Police fend off massive summer solstice denial-of-service attack on Stonehenge

June 21, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

A344, Gateway To The West, Sunday (NNN) — Thirty-six thousand revellers, hippies, wiccans and general space cadets have gathered at Stonehenge for the summer solstice, throwing astronomical megalith calculations into chaos.

Wiltshire riot police, fresh from the hugely successful G20 operation, kept the fuzzy-brained masses at bay with horses, drug sniffer dogs, an unmanned flying drone and a battalion of level thirty-one family tradition Dawkinsian sceptics, admitting only essential maintenance druids into the fence around Stonehenge itself to handle the load on the ley lines powered by the henge.

“Whooo,” inhaled druid Leatherman Travaglia through his teeth, “yir big-end’s lost cosmic dimensionality and yir astral cabling cannae handle the power. ’S gonna cost ye. I’d try the homeopathic positronium, but the wee glass bottles cannae take it, Captain. Ye cannae change the laws of metaphysics!”

As the druids began their incantations, Wiccan priestesses drew their cowls tight against the damp morning air and half-naked dancers waved their hands in the air and went: “Woo, woo, woo.” “Lookit the fiminine energies on that one!” said Travaglia.

Restrictions were placed on the amount of alcohol revellers could bring in and police said they would not tolerate illegal drug taking or unlawful raves. However, it turned out the most apparently off-their-heads were just like that normally.

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Politics, United Kingdom

Gordon Brown teases: “I could walk away from office tomorrow”

June 20, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

TOYNBEE, Internationale, Saturday (Mediocre Grauniad) — In an interview with The Guardian, Gordon Brown teased and taunted Britain and the Labour Party with claims that “I could walk away from all of this tomorrow. I’m hurt, terribly hurt by the things people have said.”

Cabinet gritted its teeth and stifled the urge to shout “THEN FUCKING GO,” realising there was no-one on hand who was any less rubbish.

“I’m not as great a presenter of information or communicator as I would like to be. I don’t actually think I’m very good at it at all. That thing you do with your face, where the corners of your mouth go up, that Peter does when he’s dancing on skulls … it’s weird and unnatural.”

He also spoke of the “common purpose” between Lord Mandelson and himself. “I must say, his way with the vertebrae of anyone who crosses him is really quite impressive, not to mention his skills with eye of newt and tongue of frog. People in the Labour Party are coming to appreciate his talents, or at least the ones who enjoy being able to walk. There’s great affection for him now, and hardly any garlic or silver crosses.”

Despite the issues his party had faced in the last month, Mr Brown said he was confident Labour could still win the next general election for two reasons: Labour’s huge successes in handling the economy and MPs’ expenses, and truly stupendous quantities of hallucinogenic chemicals in the water supply for 10 Downing Street.

Politics, United Kingdom

MPs’ expenses run through experimental Cleanfeed filter

June 19, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

SHOCKED, SHOCKED, Casablanca, Friday (NNN) — Giving in to public pressure, the House of Commons yesterday revealed all MP expense claims for the past five years, heralded on the front page of every newspaper today with pictures of large black rectangles and all cryptic crosswords and Sudokus being replaced with public participatory efforts to go through the raw data looking for the most jawdropping claims.

“I am shocked and appalled,” said Prime Minister Gordon Brown, “that my government would conceal its expenses from its leader, who knew nothing of this at all, and then attempt to conceal the concealing. ~~Don’t they trust me?~~”

The results were fed through an experimental Cleanfeed Internet filter, switched on after the Ministry of Defence had asked BT to block all UK access to Wikileaks.org to conceal the documents showing they had accidentally revealed the location of MI5 as ~~oops, it’s slipped my mind~~.

“Revealing MPs’ expenses will only grant succour to journalists and paedophiles,” said the Internet Watch Foundation. “Trust us on this.”

“I can categorically assure taxpayers that ~~arse feck we’re busted~~,” said retiring Speaker Michael Martin.

The Liberal Democrats have signaled their intention to seize the day, look this gift horse in the mouth and completely fail to turn it to anything resembling electoral advantage. As usual.

