Subject: Daily Dose - 060308 - Bullshit issue from "The Onion"
Today's satire collected from
"The Onion". Don't get your knickers in a twist....
*****
MythBusters Team Struck Down By Zeus
November 30, 2005 | Issue 41•48
SAN FRANCISCO—MythBusters hosts Adam
Savage and Jamie Hyneman, who dared challenge the sacred explanations of the
order of the universe, were destroyed by Zeus Monday.
"I soared ascending to the
ethereal sky, and by merest nod massed a fearsome storm, and with mine
lightnings struck down the naysayers Adam and Jamie," Zeus said in a press
conference called to warn all doubters of his thunderous might.
The MythBusters producers have
issued a statement apologizing to the entire Olympian community and declared
that, from now on, the program will focus only on myths unrelated to the Greek,
Egyptian, or Norse pantheons.
______________________________
New PSA Reduces Accidental Staplings
By 33 Percent
September 28, 2005 | Issue 41•39
WASHINGTON, DC—In the wake of a
campaign launched by the Occupational Safety And Health Administration this
spring, accidental stapling incidents among U.S. office workers have fallen by
one-third.
"We're pleased that 'Stop,
Look, and Swingline!' has done so much to promote public awareness of office-stapler
safety," said OSHA head Jonathan Snare. "Our primary areas of concern
are the fingertips and the delicate thumb-forefinger webbing."
OSHA was inspired to make the film
after a 2002 PSA was credited with reducing the number of manila-file-foldering
fatalities by 20 percent.
______________________________
Halliburton Given Contract To
Rebuild Cheney
October 5, 2005 | Issue 41•40
WASHINGTON, DC—Halliburton was
awarded an $85.5 million contract to rebuild damaged U.S. Vice President Dick
Cheney Monday.
"We are proud to serve the
executive branch in their hour of need," CEO David J. Lesar wrote in a
statement released later that day. "Due to our vast experience with
oil-well fires and refinery mishaps, we are well-versed in the sort of reinforcement,
rewiring, and exoskeleton refitting Mr. Cheney so desperately needs."
The Department of Ways and Means
defended awarding the contract to Halliburton on the grounds that they had done
the original work on Cheney in the 1970s.
______________________________
Adult-Entertainment Industry Donates
$100,000 In Charity Sex To Hurricane Victims
October 5, 2005 | Issue 41•40
VAN NUYS, CA—Citing the need for a
"nationwide outpouring of love," the American Adult Entertainment
Foundation announced Monday that it will donate $100,000 worth of charity sex
to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
"We have truckloads of willing,
wild, and wet porn-industry professionals heading to refugee centers right now
to take it in every hole from Katrina survivors," said AAEF spokeslut
Vivica Vixxxen. "We're ready for a no-holes-barred orgy of disaster-relief
action."
Vixxxen added: "Of course,
we'll wait until the victims are rehydrated and rested up enough to manage
it."
______________________________
New Orleans Struck By Meteorite
October 19, 2005 | Issue 41•42
NEW ORLEANS—A tractor-trailer-sized
meteorite struck downtown New Orleans late Monday night with comparable force
to that of a small nuclear device.
"The impact caused floodwaters
in the area to vaporize, scalding everything in a four-mile radius with
radioactive steam," said Claude Wyncoll of the U.S. Naval Observatory.
"Burning debris shot into the troposphere, then rained down across the
Gulf Coast, causing property damage and countless casualties as far away as
Gulfport [MS]."
FEMA and National Guard personnel
are unable to enter the city, as the lava flow resulting from the meteorite's
deep penetration of the Earth's crust has blocked all routes.
______________________________
Latest Jihad Has Something For
Everyone
October 19, 2005 | Issue 41•42
SANA'A, YEMEN—Leaders of the New
Mujahideen jihadist movement say their latest holy war should appeal to people
from all walks of Muslim life.
"If you like bombing, bomb
manufacturing, effigy-burning, maintaining inflammatory websites, or just
'hajjing out,' the Nu Mooj has something for you!" read a statement on the
group's home page. "Jihad is better when friends come together!"
The Nu Mooj is expected to recruit
several hundred like-minded fanatics to their holy cause of fighting Western
imperialism before factional violence tears it apart later this year.
______________________________
Sharon's Neurotransmitters Reach
Cease-Fire Agreement
January 25, 2006 | Issue 42•04
JERUSALEM—After more than 77 years
under constant fire, the neurotransmitters of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon's brain could be nearing a truce.
