EVANSTON – Late last Saturday night, one of the leaders of the pro-diversity student group “The Collective” walked in on the Northwestern ski team’s “Racist Olympics” party, creating what awkwardologists are calling the “pinnacle of human awkwardness.”

Partygoers were encouraged to wear offensive racial outfits; for example, the South African team wore white t-shirts and black pants to symbolize the “white on top, black on bottom” social dynamic of the country. To say that this created an awkward moment when non-white students learned of the party is a severe understatement.

“It is simply quite astounding,” said Dr. David Howard, one of the top scientists and professors at Harvard University’s Awkward Sciences Program. “The awkward blast from the sudden confrontation of a diversity leader walking in on a bunch of elitist white people making fun of everything he stands for was just over 9.75 Michaelcerawatts.”

In layman’s terms, a single Michaelcerawatt is a unit of extreme awkwardness. The blast’s power was roughly equivalent to walking in on your parents having S&M sex in your room, while simultaneously farting really loudly in front of your crush, while accidentally going on a blind date with your ex. Also, for the purposes of the measurement, you are Michael Cera.

Witnesses say that the official confrontation was so awkward, nobody on the ski team was able to form a coherent, grumble free sentence for days. One ping pong ball that was midair actually stopped its flight path and fell straight down due to sheer embarrassment. According to Flipside sources, every single conversation in a five mile radius suddenly stopped for at least 45 seconds due to the blast.

The awkward-blast’s aftershock registered at 7.8 Michaelcerawatts when the ski team released a letter apologizing only for getting caught.

WASHINGTON – After seeing the Star Wars-like hologram of the late rapper Tupac Shakur at Coachella, Republicans were so enticed by the technology that they decided to purchase their own hologram projector. Republicans are using their new machine in the GOP National Office to project Ronald Regan 24/7.

Since last Monday, hologram Reagan has been repeating the phrases “Cut Taxes”, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”, and “Trickle-down economics is good economics!”

When asked why the GOP made the purchase, former Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich commented “Yea, we’re not crazy, we know that he’s dead, but… it can’t hurt to pretend, could it?”

Sarah Palin had to be removed from the room for repeated attempts to hug the hologram. Seeing her arms go through him, she would fall to her knees and weep, see the hologram with fresh eyes, and try again. “I know it’s not real, I just wanted to believe,” she explained.

In response, Democrats are already in the process of developing their FDR hologram to compete with the Reagan hologram. When completed, the hologram should be capable of reminding everyone about the New Deal and how it totally worked and how awesome it was. “It’s just nice to be reminded every now and then,” says President Obama.

EVANSTON – With January halfway over, Northwestern University experienced its first snowfall of winter quarter last Thursday, much to the excitement of stupid, stupid freshmen.

“I am, like, so excited for all this snow!” exclaimed well-meaning-yet-slightly-dim Weinberg freshman Jessica Garber. “I grew up in SoCal, so I’m super pumped for this snowfall. Literally every upperclassman I know has told me how shitty the weather gets here, but I’m sure the snow will be awesome forever.”

“Snow is so unbelievably fun,” says the inexperienced freshman Jonathan Tam. “The first thing I’m going to do is build a snowman, then have a snowball fight, then maybe even make an igloo.”

“And I am definitely going to continue doing these activities until the spring, because I am absolutely NEVER going to get bored of snow!” he continues.

According to reports from other universities, such as University of Chicago, University of Colorado, and McGill University, freshmen across higher education are similarly excited over the prospect of having to wade through frozen water covering every imaginable outdoor surface for the next several months.

Scientists here at Northwestern are working diligently to find the reason behind stupid freshmen’s excitement at the prospect of being completely surrounded by a cold, wet, omnipresent substance.

One researcher, Dr. David Summerfeld, notes: “All we know is that sometime between now and March, freshmen will go through a metamorphosis, much like that of a caterpillar, where they develop a healthier fear-and-hate relationship with the snow, just as nature intended. What evolutionary purpose the first-snowfall naïvete serves is still a baffling adaptation.”

EVANSTON – As Northwestern students are welcomed back to school for the 2012 winter quarter, people are looking forward to the new crop of pledges into the Greek system. However, some NU students are participating in a new fad sweeping the nation, the Fantasy Sorority League, or FSL for short.

Based on more well-known fantasy sports, such as fantasy football or baseball, the FSL records important statistics from both the pledging side and the recruiting side of the sorority recruitment process. Some of the more prominent stats include the number of eating disorders induced, a calculated “bitchiness index,” cup size, skirt length, and tear count per hysterical outburst.

“Its just a really fun, intense game,” says FSL champion Jake DiMartin. “There’s nothing more addictive in the world. When I’m watching the girls line up outside Willard, every time I see a Freshman I drafted need to excuse herself to puke in some bushes, I think ‘Nice! 5 points!’”

Members of the Sorority system have very different opinions of the game than the players. As President of Kappa Gamma Alpha, Brenda Delome, put it, “Yea, statistics are nice, but it’s just not what the game’s about.”

When asked to comment on her franchise record of 547 judgmental stares last season, Delome commented “At the end of the day, these records and statistics are just numbers, and it can really hurt the team when they’re all you think about. All I really want to do is psychologically scar some people, and isn’t that what rushing’s all about?”

WASHINGTON — In the wake of Herman Cain’s sex scandal, Newt Gringrich has surged to the top of the polls as the new Republican front-runner for the 2012 election. Ron Paul, a longtime Congressman from Texas, is not happy with the recent turn of events.

“This is bullshit,” says Paul. “My turn was totally after Cain’s.”

When the campaigning began earlier this year, Michelle Bachmann was quick to call dibs on the leader position, winning the Iowa Straw Poll. The rest of the Republicans quickly followed suit, with Perry second in line, followed by Herman Cain, Ron Paul, then finally Newt Gingrich.

Santorum and Huntsman were unable to obtain a place in line, due to the fact that everybody kind of assumed that they were joking about their candidacies during that point in the election.

Gingrich was able to take Paul’s reserved spot as leader by invoking the “cutsies” loophole to the Dibs Contract. Then, in what has been perhaps the trickiest political move of the campaign thus far, the former Speaker of the House secured the “No Backsies” clause to assure his dominance in the polls.

Paul will be given his turn to be relevant next month, when Gingrich is contractually obligated to do something stupid and lose his standings in the polls.

When asked to comment, current runner-up Mitt Romney said “I really don’t even care who’s winning anymore. Can the GOP just admit I’m the only real candidate so we can move on?”

According to recent polls, no, they cannot.