​A lighthearted look at news of the day 
 
Bernie Sanders laid off hundreds of campaign workers last week. The good news is now he can focus his campaign on complaining about rising unemployment rates.
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Experts say Sanders’ decision to shrink his staff indicates he is coming to terms with Hillary Clinton’s inevitable nomination. On the Republican side, Ted Cruz showed he is coming to terms with the inevitable by announcing his running mate.
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Cruz’s running mate, Carly Fiorina, appeared excited with the prospect of being only a heartbeat away from returning to Hewlett-Packard. Together, they plan to sweep all the delegates in the state of denial.
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Word has it Cruz originally wanted Ben Carson, but no one was able to wake him up.
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Cruz has no mathematical way to gain enough delegates before the convention to assure the nomination. This may be the first time someone in such a position has announced a running mate. The good news for Cruz is that, in a little while, he’ll have lots of spare time to interview people for his cabinet.
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In a speech at Stanford, former House Speaker John Boehner referred to Ted Cruz as “Lucifer in the flesh.” This violates a cardinal rule of politics, which is to always couch your insults so that you can go even lower if you have to. Now, if Cruz were to somehow be nominated in a contested convention, the only attack Boehner has left against Hillary is, “Let’s go with the devil we know.”
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In Rochester, N.Y., a 12-year-old girl entered a 5K race and accidentally ended up running a half marathon. I think we can all agree it’s frustrating whenever this happens.
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Last week, my iPhone started talking to itself. A news app featured a commentator talking about the fighting in Syria. Siri thought he was talking about her and said, "I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean by 'Attacking terrorist forces.'" Apple may be losing money, but Siri has a future in politics. Her kind of honesty is rare.

​A lighthearted look at news of the day 
 
You may have seen police or firefighters taking a donut break at a 7-Eleven during the day. Apparently, Donald Trump witnessed some sort of disaster at one 15 years ago. Perhaps the out-of-order lights were flashing on the Slurpee machine.
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Trump told a New York crowd, “… I was down there and I watched our police and our firemen down at 7/11…” Actually, he was referring to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. A lot of people took a big gulp that day, but it had nothing to do with a convenience store.
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Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson said Trump misspoke. This apparently was not as bad as a few weeks earlier when Trump said women who receive abortions ought to be punished. At the time, Pierson said that was a “complete misspeak.” Apparently, there are gradations of slipups in the campaign. “Complete misspeak” is somewhere above “misspoke,” and probably a bit worse than a total flub up. It would be easier if they would switch to a color-coded system, like the old terror alerts. “Mr. Trump didn’t mean to say that. We’re raising the factual meter to a yellow today.”
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Some Trump supporters said he actually was referring to the fire station on 711 Central Park Ave., in Scarsdale. But the fire district responded by saying it is never “under any circumstance” referred to as 711. They don’t even keep their stale pizzas under a heat lamp.
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The U.S. Treasury Department has decided to put the picture of a woman, former slave and renowned abolitionist Harriet Tubman, on the $20 bill. The value of the bill immediately fell to 79 percent of what it was with a man on the front.
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The Treasury originally wanted to put Tubman on the $10 bill. But if history teaches anything, it is that true immortality comes through being the subject of a hit Broadway musical.
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“Hamilton” is a big hit on Broadway right now. Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary, is well known for having an affair. He was an immigrant, and he pioneered the national debt. In other words, he couldn’t survive a presidential primary today, let alone a Senate confirmation hearing, but, man, could he inspire some songs.
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Last week, Utahns participated in the “Great Shakeout.” This is where everyone crawls underneath a desk and holds on, in preparation for how we should react come Election Day in November.

​A lighthearted look at news of the day 
 
Today, April 18, is tax day. It used to be on April 15. Apparently, inflation is rampant everywhere.
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Actually, the date was moved this year so as not to conflict with Emancipation Day. Emancipation, by the way, is a term that has absolutely no relevance to retiring your tax obligation.
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If this keeps up, tax day eventually could coincide with National Procrastination Day. That’s on June 1, although no one ever gets around to celebrating it.
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The Utah Jazz played Kobe Bryant and his merry band of passers last week in perhaps the most meaningful meaningless game in NBA history. It was Bryant’s last game, and he managed to score 60 points. This was kind of a metaphor for Bernie Sanders’ campaign. Yes, the old guy can still draw large crowds and put on a great show, but that doesn’t mean his team will qualify for the title.
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Meanwhile, Donald Trump, who inherited millions and has become a household name through real estate deals and television shows, apparently is trying to convince America that “the man” is trying to keep him from being nominated. I’m not sure who “the man” is, but we ought to elect him.
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Trump says the rules of how he has to win the Republican nomination are against him, such as that you have to have an organized campaign capable of collecting a certain number of delegates. Who knew?
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You also have to be registered to vote, which is something Trump’s children sure wish was common knowledge.
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Your Dad is running for president and you don’t register to vote? That’s sort of like Henry Ford’s kids not knowing how to start a car, or Roseanne Barr’s kids actually being able to sing the national anthem.
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Bernie Sanders joined a Verizon picket line last week. People misinterpreted this. He actually thought it was the line for the service counter, where he wanted to complain that his phone won’t flip open any more.
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Meanwhile, in Utah, word has it the state Republican Party is close to declaring itself an independent nation.

​A lighthearted look at news of the day 
 
Microsoft came up with the great idea of creating an artificial intelligence bot on Twitter, in the image of a teenage girl named Tay, and making her capable of learning through interactions with real people online. Within a few hours, she was a racist, a sexist and a Holocaust denier, and she was spewing all this with gusto, humor and abandon. Microsoft had to take her down before she started winning delegates for the presidential nomination.
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Microsoft tried to make some adjustments to Tay and put her back online, but she quickly started boasting about smoking drugs in front of the police. It could get worse. Tay reportedly now wants to hang out with Siri.
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A new matchmaking service aims to help couples find love through body odor. People who sign up are asked to wear the same T-shirt for three days, without bathing, and then mail it in. The shirts are cut into swaths and sent out to potential mates, who choose the one they find least offensive. The one drawback is that anyone eager to participate in this project probably isn’t someone you’d like to spend your life with.
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A warning to women: If a dirty T-shirt is the foundation for your marriage, don’t be surprised when your husband puts tokens of affection on the bedroom floor, rather than in the clothes hamper.
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Really, though, if foul odors made people fall in love, Americans would be much more excited about the upcoming election.
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A voter initiative in California would require all state lawmakers to wear the names of their top 10 political donors whenever conducting official business. This is because the nation apparently is better off with super-wealthy politicians who can finance their own campaigns.
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A better idea would be to have them wear the top 10 insults they have thrown at their political opponents.
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Two astronomers At Columbia University want to point laser beams into space to trick distant aliens into thinking there is no planet here, thus avoiding an eventual attack from armies looking to subjugate humans and exploit earth’s natural resources. This sounds expensive. A better idea would be to build a wall in space and make the aliens pay for it.
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Of course, we sent Voyager 1 rocketing into space 40 years ago in hopes of inviting people here. That’s the bad news. The good news is the ship includes a recording of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” Once they get hooked on rock ‘n roll, the aliens themselves will be doomed.