The Good News

In a stunning display of determination, magician David Blaine has entered his 18th day without oxygen in a tank of water suspended above Times Square in New York City (a city in the state of New York located 20 miles southeast of Middletown).

Blaine originally planned to hold his breath for 17 minutes to beat the official world record of 16 minutes, 32 seconds set by a Swede in 2007, but he has exceeded his own expectations by nearly three weeks.

The magician appeared to be in trouble at the half hour mark when his body began to tremble and contort in horrible spasms, but after a few moments a calm expression washed over his face and he gave onlookers a thumbs up. This gesture that all's well has stayed in place ever since, keeping emergency workers at bay until Blaine turns the thumb downward in the agreed-upon sign of trouble.

Blaine remains perfectly still, a method of conserving energy which in turn lessens the amount of oxygen his body drains from its reserves. Although this is a common tactic, he appears to have taken it to the next level by allowing his eyeballs and numerous chunks of flesh to separate from his frame and float to the water's surface, freeing himself of excess tissue that would otherwise burden his air supply.

"The only risk greater than going to war with China is the risk of not going to war with China," began a solemn president Bush as he detailed the full-scale land invasion of China (without the support of airplanes, boats, armored vehicles or shoes) that will serve as his administration's final act. "In fact, the risk of not going to war with China is so horrible that I can't even describe it and I urge my fellow Americans to refrain from thinking about it."

Although a handful of rogue generals questioned the decision to wage such a war before they were relieved of their command, flooding China with U.S. troops will bring us closer to locating Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.

The United States has been engaged in ongoing combat operations in the middle east for nearly seven years now without a single sighting of Bin Laden. It's quite obvious that he is hiding in another region, and China is another region. Coincidence? We might have thought so in a more innocent age when idealists ruled the world and nations actually engaged in diplomacy even when they outright disliked one another, but now we know better.

The scientific community is abuzz with excitement following NASA's recent announcement that a black hole has been discovered in our Milky Way galaxy, and that current projections place our planet in the black hole's event horizon on February 3rd of 2011.

This momentous occasion will mark the first time that Earth has been absorbed by a black hole, an event which will provide scientists with a unique opportunity to study the inner workings of the mysterious phenomenon which they have only been able to observe from afar and speculate upon with limited information.

A side benefit from this event is the public's sudden interest in developing habitable spacecraft capable of sustaining millions of people by the end of 2010. While it has long been understood that humanity would eventually need to leave the planet Earth and that the pursuit of this goal would provide us with technologies that would benefit everyday life, the general attitude has long been "Why should we waste money on outer space when we have problems down here?"

Now the public's response to the space program is "Will donating my children to science help get us in space faster? Even by just a few minutes?"

– Dennis "Corin Tucker's Stalker" Farrell (@DennisFarrell)