News of the News

KIM’S HAPPY PLACE, Pyongyang, Wednesday (NNN) — North Korea has threatened to carry out nuclear missile tests unless the UN Security Council apologises for its “unseemly snickering” at their recent rocket launch falling into the sea.

“The communications satellite was successfully launched and is fulfilling its mission, sending transmissions from Pacific Ocean life in deep space,” a Pyongyang communiqué said today. “If the UN does not take back its grievous slanders, we will be forced to retaliate with the full force of our mighty nuclear arsenal. Our dad will beat up your dad too.”

North Korea conducted its first and only nuclear test in 2006, described as “completely successful” and “revealing new dimensions in gunpowder science.”

North Korea’s foreign ministry also said “the UN should apologise for infringing our sovereignty, retract all its resolutions and decisions against us and stop being big meanies. It’s so unfair!”

It also announced plans to build a light-water nuclear reactor, a domestic robot, a flying car and a “really cool thing we haven’t finished drawing yet, but expect to have ready soon as our great nation continues to make tremendous advances in crayon science.”

Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il announced a glorious 30% increase in industrial output and a 35% increase in food production as the cardboard ran out and the factories started shaping raw contaminated mud into loaves. South Korea sighed at the news and looked forward to a peace dividend similar to that reaped by Germany in 1990 when the North finally collapses and they have to clean up the mess.

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W 40th STREET, New York 10018, Tuesday (NNN) — Beleaguered Internet advertising phirm Phorm is hitting back at critics with StopPhoulPlay.com, in an attempt to lure Internet activists into herniating from laughter.

“It is clear that the campaign against Phorm originates in the sinister manipulations of Alex Hanff and Marcus Williamson,” said Kent Ertegun, CEO of Phorm, “who have used mind control lasers and the killer robot armies of the Open Rights Group and FIPR to deceive millions of Britons into a Communistic fervor of hatred against the engines of the free market and customer demand, the salesmen and marketers, the true creators and enablers of objective value.”

The website, designed in Microsoft Word, uses the infallible public relations format so successfully put into play by the ReligiousFreedomWatch.org site of the Church of Scientology, an upstanding community institution of similarly flawless repute. StopPhoulPlay.com reveals how:

• At the age of five, Hanff REFUSED to share his crayons with the little girl next to him, saying she was “poopy” and would only draw a picture to be used against him.

• At age twelve, Williamson accepted MONEY from his mother to buy sweets, but not to tell schoolmates in case they wanted some.
• Hanff and Williamson may have attempted to access POTENTIALLY ILLEGAL images blocked by the Internet Watch Foundation.
• Hanff and Williamson have used WIKIPEDIA at least once in their lives.
• Hanff and Williamson INVADED POLAND in 1939.

“Given the persistence with which they propagate incorrect information, we cannot rule out the possibility that a competitor is involved,” he said. “The competitor goes under the name ‘reality.’ Needless to say, we have no tolerance for an entity of such limited possibilities.

“These people are privacy pirates — people who steal privacy online, off the coast of Somalia. With Internet guns! And drugs! And child pornography!”

Mr Hanff and Mr Williamson said they were unsure whether to sue Phorm into atomic dust for gross defamation or just to let them continue with their infallible public relations work. Phorm shares have dropped from 405p to being rated a “serious infection risk” by the World Health Organization.

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HAPPY FIELDS, Langeweile Macht Frei, Monday (NNN) — The Home Office has dismissed Sir Al Aynsley-Green’s report condemning the conditions for children of refugees seeking asylum in the UK.

Jacqui Smith stressed the importance of immigration services to national security. “It is vital that we remain the sort of country that sends a dozen police officers to haul sleeping children out of their beds, pushes them into stinking caged vans, drives them for hours while they wet themselves and locks them up for months with no medical care or prospect of release. We asked a Daily Mail reader survey.”

Phil Woolas dismissed reports that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are selling sex to pay for legal representation due to restrictions to legal aid funding. “That’s ridiculous. We’d be monsters to let such a thing happen, so obviously it can’t be. But we’ve denied HIV-positive refugees AIDS medication on the NHS, which will discourage them from such lifestyle choices.”

