South Korea has reached an agreement with the U.S. that allows the southeast Asian nation to more than double the range of its future ballistic missiles, as the country grapples with what it considers a growing threat from its disavowed northern portion. The updated missiles will be capable of travelling nearly eight feet—up from the current three—and will be available in a wide variety of new flavored-combustions, including Toasty Dermis®, Pyongflamed®, Koreans BBQ™, Sriracha Seoulmate® and Whole Flax 'n Fallout™. ↓ this dumb thing was made-ed sometime during October, 2012, methinks A recent study by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has revealed that the current fall television schedule features more gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered characters amongst its scripted offerings than any other season in the medium's one-hundred-plus-year history. Among the new and returning programs most representative of the LGBT community, ABC's I Muff Lucy; ESPN's This Week In NASCAR; The Weather Channel's ongoing documentary series History's Gayest Hurricanes: From Bruce, Thom and Rodd, To Turbo, Brett Butler and Xena; USA Network's Here Comes Robin: Holy Cow Was That Closet Stuffy, Batman!; and Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends stand out—with each respective show sporting an overwhelmingly homosexual cast of characters—while the lattermost stands above all, unexpectedly boasting a 138% LGBT-character count—a first for any fictional comedy program. ↓ this dumb thing was made-ed sometime during October, 2012, methinks A Massachusetts mother who entrusted her son with the routine task of taking the family's eight-year-old pet cat, Lady, to a veterinarian's office to undergo a standard flea bath has learned the animal was instead mistakenly euthanized, after a tragic paperwork mix-up. Remarked the offending thirty-year veteran of the veterinary arts, Dr. Muhammad Malik, "Come on, gimme a break—I got all the fleas, didn't I?" ↓ this dumb thing was made-ed sometime during October, 2012, methinks Speaking with KIIS FM, Ke$ha revealed that her new single Supernatural was inspired by a sexual encounter the popular crunkcore-ist claims to have had with a ghost, while—at the same moment—a suddenly-insulted, pale young groupie— with a backstage pass and healthy trust fund—claimed to have slept with an overhyped, iTunes-haunting, demonic rap- banshee. Stated the man, "Albinism is no laughing matter." ↓ this dumb thing was made-ed sometime during October, 2012, methinks American Airlines has alerted travelers to prepare for possible delays and/or cancelations during the upcoming holiday weekend, after the Fort Worth, Texas-based company decided to ground forty-eight Boeing 757 jets, in order to inspect and repair the mechanism used to secure passenger seats to the cabin floor. The actions by American are the result of three recent incidents, in which rows of seats became dislodged during flight, leading to quite a scare for several Dallas-Fort Worth and Miami- bound passengers. Now in his tenth decade at the helm—piloting the company through bankruptcies, accidents, disco, labor strifes, oil spikes, unceasing brand degradation and the infamous Christmas party of '88—company CEO, Tex "Ol' Sly McSwiggins" Holdem, couldn't help but note, "At American, we know why you fly—we just honestly can't figure out why y'all still fly with us," adding, "I don't even fly American." In addition to the repairs, facilities personnel are currently in the process of removing banks of recently-installed T.V. monitors across the company's network of two-hundred-and-sixty-plus worldwide destinations, which had allowed deplaning passengers the opportunity to view, and, if they so desired, purchase an overpriced, colorfully-framed souvenir photograph of themselves and their row-mates—secretly captured via ultra-thin cameras implanted in yet another painfully embellished American Way Magazine article ballyhooing the magical splendor of Phoenix or Cowhole, Indiana—at the exact moment of disengagement. ↓ this dumb thing was made-ed sometime during October, 2012, methinks New research suggests some fish species may shrink up to 24% by the year 2050, due to a global warming-related reduction of the oxygen concentration in water. Quipped an underwhelmed Martha Bluegill—spawned-and-raised in Mississippi River, Mississippi—of husband Ernest's recent issues, "Uhhh-huh. Right. First it's the cold water, and now it's the oxygen? What'll you tell me next? Males of our species don't have penises to begin with? Boy, I tell you what." ↓ this dumb thing was made-ed sometime during October, 2012, methinks With the first of three presidential debates in the history books, large teams of both hardware and software experts— contracted by the respective major U.S. political parties—are hard at work repairing and recalibrating their presidential election entries. The