Local infant Carina Bear is incredibly fortunate. She has no idea what’s going on with politics, or society in general. She has no concept of increasing polarization in her country’s political discourse. She had no mental picture of the country to shatter in the first place. She’s only barely come to understand object permanence. She’s never read any fake news. She’s still trying to learn the alphabet song.

She has never voted. She’s never deleted an email. She doesn’t even know what that means. She doesn’t even care. She doesn’t know what Russia is. Or China. She has no idea what it was like to live through the Cold War. She likes to watch Elmo. She didn’t notice when Gwen Ifill stopped anchoring daddy’s boring news show that comes on before Daniel Tiger.

She doesn’t know which bathroom other people think she’s supposed to use. She doesn’t care. Her parents will be thrilled the day she manages to use any bathroom at all.

This poor child has no clue.

Carina never lived in a world where David Bowie was alive. She doesn’t know the difference. She has no idea how big an influence Bowie was on the guy who sings her favorite animal songs on YouTube. She isn’t aware who Alan Rickman was either. She’ll find out when her parents make her watch the Harry Potter series in a few years. Gene Wilder may as well be Groucho Marx as far as she’s concerned. She can tell that mommy gets a little sad when Princess Leia comes on the screen these days, but she doesn’t know why. She likes Chewbacca.

Carina is going to have a good 2017. She’s going to learn a lot of new words. She’ll hear all kinds of songs she’s never heard before. She’ll go places she’s never been and do all kinds of things she’s never done. Years from now, when people say “Wasn’t 2016 awful?”, she’ll shrug and say she honestly doesn’t remember any of it.

As many as 2.8 million homes could be underwater by 2035, according to a new study by the American Pediatric Flood Prevention Society. The cause? Toddler baths.

The areas hardest hit will be the coastline along Florida, Louisiana, California, and your son’s bathroom, the study warned. “We have known for some time that this issue was looming,” says scientist Nikki Reacher, watching over her son Troy, 2, in the bath. “But now we’ve reached the point of no return.”

Environmental impacts from bathing toddlers are nothing new. In 2008, a group of particularly splashy tots near Flagstaff displaced 2.8 billion gallons of water into a nearby valley, creating what local residents have come to call Lake Tub Tub. The flood submerged 40 homes and 37 Starbucks. The Army Corps of Engineers was called in to assess the situation, but have so far been unable to rectify the situation for fear of the ecological impact.

Splish splash, I was causing widespread devastation.

“Southwestern diamondback egrets have taken to nesting by Lake Tub Tub,” says Lt. Col. Alfred West. “This is their only stop when migrating from El Paso to Tahoe, so if we remove this source of water, this species of water fowl could become endangered.”

In spite of increasing occurrences of these toddlergenic inundations, some lawmakers are skeptical. Florida state representative Floyd Barker (R) recently staged a 19-hour filibuster blocking a bill requiring splash guards around bathtubs where toddlers are known to frequent. “I don’t know exactly what this is,” proclaimed Barker, holding up a thick glob of glossy brown gelatin, “but I found it in my son’s hair this morning.” He continued, “This is clear evidence that toddlers aren’t bathing. Toddler bathing is a conspiracy of the radical left.”

Legislation or no, the APFPS report paints a worrying picture of the near future. Our pristine coastlines may soon be submerged under lagoons filled with bubble bath.

In a surprise press release Friday afternoon, the GRAMMYs announced that they are adding a new award to their 2017 lineup: Best Online Daddy Finger Video.

To qualify, videos must be uploaded to YouTube and feature at least five (5) trademarked characters used without permission of their owners. “Trademark infringement is really a key aesthetic quality of the genre,” says GRAMMYs Second Assistant Executive Director Javier Michael Olivier III. “The other quality we look for is unique pronunciation.” To excel, the lyrics must be pronounced as though the singer has never been exposed to English, but only read about it in a faded newspaper.

Music Award by Anniken & Andreas from the Noun Project
Hand by chris dawson from the Noun Project

“My art doesn’t need the external validation,” says YouTuber Franklin Turberson, who goes by the handle @l33tFr34k69. “But it’s nice to see the genre getting some recognition from the mainstream.” Turberson produced one of the classics of the genre, “Spider Mann Daddy Finger Lullaby (56min)”.

Others are less excited about what they see as the “gentrification” of Daddy Finger. “These guys are sellouts, man,” according to an anonymous YouTube commenter with the username @FingerCore. “It used to be about the art. Now they’re just trying to get views!”

But while there is clearly some controversy, it’s clear that the new Grammy award is bringing some fresh attention to the once obscure style. Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day announced in July he would be producing a Broadway adaptation of the classic “Danny L Tiger Finger Baby Video Song”. It will be opening in the fall of 2017.

Fremont, CA - At an invitation-only event on Tuesday near Tesla’s factory, CEO Elon Musk unveiled Tesla’s most ambitious energy product yet - Tesla Tot.

Tesla Tot is a new battery technology that works by harnessing the energy from small children. “The first version of Tesla Tot captures just enough manic energy to offset charging an electric car,” according to the genius inventor/probable time traveller. “But by 2025, we expect that all of California could be powered by the energy of a single two-year-old who skipped nap time.” The energy output of a human child is roughly 1000 times that of a fully grown hamster.

However, some are worried that Tesla may be moving too quickly. “Driving with a spare toddler in your car may be too distracting for drivers,” says Sharon Castiglione, president of Parent Against Raising Robot Overlords Today (PARROT), a Tesla watchdog group. Musk dismissed these concerns. “We are telling every Tesla Tot owner it’s their responsibility to keep their eyes on their Tot and be prepared to grab them at all times.”