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Entertainment, Technology, United Kingdom

Digital Britain to push “culturally British” games

June 18, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

HEY HEY 16K, What Does That Get You Today, Thursday (NNGadget) — As well as attempting to give the major record and television companies whatever they want until the end of time, Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report includes tax breaks for “culturally British” computer game development.

Planned games include Lard Warrior (“the goal is to sit playing a game. The graphics are truly horrifying and needed us to go to 3.5-dimensional to fit the player’s avatar on the screen. Rated 18+ for explicit neck beards”), CCTV Panopticon (“take pictures of the CCTV cameras in your high street until arrested under the Terrorism Act for having your own camera in public, defeat final boss with Doctorow Attack”), Bottled Tan Snorter (“get into celebrity magazines and shag footballers, lose points for any sign of intelligence, insufficient nipple slips or words of two syllables”) and Cynical Apathist (“write outraged blog posts and comments with amusing satires of events of the day while working a job directly keeping the hideous machinery alive and running, avoid removal by the Guardian moderator”). A committee will also form a group to do a study concerning a team to write a ZX Spectrum emulator for the iPhone, with a cassette interface emulator that sends Apple 99p every time you get an “R: Tape Loading Error.”

The games industry has warned in the past that developers are being lured away to other countries by the prospect of being paid more than shit. Conservative Shadow Arts Minister Ed Vaizey has leapt upon the opportunity, with promises of incentives for talented developers to stay in Britain and not be lured away by better pay in America. “We’ll keep their passports from them until they reach ‘Achievement Unlocked.'”

Having finally released Digital Britain, Lord Carter has resigned from the government and is returning to private industry. “Of course, Digital Britain remains a completely objective assessment of the way forward for the nation in the twenty-first century, and should in no way be thought of as my CV for a series of lucrative consultancies with the large media companies I’ve just given everything they’ve ever asked for. And a pony.”

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Technology, United States

Microsoft Bob Hope and IE8 tighten their grip

June 17, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

BIG BONE LICK, Kentucky, Wednesday (NNGadget) — Microsoft today heeded the lessons of technological history, taking the popular “preview porn videos in the search engine” feature and turning its Bob Hope “decision engine” into a porn finder at the address explicit.bobhope.microsoft.com.

“It worked for VHS over Beta, porn sites were leading innovators in online payments. It’s a natural synergy,” said Steve Ballmer, looking somewhat sweaty and flushed.

Porn sites are some of the keenest users of Microsoft technologies, using the undocumented interfaces in Internet Explorer to install helpful toolbars and bulk email tools on users’ systems. “It’s all about tools. Our tools have amazed people for decades. Microsoft are famous for the biggest and best tools ever. Developers! Developers! Developers! DEVELOPEEERS!”

Internet Explorer 8 is also part of the promotion. After a competition that advertises IE8’s superior standards compliance with a site that deliberately breaks all other browsers, a programme to donate eight free meals for the poor for every IE8 download (with the cost of the meals being 10% of the spend on promoting them) and a string of free porn sites requiring a Silverlight download to watch the smut, IE8 Service Pack 1 will include a “boot straight into porn” mode. “We found that was what users really wanted in an operating system. I mean, browser.” It will include the Storm, Conficker and FBI botnets as standard. “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” The system will also set up automatic deductions from your bank account and credit card.

Mr Ballmer promised that Microsoft will, as always, deliver. “Unlike porn sites, we don’t just tease — we really will fuck you. Now bend over.”

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Australia, Politics, Science

Fielding annoyed by “scientists” disagreeing with him

June 16, 2009 David Gerard 1 Comment

THE END TIMES, Canberra, one hundred light-years behind (NotScientist) — A two-hour meeting with Australia’s Chief Scientist Penny Sackett has failed to convince Family First Senator Steven Fielding that human activity is the main cause of climate change.

