2007: An Adderall-addled year of fat-gram-countin’, Nicorette-chompin’ and troop-supportin’

* Only a good-for-nothing is not interested in his past. —Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis

World, you’ve done it again! Despite all odds, you’ve put together another banner year that critics are hailing as “hilarious,” “carcinogenic” and “a comic-tragic masterpiece of side-splitting horror.”

As far as we know, no American statesman shot his hunting buddy in the face, but 2007 was still a memorable year: The Middle East stayed aflame, China emerged as the John Belushi of capitalism (polluted, bloated and poisonous, yet somehow endearing), and despite their utter failure at everything they touch, neocons continued to rattle their swords at the planet’s most entertaining lunatics. In Kentucky, it was an election year, so citizens closely examined the entire spectrum of important issues, from homosexuality to gayness.

Through it all, the people gamely fixed their attention on “Grey’s Anatomy,” football and “American Idol,” despite the media’s heroic fascination with Paris Hilton. But not you, intrepid reader. No, sirree. You kept your eye on the ball, and that’s why you’re going to totally ace this quiz!

Because of crazy holiday printing schedules, we’ll publish the answers in our Jan. 9 issue. Don’t forget, this is a real contest, with real prizes! Good luck — and no fair Googling!

National and International events

1. President Bush’s “surge” plan to increase troops in Iraq is officially known by what marketing slogan?

A. Operation Iraqi Freedom III: The Final Fantasy
B. The Empire Strikes Back
C. The New Way Forward in Iraq
D. The Big Ol’ Troop-Supportin’ Whoop-Ass of Freedom
E. Get Rich or Die Tryin’

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2. What is the “Saffron Revolution?”
A. A New York Times designation for Food Network stars’ crossover appeal into mainstream popular culture
B. A surprise hit reality show on the Logo Network
C. Marches by thousands of Buddhist monks protesting the military junta ruling Myanmar
D. Hillary Clinton’s personal blog
E. A marketing collaboration between rock star Bono, Nike and The Gap to fund AIDS relief efforts in Africa

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Match the newsmaker to the news:

3. Scooter Libby
4. Jason Jones
5. Michael Mukasey
6. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
7. Benazir Bhutto
8. Gordon Brown
9. Alberto Gonzalez

A. Cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs President of Iran, he is to the Holocaust as President Bush is to evolution and global warming
B. Attorney general who can’t decide if being held down and slowly drowned is torture
C. Daily Show correspondent who filed a report examining potential first ladies Elizabeth Kucinich and Jeri Thompson titled, “Is America Ready for a FLILF?”
D. Traitor and former aide to Dick Cheney convicted in March of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to federal investigators in connection with the leaked identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame
E. Prime Minister of Pakistan whose return to that country in October prompted a suicide-bomb assassination attempt that killed 136 people
F. Stodgy Prime Minister of Great Britain who is fond of making speeches with subtle jabs at President Bush
G. Memory-challenged, scandal-plagued former U.S. Attorney General whose slow-motion resignation took most of the year

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A). Dead, B) Alive or C) Mormon?

10. Gladys Knight
11. Wilford Brimley
12. Gene Snyder
13. Mitt Romney
14. Andy Rooney
15. Anna Nicole Smith

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16. In a controversial speech at Columbia University, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that his country has no:

A. MILFs
B. Homosexuals
C. Freedom lovers
D. Nice people dancing to good country music
E. McMansions

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17. What is a “liquid condom?”

A. A popular widget on Facebook
B. A “microbicide” gel that scientists hope will give women protection against AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases
C. Street slang for a popular concoction of Jose Cuervo tequila and psychotropic drugs that results in sexual dysfunction
D. The half-price drink special after 2 a.m. at Molly Malone’s
E. Elizabeth Edwards’ nickname for Ann Coulter

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18. National ethics watchdog The Sunlight Foundation created a snarky anti-Mitch McConnell billboard and web campaign in order to illuminate what McConnell transgression?

A. Calling on his pals at Insight Cable to kill a TV ad that claimed McConnell directed federal money to his pal Hunter Bates to supply Afghani tribesmen with propaganda-bearing MP3 players while simultaneously voting against body armor for troops in Iraq
B. His robot-like support of the Iraq War and anything President Bush says
C. An award by the Olmsted Parks despite his decades of scorn for environmental protection
D. His secret effort to derail the Senate Campaign Disparity Act and his career-long efforts to keep campaign financing shady
E. Wearing white after Labor Day

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Finger the “family-values” Republican perp:

19. Glenn Murphy Jr.
20. Bob Allen
21. David Vitter
22. Larry Craig

A. Married Louisiana Senator exposed by “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey and Hustler magazine for visiting prostitutes on numerous occasions while simultaneously criticizing Bill Clinton publicly for his marital infidelity
B. Idaho Senator arrested for lewd conduct for “cottaging” — soliciting sex using established signals in a men’s room — in the Minneapolis airport
C. The (now-former) Chairman of the Clark County, Ind. Republican Party and The Young Republican National Federation who faces 20 years in prison for allegedly performing fellatio on a fellow Young Republican who was asleep
D. Florida representative and proponent of anti-gay legislation arrested in a public park men’s room for offering $20 to an undercover police officer to allow him to perform oral sex on him, later claiming he did it because he was afraid of the officer because he was black

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23. What collapse brought worldwide attention to America’s crumbling infrastructure?

