if you missed the non-satire news o'the day, look at the previous-entries section and go to the Education Edition.

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geek alert-- normals, move on.

wittytirade.net

NEAR TIKRIT, IRAQ (WT) - Coalition forces faced a major impasse Wednesday afternoon when the vanguard of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was soundly defeated by "lame Iraqi campers" near the city of Tikrit. According to the Pentagon's account of the skirmish, a forward group of about a hundred U.S. soldiers equipped with MP5 sub-machineguns and durable Kevlar armor advanced on an Iraqi military facility roughly ten miles south of Tikrit in northern Iraq. It was there that the highly-trained marines were handily gunned down by Iraqi snipers "camping" -- that is, waiting perched in concealed locations.

After a brief firefight, two dozen U.S. Marines laid dead with the HP levels of nearly fifty more having dipped below 30. "WTF???" read a cryptic statement issued to the press by Central Command minutes after the brutal firefight. "OMFG that is so gay." "Shit u suck, [H]ussein, u total newb faggot," continued the statement. "NOT FAIR!!!"

..."These snipers intentionally went into these 'camping' formations, knowing full well that it would enable them to easily fire upon our forces without being noticed," said Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. "This strat[egy] is fucking retarded since its totally unfair and takes no skill at all." Wolfowitz went on to say that the Pentagon suspects the Iraqis were also using illegal weaponry. During the battle, Iraqi snipers were observed using AW/M sniper rifles, which have been banned by over 160 United Nations members and are "seriously gay," said Wolfowitz. According to Defense Department specifications, AW/M rifles can "kill a guy in like two seconds."

Wolfowitz also expressed concern over what effect the defeat could have on the United States' military rating. "If [the U.S.'s] rating goes down because of this, I swear to God, I'll kill him," he said.

...Allegations against the Iraqis flew during Friday's White House press conference, when Press Secretary Ari Fleischer accused the Iraqis of having employed more patently illicit weaponry, including insidious "location hack" devices and even trainers. "In May of 1994, the Russian government sold over 5,000 'wall hack' goggles to the Iraqi government," said Fleischer. "Furthermore, we have evidence that Hussein's administration established at least three 'trainer' camps, where Republican Guard soldiers received permanent 100 HP and +99 ATK on all weapons."

Fleischer also noted the Bush Administration's intent to punish any and all Iraqi soldiers caught "camping" in a war crimes court. If convicted, the an Iraqi might face a "do-over," in which he would be forced to confront another U.S. soldier in a combat setting, but this time one-on-one.

While the White House has remained optimistic, critical anti-war legislators have cited the defeat as evidence that "it's time to turn off the war." "This is so fucking dumb. I fucking hate war," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), one of few girls serving in Congress. "I'm never voting for war again." Pelosi also noted that she really wants the nation to get into The Sims again.

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glossynews.com

Once thought of as a powerful defensive weapon against the U.S. armed forces, human shields turned out to be almost useless under battle conditions, according to a U.S. army study. The study found human flesh too fragile to give effective protection against modern military weapons.

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news-at-ten.tv

US President George Bush has announced that US troops have found a huge supply of slimming pills hidden behind a false wall in a former Ba’ath party member’s home. President Bush has held up this find as proof of the Iraqi regime’s plan to develop or acquire chemical weapons of mass reduction.

Commentators have labelled this announcement a poor ploy to try and justify the multi-billion dollar war. They cite Bush’s announcement that a gifted Iraqi mathematics teacher was a biological weapon of mass deduction as another example of the US government's desperation.

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livingindefinitely.com

CHEYENNE, WYOMING – Tyler Hartnett is the most unlikely person to be drafting foreign policy for the White House, for obvious reasons: he’s a nine year old student at Iron Walk Elementary School. Yet this businesslike young man has charged that the Bush Administration has lifted its plan for “punishing” France from a theme he wrote in class last week.

“France should of helped us,” Hartnett wrote. “They could of helped us get Soddom Hoosain but they were bad. We should get them cause they didn’t help us.” The same passage, complete with misspellings, appeared yesterday in a classified White House report called “Spankin’ the Frog: France After Iraqi Freedom.”

