Newt Gingrich Wins Moon Primary

(NASA) Sea of Tranquility, North Shore - In the face of overwhelming odds and a bitterly divided electorate, according to exit polling results Newt Gingrich today won an overwhelming victory in the Republican Primary on the Moon.

"This is a great victory for our campaign today," said Gingrich to an audience of dozens in Cape Canaveral FL, "And with your help, we're going to get someone in the White House that really cares about the problems of the average Mooninite."

The Former Speaker of the House began polling well on the Moon last week when he promised a permanent Moon base by the end of his second term, which could be later annexed to the United States. This "Moonifest Destiny" advocated by Mr. Gingrich has found resonance in Florida, whose primary he also lost by 14 points today.

The Moon was not originally scheduled to have a primary this early in the season. In fact, by moving the primary ahead to the end of January, the RNC has stripped the caucus of half of its delegate count, bringing its total delegates count down to zero.

"No candidate has ever lost the Moon and gone on to win the nomination," said Gingrich making an obvious slight at his primary opponent Mitt Romney, who had avoided campaigning on the Moon due to a lack of Oxygen conflict.

The 2012 campaign moves on now to other barren, desolate hellscapes including Nevada, which votes in the next few weeks.

State Supreme Court "Can't See Ship" in Legislative Redistricting Map

In a stunning rebuke to the state GOP and mall kiosks everywhere, the State Supreme Court threw out the proposed legislative redistricting map because it couldn't see the ship that was supposedly contained within.

"This court finds that the final 2011 Legislative Reapportionment Plan is contrary to law," the seven-member court said, in a 4-3 decision. "Plus, we've been staring at it for, like, five hours now and we can't see anything."

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Ronald Castille of Philadelphia said, "The Legislative Redistricting Commission keeps telling us to 'look past' the picture and let our eyes settle.  What the hell does that mean?  I'm not getting it, sorry."

The three minority justices, in their dissent, wrote "What do you mean you can't see it? It's so easy!  It's a ship, come on!"

Democratic legislators had argued that the proposal had gerrymandered districts to ensure solid Republican districts and had disenfranchised those with only one eye.

"This decision today is of historic proportion. I'm very pleased," a victorious state Sen. Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills, said Wednesday night.  "The Democratic party will continue its fight for the enfranchisement of Pirates, Cyclops, and Sandy Duncan."

Under orders from the high court, the Plan has now been sent back to the Commission where it is expected to be retooled as a Rorschach Test.


The map in question

Pittsburgh City Council Approves James Bond Issuance

Facing a rising threat from SMERSH, Pittsburgh council today approved an $80 million James Bond issuance, despite a outstanding concerns that the Double O agent is reckless.

The City wants to bring down notorious publishing magnate Richard Mellon Scaife, who's front organization The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has been funneling money into a scheme to hijack a Chinese missile to create an international incident.  City Department of Public Safety Director Mike Huss told council that Mr. Scaife's actions are completely insane and possibly even psychopathic with scant regard for any of the lives destroyed as a result of his media ambitions and also that he has a missile.

He predicted that with the use of an exploding pen, a Walter PPK pistol, an Aston Martin, and a suggestively named lady companion, Mr. Scaife could be brought down in a fiery, expensive (looking) explosion in the South China Sea.

MI6, which oversees the City's special agent program, warned that after the previous encounter with SMERSH mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Mr. Bond was in no condition to take on this task.  Director M had previously put Bond on a black list, for undisclosed reasons, but was widely suspected to some sort of sexually transmitted disease.

Mayoral Chief of Staff Yarone Zober disagreed with MI6's assessment of the situation, saying that, after proving himself by eliminating former URA Director Pat Ford, Mr. Bond is the finest City of Pittsburgh agent in the field today.

Mr. Scaife has already demanded the sum of $1 Million from the City of Pittsburgh, else he blow up the Mellon Arena.

James Bond will return in From Cleveland with Love

Typo in State of the Union Creates Constitutional Crisis

(Reuters) Washington D.C. -- A typo in Barack Obama's 2012 State of the Union speech caused mass chaos in the halls of Washington DC and across the globe today, when he misattributed the status of the country to an unknown.

