MILWAUKEE – In response to the milk spill that covered the western rim of Lake Michigan with a layer of milk fat, President Obama visited the shores of Milwaukee to encourage the thousands of volunteers helping in the cleanup effort.

The spilled milk has since spread over a large area, reaching as far as Western Michigan and the north shores of Chicago. Images of flocks of geese covered in milk fat have gathered attention from the press and garnered criticism for the lack of early response.

According to experts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, while milk is biodegradable, the bacterial growth coming from bad milk will most certainly disrupt the environmental balance of Lake Michigan irreparably.

Republican leadership has since strongly criticized the president for the failed joke during the State of the Union address, calling the joke “utterly tasteless” and the president “out-of-touch.”

“But seriously, what are the odds that something like this would happen?” muttered President Obama, looking crestfallen. “What people don’t understand is that I didn’t do this. I didn’t leave the milk out.”

Later, the President was forced to cancel a scheduled speech in front of the Milwaukee city hall when he broke into fits of sobbing.

DES MOINES — After receiving only 6 votes in the Iowa Caucus, lizard people said they will return to the marshes to reassess their candidacy. The decision was revealed in a speech delivered to the reptilians’ supporters who gathered in the campaign’s headquarter in Des Moines.

“Hissss… Shsssh shhh hisss hssssss…. I’m sorry, there must be some technical difficulties here.” said one of the lizard people while adjusting the microphone. “It’s hard to say that we’re not disappointed by the results tonight. The future is uncertain, but we will make our decisions considering what’s best not only for us but also for America.”

The candidates, who once held an insurmountable lead in the 7-to-12 “juvenile” demographic of the Republican party, now face a tough decision between staying in the race and cutting their losses.

Republican strategist and Flipside political commentator William Sanderson said it was likely that the half-reptiles would eventually drop out of the race.

“You know, the Republican Party has a history of choosing candidates with strong conservative credentials and values,” said Sanderson “It wasn’t entirely sure that the campaign’s messages were entire compatible with ordinary Iowa voters.”

Lizard people ran a campaign emphasizing less government interventions in insect markets and lower taxes on exotic pets. Their message was overshadowed by the campaign’s many gaffes. During a televised debate back in October, the candidates blurted out that Texas Governor Rick Perry looked “delicious”. In November, one of the lizard people accidentally swallowed a baby whole during a town hall meeting.

While little is known of the future plans for the lizard people, experts speculate that they would return to their careers as sci-fi movie villains.

– HELP WANTED –

Ladies needed for educational demonstration of toy drills. Required to work naked in a public setting. Compensation will include appropriate payment and a souvenir toy. Contact: bailey@northwestern.edu

and

Human sexuality psychologist needed for Psychology department. Required to conduct research in Evanston, IL and teach Psychology 337. Responsible applicants only.

The writers of The Flipside have planned to write an article commemorating the tenth anniversary of the creation of Wikipedia. However, due to approaching midterms and general laziness, we have decided to just copy and paste the Wikipedia entry on Wikipedia instead. Happy tenth, Wikipedia!

Wikipedia ( /ˌwɪkɪˈpiːdi.ə/ or /ˌwɪkiˈpiːdi.ə/ WIK-i-PEE-dee-ə) is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 17 million articles (over 3.5 million in English) have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site. Wikipedia was launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger and has become the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet, ranking eighth among all websites on Alexa and having 365 million readers.

The name Wikipedia was coined by Larry Sanger and is a portmanteau from wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites, from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning “quick”) and encyclopedia.

Although the policies of Wikipedia strongly espouse verifiability and a neutral point of view, critics of Wikipedia accuse it of systemic bias and inconsistencies (including undue weight given to popular culture), and allege that it favors consensus over credentials in its editorial processes. Its reliability and accuracy are also targeted. Other criticisms center on its susceptibility to vandalism and the addition of spurious or unverified information, though scholarly work suggests that vandalism is generally short-lived, and an investigation in Nature found that the science articles they compared came close to the level of accuracy of Encyclopædia Britannica and had a similar rate of “serious errors”.

Wikipedia’s departure from the expert-driven style of the encyclopedia building mode and the large presence of unacademic content have been noted several times. When Time magazine recognized You as its Person of the Year for 2006, acknowledging the accelerating success of online collaboration and interaction by millions of users around the world, it cited Wikipedia as one of several examples of Web 2.0 services, along with YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook. Some noted the importance of Wikipedia not only as an encyclopedic reference but also as a frequently updated news resource because of how quickly articles about recent events appear. Students have been assigned to write Wikipedia articles as an exercise in clearly and succinctly explaining difficult concepts to an uninitiated audience.

GLENDALE, AZ—ESPN commentator and NU Alum Brent Musburger declared late Monday that the Auburn Tigers have been awarded with all the world’s Tostitos-brand tortilla chips for winning the BCS Championship. Auburn, who clinched the victory with kicker Wes Byrum’s 19-yard field goal, now possesses several hundred thousand bags of Tostitos across the world.

At press time, the street price per ounce of Tostitos chips had shot up to $1,200, leading to a resurgence of the phrase “Worth its weight in cocaine.” Because all of the world’s Tostitos now officially belong to the Auburn football team, the only legal way to get them is to go directly through the team’s management. “It’s been great,” remarked Auburn head coach Gene Chizik, “Our budget now exceeds the GDP of 95% of the world’s nations. With these kinds of numbers, we’ll be able to offer potential athletes deals that they can’t refuse.”

In other news, a local soccer mom (name withheld) has made millions from black-market sales of the corn-based snack food. When interviewed by the Flipside, she said, “I want to thank Brent for this unexpected boon. I went to the mall the other day and bought literally every pair of shoes that they had. I also have plans to invest in oranges, sugar, and roses in preparation for next year’s bowl season.”