>Bauxite crudites -- get it?

No.

Oh, and since I will also be in a marathon meeting for the lightning round, I'll guess "Bob Hope."

Rats, foiled again. (get it?)

Nothing funnier than rats wrapped in foil.

Unless you're the rat.

I can't figure out my score, unless there really is such a place as "Dutch Guyana" or I miraculously guessed 4 African countries that had an unknown war with the US in the late 1700s!

You guessed Dutch Guyana too?

If your African countries included Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco (I think - I got half credit because I couldn't remember Algeria) - that's the answer. Jefferson declared war on the Barbary pirates, and I guess 3 other pirate organizations.

Judging by my score, some (well, one) of my wild-eyed guesses in the first round hit the target.

Either the answer to #1 is Laos or the answer to #3 is Surinam(e).

I deduced the Barbary Pirates from Bill's clue referring to the Marines' anthem (theme song?), but I didn't know Jefferson had declared war on them.

How'd that war work out? The parallels with the war on terror seem interesting.

Well, you don't see any pirates around here, do you?

I forgot Algeria, too. Had to make do with "Spain." Doesn't Spain own a bit of coastline thereabouts, which is currently used as a gateway for immigration from Africa to Europe?

Surinam was my guess, as well, and probably the only one I got full credit for. There's a football connection there, which is what made it the obvious guess for me.

Well, my one correct answer must have been either #1 or #3 as well: my answer to #1 was Sri Lanka, #3 was Papua New Guineau. (I cunningly missed the deadline for the full-value answers, though I fear I would not have had any luck).

There _is_ a booby prize for the last-placed quiztaker, right BT? Right?

yikes! well, I was going on this half-baked notion of a war with escaped slaves not pirates (and my recollection of Tripoli in the battle hymn, which doesn't quite fit): so I said Libya, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Ivory Coast.

Conclusion: Dutch Guyana must be correct (?!?)

I hope round 3's theme is "places to get good beer and vegan nosh round about Washington, D.C."

I believe #1 was Brunei--my one bonus for living in that part of the world!

I'm pulling for "popular misheard lyrics."

I agree heartily with Scott's suggestion. Though we may need to drop the vegan part of the equation.

since Bill's not around, can someone tell me the answer to #4 (I switched from Azerbaijan to Kurdistan)

how about famous events in New Hampshire history?

My Jeopardy training leads me to believe that the answer to #4 is Turkmenistan. (The mnemonic was a bunch of Turkish men sitting around a fire, which was filled with ashes. This worked, although my favorite mnemonic remains Botswana, for which I reasoned that what robots really want is a nice pair of pants, possibly made of gaberdeen. Hence, Botswana: Gaborone.)

Conclusion: Gavin, it's up to you to catch Scraps.

#1 is indeed Brunei. Give it up for the Sultan!

#2 referred per Boxjam's answer to the war on the Barbary pirates, in which the hostile powers were Morocco and the then city-states of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers. (Hence "...to the shores of Tripoli"). If you guessed at least two out of the list of Morocco/Tunisia/Algeria/Libya you got half-credit. You needed all four for 160 points (or 80 after the clue).

#3 I gave credit to "Dutch Guyana" for "Surinam(e)" because I have seen the former referred to as an obsolete name for same.

#4 Ride, you Turkmen, ride! In, if there is any doubt, Turkmenistan!

#5 This wound up being a pretty easy 40 points to anyone who posted in the post-clue round, because I had made the number of states a determinant in getting half-credit. So I scored this way: if your guess was for 10 states, and at least 5 of them were among the correct set, you got half-credit (quarter-credit in the bonus round). I didn't score increments -- maybe I should have, but I didn't. Garthmeister, there's where your points came from.

The correct states, roughly north to south are: Minnesota (many of you left that one out), Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana.

Can't you guys get out of your meeting? Anyway, the round may well be going on when you return, so check in...

I think Scraps' lead is already pretty much insurmountable. If Boxjam or Scott gets the bonus round question, then any of the four of us can win by stomping round 3 and Scraps taking a lead pipe to the back of the skull.

If you or I get the bonus question, we could win by stomping round 3 and Scraps taking a pillow in the face.

If Scraps gets the bonus question, it's all over.

I'm sure the second and third place prizes are quite nice. Or maybe just small glass vials of Scraps' dust. We're all so far behind him, we probably won't even see said dust unless someone mails it to us.

For (2), I thought the war against the Barbary pirates in which Jefferson "bloodied the nose of the pasha" (to quote ClayJenkinson, who presumably is quoting the Man Himself) was an undeclared war, and therefore extraconstitutional, not "under the constitution" adopted in 1787. I suppose a little enlightened googling at this point would darken my mien.
For #4, I figured either Uzbekistan or Tajikistan, and chose to stick with the Uzbeks, despite the fact that I kept getting mental popups (thanks, Scott) from Myanmar. I figured with enough coal, anything with ocean coastline would allow access to anywhere else with ocean coastline, so this is something bordering on a big lake or inland sea. Turns out its Turkmenistan.

no sign of Scraps yet!

well, there's one good reason to be in MN in the winter, I guess!

is there really a place called Kurdistan, anyway? or is that just a dream for some disenfranchised people so far?

Ga-ha! The first formally declared war was in fact the war of 1812.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_United_States

Quibbling with the quizmaster won't save you -- you're right in that I probably shouldn't have said "declared" since it suggests a Declaration of War by Congress. But it was, I believe, the first war fought against a defined set of foreign foes in which the president invoked his powers to do so under the Constitution. And there was, I think, a Congressional resolution supporting him. Anyway, we have a longstanding tradition here of resting comfortably on the foundation of my sloppy-ass mistakes in formulating questions, and this is, as a bunch of limey kids once sang, just another brick in the wall.

Oh, and Art -- "Kurdistan" is the state many Kurdish people would like to carve out of Northern Iraq and Southern Turkey. Which is to say, something of a dream.

I quibble not. I ask only for collective pity and a special place in the Wombat's heart.

Is there an emoticon for "the world's smallest violin. . ."?

help! lightnin' round's a-coming and coffee's wearing off!

COME ON COME ON COME ON!!!!! I JUST CANCELLED A MEETING ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF OUR NEW CARBON MONOXIDE DETECTION LANGUAGE FOR THIS LIGHTNING ROUND!!!

I would cheat by asking my co-workers the answers to the questions, but they're too damn freaked out by the quizvitational to be of much use. I am so alone. So alone and so quizless. Ask me something hard, now, Bill!

Wow! Server load testing with a dozen people.

Inasmuch as I don't like to contemplate how my dust would be extracted, I'm glad I thought #4 was Uzbekistan.

What kind of country has fifty states, anyway? What's wrong with six?

I feel annoyed that I didn't get the Morocco et al question, considering I just read a book about the Barbary pirates. So what's the patriotic American song that refers to them? [Googles...] The Marines' Hymn? THE MARINES' HYMN? Man...