As the President concluded his speech, which promoted economic equity, governmental collaboration, and manufacturing expansion among other items, he stated "As long as we're joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be Stan" [emphasis added].  What was initially regarded as a possibly mishearing of the President's words or a slip of the tongue by Mr. Obama, was later confirmed to actually be within the text of the speech given to the Vice President and the Speaker of the House, signaling that the apparent flub was not a mistake.

After the speech, a flustered White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was pressed for an explanation by Reporters, but declined to respond.

This led to mass speculation in many online "blogs" across the country that the President was secretly transferring executive authority to a man named "Stan" or "Stanley" or "Stanislav".  Commenters on the Right Wing Blog Freerepublic speculated that Mr. Obama was referring to "Pakistan" or "Afghanistan", fueling further speculation of his supposedly Muslim faith.  Posters on DailyKos also speculated that "Stan" was Stan Lee, creator of Spiderman; Mr. Obama is a known comic book fan.  ESPN.com believed that "Stan" was hall of fame baseball player Stan Musial, while The Weather Channel purported to have information that Stan was referring to the 19th Hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic Season.

The reaction across the world was tumultuous.  The stock price of Standard Chartered PLC (symbol: STAN) soared in early trading on the London Stock Exchange, driving European futures up to near record levels.  Seth MacFarlane's animated prime time show American Dad, which features main character "Stan Smith", was renewed by Fox through the 2018 season.  In the UK, the graves of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and director Stanley Kubrick were opened as the superstitious lay next to the bodies.  In Toronto, armed guards protected hockey's Stanley Cup from looters.

Congressmen and Senators scrambled across the corridors of the Capitol trying to discover who this "Stan" was, whether he was a Democrat or a Republican, and how this would affect reelection chances.  All bills were held until "Stan" could sign off and the Chaplin of the House issued an invocation in "Stan's" name.

After several hours, the White House issued a statement saying that a fly had fallen into the computer, which had caused the typo, adding that a "Mr. Archibald Buttle" might want to lay low for a few days.

Allegheny County Changes Assessment Website Again

From the P-G:

Less than one day after Allegheny County re-posted new assessment numbers on its website it has modified the procedure for finding them.

The new real estate values, available now only for properties in Pittsburgh and Mount Oliver, were put back on line Monday, but they are on a separate page from the current base-year numbers. The change made overnight reduces the number of steps needed to find new values, but it appears to make it more complicated to find the old values for comparison.

The new values are posted on www.alleghenycounty.us. To find them click on the ship on the seal of Allegheny County in the upper right hand corner.  A new window will open with a prompt.  You will be in a dungeon.  There will be a KNIFE, a SHOVEL, and a GEORGE FOREMAN GRILL.  The only exit is NORTH, but the DOOR is locked.

Pick up the KNIFE, SHOVEL, and GEORGE FOREMAN GRILL.  Use the KNIFE on the LOCK and the DOOR will open.  GO through the DOOR into the HALLWAY.

EXITS ARE SOUTH, NORTH, AND EAST

Go EAST

You are standing in a room with a DRAGON, the dessicated corpses of property assessors surround his sleeping body.  There is light coming from an unknown source above you.

Use GEORGE FOREMAN GRILL

There is nothing to use GEORGE FOREMAN GRILL on

Use SHOVEL

You begin, quietly, to dig a hole in the middle of the room.  Suddenly, you strike something hard.  It is a BOX.  The DRAGON stirs slightly.

Open BOX

BOX is locked in an overly complicated manner.

Use KNIFE on BOX.

You jimmy open the lock on the BOX.  Inside there is a MAP.

Read MAP

The map is from FORMER COUNTY EXECUTIVE DAN ONORATO.  He apologizes for the problem with the assessments, but would like to remind you that he didn't raise property taxes while in office.  Also, your new assessment numbers are in THE CASTLE.

Use SHOVEL on FORMER COUNTY EXECUTIVE DAN ONORATO.

Yeah, I know, right?

LOOK

There is a DRAGON asleep several feet away from you and a hole in front of you containing a BOX and a MAP.  Exit is WEST.