Baby by Hea Poh Lin from the Noun Project
Medium Battery by ✦ Shmidt Sergey ✦ from the Noun Project

Investors had a lukewarm reaction to the announcement, with the stock rising only slightly in after-hours trading. Some are expressing concern that bringing thousands of toddlers into Tesla’s new Gigafactory might prove disruptive to the plant’s operations. The factory’s massive robots will need to be retooled not to pinch tiny fingers.

Others point to Tesla’s history of missing their overly optimistic deadlines. Some worry that by the time Tesla Tot ships, their fleet of two-year-olds could be closer to five. That would mean a significant depletion of chaotic energy, but still might be more than enough for most consumers.

Tesla Tot is expected to ship in Summer 2017, and will cost approximately $245,340 over the lifetime of the child.

Call me old fashioned, but I will only buy toys for my child that are appropriate to their gender, and that gender is David Bowie. It doesn’t matter if they play with cars or dolls, as long as they are Bowie cars and Bowie dolls.

And of course, Bowie cartoons.

I mean, how will little Ziggy grow up to be a true Space Oddity without appropriate role models?

Sorry, Target. It’s great that you got rid of those antiquated signs for “Boys” and “Girls”, but I’m not stepping foot inside your store until you have a clearly labeled aisle for Bowie children.

It’s my right as a parent to decide how and where my baby poops.

Most sheeple out there just go along with what Big Diaper is telling them about poop. But these ignorant people need to educate themselves about healthy, natural alternatives to defecation.

You see, they don’t want you to know this, but disposable diapers are made of chemicals. One of the scariest types of chemicals in diapers are dioxins. One kind of dioxin is the active ingredient in Agent Orange. Sure, it’s not the same dioxin that’s found in diapers. And yes, you get more dioxins from your food than you would ever get from a diaper. But why take the risk?

And cloth diapers aren’t much better. Sure, a nice natural organic cotton diaper won’t have all those artificial toxins. But cloth diapers don’t magically clean themselves. And you know what they use to clean cloth diapers? Yep, you guessed it. Chemicals.

And did you know that nearly 100% of children who’ve gotten diabetes had worn a diaper at some point in their childhood? I’m not saying there’s a causal link, but clearly diapers give children diabetes. Sure, some doctors will say that’s not how statistics works, but that’s just like, their opinion, man. And even if there’s no way that a single diaper could give a child diabetes, just keep in mind just how many diapers a child gets during their infancy. Do you even know exactly how many diapers a child gets? Because if you don’t know, then clearly you’re an uninformed sheeple. So yeah, clearly even if a parent chooses to use diapers, they should be allowed to space them out to say, one diaper a month. That’s just common sense.

Why doesn’t the media or government tell you any of this? Well, Kimberly-Clark, the parent company of Huggies made over $21 billion last year. That’s more than enough money to keep politicians and media companies firmly in the pocket of Big Diaper.

So what are we informed, non-sheeple parents supposed to do to keep our kids safe? This is why my family practices what we call Paleo Pooping. We don’t use diapers or pants of any kind, and just let our son poop wherever he wants, even in public. It’s a nice, natural alternative to dangerous diapers. In the millions of years that man existed before diapers were invented, this is what everyone did, and obviously everyone was happier and healthier back then. Do you think that humanity has devolved to such an extent that we need plastic pouches just to contain our poop? What’s next, having to mill out chunks of glass to strap to our face, just to be able to see?

Poop is good. Poop is natural. Pooping on the ground helps make flowers, and what is better than flowers? Sure, it may be inconvenient for others, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to risk the health of my little one for something as trivial as public health.

And because of our healthy diet, of course my child’s poop doesn’t stink. Okay, it does stink, but in like, a good way. After all, what could smell better than a natural healthy lifestyle?

 1. Hairline. Newborns look just like Jason Statham or Stannis Baratheon or some other dude that’s totally hot but you’re embarassed to say it because he’s like totally old like 40 or 70 or whatever.

 2. They smell bad. Like, not all old men, but you know, there’s always that creepy older dude in the family that has the impossibly bad breath? It’s like he needs to go to the dentist, but he doesn’t even have teeth, so what’s rotting in there? Don’t you clean your dentures? Yeah, your breath smells like a baby’s diapers.

 3. No bladder control. Aww, this one just made me sad. We’re all gonna be wearing Depends some day, but you know, just rest assured that it won’t be the first time you pee on yourself by a long shot. At least when you’re geezin’ you won’t accidentally pee in your own face while you’re getting your diaper changed. Right? You know what, don’t answer that.

 4. They snore. This baby’s not overweight, but he’s sawing logs like 50-year-old in a recliner. Likewise, a baby will wake up just long enough to fart and then go back to sleep. Remind you of anyone?

And we're not just talking about that creepy Jonathan Winters character on Mork and Mindy.

 5. Only eat mush/liquids. Geez! This is supposed to be a comedy article. Why does it have to be so damned depressing? I mean, I was on a liquid diet for like a month, and I had to teach myself how to play the blues just to cope with it. No wonder newborns are grumpy all the time.

 6. Inappropriate behavior. I’m just saying. We let babies and senior citizens get away with a lot. “He doesn’t know any better.” “That’s just how they used to talk in the 1940s.” Yeah, right. I guess if Buzz Aldrin grabbed your boobs, you’d just be all “Aww, he’s so cute!”

 7. Don’t have to work. Babies just sit on ass all day and get fed. I wish I could just sit on ass. Maybe some day…