Is it the season of peace in Washington? Take the Week to Week news quiz and see how much you know about the week's peaceful events.
Here are some random but real hints: Definitely not mission accomplished; they are the budget chiefs; they thought they wanted Santa-ists; and don't forget to follow the NSA on Twitter. Answers are at the bottom of the quiz.
1. What did a presidential advisory panel recommend regarding the National Security Agency's electronic spying programs?
a. Don't change a thing
b. Scrap the whole thing
c. Keep doing it but be more transparent
d. Transfer domestic spying programs from the NSA to the FBI
2. This week, many people commemorated the one-year anniversary of what?
a. The founding of the War on Christmas
b. The start of the sequestration federal budget cuts
c. The mass shooting at a grade school in Newtown, Massachusetts
d. The "Rizal Day Bombings" in Manila, Philippines, which killed 22 people
3. Who negotiated the federal budget deal that would prevent government shutdowns for the next two years?
a. Representative Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray
b. President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner
c. President Obama's chief of staff, Denis McDonough, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
d. Vice President Joe Biden and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang
4. Ukrainian police moved against what group of people this week?
a. Neo-nazis marching in eastern Ukraine
b. Anti-government protestors in Kiev
c. Religious minorities protesting government censorship
d. Russian diplomats who have been shirking local parking laws
5. What group announced plans this week to take advantage of Oklahoma's laws to erect a monument on the state capitol's property?
a. Methodists
b. Muslims
c. Satanists
d. Facebook
6. Why were some people in the South African deaf community angry at the sign-language interpreter during Nelson Mandela's memorial service?
a. His hands were too small to be seen on TV
b. He refused to translate the speeches by people he disagreed with
c. They accuse him of making up hand signs
d. He inserted his opinions into the translations
7. What brought together AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, and Yahoo?
a. A joint call for the U.S. government to reform its government surveillance policies
b. A lawsuit against IBM
c. A plan to have one federated password for all eight companies' products
d. They all co-hosted a conference for government hackers
8. Who was chosen as Time's Person of the Year?
a. Edward Snowden
b. Nelson Mandela
c. Pope Francis
d. Janet Yellen
9. In a major new movie to be released in 2014, how is San Francisco destroyed?
a. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and Robert Reich join together to undermine law and order in the Tea Party-funded Requiem for Sin City
b. Tech companies evict all of the poor people, forcing fast food restaurants to close and flattening the local economy, in Inequality for All, Part II
c. Godzilla flattens the city in Godzilla
d. It explodes in the climactic scene in the Breaking Bad motion picture
10. How did North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un treat his uncle after purging him from his position as a top advisor?
a. He pensioned him off on a farm near the Chinese border
b. He executed him
c. He appointed him to the lower-ranking position of chief gardener
d. He forced him to marry a mule
BONUS. Two different articles from Chinese state-connected media featured "surprising benefits" of smog. Which one of the following was not listed as a benefit?
a. It can serve as a defensive advantage in military operations by making it more difficult for the enemy to target Chinese assets
b. It unifies the Chinese people
c. It allows you to see just how much air you consume each day so you can moderate your intake
d. It raises awareness of the cost of the country's economic development
The news and the quizzes don't stop there! Join us Monday, December 16 in San Francisco for our next live Week to Week political roundtable with a news quiz and a social hour at The Commonwealth Club. Panelists include Huffington Post's Robin Wilkey, the San Francisco Chronicle's C.W. Nevius, and CBS SF's political analyst Melissa Griffin Caen.
ANSWERS: 1) c. 2) c. 3) a. 4) b. 5) c. 6) c. 7) a. 8) c. 9) c. 10) b. BONUS) c.
Explanations of the hints Definitely not mission accomplished: the expected political impact of the tragic shootings was soon muted, without significant political successes for the gun-control advocates; they are the budget chiefs: Ryan and Murray are the budget chiefs for the U.S. House and Senate, respectively; they thought they wanted Santa-ists: Satanists, Santa-ists -- we never claimed to be highbrow here; and don't forget to follow the NSA on Twitter: the companies called for changes in NSA surveillance.