Take MAP.

You put the MAP into your inventory.

GO WEST.

You are in a hallway.  Your Exits are NORTH SOUTH and EAST.

GO NORTH

You enter a very dark room.

GO NORTH

You enter an even darker room

GO NORTH

You are eaten by a Grue

YOU HAVE DIED
TOTAL POINTS 150.

Legion of Doom Endorses Mitt Romney for President

(Reuters) Slaughter Swamp - In a surprise announcement today, the collection of super villains known as the Legion of Doom endorsed Mitt Romney for GOP nominee for President of the United States.

"We is very unhappy about Mitt Romney and we thinks he will do horrible job as candidate," said spokesman Bizarro, speaking from the Legion's secret headquarters outside of Gotham City. "We am sure that Mitt will fail in the General Election against the Communist Muslim usurper Barack Obama."

All candidates heavily courted Legion of Doom members for their endorsement. Ron Paul had previously received the endorsement of Sinestro during the 2008 election, and Rick Santorum had been campaigning with both the Scarecrow and Solomon Grundy over the last few weeks. In most circles, it was widely expected that Newt Gingrich, a former member of the Legion Of Doom, would lock up the endorsement. It seems, however, that Romney used his pull of the Legion's Chairman and his former Harvard classmate, Lex Luthor to sway over the remaining members.

The Legion of Doom's endorsement comes after several weeks of campaigning ahead of the Florida Primary, generally held to be the 2nd or 3rd most evil state in the Union. The endorsement is expected to help garner many votes from drug king pins, hypocritical religious voters, and people that drive 40 mph in the passing lane.

Pundits, however, are suspicious of the Legion of Doom's endorsement.

"You see, the LoD is evil and people know they're evil," said DC insider Alex Ross. "OK, they endorse Romney, right. But if people know that they are endorsing Romney, people aren't going to vote for Romney because they think he's evil, yeah? So they think they'll vote for someone who isn't as evil, namely, Newt Gingrich and *BAM* *POW* you have a evil guy in the White House. Classic Republic Serial Villain move."

Mitt Romney's campaign released a statement saying that he was appreciative of the Legion of Doom's endorsement, and would work with them to lower regulations on moon based death lasers, killing Superman, and lowering taxes for evil henchmen creators.

ADB Senior Comics Book correspondent Bob Kane contributed to this report.

Mustard Sauce wins South Carolina Primary

(Food Network) Charleston, SC - In a surprise turn of events, Mustard based barbecue sauce rallied conservative South Carolinians to propel itself to a win in the state Republican primary, beating back challenges from East Carolinia Sauce, Memphis Sauce, and Mayonnaise.

"It's a great day for traditional barbecue values in the State of South Carolinia," said the candidate lto a mob of bibbed supporters. "We knew our combination of vinegar, yellow mustard, sugar and spices would appeal to the people of this state."

Mayonnaise pulled in a distant 2nd place finish, with Memphis Sauce and East Carolinia Sauce coming in second and third respectively. Texas Style Barbecue Sauce, initially expected to so well in this BBQ loving region, pulled out of the race and endorsed Mustard Sauce earlier this week.

Mustard based barbecue sauce had been considered an outsider going into South Carolinia, with many pundits expecting a strong showing from the inoffensive, nationally recognized Mayonnaise. Mayonnaise, however, faced charges during the last debate that it was not a true barbecue sauce and fought to defend itself against blistering attack ads from a Miracle Whip SuperPAC.

Mayonnaise has appealed to many eaters who want some sort of sauce on their food, but really don't like anything with too much flavor.

Tomato based Memphis Sauce polled well with traditional BBQ enthusiasts, who, according to exist polls, were concerned about allowing pork and hot beef to homosexuals. East Carolinia Sauce has continued to stay competitive in the race, even though many consider it to be a "cult candidate" for a national BBQ Sauce office.

Mustard based sauce now gains momentum going into the Florida Primary at the end of the month, but it faces challenges from a hispanic population which prefers an adobo based sauce and a Jewish population that complains that sauces make them "too gassy."

And Now...

