Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Are you up on current events?

Nukes and Spooks has posted 20 questions that are embarrassingly difficult.

Give it your best shot.

Late edit:
The slackers over at Nukes and Spooks have at last posted their answers.

5 comments:

Russ said...

I think I got just about half. An honest half, if Jerusalem is the second city (with Mecca), and if my wild stab on the number of countries in the U.N. was close to correct (170).

Unknown said...

I promise to post my initial list of answers (as shameful as they are - I canNOT remember the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs - which is just silly - and I sincerely hope that the FBI is formally considered part of the intelligence community or I wouldn't have had five). Got em saved as a text file at home.

Too many are just the tip of your tongue facts. But, but...! Aaaagh!

Unknown said...

Here are my guesses:

1 - What was Zimbabwe's former name?
Rhodesia

2 - Which countries, other than the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States) are believed to have nuclear weapons? (NOTE: Not weapons programs, but actual weapons).
India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, Ukraine

3 - Name two countries that have voluntarily given up their nuclear weapons or weapons programs in the last 25 years.
South Africa, North Korea

4 - Roughly how many U.S. troops are in a Brigade Combat Team?
5000

5 - What is the world's largest Muslim country, by population?
Indonesia

6 - Name any five of the 18 member agencies and departments of the U.S. Intelligence Community.
NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, DEA, NIMA

7 - Iran borders seven other countries. Name three of them.
Iraq, Pakistan, Turkmenistan

8 - Name any three provinces of Afghanistan.
Khost, Jubal, Kandahar, Kunar

9 - Name the current White House national security adviser; Steve Hadley
Director of National Intelligence; Formerly Negroponte - don't know now
head of the CIA; Gen. Hayden
and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. –Aaarrrrgh!

10 - Which former president does Sen. John McCain often cite as his hero and model?
Truman

11 - Name any four religious or ethnic groups in Iraq.
Kurds, Sunni, Shia, Turkish, Christian

12 - What are the two holiest cities in Islam?
Mecca and Medina

13 - What South American rebel group recently got tricked into giving up some hostages it had held for many years?
FARC
What country does it operate in?
Colombia
Extra credit: What do its initials stand for?
Front Armee Revolocion Colombie

14 - Nelson Mandela just had a birthday. How old is he?
90

15 - What two elements can be used to make fissile material for a nuclear bomb?
Plutonium and Uranium 235

16 - The CIA is a succesor to which World War-II era spy and covert action agency?
OSS

17 - Which countries did President Bush call the "Axis of Evil" in his 2002 State of the Union address?
Iran, Iraq, and North Korea

18 - Roughly (within 10 or so) how many member countries of the United Nations are there?
150

19 - Which U.S. intelligence agency is widely believed (the numbers are classified) to be the largest, both by budget size and number of personnel?
CIA

20 - Name five countries where U.S. armed forces have participated in military action (not neccesarily ground combat) since the end of the Cold War?
Kosovo, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia

Russ said...

On #20, I didn't think of Bosnia. I had the other four, and was struggling for a fifth, when I nearly shouted out "KUWAIT!" in the middle of my office.

Unknown said...

If you go on the all-or-nothing scoring per question. I'm at 14 out of twenty (I'm counting the FARC answer, but maybe I'm biased).

On 20, they didn't list Kuwait (while admitting they didn't have a complete list - probably because of operations like drug interdiction in Colombia and the like).

Kuwait is kind of a toss up. If you score the collapse of the Soviet Union as the end of the cold war, you couldn't count Kuwait, since the USSR was still around when Desert Storm kicked off. You could certainly argue that the cold war was over before 1991, though.
(Nukes and Spooks should have picked a date).