"These endless, often senseless
patterns of never-ending discharge must come to an end," a spokesman for
Sharon's neurostructure told reporters. "Activity has already slowed
considerably since the violent blood-clot explosion in his brain earlier this
month. We expect a total cessation of cranial nerve firings within two
weeks."
Observers are unsure whether the
cease-fire will bring peace to Sharon's war-torn cranial region, but they
remain guardedly optimistic.
______________________________
Rotten News.... (true)
Oprah Stuns Audience With Free Man
Giveaway
September 21, 2005 | Issue 41•38
CHICAGO—The season premiere of The
Oprah Winfrey Show unleashed a surprise for viewers Monday, when host Winfrey
presented her studio audience with an unexpected gift: eligible men.
"Everybody gets a man!
Everybody gets a man!" said Winfrey, almost drowned out by cries of
disbelief as 276 men, one for every member of the studio audience, filed onto
the Oprah set.
Hoping to top last year's
season-debut surprise, when members of the studio audience received free cars,
Winfrey watched elated as the men knelt before their awestruck new mates and
delivered gallant kisses and professions of undying affection.
"Signed, sealed, delivered...
they're yours!" Winfrey said.
Hand-picked by Winfrey and her
staff, the men range in age from 29 to 63 and were described by assistant
producer Sally Heffernan-Ross as "great catches" with
semi-professional to professional careers and stable personalities.
The men, dressed in fresh chinos and
polo shirts and bearing single red roses and gift baskets from Bath & Body
Works, emerged moments after audience members were instructed to reach beneath
their chairs, where they found inlaid boxes containing keys.
The keys, Winfrey explained,
unlocked the doors to the men's individual domiciles.
"He's yours! He's completely
yours!" Winfrey said to one speechless young woman who appeared stunned by
what was going on around her. Assuring "no months of awkward dating"
or "questions over who's going to make the first move," Winfrey said
her man giveaway had totally eliminated the guesswork of romance.
Harpo Productions, Winfrey's
production company, assured the winners that their prizes are guaranteed to
"be into [them]" through 2010, and agreed to pay all local and state
taxes relating to the men, as well. However, federal income tax and expenses
such as meals, movie tickets, motel stays, teddy bears, plush slippers, and
commitment rings will not be covered.
*************
Terrorist Has No Idea What To Do
With All This Plutonium
November 30, 2005
ZAHEDAN, IRAN—Yaquub Akhtar, the
leader of an eight-man cell linked to a terrorist organization known as the
Army Of Martyrs, admitted Tuesday that he "doesn't have the slightest
clue" what to do with the quarter-kilogram of plutonium he recently
acquired.
.
"We had just given thanks to Allah for this glorious means to destroy the
Great Satan once and for all, when [sub-lieutenant] Mahmoud [Ghassan] asked,
'So, what's the next step?'" Akhtar said. "I was at a loss."
The 28-year-old fanatic said he and
his associates had initially assumed that at least one member of their group
had the physics and engineering background necessary to construct a
thermonuclear device.
"Many eyes were upon me,"
said Basim Aljawad, whose knowledge of physics did not extend to the principles
of nuclear fission. "I make nail bombs. That's it."
Not knowing where to turn, the eight
men consulted the Muslim holy book the Quran, which proved unhelpful. Said
Akhtar: "Even Umar Abd al-Malik, who interprets the ancient scripture more
freely than the rest of us, could not find an instructive passage."
Morale was temporarily buoyed when
cell member Dawoud Bishr, a former student at the Sorbonne in Paris, was found
intently examining the exposed plutonium, which he had lifted from its
protective lead footlocker. Two days later, however, the others had to bury
Bishr in a landfill outside the city.
Akhtar, in hiding in a small,
spartan cellar in one of Zahedan's poorer neighborhoods, said that the only use
he's found for the encased lethal substance so far is as a flat surface on
which to lay out a map of a government armory outside Islamabad and a large
piece of paper to make a blueprint for transferring the plutonium to an
effective delivery system.
"I drew a circle to represent
the plutonium," Akhtar said. "Then I drew a line pointing to it, and
beside it wrote 'plutonium.' After that, I just hit a wall."
Akhtar and his associates initially
planned to create a "suitcase bomb," but soon after they obtained the
plutonium, they learned that such bombs weigh over 700 pounds, and are
therefore too heavy for any of them to lift alone.