           , , , , ,
           # # # # #
          _#_#_#_#_#_
         {_` ` ` ` `_}
        _{_._._._._._}_
       {_  H A P P Y  _}
      _{_._._._._._._._}_
     {_ B I R T H D A Y _}
.---{_._._._._._._._._._}---.
(   `"""""""""""""""""""""`   )
`~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
 
Have some seven year old, poorly aligned ASCII cake...

Tim Tebow Defeats GOP Field in Stunning Come-From-Behind Victory in New Hampshire

(Reuters) Concord, N.H. - Few people in this small New England town expected Tim Tebow to beat Rick Santorum, let alone Mitt Romney. Yet, during victory parties across the state, no one was surprised.

"We knew that he was a competitor," said Ron Paul who came in third in the nation's first primary, "We knew he was going to do that. We knew if we let him stay in there and kept him alive then this could happen."

Tebow pulled in a surprising 43% of the Republican vote, including the staunchly conservative towns of Whitefield and Conway.  After a three week blitz of the state and, despite the prevalence of attack ads against him, no competing campaign or PAC was able to land a solid critique to dissuade voters.

"He's a good campaigner," Governor of Texas Rick Perry said. "He bought time with his legs, his volunteers worked hard for him to get open to the public, and, uh... one other thing.  Oops."

After a poor start, Tebow replaced Tim Paulenty -- who later dropped out of the race -- and has been polling well enough in early voting states to become a national phenomenon with the way he routinely conflated his performance with the will of God.

It was the way Tebow finished that surprised the other challengers. Since his early political career in Florida in 2009, Tebow has been criticized for his poor grasp of the issues. As thrilling as his wins have been this campaign season, he was so bad the last two debates that some in the campaign suggested the GOP start backing Rick Santorum, who hasn't held public office since 2007.

"The Tebow campaign just made some strategic moves," former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said. "He opened up. We've seen many times where guys would actually drop the ball when they were wide open... think Gary Hart in '88. [Tebow] put the ball in tight places.  Like Bill Clinton in '98."

As far as Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney  was concerned, it wasn't Tebow that did the unusual. It was the rest of the GOP field.

"I'm surprised by the way the vote turned out today," said Romney, whose only hit on Tebow was a take on Gingrich's 'Moral Bologna' charge leveled at himself. "We ran our campaign in this state poorly. We didn't get pressure there at times. We let him scramble at times. We didn't cover well at times. It's a combination of everything. It's no one thing."

Asked his impression of Tebow's performance, Romney, as always, was vanilla. "He ran well enough to win, and we ran sorry enough to lose," he said.

Corn Wins Iowa Caucus

In an election season that has already been full of surprises, a majority of Iowan Republicans today threw their votes to a native son, Corn, who easily beat off a come from behind surge from Tim Tebow and Not Obama, who came in second and third in the statewide caucus.

Speaking at the downtown Des Moines Marriot, Corn thanked his legions of supporters who came out with their friends and neighbors on a frightfully cold night in early January.

"I just want to say to everyone out there that when you think Corn, you think Ethanol, you think Flakes, and now you're going to think President of the United States."

Denver Broncos Quarterback Tim Tebow pulled out a strong second place, after spending a great deal of time outside of the state.  Fundamentalist Christians, a powerful force in past caucuses, gravitated toward Tebow over the other self-declared Christian candidate Jesus of Nazareth, who came in a distant 6th behind a Half Dead Cat Who Barfs A Lot and John Huntsman.  Fundamentalists were disappointed that Jesus did not address their major issues of abortion and homosexuality, instead focusing on "the poor" and "the meek."

Not Obama also performed well, buoyed by support by Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Michelle Bachmann.  Not Obama's 3rd place finish puts him in a good place going into the upcoming New Hampshire primary.

Corn, however, is expected to do poorly in New Hampshire, where it does not enjoy much in the way of grassroots support.

Barack Obama, who was not running as a member of the GOP, also managed to sneak in at 7th, supported by conservatives in favor of low taxes, killing of terrorists, and indefinite detention.

Still, with what seems like many years before the November election, the 2012 Presidential race is anyone's to take.

3...2...1...

Happy New Year!