no.stupid.answers

You turn on the news, and you just can’t stop hearing all those names: Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden… They are everywhere, and the rumors are flying.

It could only mean one thing: It’s time to brush up on your presidential election knowledge before November rolls around.

Which is why WikiAnswers has a bunch of new categories that will serve as your official place to ask and answer questions concerning the U.S. presidential election in November: the candidates, the issues and more.

Here’s a quick ’site map’ of all the elections and current issues categories available:

• 2008 Presidential Campaign
• Joe Biden
• John McCain
• Barack Obama
• Sarah Palin
• 2008 Democratic National Convention
• 2008 Republican National Convention
• Global Warming
• Iraq war
• Veterans’ Affairs & Issues
• Abortion & Teen pregnancy
• Economics
• International Relations

I’ve been noticing in the last week that WikiAnswers is being consulted a lot for questions about Republican presidential front runner Senator John McCain.

Not to get into politics, but I can see why: He’s such a cutie. Don’t you want to just hug him and ask him to tell you a story?

Ok, maybe that’s not why. Maybe it’s because there are loads of questions about him in WikiAnswers.

Lately, I’ve come across quite a few John McCain-WikiAnswers mentions, including this blog post from The Washington Post, which researches the heights of the Republican candidates. WikiAnswers was asked How tall is John McCain? Interesting that WikiAnswers, along with many other reputable sites, lists him as 5′7” while his campaign folks are saying he is 5′9”. Maybe he’s just standing tall - super extra tall - for change.

Then there is Buzzflash.com, which wonders how far we should go into knowing about presidential candidates’ families (and finds out a bit about McCain’s on Answers.com).

Well, it’s important to educate ourselves before we vote… Here are a couple of John McCain appetizers:

• How long was John McCain a POW?
• Is John McCain going to die in office?
• Does John McCain have a tumor in his left cheek?

Sometimes I look around WikiAnswers and come across questions I’d never imagine people wondering about. Questions are a matter of taste, I suppose, like anything else.

Like yesterday, here’s a rundown of bloggers who have had some of their own questions answered by WikiAnswers… And, like yesterday, I am left satisfied knowing that no matter how bizarre the topic, we’ve got it covered.

• Yum Yum Lax shifts the focus on to the true enemy of all, baseball, as it gloats the answer to, Is baseball boring to some?
• You hear it all over and are too afraid to ask, lest you prove you’re behind the times. No fear, Frugal Parenting shares the meaning of the word beta.
• As the last of the states go to the polls to choose a Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidential elections, you may want to take this into account: Barack Obama’s favorite food. Shared by the Laptop Chef.

With all this talk of U.S. primary elections, Democrats, Republicans and the state of California, I thought it might be appropriate to discuss the important issues that Americans should be taking into consideration when deciding the new president in 2008.

The fact is, none of it really matters since we have WikiAnswers anyway. At least, that is according to the question I put forth this WikiAnswers Wednesday:

Could WikiAnswers develop an Artificial Intelligence and take over the planet like on Terminator?

The answer to this query comes from Zanbabe, a WikiAnswers Supervisor and top contributor (so you know she’s good):

Yes, of course. But we choose not to. We like to leave only footprints in the sands of time, and avoid all of that messy taking-over-the world-by-force stuff.

The actual plan (shhh, don’t tell anyone) is to take over the world through answering everyone’s questions. Eventually, the entire world will be so dependent on us that they will do anything we say… because they love us and depend on us, rather than fear us.

So, yeah. We could… but we have higher standards than that. :)

Note the smiley face at the end - you know she means business. I wouldn’t argue with a WikiAnswers Supervisor. Especially when she believes the site is more powerful than the Terminator. Hasta la vista, Zanbabe.

The year 2007 brought us twelve months of gadgets, celebrities, boy wizards, and plenty of nature’s wrath. We took the liberty of reviewing the past year on WikiAnswers in the form of Q&A inspired by the biggest - and sometimes quite bizarre - news stories of the year.

We were curious what questions were asked throughout the year’s events and how the community answered them. For the full list, see the WikiAnswers Year in Review.

What are your questions from this past year?