Senator Fielding also expressed scepticism concerning chemistry, physics, evolution and the “Galilean heresies” concerning the Earth and the Sun and was not entirely sure of this new-fangled “arithmetic” or its place in our schools. He was unimpressed by Dr Sackett’s “evasions” when he questioned her. “When I asked her ‘why do carbon emissions only prove the Earth is six thousand years old and we’ll all have gone to Heaven in the Rapture by the time it becomes a problem?’, she wanted to rephrase my question and not answer it. Then she’d bang her head on the wall, I don’t know why.”

Senator Fielding has recently returned from a fact-finding mission to the United States, where he met with several climate change sceptics and Discovery Institute scientists who revealed to him how “magic beans” were responsible for temperature rises. “We also established that homosexuality causes greenhouse gases. But if we can filter the carbon dioxide at the Internet, apparently, we should be able to stop it dead in its tracks.”

The Government’s prospects of getting its carbon trading scheme through the Senate this fortnight rest with Senator Fielding and other crossbench senators who hold the balance of power. The Greens and Independent Senator Nick Xenophon also refused to back the scheme, but are thought to understand basic logic and mathematics and so may have objections that do not cause neural injury to contemplate.

The Australian Senate is elected by proportional representation per state. Senator Fielding represents those constituents, otherwise discriminated against, who remain climate change sceptics, evolution sceptics, ten-finger sceptics, outbreeding sceptics and walking upright sceptics.

Media, Technology, United States

Fear of Microsoft Bob Hope grips Google

June 15, 2009 David Gerard 1 Comment

WAGGENER EDSTROM, Portland, Sunday (NNGadget) — Sergey Brin of Google is “deeply rattled” by the launch of Microsoft’s Bob Hope search engine, according to a scoop printed in the New York Post, courtesy Microsoft public relations.

“New search engines have come and gone in the past ten years, but Bob Hope really has Sergey just crapping himself,” said one anonymous insider, “Steve B.”

“It’s clear that Google is headed down, down, down,” said another anonymous source, “Rupert M.” “Particularly the news operation. Print that or I fire you.”

Bob Hope has been warmly greeted by analysts, critics, tech journalists and others on Microsoft and News Corporation’s payrolls. Early statistics show Bob Hope increasing Microsoft’s market share by two percentage points, to about 11 percent! Before dropping back to statistical noise a few hours after the launch was over.

Google’s credibility was shot to pieces by its blatant pro-Obama bias, noted by Fox News analysts when they couldn’t find evidence of Obama’s French citizenship and gay marriage on the search engine in the days before the 2008 Presidential election. “Their far-left liberal search algorithms will lead to their utter defeat by the business-friendly Microsoft Bob Hope,” said swivel_eyed_loon_643 in the New York Post comments section. In addition, a hilariously pathetic PR placement of a story in the New York Post to hype Bob Hope sealed Google’s fate, conclusively and utterly.

A spokesman for Google, asked about the threat of Microsoft Bob Hope, said “what??”, put the phone down and laughed for five minutes before the line cut out, obviously overcome with hysterical horror.

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Asia, Politics

Iranian election: “Mission accomplished”

June 14, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

THE WHITE HOUSE, Tehran, Sunday (NNN) — Controversy reigns after the Iranian election on Saturday, in which incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected with a landslide 63% of the vote and returns from all districts precisely matched Government pre-poll predictions.

Mr Ahmadinejad credits his win to democratic methods perfected by George W. Bush. “We fully understand the international community’s desires to see that Iran’s democracy transparently works to the highest standards found in other nations. Mr Bush’s work has been exemplary.”

The “hanging chad” technique has been particularly effective. “Rounding up opposition voters, politicians and journalists named Chad and hanging them. In those cases where the opposition insurgent was not named Chad, we of course took care to change their names to Chad posthumously. Democratic procedures must not only be observed, they must be seen to be observed.”

“I stand one hundred per cent behind my brother Mahmoud,” said Supreme Leader Ali Khameini Rove of the Project for a New Iranian Century. “Occasionally with his mouth moving in time with the movements of my hand. Clever, isn’t it?”