Article 37 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that the detention of a child “shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.” “That would be 42 days,” said Ms Smith. “Then we let them out for a walk and lock them up for another 42 days. It’s for all our safety.”

Mr Woolas counseled caution. “We have reason to believe the children may be secret Gurkhas, trying to inveighle their way into the country in order to fight to the death for it. Trained killers!”

The UK will remain a thriving democracy whose citizens, residents and visitors can live “confident of their freedom in a just society,” said Ms Smith, except if they’re brown or use a camera in public.

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OVER 60 MILLION GOT SERVED, Mexico, Friday (NNN) — A new strain of swine flu, H1N1, has killed up to 60 people in Mexico.

The virus is a mixture of swine, bird, human and computer viruses. Symptoms include fever, fatigue, lack of appetite, popup ads, coughing, sore throat, a slow connection and an urge to throw one’s computer out of a high window. The disease is thought to have started as a Windows virus on 4chan, a CIA entrapment message board for online activists, and can spread using the current Windows 7 beta.

Center for Disease Control officials looked at their huge stockpiles of H5N1 bird flu vaccine and said, “… shit.”

Citizens have panicked at the prospect of bacon being put into quarantine and substituted with some soy-based garbage. “Damn that Conficker!” shouted R. McDonald of San Bernardino, California. “Damn it all to Hell!”

“This comment from me looks Photoshopped,” said Bruce Schneier, an American computer security expert safely employed over in the UK. “I can tell by the pixels and having seen a lot of ’shops in my time. I suspect this is the work of a viral botnet spider agent replicating Trojan comments across news services until their functionality is completely destroyed. WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T LOAD OR READ MY COMMENT. p.s.: I love you.”

Insufferably smug Macintosh user Arty Phagge was sanguine. “We know how to use condoms. And I’m a vegetarian.” The Free Software Foundation announced the launch of OpenSwine, a disease generation and detection kit available for all to use and develop in perpetuity.

Britain will be protected from the swine flu virus by comprehensive filtering of the British internet, shutting it down entirely as needed. “Would you want your husbands, your servants, accessing the Internet?” asked Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. “I put it to you that you would not.”

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INCOMING!, Chelt ‘Nam, Saturday (N! News) — The Odeon in Leicester has been forced to issue warning letters to the elderly customers of its cheap Wednesday morning sessions following claims that they have been displaying “juvenile” behaviour.

Patrons were reprimanded for threatening, pushing, poking, bullying, harassing and intimidating staff, dealing drugs, shooting each other and stealing mobile phones. They also played Vera Lynn on their mobile phones at earsplitting volume on the chartered coach to and from the cinema.

Some Senior Screen regulars were also known to “line multiple pockets of clothing and Tupperware boxes with biscuits” from the complimentary tea service, reselling them afterwards cut with rat poison at a street value, according to police, of twenty-two million billion zillion pounds.

Police blamed hooded cardigans. Retired nurse Brenda Busybody, 77 (IQ), shouted a string of obscenities, mashed her ice-cream into the seat, punched staff and vowed to boycott the cinema. However, the owner managed to grab and wrench back her hood, upon which the increased oxygen to her brain caused her to come to her senses.

“Hoodies” are a Class A drug, only available on doctor’s prescription to Olympic boxers and suicide bombers.

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TALKIN’ ABOUT, Degeneration, Thursday (NNME) — With the conviction of The Pirate Bay administrators having immediately abolished all filesharing, the EU has approved an extension of sound copyright to seventy years past the point of theoretical death, and death to seventy years past actual death.

The media industry sponsored move is intended to properly suppress the very notion of the production of unapproved works of art. The major record companies’ value proposition has changed from being the only people you can get music from to being the only people who will stop you getting music. “We own all the back catalogs we’ve been buying up,” said Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfmann, the luckiest sperm in the whole USA, “and YOU CAN’T HAVE THEM! And we’ll sue your grandmother’s ass if you try going around us!”

