There’s an interesting banner headline in USA Today this morning: Bonds Outperform Stocks over 30 Years. It’s surprising for a couple reasons, the first being that it goes against the traditional wisdom that stocks always perform better over time.  As one analyst says, the “tortoise caught the hare.”

It wasn’t quite a message in a bottle, but it was close. After a park ranger was fatally shot last weekend, the Seattle Times says there was a race to warn hikers on Mt. Rainier that an armed and dangerous killer was on the loose. But when pilots couldn’t get their message across with a loudspeaker they went low-tech, and dropped paper coffee cups with warning messages scrawled on them from a chopper.

A Colorado woman is being charged with damaging a $30-million Clyfford Still painting after she allegedly leaned against it while visiting a museum, then “punched it, slid down it and urinated on herself.” According to Denver’s DA, “It doesn’t appear she urinated on the painting or that the urine damaged it, so she’s not being charged with that.” She added, “You have to wonder where her friends were.”

The San Jose Mercury News has a great graphic on its front page this morning, imagining the GOP playfield as a game of Angry Birds. Instead of pigs, the targets are New Hampshire and South Carolina. The headline? Which candidate will slingshot to victory? Classic.

My family’s Christmas obsession happens to be the focus of a New York Times story on social gaming this morning: Writer Seth Schiesel says for some, Words with Friends and other online games are supplanting emails, Facebook messages, even phone calls, as the way to connect with your friends.

I guess when you confuse your hometown’s most famous citizen for a serial killer, you lose some credibility. Michele Bachmann, a native Iowan, has dropped out of the running for the GOP nomination after a poor showing in the Iowa caucus. The Pioneer Press says its unclear whether Bachmann will run for her Congressional seat again after making comments questioning her desire to stay in politics.

That better be a tasty tuna. USA Today says a fish was just sold at Tsukiji, the main fish market in Tokyo, for a whopping $736,000. That makes the tuna, or at least its $1,238 price-per-pound, fatty indeed. The paper says that although the fish was a good one, the big price tag has more to do with the “celebratory atmosphere that surrounds the first auction of the year.”

He finally popped the question. The New York Daily News is reporting the Justin Timberlake finally proposed to his on- and off-again girlfriend, Jessica Biel, this weekend while snowboarding in Wyoming. The couple has been dating since 2007.

Missing Steve Jobs? Well, for $100, you can get one of these creepy plastic toys to keep you company. The action figure is 12 inches tall and comes clad in—what else—a black turtleneck and jeans. You can get one at inicons.com starting in February, but word on the street is that they’ll go fast.

USA Today looks back on the cable TV ratings for 2011 and finds USA Network was the most-watched cable channel again this year, with 6 of the top 20 original series. The others in the top five: Disney, ESPN, TNT, and History Channel, which got a big boost from the success of Pawn Stars.

Prosecutors in Colorado have charged a woman and her husband with bank fraud. They say the woman has incriminating files on her computer but there’s just one problem: They don’t know her password. They’re seeking a court order for her to turn it over, a move the Denver Post says “reframing Fifth Amendment rights in the context of a digital world.”

They’re not bees—they’re zom-bees. The San Jose Mercury News says scientists have discovered a possible reason why honeybee populations are crashing around the world: a parasite that turns them into zombies. According to San Francisco State researchers infected bees go insane, and abandon their hives “in a suicidal rush toward bright lights.” As one researcher puts it: “It’s the flight of the living dead.”

San Jose Mercury tech columnist Chris O’Brien starts off 2012 by coming clean: only 4 of his predictions for 2011 actually came true. Undeterred, he’s trying again this year. He predicts a big spectacular IPO for Facebook, an on-time and well-received electric car from Tesla and a stumble for Apple in Year One A.S. (after Steve.)

The Wall Street Journal has a great workplace story on the glass office in today’s paper. Seems like a good idea if you’re an office designer—but not always favored by the people who work in those offices. One company admits it “underestimated the need for individual privacy for phone calls.”

The New York Post reports on a serious decline in the Martha Stewart empire. Not only is her Hallmark Channel show ending, but Home Depot is dropping distribution of the “Martha” branded paint.

