Congress Now Wishing it was as Popular as Iran

In a series of new interviews with anonymous congresspeople, ABC News found that, as of Saturday, a majority of Congress wishes it was as popular as Iran. As the government shutdown crisis continues and the Debt Ceiling looms, Congress' popularity among Americans has slipped to 5%, less popular than hemorrhoids and toenail fungus. At the same time, Iran has shown a marked spike in popularity as it's new president Hassan Rouhani has shown himself to be less threaten-people-with-nukes-especially-Israel-y than his predecessor. As Iran has admitted UN inspectors to confirm that its nuclear is purely for peaceful purposes.
Likely due to a combination of these factors, Congress' approval rating is now far below that of Iran, which recently got a fifteen percent global approval rating, which in Congress is known as a "High point". So it's not surprising that John Boehner is growing a beard and many Congresspeople wish they could have Iran's public approval.
However, despite Congress' best efforts, their popularity seems to just keep plummeting. Another poll has shown that the phrase "It's scary that these wackos have nuclear weapons." is applied more to Congress than to Iran and North Korea combined, and a significant number of Americans are considering moving to a place like Russia, where the one guy makes all the terrible decisions without having to argue with anyone.

Shutdown Beginning to Impact Congress' Ability to Do Nothing

With the shutdown of the United States Government in it's eleventh day, journalists have begun to report an impact in Congress' ability to do nothing at all. According to The Newslo, "The last week and a half have seen a marked drop in Congressional inaction. If the shutdown continues, congress' ability to argue pointlessly and fail to accomplish even the most basic tasks may be altogether compromised."
Worse still, if the shutdown continues, we might actually start noticing.

Rockettopia High School RADD Club: An Overview

This year, Rockettopia High School welcomed a new addition to the club scene: The Rockettopians Against Destructive Decisions, or RADD, Club. The  RADD club teaches students about avoiding destructive decisions such as doing drugs, drinking alcohol, and having sex. If they can make an impact, the club's "Adviser", Mr. Steinberg, plans to move on to eating ice cream, hanging out with friends, using the internet, and smiling. The Club was planned and named by a committee of teachers who apparently are not aware that the 1970s were forty years ago. The name choice was probably made with the slang term 'Rad' in mind, which was last heard from on June 7th, 1999. 'Rad' is, of course, short for radical, which makes sense, because here in Rockettopia, not having sex, doing drugs, and drinking alcohol are pretty radical decisions.

According to reports, the first meeting of the RADD club was attended by eight students: five students who had been dared to go, one lost freshman, the club 'Adviser' Mr. Steinberg's daughter, and a severely intoxicated senior who staggered into the classroom, mumbled some flirtatious comments to a poster, and collapsed due to alcohol poisoning.

Did you know: The Hawai'ian alphabet has twelve letters!

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        Note: The RADD club was apparently started in 2009, but until now, the entire student body has been too drunk or stoned to notice.

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        Other Note: Despite the odd aptness of the name, the RADD club is officially an offshoot of the national Students Against Destructive Decisions, or SADD club. [I'm just going to leave this one you.]

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        INS Note: Drugs are a really bad idea. Seriously, it's a really, really bad idea. Avoid drugs. 80% of RHS students you know the drill.... But honestly...

Pirate Flag Over RHS Misunderstood by Everyone

When students at Rockettopia High School returned from summer break, they couldn't help but notice the pirate flag flying above the school. Most people interpret it as a taunt from Rockettopia's archnemisis. These people are wrong. A few people claim that it was put up by RHS students to start a war. These people are also wrong. In fact, the Jolly Roger over Rockettopia High School signifies what the skull-and-crossbones has signified since time immemorial: That this building is now under the control of pirates.
In fact, the school is now officially the property of the crew of the Merman Crackhead, a sixteenth-century pirate vessel that most historians refer to as a 'glorified rowboat'. The Merman Crackhead was believed until very recently to have been lost after striking a very sharp piece of seaweed, but it now appears that the ship somehow found it's way to Anthos Pond. If anyone has any knowledge of how this happened, please email the United States Historical Society and/or the United States Armed Forces.
After making the five-minute walk to Rockettopia High School, the pirates apparently seized control of the building, originally intending to pillage it, but after finding 'riches beyond imagining' (RHS Cafeteria Food is much better than Hardtack), decided to stay.
Despite the presence of eighty pirates and two monkeys in RHS, very few people have caught on. First of all, to an untrained eye, the difference between smelly poorly-dressed sexually obsessed delinquent alcoholics and pirates can be difficult to discern. Secondly, when we tried to tell authorities of the pirate threat, we were rebuffed with the reminder that nearly the entire student body is guilty of piracy. And most importantly, anyone who might notice the pirates are either sleep-deprived, drunk, stoned, teachers, or most likely, all of the above.