Said Akhtar: "The only thing
this weapon of mass destruction is destroying right now is our ability to kill
infidels."
"I have heard many in the corrupt
Western media say that Muslim terrorists have acquired harmful radioactive
materials that can be readily deployed," al-Malik said. "Whoever this
terrorist group is that's all but ready to strike America with a nuclear
device, we sure could use their help."
Unable to search for bomb-making
instructions on his laptop for fear of being monitored, Akhtar has been forced
to send another of his sub-lieutenants, 23-year-old Ibraheem Jaalal, to a local
Internet café in hopes of acquiring the necessary data. According to Jaalal,
the process so far has proven "unbearably slow" and
"outrageously expensive," claiming he can't believe the coffee shop
charges $4.95 for an hour of dial-up-speed Internet use.
The cell's lack of contacts with
professional scientists and engineers has also undermined their bomb-building
efforts. "A friend of mine at university studied metallurgy," Jaalal
said. "I have his e-mail address, but I can't just write him and say, 'Oh,
hello, Suleymann, long time no see. Say, I'm a terrorist now, and I was
wondering: How do you go about building a nuclear bomb?'"
After three days without progress,
the plutonium, once a source of pride for Akhtar and the other men, has
increasingly become a fountain of frustration.
"I guess we got carried away
with the idea of making a nuclear weapon before thinking the whole thing
through," said Akhtar, who admitted that even if he "could bombard
that plutonium nuclei with enough electrons, whatever those are," getting
the bomb to North America would prove another logistical mess.
"I still believe in taking the
lives of American civilians as revenge for the atrocities committed on our
brothers, our wives, and our daughters," Akhtar said. "I'm just not
entirely sure it's worth a headache this big."
******************
Fritolaysia Cuts Off Chiplomatic
Relations With Snakistan
November 30, 2005
KARUNCHI, SNAKISTAN—Citing crumbling
relations due to years of protracted french-onion diplomacy, the president of
the Central Asian doritocracy Fritolaysia withdrew the country's ambassadors
from Snakistan Monday.
"We have been supplying the
people of Snakistan with pre-packaged consumable goods for over 40 years, and
for them to show resistance to our savory products is unacceptable,"
Fritolaysian President Barbbaku Chedar said, referring to Snakistani officials'
unwillingness to adhere to Fritolaysia's zesty new initiative introduced during
a between-meals conference at last week's international-trading summit held in
München, Germany.
"Fritolaysia has no choice but
to crumple up and throw away all chiplomatic ties with the greedy, gluttonous
government of Snakistan," Chedar added.
Relations between the two countries
grew stale in 1994, when Fritolaysian rufflelutionaries crossed zestablished
borders and forced Snakistan to dispatch cheesekeeping forces. The late-night
SALTY talks held at Snakistan's Kuler Ranch, however, cooled the spicy conflict
with the signing of the historic Buttermilk Compromise, which established
bilateral chiplomacy and regulated trade flows by setting the international
Rold Gold standard of currency.
The dispute over increased prices
and decreased serving sizes escalated when Snakistan, swayed by the influence
of the nation's healthiest 1 percent, signed a historic fat-free-trade
agreement with the Yogurtslavian nation of Colombo. Preparing for a long and
grueling war of nutrition, Fritolaysia imposed trade snacktions and set up a
blockade of Snakistan's major ports, cutting off their commerce with Yumen,
Mmmmadagascar, and the Chex Republic.
According to internoshonal-relations
expert Grady Freedman, Snakistan's reliance on, and craving for, Fritolaysia's
delicious exports will likely force their chargé d'éclaires to re-establish
ties with Fritolaysia's government and draw up a late-night treaty.
"The only option besides bowing
to Fritolaysia's demands is to begin trading with the extreme funyunmentalist
people of Utzonia," Freedman said, referring to the Blandinavian nation
that offers similar but less-satisfying goods for cheaper exchange rates.
"But deals with the Utzonians always leave a funny taste in your mouth."
With much of his country fearing
that the rift with Snakistan could lead to a family-size conflict, Snakistan's
President Ghulam Murtaza Pringle, whose pork-rind-barrel legislation and 2002
negotiations with international spambassadors earned him the Hormel Peace Prize,
said his country cannot live without a strong, flavorful relationship with
Snakistan.
"I am sending hundreds of
chiplomats to Fritolaysia in the hopes that something can be worked out,"
Pringle said. "Even if we have to dig in and get our hands a little
greasy, we aim to hunker down, preferably on a couch."