Without an extension of copyright, the dead might never record again. “If I’d known in 1958, when the copyright in ‘Move It’ was due to expire in 2008, that the copyright in ‘Move It’ would in fact expire in 2008, would I have bothered? I don’t bloody think so!” said Sir Cliff Richard (died 1961). “I can rest safe in the knowledge that my mouldering corpse will not feel ripped off by this turn of events, and that my many, many descendants can continue to live off ‘Summer Holiday’ for the term of their rather unnatural lives. Remember that I am a born-again Christian and non-drinker, so beer and hookers mean and meant nothing to me. Money, however, is next to Godliness.”

Feargal Sharkey of UK Music stressed the necessity of the move to his never having to write another song after “Teenage Kicks.” “I urge you to picture a world in which Girls Aloud and Jason Donovan have no motivation to record.”

The government’s Cowell Report recommended that copyright should be reduced to one year, software patents made a hanging offence, Mickey Mouse declared an unperson and musicians told to stop whining and get a real bloody job like the rest of us. “It’s not like there’s some sort of national shortage of bad pop records,” said Sir Simon, “although a world in which Jive Bunny recordings irretrievably disintegrate into dust before they could possibly enter the public domain does have a certain appeal. Nevertheless, we desperately need to demotivate surplus pop star wannabes. I urge you to picture a world in which Girls Aloud and Jason Donovan have no motivation to record.”

Richard Dawkins spoke in favour of the perpetual unavailability of music, as per his new book The Art Delusion. “‘Music’ appears to be an entirely subjective phenomenon with little or no objective measurements possible — much like any other brand of snake oil or balderdash. Music seems to be a sort of virus on human consciousness, parasitically sapping the collective intelligence of the human race.” He defended his own attendance at his local church’s Christmas carols: “I’m only putting them at their ease so they let their guard down while I work on plans for mass re-education camps for the sufferers of musical appreciation.”

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BOLGIA 10, Redmond, Thursday (NNN) — In a stunning public relations coup, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MNPLY) has successfully overshadowed today’s release of Ubuntu Linux 9.04 “Jaunty Jubblies” by announcing its failed financials for a fourth quarter in a row and laying even more people off.

Microsoft announced new and expanded roles for remaining key executives as another several lesser, losing quitters deserted upper management. “It shows the fantastic opportunity available to everyone at Microsoft to climb seven or eight reporting levels up the org chart,” said marketing marketer Steve Ballmer to pitchfork-wielding Wall Street analysts today. “If we haven’t laid them off for making too much money or not kissing enough ass.”

The Yahoo! deal is expected to go ahead. “We figure they’ll go broke before we do. Probably.” Mr Ballmer also plans to run the Yahoo! servers on Windows NT rather than FreeBSD after a similar change worked so well at Hotmail. “Some say synergy’s another word for two plus two equals one, but you just have to make the value of one work for you.”

Windows 7 betas have been greeted with remarkable positive press. “Of course, the betas preview the ‘champagne and hookers’ edition, which would be way too much for netbooks and explode users’ brains. Imagine thinking those little things are computers! So we’re releasing what we call Windows 7 Dumbass Edition™. It lets you log in and look at the shiny. Even Spider Solitaire has the ribbon toolbar! And you can buy an upgrade to the version that runs programs! It lets you do that!”

Dumbass Edition™ comes with pre-installed viruses to make the computer part of the Storm, Conficker and FBI botnets. “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

However, Microsoft has indicated to its press corps, Microsoft Completely Enderlependent Analysts, to ixnay on the evensay and highlight the job openings for work on Windows 8, firmly penciled in for a 2012 release. Windows 8 will be optimised for low-end 32-core systems with a mere 16 gigabytes of memory — 28 cores for the interface, 3 cores for the DRM and one core for everything else. “Seven is just so this year. I hear they’ll get $DATABASE_FILESYSTEM done next release for sure!” said ZDNet marketing marketer Mary-Jo Enderle. “It’ll be awesome™!”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine, fine,” said Bill Gates, upping his hours at his charitable foundation and scheduling the sale of several more packages of Microsoft stock.

