Delusions of adequacy given same status as religion

DAWKINS, Barking, Wednesday (NNN) — An executive has won the right to sue his employer on the basis that he was unfairly dismissed for his views after a judge ruled that his delusions of competence had the same weight in law as religious and philosophical beliefs under the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations.

Head up assThe unnamed executive is firmly convinced of his own superior workplace abilities and business and people management skills, despite the huge weight of evidence against such conclusions. His wife also testified as to his unsubstantiable belief in his superior musical taste and his faith-based dress sense. In a rare concession to reality, the man is under no illusion as to what little shits his children are.

Judge Michael Burton laid down a series of tests regarding such beliefs:

  • The belief must be genuinely held;
  • It must be a belief and not a mere opinion or view related to anything substantiable;
  • It must relate to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life, despite a total lack of evidence;
  • It must appear at least slightly coherent on the surface;
  • It must not be mere odious fuckwittery;
  • It must be obviously gibbering bullshit to anyone not already agreeing with it.

Humanism was given as an example meeting the criteria, while belief in a political party, except the Liberal Democrats or Ukip, were offered as ones that do not.

“It is clear,” he said in summing up, “that if firms started firing their executives for the mere fact of utter blithering incompetence, business as we know it could not go on. If such a criterion hit the banking sector, it could lead to a complete collapse of the financial system as we know it. Oh, wait.”

Home Secretary Alan Johnson has said he will shortly be suing Professor David Nutt under these rules if the entire scientific population of Great Britain does not cease and desist immediately from oppressing him with mere facts.

Robbie Williams comes crawling back to Take That

TIN ARM ALLEY, Public NME, Friday (N! News) — After telling the others to fuck off several years ago, Robbie Williams has, after a string of epic failures, come grovelling back to Take That in the hope of enough income to pay for his, er, mineral water.

Take That with naked bottoms“Williams? I vaguely recall the name,” said Gary Barlow, leader of the band. “First name’s ‘Cunt,’ right? ‘Fuckhead’? ‘Shitstick’? Something like that.”

After the band’s reformation in 2005, Barlow successfully matured the former boy band’s sound and achieved two hit albums. “I understand there’s some twatrag who wants to rejoin Take That,” he spat. “I was inclined to courier him a turd in a box, but someone offered to back several dumptrucks filled with gold bullion up to our houses if we let the dogfucker on the same stage as us. He’ll have to start at the bottom, of course, but I’m sure there’s lots we can do to make him feel as welcome as he deserves.”

Williams discussed the reunion on Jonathan Ross this evening. “Gary’s just joshing. We’re getting on great — even when we weren’t speaking, he was keeping in touch, sending me press clippings of every Take That reunion chart position and sold-out arena show. I was even along on Mark Owen’s stag night. I’d thought it was traditional to tie the groom to a lamp post with a bucket on his head, his pants off and his cock painted bright red, but I took it in good spirits. Love the guys. Love ’em.”

A reunion tour may take place next year. “I’ve got Robbie’s rider sorted out,” said Barlow. “Ours is a suitable selection of wines, spirits and juices and I’ve got to check the portaloo outlet for his. Can’t wait to work with him again.”

Google Maps shows nonexistent city “Perth”

ARGLETON, Lancashire, Saturday (NNN) — A Google Maps error has created a phantom city: “Perth” in Western Australia, in what is in fact a completely empty space.

Perth, the mirage in the desertThe mystery has locals so intrigued that a few have made the journey to the enigmatic spot. “I started to weave this amazing fantasy about the place,” said one intrepid local explorer, “an alternative universe, a Narnia-like world. I was really fascinated by the appearance of a non-existent place that the Internet had the power to make real and give a semi-existence.

“Of course, it’s inconceivable that an empty space on the map like that could have a city in it. Imagine what it’d be like living there. It’d be pleasant enough, but imagine growing up there, thousands of miles from civilisation. You’d go mad. It’d be like a J. G. Ballard story. The only people who could enjoy it would be deranged millionaires. Nice to retire to, though. I bet the drivers wouldn’t be able to tell left from right.”

Still, though “Perth” appears to be a town without residents, streets, coordinates or even a history, it has taken on a life of its own online. People put it as their place of residence on Facebook or Twitter. Others claim to come from there, always adding that they’re never going back. There are even films about the “vibrant” Perth indie music scene.

Google said in a statement today: “Google Maps data comes from a variety of data sources. While the vast majority of this information is correct there are occasional errors. Thankfully they’re quite obvious like this one. Why would anyone put a city there, of all places? Someone’s obviously having a lend of us.”

Device that “smells” snake oil could identify terrorists

SECURITY ZOETROPE, Westminster, Wednesday (NNN) A device claimed to “smell” human fear is being marketed as identifying terrorists by detecting “fear pheromones” in sweat.

Duck-punching rubber glove cavity search“The challenge lies in the characterisation and identification of the specific chemical that gives away the signature of human fear,” said project leader Professor Tong Sun of City University, “especially the fear of losing funding for security theatre. If we can reliably detect this fear, we should be able to land some eyewateringly lucrative contracts in the very near future.”