A. An interstate highway bridge in Minneapolis
B. The Republican Party in the fall elections
C. Celebrated whore Paris Hilton, who spent 22 days in jail for violating the terms of her probation
D. Cable news coverage of Paris Hilton
E. All of the above

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Kentucky and Indiana Events

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Match the Kentucky Goobernatorial primary candidate to his or her high-profile campaign mistake:

24. Bruce Lunsford
25. Ernie Fletcher
26. Steve Beshear
27. Steve Henry
28. Gatewood Galbraith
29. Anne Northup

A. Target of a medical malpractice lawsuit and a complaint by a campaign worker of financial wrongdoing
B. Plagiarized a Florida campaign platform
C. Built his entire campaign around opposition to an issue he formerly supported
D. Sold yard signs for $10 each and practiced Catholicism in Kentucky
E. Plagiarized an Iowa campaign platform
F. Actually made sense

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Match the newsmaker to the news:

30. Chris Thieneman
31. Richard Koenig
32. Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
33. Annie Sprinkle
34. Frank Simon
35. Barbara Erwin

A. A retired J-Town cop who earned the right to go first at a four-way stop by blasting another driver in the face with a semiautomatic pistol
B. Celebrity Derby hand-waver
C. Local developer who helped convince voters that two dimes per $100 is too much to pay for an improved library system
D. Almost-Education Commissioner who resigned three days before starting the job because of résumé lies and a suspiciously missing personnel file
E. Conservative Christian fascinated with human sexuality who produced a flyer accusing libraries of “promoting anti-Christian thinking”
F. Former porn star and prostitute who performed a “bosom ballet” that involved moving her breasts in time to classical music during a pajama party at Louisville’s 21C hotel

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36. On July 1, Louisville began banning what activity?

A. Including a gay loved one in the family insurance plan
B. Being excessively courteous to strangers
C. Smoking in bars and restaurants
D. Dipping frickled pickles in Miracle Whip
E. Doing anything fun, ever

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37. In January, a runaway barge became trapped in a gate of the McAlpine Dam and spilled what into the Ohio River?
A. Its cargo of homeless people banished from the city because of a strict new panhandling ordinance
B. 800,000 gallons of liquid asphalt
C. 3,000 tons of liquid fertilizer
D. Life-sized, animatronic dinosaur statues bound for northern Kentucky’s Creation Museum
E. Former U of L football coach Bobby Petrino

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38. In October, Yum! chairman David Novak announced what high-profile project to drive customers to his company’s restaurants?

A. “One Healthy World,” a plan to begin including nutritious food on its menus
B. “Partnership for a Batter-dipped Tomorrow,” a corporate initiative to “achieve total world domination of the market for cheesy, fried foodstuffs”
C. It’s All Yum!, a Yum-wide marketing campaign to promote its new Bucket-of-Chicken-in-the-Crust-Burrito-Lover’s® pizza
D. “Cloglicious!,” a plan to “stamp out hunger and replace it with heart disease”
E. “World Hunger Relief Week,” a global campaign to support the United Nations World Food Programme

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39. What issue didn’t the Louisville Metro Council discuss in 2007?
A. A bond ordinance to pay operating expenses for the city’s new basketball arena
B. An ordinance to ban trans fats
C. 8664
D. An ordinance to deny illegal aliens city services
E. A resolution declaring that, “because quantum mechanics suggests that reality is likely untenable, we should totally party our asses off”

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40. Peabody Energy’s $3 billion coal-to-gas plant proposed for Western Kentucky is contingent on what science-fiction technology?

A. Trojan Magnum “carbon condoms”
B. Hydrogen fuel cells
C. Storing carbon dioxide emissions underground indefinitely
D. A complex chemical distilled from the commingled man-sweat of Rick Pitino and Terry Meiners
E. Immigration reform

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Media in the Metro and Beyond

41. Which influential media property fell into the evil clutches of Rupert Murdoch in 2007?

A. The Colbert Report
B. The Lady Capitalist’s Home Journal
C. The Wall Street Journal
D. Wikipedia
E. The Imperialism Now Network

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42. Identify the actual stories from The Courier-Journal’s “Mom Matters” blog:

A. Another Thing I Learned at the Track
B. He Hates You Because You’re Fat
C. White Zin: It’s Not Just For Breakfast Anymore
D. Shut Them Up During ‘Ellen’ with the New Nintendo Wii
E. Tricking Him into Thinking He Has a Say
F. What is Your Most Pathetic Holiday Memory?