Larry Ellison of Oracle, who recently purchased Sun Microsystems, merely snickered, muttered “Java. OpenOffice.” and let out a long and resounding laugh.

Mark Shuttleworth of Canonical, speaking from his castle on a crag high on a mountaintop in west London, was sanguine at Ubuntu’s news being overshadowed. “I lost ten million dollars on Ubuntu last year. I’m losing ten million dollars on Ubuntu this year. I expect to lose ten million dollars on Ubuntu next year. At this rate, I’ll be broke in … sixty years.”

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TWATTER, Arsebook, Tuesday (NotScientist) — A direct neural interface to post on Twitter has been created by Adam Wilson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“We originally hooked it to the brain,” said Wilson, “but only a very limited selection of messages came out, that appeared to be coming from somewhere else. So we’ve just gone directly to the penis without the middleman.”

Male humans suffer from having functional bodies trapped with almost completely paralysed minds. The penis is an organ used by male humans primarily for thinking and making important decisions. It is also used as an outlet for unwanted poisonous bodily excreta, such as sperm.

The messages — or “twats” — cover the full gamut of human experience and emotion in 140 characters, from “ANOTHER PINT WHAT AN EXCELLENT IDEA” to “DYING FOR A SLASH” to “GDAY LUV NICE TITS” to “WOOHOO GOT A GOER HERE” to “WOKE UP DEAD PIG SHAT IN SKULL OH DEAR GOD WTF IS THAT MUST CHEW ARM OFF.”

“The next stage is a feedback loop for at-replies,” said Wilson. “We’re hoping to create the dream of every Internet user: a response system that will send five hundred volts through someone’s nether regions when they say something unbelievably stupid.”

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BOLGIAS 8 AND 9, Rome, Monday (NNN) — The Vatican intends to build the biggest renewable energy plant in Europe, running solely on guilt.

“Now is the time to strike,” said Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, governor of Vatican City. “The financial crisis has unleashed huge and renewable sources of guilt, which in the long run will reap incomparable rewards for the Church.”

Italy has a binding target for renewable energy consumption of 17 percent. The Vatican will export energy to Italy, powered by raw guilt from the largely Catholic populace. “So far it’s proven indefinitely renewable.”

Pope Benedict XVI has been outspoken on environmental issues. “The destruction of the environment, its improper or selfish use and the violent hoarding of the Earth’s resources cause grievances, conflicts and wars, precisely because they are the consequences of an inhumane concept of development. You should FEEL BAD about that. And give us money.”

The plant will be topped up at night by Dante-esque treadmills walked by priests sent back for kiddy-fiddling. “We feel terrible, terrible,” said Fr O’Pederast. “I mean, we got caught.”

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GIRLS GONE BALD, Debbie Does Dialysis, Monday (NNN) — Two thirds of people have not changed their diet or lifestyle to reduce the risk of cancer, a Newsnight poll has found.

One cancer expert said new ways were needed to convey health messages. “Fifteen percent ‘hardly ever think about’ cancer,” said Professor Karol Sikora of Cancer Partners UK. “This doesn’t bode at all well for the cancer or media industries.”

Cancer marketing has used the “saturation” approach for many years, where people’s morning paper tells them that eating more, eating less, eating chips, eating fruit, eating at all, drinking tap water, HPV vaccines, lack of HPV vaccines, sunlight, lack of sunlight or thinking too much about cancer all increase the risk of cancer, illustrated with a Page 3 spread of Luscious Lucy, 19, of Sheppey, conducting a self-examination of Kylie Minogue’s bottom in closeup.

Innovative approaches that were directly relevant to people’s lives may prove more effective. “It’s amazing how much of a difference Jade Goody made to cervical screening. We need to find more previously disliked celebrities to sacrifice.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said government policies had contributed to a fall in smoking rates, almost compensating for deaths at the hands of crazed smokers desperately nic-fitting.

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ENIGMA, Bletcherous Park, Thursday (NNGadget) — Academics at De Montfort University in Leicester have put together a team tasked with getting grants to claim to predict the next big thing in communication technologies, in a bid to tackle funding pitfalls before they become a problem.

