While everyone else in the English-speaking world is busy compiling top 10 lists to encapsulate the essence of the last decade, we here at The Talking Mirror are forging on into the future.  We’re not concerned with who had the greatest album, athletic performance, or sexiest celebrity scandal in the past 10 years, we want to know what’s going to happen next (assuming health insurance executives, terrorists, or the Mayans don’t kill us all first). It’s true, 2010 technically “hasn’t happened yet” but we’ve never been ones to let things like facts, events, or reality get in the way of a good news story and we’re not about to start now.  And so, in a TTM exclusive, we are proud to bring you 20 headlines guaranteed to be filling newspapers and Perez Hilton’s Twitter feed over the next 12 months.  You can discount them for being made-up, far-fetched and unlikely to ever happen, but, hey, that’s good enough for 70 million Obama voters so it’s more than good enough for us.  Please enjoy responsibly.

PELOSI’S BILL FOR FEDERALLY FUNDED TOILET PAPER OPTION INCLUDES FINES FOR NOT WIPING ASS

POLL SHOWS MAJORITY OF AMERICANS DON’T TRUST POLLS

TEN MILLION CHINESE TROOPS “JUST VISITING,” SAYS OBAMA

WANDA SYKES SHOW IN SECOND SEASON – AMERICANS BAFFLED

15 MORE WOMEN, 6 MEN, 3 HORSES, 4 SHEEP, AND AN END TABLE CLAIM TO HAVE HAD AFFAIR WITH TIGER WOODS

GLOBAL WARMING NOW PERVASIVE, CATASTROPHIC; CHICAGO A TROPICAL PARADISE

CATHOLIC PRIEST CLAIMS TIGER WOODS MOLESTED HIM

OBAMA OFFERS CALIFORNIA TO CHINA AS DEBT REPAYMENT, “NO THANK YOU” THEY RESPOND

AMERICA INVADES IRAN, OBAMA WINS SECOND NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

JIMMY FALLON STILL TELLING JOKES ABOUT PRESIDENT BUSH

PALIN ANNOUNCES RUN FOR PRESIDENCY IN 2012, BABY JESUS CRIES

ILLINOIS SELLS OBAMA’S SENATE SEAT TO MARK CUBAN TO COMBAT RISING BUDGETARY DEFICIT

OBAMA BECOMES FIRST BLACK PERSON TO GIVE “STATE OF THE UNION” ADDRESS

WORLD CUP MAKES AFRICA SEEM ALMOST BEARABLE

WINTER OLYMPICS A SUCCESS, NO ONE NOTICES

FURBY ARRESTED FOR PUBLIC DRUNKENNESS, SAYS, “I USED TO BE ON TOP.”

“SEXT” RAPIST GETS DEATH SENTENCE; JURY SAYS, “C YA”

ABC’S “BIGGEST LOSER: RELAPSE” CANCELLED, AMERICA LOSES HOPE

LOST’S SMOKE MONSTER REVEALED, OBAMA TO GUEST STAR

KANYE INTERRUPTS OBAMA’S NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY, SAYS “DESMOND TUTU WAS BETTER”

Thanks to Christian Gonzalez and Kent for contributing headlines to the list.

Popularity: 6% [?]

I have a friend who is in the process of obtaining a student visa in order to attend an a university here in Chicago. The hoops that they require you to jump through are extensive and often ludicrous, but nothing has been quite as amusing in its absurdity as the questions on a mandatory questionnaire. I’ve included some of my favorites:

Do you have a communicable disease of public health significance such as tuberculosis (TB)?

Have you ever violated, or engaged in a conspiracy to violate, any law relating to controlled substances?

Are you coming to the United States to engage in prostitution or unlawful commercialized vice or have you been engaged in prostitution or procuring prostitutes within the past 10 years?

Do you seek to engage in espionage, sabotage, export control violations, or any other illegal activity while in the United States?
Read the full story

Popularity: 5% [?]

