News from the Asylum - Monday Edition

Ouch. According to the CDC, teen births hit a record low. I should hope so. It must be quite an ordeal for the mother to give birth to a teenager.	Photo source: Wikipedia
Photo source: White House photo	Not listening. Reuters reports that according to a Quinnipiac University poll, "Americans are eager to hear President Barack Obama address the U.S. economy and federal deficit in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday." Meanwhile, in Washington, the president is putting the finishing touches on his speech, which will focus on gun control, immigration, and how he got Charles Dorner.
Tragic day. The New York Post reports, "The distillery behind Maker’s Mark bourbon is reducing the amount of alcohol to meet a rise in global demand, company officials said today." It would behoove Maker's Mark to heed the advice of Sonny Bunch, managing editor at the Washington Free Beacon. His alternative? Instead of "diluting their product in order to ensure that more people have access to a crappier product," apply freshman economics and "raise the price!"	Photo source: Wikipedia
Photo source: AceShowBiz.com	Film critic Rex Reed is under fire for referring to Identify Thief star Melissa McCarthy as a "female hippo." Reed's detractors have a point. McCarthy looks nothing like a hippo. She looks like a governor of New Jersey.
Iranian Media reports that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he's ready to be the first Iranian in space. Does that even need a punchline?	Photo source: Composite built from images from Wikipedia
Photo sources: rantersbox.blogspot.com, The Inquisitr	Senate Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told Fox News yesterday, "It is almost a false argument to say that we have a spending problem," and "The fact is, we’ve had plenty of spending cuts." When told that federal spending actually increased $192 billion between 2011 and 2012, the former speaker said, "Math is hard."
This morning's top story is the announcement from the Vatican that Pope Benedict XVI will resign at the end of the month. The news came as a shock to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. She thought she was in charge of the Catholic Church. Meanwhile, anonymous sources at Buckingham Palace reveal that Britain's Prince Charles spent the morning subtly planting news articles about the pontiff's resignation around his mother's wing of the palace.	Photo source: Wikipedia
	In an interview with CNN's "The Science Seat", astronomer James Kalirai warned that someday, "The outer layers of the sun will actually reach the Earth, and so the oceans will evaporate and our planet will be fried." In response, former Vice President Al Gore blamed global warming and renewed calls to deindustrialize the planet. In a related story, President Obama promised to "lower the sun level."

Check back throughout the day for continuous updates.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com