News in Brief

Headlines in Science
December 27th, 2009 will be a day that goes down in history as the day we finally learned the origins of the Chaco sandal. While continuing their study of King Tuttankhamen's tomb archeologist Thomas Cromford discovered a small compartment in the tomb which he later claimed was the Pharoah's shoe closet, and at the bottom of the closet was the ancient remains of what appears to be the first pair of Chaco sandals. "This is an exciting day for us. For years the hippies have been claiming they created the Chaco," claims President of Chaco Shoes Intl. "but we knew that apart from hemp necklaces and tie died shirts hippies have no apparrel making talents." In recent years the ESHA (Egyptian Society for Homosexual Archeologists) have claimed that the Pharoah who had deceased at a relatively young age, may have actually been gay. Citing this new finding, the group's spokesperson said "this substantiates our claim that King Tut was gay and was more likely known as King Tutti-Frutti by the local gay community. I mean what straight man wears Chaco sandals?"

Local News
Utah's new Governor Gary Herbert recently announced a state of "Diversity Emergency" when the state's only African American population left the state for a brief interval. In a press conference Gov. Herbert said "We cannot and we must not allow the Utah Jazz to play road games. Especially not in this, the year of the consensus! If they leave, we have absolutely NO black people left in the state." The Governor then proceeded to contact the former governor of the state, John Huntsman, who left the Governorship after being named as the U.S. Ambassador to China early in 2009. "Apparently the Jazz do this frequently, leave without permission to play in other states. I asked John what to do and he told me that traditionally we just count the vast polynesian culture as Black." In 2001 after the Government removed the words "African American" from any demographic chart or survey and replaced it with the word "Black" Governor Huntsman found an opportunity to boost Utah's diversity statistic by claiming all Polynesians as "Black." "Well come on," said now Ambassador Huntsman, "they're just as dark as President Obama and he's considered black!"

Political News
Senate Minority Harry Reid (D-NV) responded to demands made by many Republican Party Officials that he resign following news of a racist remark made toward then Presidential Candidate Barack Obama Tuesday. In a written statement the Senator said "Really? YOU Republicans are calling ME a racist? Aren't you the same party that tried to convince the country that Obama was the son of a terrorist, the friend and supporter of a terrorist, and probably would be sworn in on the terrorist Bible?" Republicans swiftly responded "Yeah, so. It's--it's different."

Religion
The news headline Wednesday morning read: UK vicar invokes God's blessing on BlackBerrys "The Rev. Canon David Parrott blessed a symbolic heap of laptops and smart phones on the altar of London's 17th-century St. Lawrence Jewry church Monday...Parishioners took out cell phones as Parrott recited a blessing over them and their electronic devices. A few held their phones up in the air as he ran through the prayer." (http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/blessed-blackberrys-british-vicar-invokes-gods-grace-for-smart-phones-laptops/)
When asked how this incredible act came about the Reverend said "Well, I got really sick of using pencils and pens to do all of my communicating so finally I came to the realization that perhaps technology is probably okay with God now. It took me a while to get to cell phones though. You can't just go from blessed pencils and pens to the blackberry, no you have to go through the heirarchy of technology. I started at movable type, moved to type-writers, then the Xerox machine, then hamm and cb radios, then it came to computers. Since the church has no official stance on Apple vs. Windows operating systems and PC's I just put a blanket blessing on all the computers (Not an easy or quick feat, I tell you), then moved to laptops, then graphing calculators, then finally to the old early 90's Brick cell phones before realizing that I completely left out 8-track, cassettes, VCR's, Laser Disc, then DVD players, and Mini Discs so I had to undo those other blessings and start over. After Brick Cell phones I moved to phones that could text, then smart phones and video cameras. It was a lengthy process, the sermon took literally 6 hours and many of our parishoners fell asleep or wet themselves but I think in the end we did it right."