattle! A nice moonlit dinner of grass with a chaser of antibiotics, maybe a violin playing in the background – hell, that’s better than my dates for the past few years, but it’s a small price to pay for disease-free sirloin!
c) to become a vegetarian
634) After the attack on the World Trade Centre, the Environmental Protection Agency had to clear all public statements about the air quality of New York’s Ground Zero with the Council on Environmental Quality, which in turn got clearance from the National Security Council, on the grounds that the health risks for people in and around Ground Zero were a national security issue. How is public health a national security issue?
a) if everybody in the country dies of bird flu, who will fly our magnificent new generation of fighter planes?
b) sorry, but New Yorker’s lungs are classified
c) the fact that you can even ask that question means the terrorists are on the verge of will have wonning
635) A New York Times business columnist said that he “has militarized the government, emasculated the country’s courts, intimidated the media, eroded confidence in the economy and hollowed out [his country’s] once-democratic institutions.” Who he?
a) George W. Bush
b) Daffy Duck
c) Primo Levi
d) Hugo Cha – no, I’m going to stick with George W. Bush
635) Rank the following puns from worse to worst:
a) What did Scrooge say when he declined to go swimming with sharks? Scuba? Humbug!
b) How did the jazz musician drafted into the army defend his decision not to arrest the scrawny tabby suspected of aiding the insurgency? He’s our ally, cat!
c) Could you say that a popular water reservoir was a hot dam?
636) Which of the following clauses in a federal defence contract most strongly suggests that the fix is in?
a) The CEO of the winning corporation must be 57 years old, have been married for 23 years and drive a Lexus.
b) The winning company’s lunchroom must serve cold pasta every Tuesday and Thursday.
c) The winning company must be based in Italy – the southern part of Italy, not the skanky northwestern part – and all of its employees must speak fluent Sanskrit.
637) The Motion Picture Association of America has teamed up with the Los Angeles Area Boy Scouts of America to offer a “Respect Copyrights” merit patch. What are scouts suggested to do to earn the ba – err, patch?
a) research peer to peer Web sites and report back to their troop about them
b) watch the final credits of any film and imagine how many people in them would be financially hurt by film piracy
c) suggest ways to detect peer to peer software like the MPAA Parent File Scan
d) all of the above (which would earn you a merit badge – patch – whatever – in world-weary, but not inappropriate, cynicism)
638) No, seriously, why did Gerald Ford pardon Richard Nixon?
a) Ford’s horoscope for the day read: “With the moon transversing Scorpio, today is a good day to pardon a poor paranoid bastard who authorized the coverup of illegal activity meant to smear critics of an illegal war.”
b) Ford had just received a fortune cookie after a fantastic Tex Mex meal that read: “Friendship is more important than the Constitution. Your lucky numbers are 3, 7 and 34.”
c) it was time for the country to heal (at least, until Karl Rove started advising the Republicans on how to win elections…)
639) What is the following object?
a) an IESPD (Improvised Exploding Surge Protector Device), the only thing that could possibly stop the United States from prevailing in Iraq after sending 30,000 more troops
b) a modern slapstick: simply hit your comedy partner over the head with it and watch the sparks fly!
c) something that may give you comfort but won’t ultimately hold back the electricity gremlins when they come for your hard drive
640) Well, what would you do in my position?
a) kill myself and hope I get reincarnated as something better…like a sea slug
b) kill time – you know they want you badly enough that there’ll be another offer
c) “Kill the ump!”