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43. Which desperate attempt by an anachronistic institution to suck up to kids actually happened?

A. A free Prince CD inside issues of The New Yorker
B. The Louisville Orchestra’s “Video Games Live,” featuring the music of Halo
C. “The CBS Evening News With 50 Cent”
D. The Courier-Journal’s topless “Page 3 Girls”
E. The Catholic Church’s new “Cheesy Communion Crunch”

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44. What technological innovation had fans hailing it as a “social sixth sense” and critics denouncing it as “hipster narcissism” and “pointless e-mail on steroids”?

A. The Courier-Journal’s “Storychat” reader forums
B. The exploding popularity of cell-phone text messaging
C. The mass migration of MySpace users to Facebook
D. The “CrackBerry” and other addictive messaging devices
E. Twitter.com, a service that lets users post frequent short messages about what they’re doing at the moment

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45. What threatened to “take down” web TV behemoth YouTube in 2007?

A. BoobTube, a video service “just like YouTube but with boobs”
B. Hulu, a joint video venture of NBC and News Corp.
C. A $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit by media giant Viacom
D. A crush of fans posting illegal copies of “Family Guy”
E. A scandal involving hundreds of Bush administration staffers posting videos of themselves competing at “Guitar Hero” on the job

Arts and Entertainment

46. Who said, “I want to be like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and John Lennon — but I want to stay alive.”

A. Police front man Sting, during a moment of self-congratulatory over-exuberance onstage at Churchill Downs
B. Madonna, explaining how we’ve underestimated the potential of her greatness, during a Sirius satellite radio interview
C. Bob Dylan, sarcastically replying to a fawning reporter’s question backstage at Freedom Hall in October
D. Metro councilman Dan Johnson, referring to the lives Louisville could save by enacting his proposed ordinance to ban trans fats

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47. What suspicious item shut down the city of Boston in January but turned out to be part of a marketing campaign for the Cartoon Network show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force?”

A. An unmarked box full of O.J. Simpson sports paraphernalia
B. A Don Imus doll with nappy hair
C. An LED “Lite-Brite” box depicting a face giving the finger
D. A box full of rats harvested from a New York City Taco Bell
E. A large ball of compressed meat resembling the Aqua Teen Hunger Force character “Meatwad” wearing a Yankees cap

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48. Who said, “Smell that smell. That’s the smell of freedom?”

A. Former mullet-aficionado Billy Ray Cyrus waving a stack of hundred dollar bills under his nose while announcing his daughter’s sold-out Hannah Montana stadium shows across the country
B. Arnold Schwarzenegger, holding out his finger to a passerby he didn’t know was recording
C. George W. Bush, during a September surprise trip to Al Asad Air Base, Iraq
D. Drew Carey, filming a video in support of a Los Angeles medical marijuana dispensary
E. Homer Simpson, showing off his pet Spider-Pig in “The Simpsons Movie”

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49. In a video send-up of The Sopranos series finale, Hillary Clinton unveiled what aural monstrosity as her campaign theme song?

A. “Evil Woman” by Electric Light Orchestra
B. “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey
C. “I Am Woman” by Helen Reddy
D. “You and I” by Celine Dion
E. “Stand By Your Man” by Tammy Wynette

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50. Which of the following knock-off enterprises are fake?

A. The St. James UnFair
B. The Unstable Barn Party
C. Third Street Dive
D. The Methamphetamine Art Museum
E. Peaceful Skies Over Louisville
F. The Elaine Chao Wagon

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The Weird, Weird World of Sports

51. This fall, Indiana school administrators accused Trinity and St. Xavier high schools of what?

A. Having “scads of really talented and polite students”
B. Illegally recruiting middle school football players
C. Having an unfair advantage over public schools in athletics
D. Letting their students wear “really ugly neckties”

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52. Which horse won the 2007 Kentucky Derby?
A. SmokemIfYaGotem
B. Street Sense
C. Curlin
D. SteveB’s Slots
E. Breeders Begone

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53. What controversial new rule rocked the NCAA college basketball world?
A. The new hoop height of 12 feet
B. A lenient, new chair-throwing allowance, dubbed the “Bobby Knight rule”
C. Players are now allowed to “pants” an opponent once each half
D. A “bench decorum” policy refraining coaches from acting like toddlers
E. A league-wide Armani ban

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54. Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese phoned U of L athletic director Tom Jurich to acknowledge what horrendous mistake?

A. He could have saved a fortune on car insurance by calling Geico
B. Letting West Virginia hire Bob Huggins
C. A blown call by football officials that allowed a momentum-shifting University of Connecticut punt return after a fair-catch signal
D. Using an “extra-wide stance” in the men’s room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport
E. Tom Crean

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