“Widespread Internet adoption has afforded some technologies rapid growth,” said Dr Bernd Stahl, “but have also generated downsides. For example, uppity Internet users think all this is for their social enjoyment and cultural enhancement, rather than to firmly attach a vacuum hose to their wallet.”

Under the two year project, entitled Ethical Issues of Emerging ICT Applications, researchers use old William Gibson novels to identify information and communication technologies likely to emerge in the next 10 to 15 years and spot any unforeseen drawbacks to milking the consumer as hard as possible, but no harder. “The Web 2.0 model — you create the content, we get the money — has much potential. However, cautionary examples such as Wikipedia show what happens when you put that sort of power in the hands of a nonprofit. So much money left on the table!”

Dr Stahl’s team will identify and list the future applications and the issues that are likely to arise. “So far we’ve successfully predicted that ‘e-mail’ will become quite popular — that’s where you send letters electronically, without using paper. Outlandish, I know! There’s also a possible niche for sending short text messages using telephones, if the telephone is attached to the network by a sufficiently long cable. In conclusion, send us more money and we’ll see what we can do for you. Remember: MONEY to US. That’s the important bit. It’s for science, you know.”

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THE PANOPTICON, Mountain View, Thursday (NNGadget) — The director of Google Earth and Maps, John Hankes, has rubbished claims that Street View is a “burglar’s charter.”

“It’s ridiculous to say all our users are burglars. We have several who aren’t! Probably.”

Bob “Pound You To Mincemeat” Fister, recently of Wormwood Scrubs, lent his support to the initiative. “It also works really well with Google Latitude, so’s I can keep track of my … business associates an’ … prospective future customers.”

Street View has weathered a storm of controversy since its March introduction, with Harry Potter of the Observer describing Google as an “amoral menace, indexing things man was not meant to know and defiling our genetic code” and accusing Street View of “working against the laws of nature and the natural order of God, who clearly intended us to use MSN Windows Live Search Kumo Search.”

Villagers in Buckinghamshire, wielding Fairtrade designer ecologically-sound pitchforks and torches, recently blockaded a Google camera car and recycled the driver in a large wicker man bonfire on the village outskirts.

But Hankes defends the service, saying “public debate is very healthy. More people should definitely check out the service, and the advertising on it. Mmm, clickable. Very clickable. Sooo clickable.”

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INHUMAN RESOURCES, Work Harder Not Smarter, Thursday (NNN) — Employees with difficult colleagues and a poor working atmosphere were 60 per cent more likely to be depressed, and 50 per cent more likely to use antidepressants, says Dr Marjo Sinokki of the Finnish Institute of the Bleeding Obvious.

Business was quick to protest that the right mental attitude was essential to remaining competitive and cost-effective. “Self-esteem costs a fortune in wages and produces employees with ambition and other problematic behaviours,” said the Confederation of British Industry. “Without depressed and beaten shells of workers, we can’t possibly compete.”

The Treasury concurred, with figures showing the health of the economy requires most workers to die of directionlessness within six months of retiring.

“The U.S. work environment right now is far more tenuous and toxic than in recent history,” said Josh Klapow of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “With layoffs and downsizing, the opportunities for increased stress, negativity and pressure have all greatly increased and are doing wonders to keep people in bad jobs at low pay and long hours, for our future prosperity. God bless America!”

BUPA has offered discount bulk Prozac, Valium and Thorazine to businesses, to be placed in the tea room next to the sugar and the bromide.

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SCHESTOWITZ, Newham, Tuesday (NNGadget) — Microsoft has announced the infrastructure for its cloud computing service Azure, formerly (and presently) Windows Vapor.

“We want to be more responsive to your needs,” said Sam Ramji of Microsoft during a Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit panel this week as he wiped rotten tomatoes off his suit.

“We want all open source innovation to happen on Windows. In practice, Windows is too slow, and just putting Linux underneath the same software stack triples performance. So we’re running the Windows versions of the software on Linux using Wine. We’ll also be funding the Wine on Windows initiative.”

