Civic Intelligence

Yeah, I hate quizzes online.  Usually sent to you by the same people that tell you if you don’t forward a message about a Pomeranian with testicles that can heal small girls with brain cancer to ten other people you will have cancer of the testicles within three weeks and if you are a woman you’ll grow some within two weeks and three weeks after that you’ll have testicular cancer.  And usually it means you don’t love others, too, I’ve found.  And the quiz generally tests you on how in tune you are with the Crocodile Repo Alley People of Jersey’s Oddest Shore or some weird-ass crap show like that.

But I was intrigued.  Intercollegiate Full Civic Literacy Exam.

If you use the full address to that link you get this message prior to the exam:

Full Civic Literacy Exam (from our 2008 survey)

Are you more knowledgeable than the average citizen? The average score for all 2,508 Americans taking the following test was 49%; college educators scored 55%. Can you do better? Questions were drawn from past ISI surveys, as well as other nationally recognized exams.

I got 80%.  Shame, oh the shame.  To be fair I actually intellectually did know the answers to three more but had my head up my ass when taking the quiz.

Alternatively if you use the shortest version of the http: address you get this:

American Civic Knowledge Survey

Both the ancient Greeks and Romans valued wise and public-spirited citizens. Let’s see just how wise you really are? Are you a Barbarian, Philosopher King, or something in-between?

Please be aware that by clicking on this shorter quiz’s answers at random I got 20% correct so if you get lower than that you really ought to feel pretty ashamed.

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That Takes Balls.

All right folks.  I may have done something not so smart Saturday night but it was because I felt so good I didn’t even think about it.  We have a hand-chopper (Blitzhacker) thing and I was chopping up pickles.  Six hits, light ones, with my right hand…. and bazinga.  Not sure what happened, probably nothing bad but it was kind of painful.  Intensely related to my neck.  Hurts other places.

Damn damn damn.

Anyway, this next snippet of story takes balls.  Castrating of lambs can be hazardous to your health.  Especially if you use your teeth.

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So if you are sitting there in your back yard and the rich kid up on the hill is using his iPad helicopter to spy on your sister while she sunbathes and takes pictures of you doing … things… and then uses pictures of both for his own uses and shares them with the other neighbors…  do you give him back his iQuadcopter when it lands in your yard?

I think Iran is a bunch of slimy bastards but somehow Obama calling them up and telling them they *have* to give our stealth craft back… boy would I ever tell him to stuff it if I were in their shoes.

Iran is a bunch of douchebags that should be bombed the rest of the way back into the stone ages before they are actually able to strike Israel.   But at the same time I don’t blame them for saying to the US “Hey, thanks, free spy-plane!”

“We obviously believe strongly in a diplomatic approach. We want to see the Iranians engage and, as you know, we have attempted to bring about that engagement over the course of the last three-plus years. It has not proven effective, but we are not giving up on it,” [Secretary of State Hilary Clinton] said.

What isn’t said as loudly by the Obama administration:

Yeah, we’ve seen how lots of sucking up and bowing has really proven less effective in controlling the leaders of rogue nations and human-rights-trampling nations than we would have thought.   We really thought toadying up and acting all beta-male would be respected by these regimes and they would fall right in line with our new Metrosexual Alpha-Shemale approach – you know, the one President Obama keeps demonstrating time and time again?  It’s designed to make everyone think you’re alpha male without you ever having to be that way – it’s much safer, we think.

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