Group W one point off of all-time record at Dirty Frank's

Group W won for the 10th time in 15 attempts at Frank's on Wednesday. They scored a 186, one point off of the all-time highest score in my format (also theirs), depicted on the right-hand column of the site. This is two people doing this, week in and week out. If you're not impressed you darn well should be.

The last place prize went to a team called 9-11 Was an Inside Job, Osama bin Laden Is Innocent. Note that these guys weren't right about much of anything in the quiz, either... as always, "consider the source."

I gave the team a copy of The Bathroom Digest, which I made sure to first dip in Anthrax. (Not the germ, the band.) It turns out Scooter Libby loves Anthrax from way back, "before they sold out, dude." In happier times Scooter and I would sometimes shoot some Cambodian smack at Davos, and that's when I last got my marching orders to take this Frank's quiz team out before they brought the truth to the youth. "FNORD!"

I would point the conspiracy people to the excellent lefty newsletter CounterPunch, which has taken apart the 9-11 conspiracy BS quite effectively in this dispatch, this one and most especially this one, by a lefty scientist. These aren't "government dupes," these are people who understand how basic physics works, who can do applied math, who aren't racist enough to assume that Arabs can't briefly fly airplanes well enough to crash them, and who haven't derived their worldview of all things Newtonian from what happens when Jerry hits Tom with a billiard cue.

For my part, I was living in Qatar at the time of the attacks. My work contract ran out coincidentally on 9/12/01 and I had plans a few days later - plans I kept as nothing else made sense - to visit Nepal after some sightseeing in the United Arab Emirates. Upon arrival at Abu Dhabi, the Emirati government put me up gratis in a swank hotel with free meals and free transport. Why? "There are people here who are not your friend, sir." Thus they wanted me to be OK, put me somewhere where people could keep an eye on my well-being. The Emirati government knew that a few of its own citizens helped perpetrate the attacks, why should that be hard for the rest of us? (After proofreading it occurs to me that this sequence of events seems to anyone who doesn't know me about as likely as the Scooter Libby tale, but trust me that's what my 2001 was all about...)

Here's a little guideline: if you can't find the UAE on an unmarked map of the region, you don't have a clue what you're talking about, and should likely stop talking about it before you say something extremely embarrassing.

Rant over. Your scores:

Beautiful Gold: Group W 186
So-So Silver: Sun's Not Yellow, It's Chicken 158
Shameful, Shameful Bronze: Prufrock 114

Also-rans:

Silo 99
Flatutory Apes 88
Totally Rippin' 85
Crackheads with Pirate Hats 70
Nick Is Alone Peeing in Her Butt 61
9-11 Was an Inside Job, Osama bin Laden Is Innocent 50