Republican team—in cooperation with the Microsoft Corporation—is in the process of updating Mitt Romney's current store of policy- and-issue positions, and is rumored to be beefing-up processing power in the candidate's admittedly undersized half-core human emotion chip, while the Obama team—represented by designers and engineers from Cupertino, California-based Apple Incorporated—has remained tight-lipped in regards to possible changes or upgrades to the Democratic team's candidate. Among industry watchers, some believe photographs recently leaked by a Taiwanese political-technology blog prove the existence of new Obama hardware—likely running a revamped version of obamOS—though nothing has yet been confirmed. Teased lead Obama designer, Jony Ive, "You know the drill—we aren't going to reveal any details. Let me just say this, though: If you thought hope and change were revolutionary, magical and expensive, wait till you get a load of despair and stagnation." On the Romney team, the showmanship aspect has been notably more subdued, while precise details are equally as sketchy, with chief engineer, Jeff, saying only, "Hopefully the switch from Romney XP to Vista will offer greater appeal to the Latino voting bloc, and a thorough defrag should help to clear up some of the lingering alienation issues in 47% of the candidate's registry logs." ↓ this dumb thing was made-ed sometime during October, 2012, methinks Following a massive concert in Central Park, the Foo Fighters—appointed by President Bill Clinton to lead the controversial, open-ended "war on foo"—have been temporarily self-decommissioned, after all known foo was deemed by U.N. Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, to have been successfully fought. Awash in the thunderous overture of February Stars and Stripes Forever—beneath a large banner sporting the slogan: "Mi$$ion Accompli$hed"—band leader, Maj. Gen. David E. Grohl, stood perched atop the deck of the foo-boat fighting FOO.S.S. Monkey Wrench, proclaiming, "We did it! We finally reached nirvana … levels of ticket sales." Should any residual foo be detected—explained Mr. Ki-moon—the band will be summoned from its hiatus, and, "stretch the meaning of 'best of' to its absolute limit, releasing another 'best of' album; license their music to small-town Telemundo affiliates' morning traffic updates; play grocery store re-grand openings and Lollapalooza—whatever it takes to knock that foo back to the [Queens of the] Stone Age." He added, "I pity the foo—I truly do." ↓ this dumb thing was made-ed sometime during October, 2012, methinks UPDATE: Additional details have come to light in a story upon which Newspunch reported earlier, related to an Arizona ski resort successfully deflecting a Native American environmentalist's desperate challenges to its expansion… Donning a Washington Redskins® pullover fleece—in light of the burgeoning chill—he continued, "Anyway, you're gonna love the new layout. With the freshest artificial snow in the region—from "all natural sources"—you'd better watch your backsides, Aspen!—'cause them things are some choice snow-makers!" Pausing to rhythmically glide a sacred, three-thousand-year-old arrowhead back and forth across his genitals, relieving the faintest of itches, he went on, "That chimichanga you ate last week? Snow. That extra cup of coffee on Mondays? Snow. That cabbage and curry; that squid fried rice; that one-margarita-too-many? Snow, snow and more snow!" Using a rare, ancient dreamcatcher to swat dead a noble bumble bee, he concluded, "Turning the runs into world-class ski runs—with the softest, lightest, fastest peeder and pooder anywhere—there's just no place quite like it. From your toiletbowl to the Snowbowl, Arizona's ski resorts have got you covered! Do not eat the beige snow." ↓ this dumb thing was made-ed sometime during October, 2012, methinks As part of a growing trend toward geography-derived celebrity-baby-names—rooted in U2 frontman Bono's 1991 naming of daughter Memphis Eve—Reese Witherspoon has named her new baby boy Tennessee James. Speaking out in defense of the affected, co-founders of Seriously, Rob Or Meryl Or Tom Woulda Done Just Fine—Honda Civic De Niro, Puggle Streep, and Prilosec OTC Hanks, themselves victims of past celebrity-baby-name fads—pleaded, "For the sake of Sweet Home Alabama Affleck, this has got to stop." ↓ this dumb thing was made-ed sometime during October, 2012, methinks A ten-year veteran of environmental activism—known to chain himself to excavators and stare down oncoming bulldozers —and member of the Navajo Tribe, Klee Benally, has lost his bid to keep a ski resort in Arizona's San Francisco Peaks, north of Flagstaff, from moving forward with plans to significantly expand its boundaries. The resort has already razed seventy-four acres of forest, and will begin pumping in treated sewage waste—for use on its slopes as artificial snow—beginning this season.