US Congress Cures Mental Illness: Lunatics Outlawed

If you are worried that the US legislature is ineffective and crippled by bi-partisan politics, then you are in for a surprise.  The House and Senate have overwhelmingly passed a bill which outlaws "lunatics."  Assuming that President Obama signs this legislation, no more shall the American people be burdened with lunatics. Fortunately, this has passed just in time for Christmas, a time plagued with mental illness in many forms: depression, anxiety, hoarding, delusions of grandeur, hearing voices from on high, stories of an overgrown elf culling bad children from the good, visions of sugar plums...

"It was a heart warming show of bipartisan camaraderie, and not in the Russia, communist sense," said one freshman Republican representative's aid.

"A miracle occurred today, one that rivals the Christmas story... or the Hanukkah lights... or the Kwanzaa Story, whatever that is... But, I am not saying one religious holiday story is better than another, and I am definitely not saying that this legislation is a religion.  I am just offering a simile, you know, like in the English class I took at UCLA... and it was like a miracle I survived that class.  That is a dangerous campus,"  said an aid for an unnamed Democrat representative from California.

One representative from Texas opposed this bill, Louie Gohmert.  "This is a states' rights issue.  Washington cannot step into the Sovereign State of Texas and cure our mentally ill if we don't want it.  Texas is a place where lunatics are free to be lunatics, as long as they are not gay," said the Texas representative's third cousin, twice removed.

"Houston, Are We There Yet?"

We all know the experience.  We pack, get in the car, and set out on a road trip vacation.  Thirty minutes later (if we are lucky), we are FINALLY reaching the last suburb before exiting urban sprawl and entering the wide-open country.  Same problem with space travel.  35 years, 2 months and 22 days after launch, the nimble Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered the last suburb of out solar system before reaching wide-open interstellar space.  "This may be the last opportunity for fuel and a restroom break before entering the space between solar systems," said an unnamed Jet Propulsion Lab employee.  Voyager 1 is a little over 123 AUs (astronomical units) or 11.4 billion miles away from Earth.  The new zone into which Voyager entered is described as a "magnetic highway."  "Traffic has thinned out and in another couple of years, as long as the Russian Department of Transportation does not get involved, Voyager should be outside our solar city," said another unnamed, non-existent employee of JPL.

Ukraine to Italy: Your Prime Minister is Worse Than Mine

Silvio Berlusconi

 A spat has erupted between Gianni Alemanno, mayor of Rome, and Gennady Kernes, mayor of Kharkiv, over the mistreatment of their respective prime ministers.  Alemanno began the fight by plastering on city hall a huge poster protesting the incarceration of Yulia Tymoshenko.  Rome, throw no stones if you live in a glass bonga bonga house.  Kernes responded in kind with a giant poster of Silvio "you're not too young" Berlusconi escaping from jail.

Yulia Tymoshenko

Punishment Reform: Shame Masks

Verboten in modern schools, use of a Schandmaske (shame mask) was a common form of behavior modification in Medieval Europe.  The theme of the mask often metaphorically represented the reproachful behavior.  For those ill-mannered, expect to wear of metal pig head.  For those who talk out of turn or gossip, expect a mask with a giant tongue.  Scotland and England employed a scold's bridle or "brank" as a similar form of punishment.  The brank included a bit that was forced into the mouth of the wayward woman who had cursed, practiced witchcraft, or nagged.