Vatican City—In a stunning turn of events, the Vatican announced today that Pope Francis did not pass his background check. The Vatican Human Resources department was quick to blame the error on an intern. Unable to name a new Pope, the Vatican has decided to close its doors forever. An American retail company, Target Corporation, is finalizing a deal to purchase the Vatican directly from God. According to the locum Pope, Cardinal Pompous IV, a series of sales will soon be in place to purchase all kinds of Catholic memorabilia. The Vatican, in conjunction with a new e-commerce business known as PayPope, will allow direct online sales for all of your papal crapal needs.

Pompous IV told reporters, “There are full warehouses that must go! We have Pope remains beatified and mummified for your protection. You could get Peter. You could get Paul. So come on down. Hell, some of us even think we’re going to find Jesus himself in one of these crates! Won’t that be a surprise?”

The faithful are conflicted about recent events. One woman from Monterey said, “I really don’t want to see the utter collapse of the Catholic Church, but if the Ark of the Covenant shows up on eBay, well, holy shit is right!”

In the coming days so many historic answers may be revealed, as the most sacred regalia is only broken out for the annual Blood of Christ party. “Yeah, we don’t know what most of this shit is,” said P-Dog IV. “We only know it’s really old and makes for a great dress up day.”

Washington, DC—No one is sure if President Barack Obama gave the executive order to add Ramen Noodle Wednesdays to the menu, but staffers claim the inexpensive Chinese noodle will be a White House staple until the sequester situation is resolved.  The menu typically includes a main meal plus the soup of the day. However, Wednesdays will now consist of no main course and only Ramen Noodles as both the soup and the dessert.

When the head chef was asked if that was a typo, Cris Comerford, said, “No, with a little white chocolate and some pecans we can make the noodles into crunchy vanilla clusters. We call them Patriot Piles here at the White House. Heh, heh.” When asked if the dessert will be made from the leftover soup, Comerford seemed insulted, “No, No, we serve dessert immediately after the soup. I don’t think we’d have to actually strain the leftover Ramen Noodles to make the dessert…well, unless the next debt ceiling thing goes south.”

White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney, dodged questions today regarding rumors the White House plans introduce a weekly Leftovers Day, which in a leaked memo, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, referred to as Operation: Search or Starve.

Washington, DC— Fifty-eight-years ago in Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus and by doing so triggered a civil rights shit storm not seen since The Ghetto Shaman’s last Barely Legal Kundalini Cruise. Parks apparently also never served on jury duty or returned any of her library books. Yet she was honored last week with a bronze statue that will forever reside at the National Statuary Hall. Due to a number of missteps, however, many are calling the ceremony “a fiasco”. Organizers unfortunately chose to play The Beatles’ Get Back as the statue was being unveiled.

Director of the exhibit, Dan Godfrey, said, “Hey, at least we didn’t go with our original idea, George Thorogood’s Move It On Over.”

About halfway through the ceremony the statue was suddenly dragged to the back of the hall by a crane, causing outrage and…er…sorry, Thesaurus.com crashed tonight.

“This was not meant as an insult,” insisted Godfrey. “We were simply correcting a layout mistake. We were actually reserving that spot for Chris Christie for his work after Hurricane Sandy and he’s obviously going to need some space.”

President Barack Obama told those in attendance, “We can do no greater honor than to remember and to carry forward the power of…sorry, Teleprompter.com crashed tonight.”

Then John Boehner stared at the new Parks statue, sobbed uncontrollably for a while, and said, “Well, she did break the law at the time, but ditto I suppose.”

Organizers admitted they also got the plaque wrong. As it turns out, Rosa Parks never said, “Get these MFing snakes off this MFing bus!”

Washington, DC—In his first action as our new Defense Secretary, Chuck “Hamas Loving” Hagel, dropped onto a mat, praised Allah, and started his ablutions toward Mecca. Many fear Hagel, not entirely sure where his office is yet, is already preparing to unleash the full force of the United States military on “those Jewish MFs.” Upon hearing the news Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately expanded some settlements in the back of his pants.

Although Hagel’s military operation, Nosh & Awe, relies heavily on air and fridge raids, he is nevertheless deploying all of our openly gay military men and women to the Middle Eastern front. Each day more of our fabulous marines are being air dropped on Tel Aviv, or Ground Zero, as it is known to our Air Force. Most are only armed with rainbow targets on their backs and LGBTQ literature.