Consumer Reports has a new ranking of top cars, with the focus on “bang for your buck.” The best value award goes to the Honda Fit. The New York Post says it isn’t just the cheapest car that wins the race—there’s a formula to calculate how much car you get for the money.

The Wall Street Journal lines up the various fake sugars on the market for a taste test this morning. Truvia is described as “smelling like cupcake icing.” Splenda is described as having a soap-water quality. Sweet’n Low gets labeled with a “copper pipe aftertaste.”  After those highly appetizing descriptions, one expert reveals that no one has truly cracked the code in developing an artificial sweetener that replaces the taste of sugar. 

It was too close for most papers to call. But in what the Des Moines Register calls a “photo finish,” Mitt Romney has won the country’s first GOP caucus, coming in just 8 points ahead of Rick Santorum. Out of the 122,255 votes cast, Romney won 30,015, while Santorum managed to get 30,007. Ron Paul came in third, followed by Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, and John Huntsman.

In case you didn’t know—gun laws vary across the country. The Tennessean says a Knoxville woman learned that the hard way when she asked to check her loaded handgun while visiting the September 11 memorial in New York. She was promptly arrested for illegal possession of a firearm. The New York Post says local politicians are asking the DA to go easy on the woman.

Terry Eason has two more things on his 2011 to-do list. The St. Paul musician has written a song every day this year. The Pioneer Press says Eason followed some simple rules: each ditty had to be unique, have lyrics and “have some kind of structure.” His favorites? August 19th’s “Hunchback of Notary Public” and February 14th’s “Ready to Lie.”

Bar patrons on the East Coast take the presence of Yuengling for granted. The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette says Indianans with a taste for the Pennsylvania brew are heading to Ohio to get their fix, after it became the most westward state to sell Yuengling in October. 

Well, Christina Aguilera would definitely be out $25 bucks. So would Jimmy Hendrix. The Indianapolis Star says a lawmaker has introduced legislation that would set “performance standards” for “The Star Spangled Banner.” Performers both amateur and professional would have to sign a contract before performing the anthem, and if they deviate from the standard lyrics, they face a whopping $25 fine.

Thank god it’s…wait. It’s not Friday in Samoa. The country, which sits close to the International Date Line switched time zones last night at midnight. The country’s official tourism website says, “In effect we will be waking up on Saturday 31st December 2011, and lose one day in our lives as there will be no Friday 30th December 2011 in the history of Samoa.”

The cable guy has gotten a makeover. The New York Times says as telecom companies diversify into data services and TVs get more sophisticated, so have the people who connect them. “Long depicted as slovenly cranks who dodged growling dogs and tracked mud on the living room carpet, cable guys (and gals) these days often have backgrounds in engineering and computer science.”  In other words, they’re IT guys now.

Where’s the white stuff? There’s a great photo on the front page of USA Today showing a snowless ski resort. Of the 1200 ski trails in Vermont, barely 400 are open—in recent years that number has been closer to 800.

Reviews for the movie “Iron Lady” are mixed—but the praise for Meryl Streep’s performance is widespread. I remember a similar situation when “Julie and Julia” was released. The LA Times says Streep brings “searing insight” to Margaret Thatcher as she ages: “She catches every one of the emotional crosscurrents that get to the truth of the matter.”

A new poll has put Mitt Romney ahead of President Obama by six points. The New York Daily News’s take? “Mitt Happens.”  Forty-five percent of those asked said they’d vote for Romney in the Rasmussen Reports survey—39 percent said they’d back the president.

The New York Times has a great editorial on the idea of giving gift cards for the holidays. Seeing as there’s been about $41 billion in lost gift cards over the last six years, the Times has a suggestion: “May we suggest dispensing with the fig leaf and reaching for the cash.”

There’s a new technology threat to worry about, says the San Jose Mercury News: car hacking. As more cars come tricked out with electronic gadgets, some experts are worried that they are increasingly at risk for cyber attacks. Automakers are aware of the threat and say they are strengthening their products to thwart the efforts of cyber-savvy thieves.

There’s a cure for the holiday blues, says the San Francisco Chronicle. According to scientists at Berkley, all you have to do to have a happy holiday is think happy thoughts. They suggest a recipe with three parts: “feeling grateful for the good things in your life, taking time with your family and using every opportunity you can to help others.”