Category Archives: Europe

Europe, Finance

Pope raps on global financial crisis

Leave a comment

VATICAN RAG, Rome, Monday (NNN) — The global financial crisis is proof that the pursuit of money and success is pointless, Pope Benedict XVI has told the Twelfth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome.

Pope Flavor Flav XVI“Those who seek success, career or money are building on sand. They should look instead to the Church and build on the solid rock of guilt, sexual repression and jam tomorrow.” Attendees duly placed sand into the collection plate.

“The Church must bring people to a vivid encounter with God,” said the former leader of the Holy Inquisition. “There is no reason to fear that the church and its members will go too far and harm freedom,” he added, leaving everyone feeling thoroughly reassured.

Secular governments, he added, have “no reason to fear” the social teachings and activities of the Church, which “does not aim at power, nor does it expect privileges or aspire to economic or social advantage,” in an inexplicable change from hundreds of years of historical evidence.

Get daily email alerts of new NewsTechnica!

Europe, Politics, United Kingdom

Peter Mandelson returns from the undead

2 Comments

THE TOMBS, Downing Street, Friday (NNN) — Gordon Brown today explained his astonishing decision to bring his bitter rival Peter Mandelson back into the Cabinet as business secretary: “My God, I am so completely fucked, even Mandy looks a good idea.”

Mandelson, Prince of DarknessBaron Mandelson, 679, of Transylvania, smiled for the cameras, only having to reconstitute himself twice when the flashes dissolved him into dust. “I only enter where I am invited,” he said in sepulchral Eurocratic tones. “When I am called upon, I shall return.”

Labour MPs rushed to greet the chief architect of New Labour, many carrying wooden stakes, garlic and crosses.

Mr Mandelson has had a chequered career in office. Previous Cabinet terms have ended with unfortunate resignations due to being beheaded by angry villagers, burnt at the stake, wrapped in chains and thrown to the bottom of the Volga and, in one case, nuked from orbit.

“Serious people are needed for serious times,” said Mr Brown in a monotone, staring glassily into space. “I hear and obey. Am advised.”

David Cameron was unavailable for comment, with only the sound of cackling glee and champagne corks audible on the line.

Europe, Science

Large Hardon Collider could corrupt civilisation

6 Comments

INUÉNDEAUX, Switzerland, Tuesday (NNN) — The Large Hardon Collider, to be turned on tomorrow, is designed to pump various types of hardon up to huge energies before banging them together. However, many concerned citizens without the personal experience or understanding of what hardons do worry at the idea of the large hardons being sucked deep into a black hole.

Large Hardon Black HoleThe device will push large, energised hardons through a ring repeatedly, faster and faster, as smoothly and tightly as possible, until they clash and spray matter in all directions. “It’s nothing that cosmic rays don’t do all the time all over the place,” reassured a particularly buff scientist. “It’s perfectly right and natural.”

Low-energy hardon physics and the temperature dependence of hardon production are well understood, as is the process of a hardon smoothly entering the nucleus. But some question what may happen at greater, hotter energies.

Church leaders have come out at the device. “They’re the same polarity!” said Pope Palpatine XVI. The Church worries that strange matter may recruit normal matter and turn it strange.

The Large Hardon Collider was to launch in May, but this has been delayed until mid-September. “I’m so sorry,” stammered a scientist, “this has never happened to us before.”

Europe, Science

Dr Evil threatens world with Large Hadron Collider

4 Comments

LAIR OF EVIL, Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, Friday (NNGadget) — Dr Evil’s plans to destroy the earth have come ever-closer, with the construction of a Large Hadron Collider in a secret location in Switzerland.

Large Hadron Goatse“Unless the governments of the world give me one hundred beelion dollars, I shall pull the switch that shall send the world to relativistic doomsday! As well as greatly advancing physics and our understanding of the secrets of the universe.”

Dr Evil’s Large Hadron Collider threatens such fates as the destruction of the Universe through a recreated Big Bang, strangelets converting all normal matter, wormholes in space and time or the possible creation of the World Wide Web.

The citizenry of the world have risen in protest, with lawyers, psychologists and other persons highly versed in particle physics attempting to stop the device through the courts. This is attributed to the accidental creation of a strange moron particle, which spreads through the world turning everyone it encounters into more strange morons.

In a capstone of evil, the Large Hadron Collider will run Windows Vista. “See if it doesn’t! Muwaaahahahaha! I’m sorry, that was gratuitous. It runs Google Chrome, of course.”

Europe, Ireland, Politics

Ireland floats second EU treaty vote

1 Comment

DUBLIN, Sicily, Monday (NNN) — Ireland may go to the polls again for a referendum on the new European Union constitution treaty gentleperson’s agreement. “I stress that this is very much only a personal view at this stage,” said European Affairs Minister Dick Roche, penciling the referendum in for next June at the very latest.

European Union diplomatic mission to IrelandIrish voters plunged the EU into a diplomatic crisis when they had the bare-faced cheek to reject the Lisbon treaty in June. The second referendum will have the options “YES” or “NEXT YEAR.”

“Minister Roche is not calling for a second referendum to be put,” a government spokesman said. “That would not be a fair reflection of his words. Of course, we’re utterly buggered if we don’t.”

EU President Nicolas Sarkozy concurred. “The people of Ireland have to understand: Europe is like a family. This is an offer you would be very unwise to refuse.”

MEP Mary Lou McDonald demanded concessions for Ireland before the treaty could be taken to the voters again. The EU quietly reminded her of their extensive offensive arsenal of “thousands” of truckloads of dangerously tedious documents, carrying toxic payloads of long-winded obfuscation and misdirection in several major and minor languages.