The research is funded by the Home Office. “The project relies on a government with a firm commitment to policy-based science, but the Tories look as craven over David Nutt’s firing as Labour, so we should be coining it in for a good while yet.”

The technology will assist airport security officers in picking out suitable subjects. Sensors can reliably detect if someone is a bit brown, or a bit foreign-looking, or has a non-Anglo-Saxon name, or if they might be thinking of giving cheek to security officers. It will work in conjunction with the millimetre-wave “naked” radar, currently used to identify terrorist subjects with large breasts.

The false positive rate will be only 5% on a terrorist detection rate of 1 in 100,000, meaning only 99.95% of subjects flagged will be a complete waste of time to finger up the arse with a latex glove. “But we’re sure the government will agree that mere statistical evidence is meaningless in the face of the vital necessity to send the right message,” said Prof Sun, “that if you make trouble the government will quite literally forcibly fuck you in the arse until you bleed. So just shut the fuck up and keep giving us money.”

Global “vaguely giving a shit” portal to launch

ISLINGTON, Socialist Republic of North London, Tuesday (NNN) — President Barack Obama, Bill Gates and Bono are being invited to back a “vague middle-class interest portal” website, Hope Plus, to promote social politics.

Generic smiling African child“A global eBay-PeaceCorps-wiki-social-media-network-community-thingy is absolutely the most useful thing the modern world could have right now,” says founder Phil Noble of PoliticsOnline. “We already have lots of pictures of smiling African children.”

Mr Noble was inspired by his previous work for the BBC. “If we can tap into that Guardian demographic, we should be able to get people to really feel they’re doing their bit for the world, reducing their carbon footprint, cutting the poisons out of our air, water and food and feeding and educating the hungry by clicking on a website. People are good at clicking on stuff. We might even have some online petitions!

The initiative is being bolstered by seed money from Microsoft. “I’ve long held that giving the poor the finest of our technology and the highest quality patented seeds is the way to advance everyone’s interests,” said Mr Gates, “particularly my own. I mean, my charity’s.” U2 has donated another copy of the bassline they have used on their last eight albums.

The Daily Mail will be starting Grumpy Plus, a portal for people to show their support for everything being so much worse than when they were young and everyone was polite and helpful and beat Hitler and you didn’t have to worry about coloured gay Polish asylum seekers ruining the price of your house. The Mail‘s demographic is not as Internet-enabled, so the site will work by people mailing in coupons from the paper.

Hitler apologises for MP analogy e-mail

DAS BUNKER, Westminster, Monday — Adolf Hitler has apologised for any “upset” caused by a “clumsily” worded e-mail, comparing his treatment to that of MPs over their expenses.

Hitler with watermelonMr Hitler, the Chancellor of Germany, made the apology after Roosevelt and Churchill had pointed out that comparing himself to David Wilshire, Tory MP for Spelthorne, was “frankly ludicrous”.

In his email response to subsequent correspondence, which he said had included death threats, Mr Hitler wrote: “The witch-hunt against Nazis in general will undermine democracy. Branding a whole group of people as undesirables led to the horror and carnage of the MP expenses scandal.”

He apologised for “comparing myself to an odious entitled twat like that Wilshire wanker — at least I didn’t pay half my bloody salary to Eva as a ‘researcher,'” but said he felt a bit put out that his hard work for German lebensraum and really good motorways was completely underappreciated. “I could show MPs how to live off bloody rations, mate.”

Mr Hitler was forced to announce last month that he would step down as leader of the Third Reich.

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BAN THIS SICK FACEFILTH

PAGE 3, Wapping, Saturday (Mediocre Grauniad) — Your Super Soaraway Sun! comes out today against DISGRACEBOOK, the vile “social networking” system used by perverts, murderers, paedos, Catholic priests, Guardian readers, Labour ministers and other SICK FILTH.

Lucy PinderYour Sun has mounted a FULL INVESTIGATION into the Facebook DEN OF INIQUITY, with an intrepid Sun journalist risking his life and reputation going into the front-line of fire on the site, posing as an ordinary person and yet securing several SERIOUSLY DIRTY afternoon liaisons with previously decent and innocent young ladies (pictures on pages 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12) — all carefully verified as being just over sixteen — so as to courageously root out this CYBER-FOULNESS.

The Sun can reveal that Farcebook has NO flagging mechanism to filter out PERVERTS, MURDERERS and FRAUDSTERS, unlike socially responsible places for friends such as the family-friendly MySpace network.

“Facebook DISGUSTS any decent British person,” says Luscious Lucy, 19, of Sheppey, in her editorial opinion column on page 3 today. “MYSPACE is a much more decent, wholesome and PATRIOTIC place to meet people. I’d never let my family anywhere else. Here’s my perky, puffy nipples on the site, in case you’re not sure.”

Even our NEXT PRIME MINISTER Dave “DAVE” Cameron agrees. “Yes, I saw about Facebook on Sky News. We’ve consulted with relevant senior media figures, and will be looking into severely restricting Facebook’s odious operations in the UK and requiring MySpace for widest possible public access to government services. I’m also told there’s an excellent service called Delphi that the British people should be encouraged to use. Toodle pip!”

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