Hagel told the press, “Look, it’s simple, I have lots of enemies and by this time tomorrow I’ll have much much less. We will attempt to minimize civilian deaths, well, as much as we can after the detonation of a thermonuclear device in a country the size of New Jersey, ha, ha, ha…” He actually laughed much longer and more diabolically, but we shortened it.

Hagel, described by his children and pets as “already drunk with power”, is creating extensive lists of friends and enemies. Currently torn between supporting or ending his own political party, our 24th Defense Secretary is weighing his options carefully.

“I still feel a certain affinity toward the GOP,” said Hagel, while awkwardly petting a cat. “My feelings are fluctuating between giving them each a great big hug all the way to targeting them with drone enemas. I’m trying to quit the GOP. I kind of look at it like attending Alcoholics Anonymous. My name is Chuck Hagel. I’m a recovering Conservative. It’s been nine days since I made a political decision based on bullshit.”

Forbidden Zone—Pope “Benedict Arnold” has had a drastic change in his retirement plan. As soon as he abdicated his power, he was surrounded by armed Bishops and the last of the Knights Templar before being ushered into a clandestine chamber deep in the Vaticave. There, Pope Benedict the Whatshisface, was given a choice. He could pack his Papal backpack and be banished to the Forbidden Zone, or he could pack his Papal backpack and be banished to the Forbidden Zone to destroy the One Pope Ring.

The Pope pleaded for other choices, not the least of which involved Jessica Alba and a French maid’s costume. He also asked to stay in the janitor’s closet on the first floor of the Passeto, then the table under one of the rape rooms, and finally His Homelessness begged to live out his last days on a St. Peter’s Square bench in the hopes of capturing one of the doves he’d released for sustenance.

In the end, his Holiness the Nope was sent into the Forbidden Zone south of Vatican City, where Dr. Zaius warns us, “He will find his destiny…but he better not try that ‘my precioussss’ crap! He needs to burn that thing so Obama can mint a trillion dollar coin!”

There was a point to this post, originally.

Vatican City—In conjunction with God, the Daily Discord is offering cash, cars, and sexual favors (missionary style only) for the person who comes the closest to guessing the upcoming last tweet of his Holiness the Pope. Pope Benedict the whatshisface is bowing down and this time with no ill intentions toward children. He is planning his farewell tweet on February 28^th, but here are the rules. The Discord staff gets to go first, which can be translated roughly as the rest of you don’t stand a chance, or in Latin, “Vos autem nolite stare liceator!” If you still want to play, just submit your Pope tweet by hitting our contact button or this groovy hyperlink here. Oh, and did we mention all submissions must be in Latin?

	Pierce X. Winslow @PierceWinslow
Cum Sinite parvulos ad me. Oh, dixi quod ex magna? (Suffer the little children to cum on me. Oh, did I say that out loud?)
9:26 AM – 22 Feb 13
14 Retweets 9 Favorites

	Mick Zano @mzzano
Iam operor ego adepto keys ut Pope Mobile? (Now do I get the keys to the Pope Mobile?)
9:32 AM – 22 Feb 13
0 Retweets 0 Favorites

	Erisa Brahe @erisaBrahe
Quamdiu omnibus gratias ichthys! (So long, and thanks for all the Jesus fish.)
9:48 AM – 22 Feb 13
5 Retweets 3 Favorites

	The Crank @theCrank
Ego teneo tamen haud one….NO UNUS pulsatus leviculus hat! (I know I’m stepping down, but no one….NO ONE touches the silly hat!)
9:55 AM – 22 Feb 13
7 Retweets 2 Favorites

	The Ghetto Shaman @ghettoShaman
Videre vos post, Bitches! Viva las Vegas! (See you later, Bitches!  I’m going to Vegas.)
10:03 AM – 22 Feb 13
6548 Retweets 2569 Favorites

	Sandra Day O’Connor @sandyOConnor
That was a lifetime appointment! Quitter! (Sorry, Sandra, Latin submissions only)
10:20 AM – 22 Feb 13
10 Retweets 6 Favorites

Washington, DC—After the White House pointed the finger at China after a rash of recent cyber-attacks, the Asian country nearly wet itself with rage. Upon changing, China’s President Xi Jinping immediately flew to our nation’s capital to confront our President.

President Jinping, initially very cordial, peppered President Obama with questions, “That is a lovely dog you have there. Is he your favorite? My mother’s maiden name was Chen, what was your mother’s maiden name?”

When they finally decided to meet in the Oval Office, Jinping said, “Those are beautiful flags by your desk. In elementary school I had to make a Chinese flag. Incidentally, where did graduate from elementary school?”

