It can be so hard to choose between cults. So I was quite pleased to find this handy guide to dime-novel saviors. There is a bit of a theme here–mostly, to be a modern Jesus pretender, you have to combine middle age, being male, giving at least strong consideration to a beard, and questionable habits (unfortunately, usually involving some variation of "I get to have sex with anyone I want to. Amen").
In other news…
Of course, Guns N Roses' Chinese Democracy is about as ineffective as, well, actual Chinese democracy. But I'm guessing that what police in Harwich, Mass. have found is actually the abandoned site of a music video for Chinese Democracy. After 14 years, it's kind of hard to remember where you left the piano when you're Axl Rose.
Civics cage match
Check out this very interesting quiz that tests your knowledge of government and history. Can you beat the Ten Gallon's 30 out of 33? No fair looking things up–just go for it cold! My bet? Civics has a well-known liberal bias, so Advocate readers will probably blow the roof off the thing and approach 100 percent.
If you do well, pat yourself on the back–the average score is a terrifying 49 percent (and, above cheekiness aside, liberals average 49 percent, conservatives 48 percent). And here are a few of their sobering findings about office-holders versus the general public:
- Seventy-nine percent of those who have been elected to government office do not know the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits establishing an official religion for the U.S.
- Thirty percent do not know that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are the inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence.
- Twenty-seven percent cannot name even one right or freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.
- Forty-three percent do not know what the Electoral College does. One in five thinks it either “trains those aspiring for higher political office” or “was established to supervise the first televised presidential debates.”
- Fifty-four percent do not know the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. Thirty-nine percent think that power belongs to the president, and 10% think it belongs to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
- Only 32% can properly define the free enterprise system, and only 41% can identify business profit as “revenue minus expenses.”
Is it any wonder we've had to bash our heads against the wall for years just trying to preserve the basic tenets of the Constitution? When some yahoo like Okie Republican James Inhofe rants and raves like he has no idea about anything, it's almost certainly because he has no idea about anything.