The new Microsoft Amazingly Open And Genuine Public License allows you complete freedom to use, modify and redistribute the software provided that every copy comes with a DVD of Windows Vista Ultimate, you acknowledge that Microsoft’s FAT patent protects a remarkable and valuable innovation in computer science and all accompanying documentation is in OOXML. Also, all your data belongs to Microsoft.

The overwhelming dominance of Microsoft was assured, he said, pointing to their success in paying netbook manufacturers to use Windows XP and paying US retailers not to stock the Linux versions of the computers. “We’re also enforcing our patent on right-clicking. And on the number seven.”

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SACCHARINE MITTENS, Bermondsey, Thursday (NNN) — Grieving Jack Tweed wants to open a “high-class” Jade Goody-themed restaurant in East Angular, Essex, named in her honour.

It will serve “international cuisine” and the menu will reflect Ms Goody’s taste in food. “Chips goes with everything, dunnit.” A large waxwork of Ms Goody will be out front, halo in place and surrounded by an angelic ensemble of Shilpa Shettys. Diners will be required to finish their meals before the 7:30pm curfew.

“Max Clifford’s picking a good sensitive name. ‘The Comic Relief Peasant’ is a hot favourite. He thought it’d go down better than ‘Wringing The Corpse Till The Pips Rattle.’” Tweed is, of course, in talks to do a reality show on the subject, to be a tie-in with Ms Goody’s cancer diary, the movie of her life, Death of Jade performance art and a “tribute” appearance by Jaiden Michael on Big Brother 10.

Mohamed al Fayed has announced his suspicion that the Duke of Edinburgh gave Ms Goody cancer. “And Wendy Richard.”

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KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON, And Shopping, Saturday (NNN) — Police enquiries have so far failed to turn up any clear evidence of a terrorist conspiracy forty-eight hours after the arrests of Pakistani terror subjects across Britain. No evidence has been found of bombs, bomb-making parts, precursor chemicals to make explosives, a bomb factory, weapons, ammunition or plans to do anything anywhere with such items.

“But they had cameras in public,” said Manchester police chief Luckless Cipher. “They were seen taking photographs near a nightclub shopping centre and other crowded public places. Completely consistent with students in a new area taking photos to show friends and family. Or … TERRORIST RECONNAISSANCE!”

There is also evidence they used Google Street View. “And then went the places they’d looked up! Well. It doesn’t get much clearer than that.”

The eleven subjects are being held another week for intense questioning on their favoured lens, camera model and ISO setting.

Counterterrorism officials remain unsure of basic elements of the conspiracy, such as the targets. “But there is lots of material that when put together may take us somewhere. It will hopefully be a long and drawn-out investigation. They’d probably been down the pub with Ian Tomlinson before he drunkenly and aggressively backed into a police baton. They’ve probably got child porn! Is this territory where you can take a risk? Think of the children!”

Al-Qaeda reports a two-month backlog on membership and has asked applicants to please be patient.

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COSTA DEL SOL, Glasgow, Friday (NNN) — A “binge-tanning” epidemic has put malignant melanoma above cervical cancer as the most common cancer in women in their twenties.

There are now twice as many cases of melanoma as there are breast cancer, causing concern amongst newspaper proprietors. “A half-page closeup of breasts hasn’t nearly as good an excuse,” said Desmond Murdoch. “Though topless beach babe shots are pretty newsworthy and informative.”

There are also questions as to whether excessive tanning causes cessation of brain activity and chronic footballer shagging, or if this is just coincidence.

20 minutes of booth tanning is equivalent to a day at the beach, minus yelling kids and sand in your bikini bottoms. Unregistered back-street bootleggers offer underclass girls tans on the sly, along with pirated MP3s and DVDs and authentic Louie Vitton and Dolchie ett Gabbarner merchandise.

“The fact is the jury is out on the relationship between UV exposure and malignant melanoma,” said Kathy Banks of the Sunbed Association, puffing on a cigarette and trying to fight off crocodile hunters wanting her skin for a handbag.