Can I talk to you for five minutes about liberal bumper stickers?  Actually, I just want to talk about one.  I’ve only asked for five minutes of your time so I’ll have to save “Not my President”, “Meat is Murder”, and “The blood of New Orleans is on Republican hands” for another day.  I’m going to give up my ranting rights with those stickers to talk about another one that is more infectious than all other liberal stickers combined (probably because it has lots of pictures and only one word).  Indeed, the only thing liberals enjoy putting on their cars more than this sticker is a Subaru logo and Oregon plates.

I’m sure you’ve seen this sticker.  It was probably plastered to the ass end of a Prius outside a farmer’s market or college book store or abortion clinic in Vermont and you probably didn’t even look twice at it.  Maybe you thought it was clever.  Maybe you were dimly accepting of its message.  Well you were wrong.  It’s not clever, it’s not cute, it’s not creative.  It’s ignorant.  It also happens to be one of the three things a human being can do to make me instantly dislike them and discount everything they say from that point further:

1)      They can talk during an episode of LOST.

2)      They can say (during LOST or at any other time), “You know, George Lopez is actually pretty funny.”

3)      They can put a “Coexist” sticker on the bumper of their car.

Read the full story

Popularity: 18% [?]

Can I talk to you for five minutes about California, or, to quote 30 Rock’s Jack Donaghy, The Gaypublic of Drugifornia?  There was once a dream that was California. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish… it was so fragile.  At the edge of the continent, past the purple mountains and fruity plains, was to be a found a sanctuary where America’s huddled masses could forget about breathing free and indulge their true passions: fame, frappuccinos, and fornication.  This was not a state.  It was a shining beacon to beaches, bikinis, biker gangs, burritos, boob jobs, bongs, and the other cornerstones of a developed society.

Unfortunately, Californians are as bad at whispering as they are at putting out wild fires or being straight.  They peddled their dream through teen soap operas, Colin Hanks movies, and pop/punk songs to a waiting world and it died quicker than a security guard at a Raiders game.  What remains is the bombed out shell of a state that has all the charm of Miami in the 80s except with higher taxes and slightly less cocaine.

Thanks to California, we now know the answer to the age-old quandary: what would happen if 30 million addicts, war protesters, child actors and sex offenders banded together and took over a country?  What happens is a deficit of $26.3 billion, an unemployment rate of 9.3%, humans breeding with goats, and a thousand other maladies born from a populace that is heavy on opinions and light on fully-functioning brains. Read the full story

Popularity: 7% [?]

Can I talk to you for five minutes about health care?  Last night, while I was trying to find Frankie Muniz’s E! True Hollywood Story, I accidentally stumbled upon MSNBC and was deeply disturbed by what I found there.  If Keith Olbermann and the channel’s other intolerable lesbian are to believed, it seems a healthy percentage of the American populace spent the final month of their summer at community centers heaping invective on the government overlords responsible for their respective townships.  The cause of their ire is, from what I could ascertain, a strong affinity for or hatred of doctors.

For me, the MSNBC report raised two immediate questions.  One, hasn’t the invention of the television made “Town Hall” meetings obsolete? Two, isn’t it time someone punched that smirk off Rachel Maddow’s face? When I got done thinking about those questions, I thought of a third: What?

Since politics is one of the few subjects that confuse me more than the work of Tyler Perry, I usually make it a point to stay out of it and make fun of the people who care.  However, when it comes to health care, I feel I have a valuable perspective that can help clarify this convoluted issue.  During their broadcasts, I heard Mrs. Olbermann and Mr. Maddow implore their viewers to imagine what it must feel like to be one of the 40 million uninsured Americans who live each day with one foot in the Walgreens and one foot in the grave.  Well I don’t have to imagine what it’s like, I live it every day.  I am one of those uninsured Americans.  You want to know what it’s like?  It’s awesome. Read the full story

Popularity: 11% [?]