Mr Ahmadinejad has been condemned by some as a “lunatic redneck” and “a gibbering madman perilously close to the nuclear button.” “These charges are most unfair. When I declaimed the necessity of obliterating and deleting the unnameable Zionist entity with cleansing atomic fire, it was implicit in these statements that we would need to reach a resolution to undertake such action through proper procedures of international diplomacy. Mr Bush’s excellent work in decapitating Saddam Hussein’s odious regime shows the way forward in this regard.”

“We stand in solidarity with the Iranian people,” said President-in-Exile Al Gore from his cave high in the mountains of Afghanistan. “For my own part, I will never give up the fight to take back America and Iran from the Republican counterrevolutionaries and will not rest until all Americans and Iranians breathe the free air of socialism … what? Democrats elected? Huh, next you’ll try telling me the President’s black. You can’t fool me! Back where you came from!”

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Health, Politics, United Kingdom

Human anatomy remains mystery to MPs

June 13, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

RATCHED, Westminster, Saturday (NNN) — In a survey of over 600 people working in Westminster, less than half were able to locate their heart on a diagram, less than one third could distinguish the gluteal muscle from the joint in their arm and many could not locate their own posterior under any circumstances.

The researchers said they found little difference in understanding of human anatomy between their survey and a similar one done in April 1979.

The results showed that:

Knowledge was poor and had dropped back to the same level as thirty years ago.
Many stoutly asserted that the heart was “propaganda” and “a myth” and that any such organ would be entirely unfeasible in practice.
Despite inability to locate the gluteal muscle, in many subjects it was 90% of their bodily mass, with a large nerve going directly to the pocket located adjacent to it.
Those whose hip pocket nerve was most problematic had the most trouble locating it or even admitting to its existence.

“Human anatomy remains a mystery to most of these people,” said John Weinman, who led the study, “though it is questionable how relevant it is to some of them.”

Suggested remedies include radical surgery to remove the most prominently overgrown gluteal muscles, scheduled to be performed no later than 5th May 2010.

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Technology, United Kingdom

New mobile phone directory launches

June 12, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

T3.COM, Tellyhouse, Thursday (NNGadget) — Controversy surrounds Connectivity’s new mobile phone directory service “Stalkertivity,” with privacy campaigners denouncing it as invasive.

Connectivity gets the numbers from market research companies, any online business you ever gave your number to, a hacked copy of the Telephone Preference Service anti-telemarketer database and scraps of paper retrieved from the streets outside nightclubs on Sunday mornings. “We are passionate about making the way we all stay in touch even easier,” said Connectivity CEO Raj Raithatha. “Particularly the quid per touch, we’re very passionate about that.”

The service has been ascertained not to be a data protection violation by the Information Commissioner’s Office. “Our official opinion was completely uninfluenced by any prospects of lucrative consultancies with Mr Raithatha’s companies when, in the fullness of time, any of us retire from civil service employment in, say, the next three months.”

The company approached the four mobile network operators for full directory information, but opted not to pursue legal action to obtain it after being told to “bog off.” “They said their customers would far prefer an ‘opt-in’ approach,” said Mr Raithatha. “Quite apart from the implausible and frankly unnatural spectacle of a mobile phone company appearing to give a shit about its customers, we simply couldn’t operate this business on an opt-in basis. Opt-out is far more market-friendly. Just look at the helpful promotional email everyone gets so much of, and how opting-out works so well to staunch the flow!

“We would never, of course, sell off the opted-out numbers in the unlikely event our brilliant business plan hits the rocks, or if we feel like cashing out or anything. Promise.”

Privacy campaigners are also concerned at children being stalkable through the service. “But don’t worry, you can join our 0800 phone queue for two hours or pay a quid to text us an opt-out. We’ll take your child out of the database in only four weeks, promise! How many calls can they get in that time? Really!”

Mobile users hailed the initiative and its opt-out nature, with thousands of people organising to call the 0800 138 6263 opt-out number and the curiously unlisted mobile, office and home numbers of Mr Raithatha and his financial backers at investment firms 3i and DJF Esprit at thirty-second intervals in shifts around the clock. Each individual caller offered an opt-out facility covering calls from that one person, however, and also one for the many pizza, takeaway and marital aid deliveries to Mr Raithatha and his relatives, friends and business associates.

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