Feeding Frenzy

Mitt Romney selected young, bright-eyed Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate. Ryan has electrified the base with his exhilarating PowerPoints about lowering discretionary spending to 6% of GDzzzzzzzzzz…and privatizing Medicare. MEDICARE!? Uh-oh. When an old man is dying and CPR and defibrillators fail, paramedics could whisper, “they’re taking away your Medicare,” and the geezer would pop up, reflexively shaking his fist. Clearly, the one thing worse than being called a socialist is actually opposing socialism. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that liberal groups put out ads showing a Paul Ryan lookalike literally pushing an elderly woman off a cliff.

In the least surprising scandal since Barry Bonds turned on big-head mode, horse racing has been tied to organized crime. Police arrested seven members of the Zeta cartel for using horse racing to smuggle drugs and launder up to a million dollars a month. Evidently, the reason you’re not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth is because there are forty bags of heroin in there. Aspiring drug lords, take note: if you want to stay under the radar, don’t name your horse “Number One Cartel.” The scandal comes at a bad time for horse racing, already faltering after revelations that trainers used steroids and frog juice—a stimulant-painkiller made by squeezing the waxy monkey tree frog—to push horses past their limits. It’s only a matter of time before I’ll Have Another is hauled in front of Congress and accused of perjury.

The Olympics is a time when nations put aside their differences to celebrate Visa, Coca-Cola, and Dow Chemical. Unfortunately, the hunt for medals drove some countries to cheat. Four badminton teams were disqualified for throwing matches, overshadowing Thailand’s domination of mixed singles. Meanwhile, boxing referees were caught taking money to give matches to Azerbaijan. Officials grew suspicious when they found out that boxing refs were able to spell Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan also purchased athletes from other countries to compete for their team, which somehow doesn’t violate IOC rules. Before the next Olympics, we should try to trade a couple gymnasts for some divers, and anyone who wants Mike Tyson can have him for free.

Facebook’s stock value has dropped by half since its IPO this spring. Still, investors would be foolish to pass on Facebook; it keeps track of every website users visit, so in ten years, its blackmail department will be raking in billions.

Due to low donor enthusiasm and a liberal spending spree, Obama’s campaign is losing the money race. To catch up, Obama donated to his own campaign, sent over 600 fundraising emails, and solicited donations for his birthday. I think that’s impersonal, so I sent him a crock pot. Team Obama also asked couples to put campaign donations on their wedding registries, noting that it “goes a lot further than a gravy bowl.” Isn’t it enough that I wrote him into my vows? It’s only a matter of time until they ask to be written into your will. Be prepared for an email from David Axelrod with the subject line: READY TO DIE?

If you want to speak out against a repressive regime, give yourself a name that the Western press will find hilarious. Three members of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot were arrested after walking into a Moscow cathedral and dancing to a song denouncing Vladimir Putin’s sugar daddy relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church. The riot grrrls were charged with “hooliganism” and led into a show trial, where the prosecutors accused them of Satanism and defense witnesses were not allowed to testify. The prosecution’s witnesses were ordinary Orthodox believers who saw the news coverage of the girls’ arrest and were offended by their colorful dresses and bare forearms. The Orthodox Church feels desecrated in a way that it hasn’t been since Gorbachev celebrated Glasnost by running through the cathedral naked. To really piss Putin off, watch the video that the girls were arrested for: just Google “pussy riot” and hope nobody types “p” into your browser later. Of course, this could all be a brilliant viral marketing strategy: the public eagerly awaits Pussy Riot’s next album, due out in ten years (nine with good behavior).

NASA rover Curiosity landed on Mars after traveling 352 million miles, tearing through the Martian atmosphere, hovering 25 feet above the ground, dodging a Republican attempt to cut its funding, and being lowered to the surface by a sky crane. Curiosity carries a laser that vaporizes rock into plasma in less than five billionths of a second; if NASA just classifies it as a weapon, they’ll have no trouble getting funding. Though Curiosity has yet to uncover signs of life on Mars, scientists still believe that they will find where George Bush has been hiding since his term ended.

Everyone, lock up your daughters—but not together! Gay marriage is coming! Earlier this summer, after years of refusing to commit, President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage. Just as conservatives predicted, it devalued straight marriage, which is now trading below the yen. The Democratic Party decided to make same-sex marriage part of their convention platform, and there has been no official Republican response, leading many to conclude that the party is ready to give up on the issue. Without the GOP, the most powerful opponent of gay marriage sells fried chicken. Many social conservatives have framed the issue by saying “I don’t want to have to explain gay marriage to my kids.” Don’t worry; your kids will explain it to you.

Representative Dennis Cardoza planned to step down at the end of this term, but he suddenly resigned, effective immediately, “in light of the fact that nothing is going to happen [in Congress] for the rest of the year.” The House now has five vacant seats, hardly distinguishable from all the vacant congressmen. Congress is currently on a five-week recess, which is when they take a break from doing nothing to enjoy juice boxes and swing sets. If Congress can stay out of town even longer, their approval rating may reach double digits.

The US and Israel have teamed up to cyber-bugger Iran, hitting it with virus after virus. Stuxnet made uranium enrichment centrifuges tear themselves apart, Flame watched nuclear sites and stole information over Bluetooth, Wiper slicked up Oil Ministry hard drives, Gauss stole banking information, and an unnamed virus blasted AC-DC (“Thunderstruck”) on nuclear facility computers, just to rub it in. Either US-Israeli cyberforces are showing off, or Iranian nuclear scientists need to stop looking at kinky porn sites.