When the conversation turned to the recent wave of cyber-attacks plaguing some of our government agencies, Jinping said, “We would never attempt such a thing on our American allies. We are highly offended! But, if you scribble your birthdate and your social security number on this paper, we’ll give the whole thing a miss.”

Obama later told the press he hasn’t been this angry since the Pentagon let their Norton subscription expire.

Washington, DC—Grover Norquist of the infamous “Norquist Tax Pledge” is threatening to use a diabolical machine of his own creation. Mr. Norquist dropped out of the public eye several months ago after many began viewing his tax ideas as “stupid” and “really stupid.” It is believed the tax-crazed political hack has been building a secret lab under our Capitol for many years. Deep in his subterranean layer, with only reruns of Pinky and the Brain to keep him company, the Conservative spokesman has been busy weaving his next diabolical plot. He now claims to wield the most sinister weapon since North Korea’s latest dildo-like missile fail (DLMF).

Norquist is threatening to use what he is calling his “Government Shrink Ray” on all of our largest government funded agencies and institutions.

The Obama Administrations is refusing any and all of Norquist’s demands, which among other things included Jessica Alba and a French maid’s costume.

“Look,” said President Obama, “if we allow him to shrink government, he already said he would strangle what was left in a bath tub. I would rather give Putin our nuclear codes or give Ahmadinejad my personal cell phone number. Besides, we would have to see some proof of this fantastic weapon.”

Norquist responded, “I have actually had a smaller prototype for several years and I have already tested that once. Do you remember what happened back in April of 2010? Do you remember an agency called ACORN? MwHa ha ha ha ha!”

Washington, DC—President Obama is standing by his decision to nominate Martha Stewart as Secretary of the Interior. Obama feels despite her criminal record, she would be “the perfect person for this sort of thing.”

Republicans wasted no time condemning the choice at the confirmation hearing. “The President is making light of an important cabinet position. He’s flaunting his power again. He always does something totally ludicrous and then somehow we Republicans always end up looking stupid,” said House Speaker John Boehner before falling down a flight of stairs and onto a cocktail sauce-filled waiter’s cart to the backdrop of canned laughter.

Other questions from Republican Senators ranged from, “Could a southwestern theme work in the Lincoln Bedroom?” to “what are you doing later?”

Republicans are also calling Obama’s nomination of the X-Men’s super-villain, Magneto, to head the Department of Energy “reckless” and “other synonyms for the word reckless.”

Senator Lindsey Graham added, “If Obama wants to nominate super evil people for government posts, they had better at least have been Fox News Contributors at one time. For instance I hear Dick “Dick” Morris is free now.”

Dick Morris was unavailable for bullshit.

Philadelphia, PA—The Daily Discord would again like to apologize. This important e-zine has experienced some considerable growing pains in recent months. For one, we ran out of bandwidth during The Ghetto Shaman’s recent promotional: Combining Ancient Wisdom with Hot Girl-on-Girl Action. As a result our site crashed like a Value Jet in a microburst. There’s no excuse for that, especially seeing as how we only had four hits that day. Also, we now crank our marquee at the top of this site 24/7. Someone has to do that shit. It’s certainly not going to crank itself.

But the buck stops here! I, Pierce X. Winslow, take full responsibility for these recent errors and I am now immediately shifting all of that blame directly to Mick Zano, where it belongs.

In our recent article Collapse of Tokyo Tunnel “Not Godzilla Related” we thought the last Godzilla attack occurred in 2003 as depicted in Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. We completely forgot about Godzilla: Final Wars from 2004. Not to mention Godzilla vs. Chuck Norris from 2007. It took a reader to find this error and we have since fired those responsible.

For those following our marquee news, we already made this retraction: AS IT TURNS OUT IT WAS NOT BEYONCE AT THE WINSLOW TACO BELL LAST WEEK. In our defense, it really looked like her from the back, but we were intoxicated at the time. Still, it could have been her twin—her homeless, white, toothless twin.

Perhaps our biggest blunder of 2013 was our headline Louisiana Voodoo Shop Completely out of Curarine. Curarine is a skeletal muscle relaxant used during the creation of zombies. We apologize to all of those who were unable to raise the dead that week because, as it turned out, they still had more in the back.

As for the error in this article’s title, we don’t know a lot about Roman numerals, per say. Apparently we don’t know Latin either as I’m told it’s per se. Nevertheless, I vow The Daily Discord will be better in 2013. How could it be otherwise?