A slight glitch while using the remote led an Altoona man to a strange television channel called "CNN" last night.

"My thumbs are kinda big and I guess I hit the wrong button, or something," said Vern Gerns. "It was the strangest thing."

The formal name of the station was the "Cable News Network."

"You ever hear of it?" said Gerns. "Nah. Me neither." 

Gerns said his friends or family never heard of the channel, either. 

According to Gerns, the television channel featured 24 hours of news segments. The segments didn't necessarily jibe with reality, making him think initially it was a satire show with that "John Stewart feller."

His wife speculated the channel originated from a foreign country.

"It must have been from France, possibleF," said his wife, Fellicia Gerns. "I never heard of some of those things that were happening. Weird."

Gerns later researched the station. According to his research, CNN was originally the only 24-hour news station on cable, but quickly became the mouthpiece of the Democratic Party and left-leaning organizations.

Gerns said he won't visit the channel again.

"It's kind of like the time my family visited that ghost town," said Gerns. "It was amusing, but I wouldn't want to live there, you know."

The Democratic-controlled Congress pulled back from a jobs bill as it became more evident that it may cause more people to become unemployed, namely them.

"We're going to need to re-think this jobs bill and additional pork-barrel spending, as it appears that some American people may suffer," said Senator Harry Reid. "And those American people just happen to be in Congress."

Reid worries that this group would be especially hard hit by job loss since most members of Congress have no talent or skills. 

In addition, most businesses hire people to make them money, not to spend money, Reid explained.

A new bill may include provisions to create green jobs for unemployed politicians. Reid said green jobs include both bribery and graft.

Reid is one of the more popular Congress members; he currently enjoys an 8 percent approval rating in his home state of Las Vegas.

"Hell, I'm almost in double digits," said Reid. "Most Democrats can't say that."

 Danny Flood said he just came to pay his respects to a pillar of the community.

Flood, who owns a Johnstown defense contract that received millions in earmarks to develop a laser-guided musket, will join hundreds of other area bureaucrats and sycophants who will mourn the passing of a giant check.

The giant check has been welcomed into inefficient businesses and unneeded government offices since 1969.

"I'm gonna miss that guy," said Flood, wiping away a tear. "He really propped us up."

Flood said he worries how the economy will respond to the loss of such an important political figure.

"I was just talking to my friend at the Chamber of Commerce. He runs a paperwork creation business and he said he's thinking of actually making and selling products in the marketplace," said Flood. "That's what it's coming down to."

Grant and proposal writers are particularly hard hit. 

"I started out as a novelist," said Babs Karchek, who works as a grant writer for a defense contractor-slash-coffee shop. "But there was just more money in writing grants."

Behind Karchek, there are several photos of the grant writer standing with giant check.

Flags will hang at half-mast in Pennsylvania to commemorate the passing of giant check.

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter (Democrat, for now) is finding it harder and harder to antagonize new voting blocks.

The senator, who's managed to upset feminists, anti-feminists, Republicans, Democrats, conspiracy theorists, bald people, and people named Arlen, is trying to connect with new voters, in order to turn his back on them.

"I don't know what more I can do," Specter said at a recent national prayer breakfast for Veterans of anti-American Insurgencies."I stand by my record of offending both sides of the aisle and some people who are across the aisle, down the hall, and in another room."

Specter even backed Martha, or Marsha, or Mary Coakley over eventual winner, Scott Brown.

Specter's campaign manager, Salvador Daly, said the senator is not ready to give up.

"We can still piss off more people and totally wreck any semblance of his political legacy," said Daly. "The team spends every waking moment trying to find one more demographic, one more religious group, one more political ideology who we can offend."

When pressed, Daly said they are possibly going after, "cripples and midgets."

The one bit of good news for the campaign: Specter recently picked up the endorsement of Phil Spector, who appreciates the name recognition and Arlen's hatred of women.