Substitutes for tanning beds can be nearly as problematic. Danielle Lloyd has appeared in her seventeenth celebrity nude charity calendar this year for the rehabilitation of chronic bottled tan snorters.

“We recognise the right of individuals to make informed choices,” said Charles Darwin of the Ministry of Health. “If they die before they breed, this may be a self-solving problem.”

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THE MEMORY HOLE, Westminster, Tuesday (NNGadget) — The Home Office has announced new security measures for identity cards.

“The biometrics, chip and PIN, RFID transponder, fingerprint-reader, real-time spectroscopic DNA analyser and two-way radio that demands ‘papers please!’ in a cod-German accent inexplicably failed to completely eliminate identity fraud or stop terrorism,” said Home Secretary For Life Jacqui Smith, “so we’re getting back to the basics of PFI-funded governmental identity management: magic beans, pixie dust and snake oil. EDS Capita Goatse’s experience in these areas is unparalleled.”

Identification procedures have duly been enhanced. Magic beans are squashed into the paper driving licence, producing a pixie-dust effect when inspected by the police. Day-to-day purchases are made smoother by the snake oil, with the pixie-dust glow authenticating the transaction. Frequenters of brothels will be able to require the prostitute to wave her identity card at them and be reassured by the pixie-dust glitter certifying her bona fides as a legal resident.

The requirements for getting a bank account — a retinal scan, hair clippings, 250 millilitres of blood and three documents for every address change since twenty years before your birth — remain unchanged.

The new identity card weighs thirty-five kilograms. All UK residents must carry it everywhere at all times and produce it on demand of council bin inspectors or any higher official.

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CREATIVE DESTRUCTION, Soho, Monday (NNN) — 60% of UK consumers are willing to browse with an ad-blocker in return for free videos, music and other content, a survey has revealed.

“This willingness to pretend to view adverts in exchange for free content is good news for sites wanting to lie to advertisers,” said Tudor Aw at KPMG, “and is perhaps a pointer in the ongoing debate over whether lying to advertisers or lying to subscribers is the right revenue model.”

40% of respondents said they would pretend to accept popups, popunders, interstitials, Phorm, floating windows zipping and swooping about the screen, Flash videos that start playing sound automatically, eye-gouging animations and 2o7.net cookies in exchange for free music. 16% said they would pay to avoid ads. The rest would continue to get their telly from BitTorrent and browse with Mozilla Firefox with AdBlock.

People were more willing to pay on mobile phones, unless they had a modern phone that could steal someone’s WiFi connection.

Google, the world’s largest online advertising agency, said it was looking into tastefully-interspersed direct content advertising and brand placement, and added that you should PUNCH THE MONKEY TO WIN £20,000!!! “If you know what’s good for you.”

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SHE’LL BE ROIGHT MATE, Ey Dingeau Eyt Mey Interweb, Tuesday (NNN) — Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that the Australian government will build a new $43 billion national broadband network, connecting 90% of homes to 100-megabit fibre internet. “We believe that fast broadband is absolutely essential for our nation’s future”, he said.

“Telstra has raised issues with the amount of bandwidth usage this will produce, given we’re still hooked to America by tin cans and string, but our Great Firewall of Australia Internet filtering project should keep usage down to reasonable levels at near-dialup speeds. We promise you won’t go over your download cap.”

The Great Firewall will reliably block all illegal material, child pornography, terrorism and unAustralian thoughts.

“Not only are the contents of the list illegal,” said Senator Stephen Conroy, ” but revealing the list is also illegal, and so is linking to someone linking to someone claiming to reveal the list. So we’re blocking Google Search. Having to use Anzwers should keep usage right down.”

Calling it, the “single largest infrastructure decision in Australia’s
history,” Mr Rudd said the project would employ up to 37,000 people a year monitoring citizens’ net access, reading their email and correcting spelling errors in their football forum posts.

A consultative process will determine the regulatory framework for the network. “We’re considering getting Senator Fielding to do it personally,” said Senator Conroy, “since he’s the dickhead who demanded the censorship in return for his votes. Hopefully it’ll melt his brain. Bloody balance of power. At least Xenophon’s bloody sane.”

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