Are you ready to take the MSNBC citizenship challenge? It’s a snap. Only one question gave me pause, and that’s because I’m not a lawyer.

Please note that I scored 100%. That’s right, baby. I’m not just a red-blooded American, but I can pass the citizenship test, too. Without errors.

Go ahead. Take the test and post your scores in the comments. I’m betting my readers all score pretty high, too.

And an early Happy Fourth to me.

I hope they both lose.

Hamas gunmen on Tuesday took up positions around the stronghold of the shadowy group holding kidnapped British journalist Alan Johnston, stepping up the pressure to secure the correspondent’s release.

Members of Hamas’ 6,000-strong militia moved onto rooftops of high-rise buildings and deployed gunmen in streets in the Gaza City neighborhood inhabited by the Doghmush clan. The large, heavily armed family leads the Army of Islam, a little known group that has been holding Johnston for nearly four months.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the other Gaza clans see this as a clear threat to themselves and join in yet another civil war in the Gaza Strip.

Interior Ministry spokesman Khaled Abu Hilal said security forces “will not spare any efforts to free the British journalist.” Hamas radio also broadcast a toll free phone number, urging people to call in any information about the case. Witnesses said at least four members of the Doghmush clan were detained by Hamas.

Please excuse me while I laugh my head off. A toll-free number? For what? Hamas knows who has Alan Johnston. The whole world knows it. These are the same people Hamas is using to hold Gilad Shalit.

Since seizing control of Gaza last month, Hamas has demanded Johnston’s release in an apparent bid to gain favor with the West.

The Army of Islam, whose formerly close relations with Hamas have soured, has demanded that Britain first release a radical Islamic cleric with ties to al-Qaida. It also has threatened to kill Johnston if Hamas tried to free him by force.

On Monday, Hamas arrested the spokesman of the Army of Islam, giving it a potentially valuable bargaining chip in its efforts to release Johnston.

I read somewhere else that the Doghmush clan then kidnapped ten members of Hamas. Can’t find the link.

The same group was involved in the capture of Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was seized more than a year ago in a raid on an Israeli army post near Gaza.

Uh-huh. But let’s play pretend and stand outside posing for the cameras for the release of Alan Johnston. Because nobody would suspect Hamas of staging this whole thing to make it look like they care about releasing a BBC reporter.

Nope. Nobody.

I think I’ve hit upon something that nobody else has realized about the British terror attacks. Look at what so many of the conspirators have in common:

Terror suspects all linked to NHS
Eight people arrested in connection with failed car bombings in Glasgow and London all have links with the National Health Service, the BBC has learned.

Seven are believed to be doctors or medical students, while one formerly worked as a laboratory technician.

You see? That’s why socialized medicine is bad for a country. It encourages terrorists! It creates terror networks! It’s obvious the Brits can’t get enough homegrown doctors because they’re all fleeing to countries that pay their doctors more, so it leaves a gap—to be filled by terrorists!

If Hillary brings socialized medicine to the U.S., the terrorists will have won!

If you haven’t seen or heard of John Smeaton, you’re missing an amazing cult hero being born. He’s the baggage handler who helped subdue one of the terrorists as he fought the policeman to get near the passengers and complete his mission. He’s already a YouTube hero because Glaswegians can understand him, but the rest of us have almost no idea what he’s saying. I tried to transcribe him, but couldn’t get it all, and then got bored and gave up.

But there’s a very funny site up, with one person’s hunt for Smeaton, and the promise of 1,000 pints to the homegrown hero. It made me think of several things.

First, my great-grandfather escaped from Latvia to Berlin after going underground for several years to avoid being impressed into the Czar’s army. When he got to Berlin, he took a look around and decided he didn’t like Germany. There was something about it. So he went to Scotland—Glasgow, in fact. My grandfather was born there. But when the U.K. entered WWI on the same side as Russia, my great-grandfather decided he couldn’t stay in a country that would work with an evil nation, so he brought his family to America. So if it wasn’t for that little incident, I’d be speaking Glaswegian today meself. My grandfather had one remnant of a Scots accent. He’d say “Och!” whenever he was annoyed. And I think he was more Scots than he realized. When I was a teenager, I asked him why he didn’t have a Scottish accent. It would have been “neat,” I told him. “What good would it have done me?” he asked scornfully.

Yup. Still a bit of the Scots in him.

And the other thing I was thinking: Remember those British sailors who folded so quickly at the horror of their Iranian treatment? It seems that not all Brits are that far gone. Those of you insisting that we’re seeing the end of Britain need to take another look. I have maintained all along that reports of Europe’s death are greatly exaggerated. John Smeaton is a grand example that I’m right.

The Brits are getting more and more sure that Al Qaeda in Iraq was directing the terror attacks against them.

CBS/AP) British intelligence services increasingly believe that the failed car bombings in London and Glasgow bare the fingerprints of al Qaeda in Iraq, CBS News has learned.

Intelligence sources tell CBS News that the people behind the attempts were directly recruited by Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, the present leader of the terror group’s Iraq franchise.

[...] Sources tell CBS News that al-Muhajir recruited the men between 2004 and 2005, while they were living in the Middle East, upon orders from then-al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Al-Muhajir was told to recruit young men who could easily move into Western countries, assimilate and lay low until the time came to attack. Britain has a fast-track visa program for medical students which makes it easier for them to enter the country.

[...] Authorities identified Bilal Abdulla, an Iraqi doctor who worked at the Glasgow hospital, as the other man arrested at the airport.

According to the British General Medical Council’s register, a man named Bilal Talal Abdul Samad Abdulla was registered in 2004 and trained in Baghdad. Staff at the Glasgow hospital said Abdulla was a diabetes specialist.

Britain’s The Independent and The Muslim News newspapers reported that a man arrested in Liverpool late Saturday was a 26-year-old doctor from Bangalore, India, who worked at Halton Hospital in Cheshire, northern England. Police would not immediately comment on the reports.

The Muslim News also said the Indian doctor had used the car, cell phone and Internet account of a fellow physician who had moved from England to Australia around a year ago. It said police had asked friends of the Indian for details about the man who went to Australia.

Of course, this is going to feed into the “It’s all Britain’s fault” theory, but the fact of the matter is, Al Qaeda in Iraq is an offshoot of Al Qaeda. The good news is that it’s not nearly as easy for them to create car bombs in a civilized nation as it is to make them in Iraq. The better news is they didn’t train their terrorists well enough to construct working bombs.

Six doctors have been arrested so far in the plot. So much for the “oppressed poor” who have no other choice but to blow themselves up.