Current Events by Year, 1990–2009

They were typing Jordan to try to guess the country, but in the process they accidentally answered Michael Jordan.

it's not a 'greatest historical moments' quiz

Even in this century, it was not punishable in Mauritania.

If we were a pure democracy and voting was required of every citizen by law rather than a democratic republic where voting is optional and the electoral college actually elects our president, one has to wonder how the course of our US history might have changed.

the two political parties would probably look different than they do. Republicans can only win elections at a national level by relying on higher voter turnout amongst scared/retired conservatives than apathetic liberals, or by suppressing the vote of young people/minorities/women/inner city residents. If everyone had to vote they couldn't rely on this strategy and would have to adjust their strategy.

eh.... kinda. there were 1000s of lawyers representing both parties in Florida during and especially after the election. All were trying to gain any advantage they could for their candidate. Republican lawyers aggressively sought to discount some ballots in districts where they were recounting because in those voting districts, Gore was thought to be favored and had they done a comprehensive recount it probably would have meant more votes for Gore. So... they (mostly through legal means) sought to throw out certain ballots that were allegedly not clearly marked.. the ones with the famous "hanging chads" or "dimpled" chads meaning that the little paper square had not been neatly punched out of the card. There was also the famous butterfly ballot in one district where confused seniors had obviously *meant* to vote for Gore but ended up voting for Buchanan. And ultimately efforts to continue recounting were halted by the Supreme Court. Bush was still ahead at that point, so he "won."

and the electoral college works the way that it does by design. It's not supposed to be a direct democracy. So, it's not like the system failed or didn't work as it was supposed to. I think nonsensical, archaic, or unrepresentative would be better adjectives here than "crappy."

Crappy was harsh, but I really meant something like "unrepresentative".

What's crappy is not so much the electoral college (which does have a reasoning behind it) but the actual vote-casting methods. With so many irregularities, unclear voting by design rather than through voters' fault etc etc, almost any European court/electoral commission would order a recount, or more likely a repeat election with these issues tackled. Also *hours* of waiting at poll stations like in some poor country???

There is without doubt enormous room for improvement when it comes to the American election process. Some of this has to do with the outdated electoral college; a lot of it has to do with other things. Unfortunately some in power have deemed it advantageous to their staying in power to either fail to address the problems that exist, or, in many cases, actively work to make them worse.

Here's the problem...the president and executive branch has too much power. The president is elected as a representative of the states. He presides over 50 states. Meanwhile, one of the houses of congress is comprised of people representing the individual districts. California has 1/8 of the entire house of representatives. When this system was created, the legislative branch was to be the most powerful with executive second and judicial a distant 3rd. Somehow 230 years later, the executive branch is most powerful, followed by judicial, then lastly legislative. Everything is backwards from its original design. That's why people lose their minds over a presidential election where he serves a maximum of 8 years, but are totally cool with people serving in congress for 30 years. Because he's got too much power.

Just wanted to take this opportunity to mention that I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

We used a snooker cue as a remote control.

No, CJD/vCJD should also be accepted too in my opinion. vCJD (almost universally referred to as CJD at the time, although strictly I think it is different) is the disease that humans can get after eating cows with BSE. Clearly the EU banned British beef to avoid people getting vCJD from eating beef contaminated with BSE.

I wish he was right...

Say, what is this 'United States' some people are mentioning on this site? And who are these 'Americans'? Don't think I've ever heard of them before.

I have to say, as someone who hates the number of questions on US sports that us non-Americans get hit with, that I had no clue on this one, but guessed the most famous Basketball player I knew and ehhh hey presto.

In this case, the question may be bloody tricky for those of us who aren’t from North America, but it is very very easily guessed, so I have to side with Quizmaster on this one.