Greg Allen says:

Look, I know that college students should know what suffrage means but — c’mon — this is a cheap shot. It’s a word that nobody uses in regular speech anymore.

brm says:

#2 Greg:

“this is a cheap shot. It’s a word that nobody uses in regular speech anymore.”

You’d expect the girls would know what this word means, moreso than any other word not in common use. It’s only about the most important event in women’s history. I think I heard the phrase “women’s suffrage” about a thousand times in school.

Ah_Yea says:

#3 Jägermeister, that’s a great video.

I love Penn’s comment “Is passion supposed to replace common sense?”

Isn’t that one of the great ironies? So many people passionate about stuff they really know nothing about?

“They’re not so much environmentalist as joiners – of anything!”

(Of course, with someone as attractive as she was, I probably would have signed as well…)

GF says:

I love that the blonde refused to sign it. I betcha she won’t vote for Obama as well.

Mr. Fusion says:

This only proves that if you ask enough people you can find enough “different” people to make a video out of. Jay Leno does it all the time.

This is no more fair than asking people about di-hydrogen monoxide. That infamous chemical that kills thousands of people every year, causes billions of dollars in damage, was strewn through Louisiana by Hurricane Katrina, is found in every home in America, and bottled water.

bobbo says:

#3–Jag==great video. Should we pass a law that everyone must watch all episodes of Penn and Tellers: BS?

Probably not, but certainly everyone would benefit from the experience.

Are we supposed to get passionate about people signing petitions about subjects they don’t know about, OR about being duped into being conned by place and circumstances about what a subject is about? I think the latter is going on here when that one student even signed “suffERage.” Its pretty clear what they thought the subject was about. They should have approached the same people 5 minutes later with another petition to “ban women’s voting.”

So==another bum’s rush claiming to be about one thing when its actually about another.

joaoPT says:

OK, It’s not a very commonly used word. But it’s not cryptic either, the proof is that almost everyone reading the post knew what it means right away.
And these are supposed to be high grade students.

Can’t you see “Idiocracy” happening all around you?

One funny “contest” should be asking random people in the streets some common sense questions, in America and in China. You would be amazed by the outcome. I guarantee it.

Zirbert says:

The Man Show did this exact gag several years ago.

I prefer Howard Stern’s bit where voters wax rhapsodic about what they love most about Obama but they’re actually reciting points from McCain’s platform. They’re gleefully oblivious to the facts; it’s all about image and the cult of personality.

We can only hope that these people get distracted by something shiny on election day and don’t quite make it to the polls. There’s enough noise in the system.

(Full Disclosure: I’m Canadian, but concerned with what happens to our largest ally and trading partner come November 4th. I made the same point about wanting uninformed voters to stay home in regards to the Canadian election already on my blog.)

-Zirbert

bac says:

Suffrage and di-hydrogen monoxide may not be commonly used words but these are the types of words that would be on a ballot. If on the state level, voters were asked to admend their state’s constitution to stop women’s suffrage, do you think it would pass?

James Hill says:

For some reason, I don’t think the election of Obama will end the suffering for Liberals. They always seem afflicted with something.

As for the video, this one’s been getting pulled over and over for twenty years. Take away the “charm” of the video camera and people are more likely to key on the word “suffrage” and know what’s going on.

ECA says:

Suffrage is SUCH a weird word.
I remember looking it up LONG ago in high school to see WHY it wasnt related to SUFFER.

and if you LOOK up the law, its even worse.

Things to remember..
FIRST,
it was ONLY LAND OWNING MALES that could vote. That means, ONLY those RICH folks.
THEN ONLY WHITE MALES.
THEN they let Black have the vote.
(Less then 100 years ago)
THEN we got to vote for senators..
THEN women got a vote.
THEN American Indians got a chance to vote.
EVEN after all that, there were barriers..
Such as a Literacy test.
Poll tax.
AGE limits..
Until 1971.

http://www.flaglerelections.com/kids/history.htm

Jägermeister says:

#6 – Ah_Yea – (Of course, with someone as attractive as she was, I probably would have signed as well…)

LOL

WmDE says:

Perhaps these girls were conservatives. Ending women’s suffrage would shift the voter base to a more conservative (male) stance. More so than their individual votes counteract the liberal tendencies of the average gyno-American.

Greg Allen says:

>> James Hill said, on October 19th, 2008 at 8:06 am
>> For some reason, I don’t think the election of Obama will end the suffering for Liberals. They always seem afflicted with something.

As usual, conservative are projecting their pathology on us liberals.

Liberals tend to be value resiliancy.

Conservatives have built a whole political movement out of their own imagined victim and suffering status — even when they were in total control of everything!

http://tinyurl.com/62g9aa
http://tinyurl.com/5olgor

deowll says:

People will sign anything especially if they don’t know what the big words mean.

One of the little issues with the tests students get is verbiage.

When they changed average to mean a lot of math scores went down for one year.