Last Thursday Joel Osteen, senior pastor of Lakewood “Church” in Houston, Texas revealed to the world that he had

He didn't know Jesus was such a stickler.

recently read the Gospels for the first time during a segment of the MTV Special True Life: I’m Joel Osteen. “Ya know, I decided it was about time I toughed it through all four Gospels. They’re super long but I mean, I am a pastor, right?” Osteen said laughingly in his charming Texan accent. The author of Your Best Life Now, a theological dissertation concerning the Biblical hermeneutic of success, was shocked at the lack of material prosperity present in the words of Jesus. “I tell you what, I don’t get it. Where’s the prosperity in the Gospels? Jesus didn’t own anything really. Not a yacht, not a Merc[edes], or, well, whatever their equivalents were back in the 1600′s when He was alive. What would that be, a carriage? I don’t know. You get my point.” Osteen went on in shock as he described how Jesus told his followers to give up everything and follow Him, rather than telling them to “invest everything wisely in solid mutual funds” or how “being a good steward means being successful in the stock market.” The story of the rich young man was apparently the straw that broke the pastor’s back. “And then, and then, Jesus goes and tells the rich guy to sell everything and give it to the poor? Everything Jesus? Everything? You can’t be serious.” Read the full story

Popularity: 22% [?]

By Steve Etheridge

(SUPERMAO walks into an open courtyard. He is decked out in silver and purple, the greatest of all colors. Several young men stand attentively, discussing which animal might be his favorite. Women show humility by keeping their eyes on their feet. It is a glorious day for SUPERMAO to peacefully contemplate himself.)

SUPERMAO: Because I find my identity in a functional, superior body of citizens and have no concept of self, it seems I have forgotten my super qualities.

MAN 1: You are intelligent, industrious, and you shoot laser calligraphy from your eyes.

MAN2: You are unbelievably lifelike with your hand puppetry.

WILT CHAMBERLAIN: Your escapades virginize me. Also, you are taller than me.

(TWO DISOBEDIENT STUDENTS enter the courtyard and cause a disturbance. One’s hair exceeds the appropriate length of five centimeters, and the other looks like he might own a book.) Read the full story

Popularity: 7% [?]

By: Steven Etheridge

Allow me to inaugurate this audit with a scathing declaration: Pocahontas is the worst movie of all time. The colors were too gay, the music too sprightly—had it lasted a minute longer, I would’ve crippled myself like my dear son Franklin. It was an abomination, a calamity. Utterly treasonous!

Led by the honorable Governor Ratcliffe, the film commences as a merry crew of settlers sail toward the hallowed American shores. They’ve come to claim the land the Lord hath rightly prescribed them. Within their ranks, though, is the vile pervert John Smith, whose eyes declare his intent to have his way with a savage. His villainous appearance, we find, precedes his execrable actions.

Danger awaits the settlers in the Virginian woodlands, where a bloodthirsty pack of savages seems eager to slaughter them and use their bones to make pan flutes. With souls composed of noxious gasses, one assumes the savages are without mercy. Read the full story

Popularity: 29% [?]

By Frank Ferri
Potentials:

NFL REFEREE ED HOCHULI

PROS: Brings with him a huge NFL fan following, which could spark an interest in Constitutional law among sports fans. Bonus, he is an actual lawyer.

CONS: Prone to throwing yellow flags at attorneys-and anyone really-throughout court proceedings. His form-fitting robes and needlessly wordy opinions will grate on the rest of the court.

BONO

PROS: Still miffed at being passed over for Pope in 2005, he will bring intensity to the Court that’s been missing. Mononym would save taxpayer money on engraved desk and door plates.

CONS: Have you ever seen him without his sunglasses?  It’s terrifying.

Read the full story

Popularity: 39% [?]

Hail to our chief.

America,

I’m disappointed with you. You got plastered-drunk on the Obama administration’s hip-flask of hope, and now you have a reality hangover.

It’s been a month… WHERE ARE YOUR FLYING HYBRID CARS?!? What have they been up to in Washington? A month long Scrabble tournament? What’s the hold up here?

This is not the bright new future you were promised when you chugged Obama’s champagne of change. You were foretold of a world free from genocide, poverty, and large words. A world where bipartisanship and children’s laughter would be the modus operandi. A world no longer bound by tyrannical right-wing policies like Monday mornings, awkward conversations, and confusing song lyrics. Together, we were to usher in a new day where butterflies would serenade us as rainbows sneezed Skittles. This was the vision you had when you snorted the opium of Obama optimism. This was what you signed up for. Read the full story

Popularity: 64% [?]