“You can laugh,” said Facebook expert and online pro football prognosticator, movie star Justin Lonelyhearts, “but millions and millions of people were unable to send heartfelt birthday wishes to ‘friends’ they had not seen or spoken to in decades.”

“What’s the fun in buying shoes if I can’t tell my 897 Facebook friends that I’m buying shoes?” asked a Facebook user identified only as “Kendra.”

“I was in a line in a Caribou Coffee in Atlanta, waiting for a spiced latte,” said Facebook fan Anthony, “and I wasn’t able to tell anyone. Bummer.”

Facebook officials explained the shutdown, saying the system was “experiencing latency issues,” which quickly cleared up any confusion.

Millions of Americans who are not on Facebook had no idea what all the fuss was about.

”But we see them getting into other areas. For example, they could issue a report that says the Chicago Cubs aren’t doing too badly, despite not having won a World Series in 100 years.

“And what about BP, Toyota, Lindsay Lohan? They could use a little good news, huh?”

The reasoning behind NEBR having its clock stopped 15 months ago is buried in pie charts, bar graphs and the production-possibility frontier (PPF).

“You probably skipped class that day,” said Greenbacks. “We're pretty sure the panel has not seen any actual people since the summer of ’09 which, by the way, was about the time Michael Jackson passed away.”

Smokey is semi-retired these days, living in suburban Cleveland. “Don’t go in the woods much,” he told the Tattler. “Too scary.”

Meanwhile, according to experts on stupid human behavior, “inattention to surroundings” has made a trip to the pizza parlor as dangerous as white water rafting.

“It may be annoying to see that soccer Mom unloading the kids on the wrong side of the Chevy Tahoe in front of the middle school while chatting on the phone,” said Eloise Doofus of the Outa My Society (OMYS), “but it’s your responsibility to watch out for her. Deal with it.

“It’s the constitutional right of all Americans to cross busy streets while paying no attention to traffic if they are engaged in making lunch plans or posting on Facebook.”

It appears that many Americans believe the President and his advisers have conspired with climatologists, tree-huggers, UNICEF, Kenyan farmers, community activists, Stephen Hawking and others to make it get darker sooner.

“That is what people are saying,” said Sunspots. “We’re just talking about what we’re hearing on my popular panel show, ‘It’s All His Fault.’”

Activists around the country have begun organizing a “Relight America” event in which hundreds of thousands of people will gather at sunset to protest the Obama Administration’s failure to make the daylight last longer.

“We were thinking of doing it in Key West, where they really like their sunsets,” Sunspots told the Tattler, “but we’re not sure it’s our kind of crowd.

“Names get tossed around. Oprah. Rahm Emanuel. Many people believe the Blues Brothers could do a good job at City Hall, maybe as a team, but no one knows what happened to Jake and Elwood.”

In the Daley family neighborhood of Bridgeport on the South Side, reaction to the news was fueled by a heightened consumption of Old Style beer, the local favorite.

A man who identified himself only as Tim was enjoying a frosty can of Old Style while sitting in his “Streets and Sanitation” truck as his colleagues stared at a pothole.

“I work for da city and my Dad worked for da city,” Tim said. “He talked to the real Mayor Daley once, 1959 I think it was, outside Comiskey Park at a White Sox game. We hate da Cubs.”

Tim said he would be voting in the next election, depending on the direction he gets at work.

“Doesn’t Richie have a brother?” he wanted to know.