Violent War Erupts in Cafeteria Over Seats

The 2013-2014 school year in Rockettopia got off to a bad start yesterday when violence erupted in all three lunches over the seating arrangements in the cafeteria. More specifically, lack of said seats. As Rockettopia High School's population has grown over the last few years, the cafeteria, which was designed to seat three hundred students, has been unable to seat sufficent numbers. The school administration has already tried bringing in new tables, bringing in even more new tables, and as of this year is offering toilet accommodations as "Dual-purpose seating". 

Despite this, there weren't enough seats to go around, resulting in a massive food fight in which, unlike the food fights that occur every day, the victor actually mattered. "My brothers! This table is our last hope! Now fight, not for your wives or children or villages, but for NOT SITTING ON THE FLOOR!!!", a member of the Anime club was heard to shout before the club charged the baseball team. During the attack, he was hit in the head by a "Hamburger", but the doctors say his condition has stabilized and they have high hopes for his recovery.

The baseball club wasn't the only club to engage in outright warfare. The orchestra club broke all the rules and two clarinets when they deployed their instruments as weapons. Two people were severely poked, five deafened, and a police team is currently searching for three missing students inside one of the tubas. The ecology club and the robotics team were beaten severely by the football team, and stormed out vowing revenge. (In related news, the football team has acquired an indefinite full-team vacation to the pacific island of Fiji.). After going outside for te, minutes to "meditate", the Existential club stormed the cafeteria demanding more food, but of course, that's what they do pretty much every day.

Some students got extremely desperate and took measures considered wild even by Rockettopia standards; president Obama has warned that the United States will take action if the Chemistry club ever does that again.

The people to entirely escape the war in the cafeteria were the skateboarders, who everyone refused to go anywhere near.

Discovery Channel Employee Leaks Shark Week Conclusion

An anonymous leak from a Discovery Channel employee revealed that the network's popular Shark Week series would conclude with "An epic look at shark-based weather phenomena and their effects on human life in urban environments." When pressed for more details, the leaker confirmed everyone's worst fears and revealed that he was referring to Sharknado.

Sharknado is a Sci-Fi Channel TV Movie detailing what happens when Los Angeles is hit by a tornado of sharks. It first aired on July 11th, 2013, and was called by one critic "The most absurd thing on TV since whatever was directly before it on Fox News." Nevertheless, Sharknado became an internet sensation and was rebroadcast twice. The movie is scheduled to be in some 200 theaters across the country.

Shark Week, by contrast, has a slightly more sane reputation. The annual Discovery event began in 1987 to "raise awareness and respect for sharks"¹. The event was also, like everything on Discovery, supposed to be at least vaguely educational. However, over the years, the content of Shark Week has gone from, "Look at the interesting shark!" to "OH MY GOD GIANT SCARY SHARK!!!" But the Week, and perhaps the network, reached new lows when Shark Week 2013 with a documentary about a team that discovers that Megalodon sharks are still alive (Megalogon being an enormous prehistoric shark that you should totally google). The documentary was convincing, entrancing, and according to the tiny text at the bottom of the screen at the end, completely fake. But really, John Oliver expresses the offensive bullshittiness of the situation better than I do.

According to the Discovery leak, the finale of Shark Week will be even more spectacular. Sharknado will be prefaced with a black screen bearing the message in large white text and voiced-over, "What you are about to witness is a dramatization of an event that top meteorologists say has a 90% chance of occuring in your lifetime.". (Our investigative reporters that "top meteorologists" meant an unemployed twentysomething who had watched Sharknado while drinking six beers. He was being paraphrased; his original words were, "Dude, this is totally gonna happen to me!") At the same time, this text will be at the bottom of the screen "This is not actually real. The events of Sharknado are in no way actually possible. Ha ha! Fooled ya!". Of course, the black text might not show up on the black screen, but, "That's the point."

1. Okay, I quoted Wikipedia, so sue me.

Note: Is Sharknado possible? In short, no.

A Month After End Of School, Students Already Bored Out Of Their Minds

A new piece of original journalism by field reporters from News from Rockettopia has confirmed that, despite being only a month into the summer, Rockettopia students are already bored to death. By bravely venturing into the center of town, where bored youth are congregating to try to find something interesting, our reporters discovered that at this point, nearly everyone between the ages of five and eighteen has no idea what to do with their time now that school is out. "I thought it would be so fun hanging out with friends and swimming and watching TV and doing other cool stuff," a Rockettopia teen told us, "but it turns out that all that stuff only gets through about four days of summer." Some teens have even reported missing the time spent doing homework, which our resident psychologist has told us is called Stockholm Syndrome.
We here at News from Rockettopia hope that our town's teenager will find something interesting to do soon both for their sake and for the sake of all the store clerks hiding under counters with shotguns.