Hartnett, the youngest registered Republican in Wyoming, says he is “pleased” that the Bush Administration is taking his advice but would like credit for his contribution... Pressed for comment about the Hartnett paper at his daily briefing, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said “I’m not at liberty to discuss who wrote what, but I can tell you Mr. Hartnett was right. France should of helped us get Soddom.” A spokesman for the French Embassy in Washington tried to deliver a response to Fleischer’s statement but could not stop laughing and had to leave the podium.

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brokennewz.net

In an historic move, FOX News has declared war on a foreign network. Senior Editor at FOX News, Elizabeth MacDonald alleges that al-Jazeera is in possession of WMD, Weapons of Mass Deception. She states, "We have been watching them since the start of the Afghan campaign, and have now decided it was time to put a stop to their constant shoddy editing of what are obviously faked injured Iraqi civilians. We will not allow them to upstage our fair and balanced journalism"

Another managing-editor claimed they have records of mass quantities of Stage blood, fake blood chunks, blood capsules, fake latex bullet-hole and shrapnel wounds, exposed bones, burns and much more, "We have attained copies of Corporate Order Forms, detailing orders from Hollywood special effects companies. We know al-Jazeera are in possession of these materials. And yes, we will be looking deeply into this suspicious Hollywood connection to see if any activist actors may have a share hold in one of these special effects companies."

FOX News would not say when the Battle for al-Jazeera would start, stating in a press-release only that "…the element of surprise is on our side, and we will define the battlefield. To say anything more would endanger our hired-guns." FOX News would only say that they had obtained their forces from the classifieds section of Soldier of Fortune magazine.

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theonion.com

LOS ANGELES—Fox executives Monday unveiled their latest reality-TV venture, Appointed By America, a new series in which contestants vie for the top spot in Iraq's post-war government. "Get ready, America, because you're about to choose the man—or woman—who will lead Iraq into an exciting democratic future," said Fox reality-programming chief Mike Darnell, introducing the show at a press conference. "Will it be Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the exiled Iraqi National Congress? Or General Tommy Franks, commander of the allied forces? Or maybe Roshumba Williams, the Macon, GA, waitress with big dreams and an even bigger voice? Tune in Tuesdays at 9 to see."

Describing the new show as "American Idol meets the reconstruction of Afghanistan," Darnell said Appointed By America will feature contestants squaring off in a variety of challenges, including a democracy quiz, a talent competition, and nation-building activities that will demonstrate their ability to lead a bombed-out, war-ravaged Mideast country. A panel of celebrity judges will help eliminate two contestants each week, leaving one lucky winner the undisputed leader of Iraq at the end of the season. Viewers can participate by casting phone-in votes, although Darnell noted that voting is restricted to calls originating from within the continental U.S.

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the-lineonline.com

(Indianapolis, IN) - Military experts refer to Operation Disarm Saddam and its subsequent title, Operation Iraqi Freedom, as a "textbook case" for how-to-succeed in war... Cliffs Notes, well-known as the architect of study guides for slackers, yesterday announced its European release of Invasion Iraq. The U.S. version, Victory Over Satan, is awaiting a rewrite from the Bush Administration.

Wiley and Sons, publisher of super-condensed cheat guides, chose to issue multiple editions of the war report to produce as many accounts of the conflict as possible. Company President Joe Pesce says "It is important to maintain the integrity of the falsehoods generated by each propaganda machine." Pesce also stresses the company's commitment to accuracy in the distribution process. "We do not want a student in Montreal to flunk the test because he accidentally got the European French version instead of the North American French version.

...Cliffs Notes strives to turn out the most concise and truthful representation of each fabrication and also to continuously update its material to account for constant revisions from all sides. An unnamed member of Wiley's editorial staff describes the task as "the most monumental project ever undertaken in the history of abridged make-believe."

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iraqiinformationministry.com

Unnamed intelligence sources today revealed US Vice President Richard B. "Dick Halliburton" Cheney died of heart failure just two days into the latest Gulf War. The Iranian sources also confirmed that Mr Cheney had been found soon after his death by a senior executive of the Halliburton Corporation, a company Mr. Cheney was chairman of until 2000. The executive refused to reveal why he had waited over three weeks to inform any other person of Mr Cheney's passing.

...The Vice-President was a colourful and sometimes controversial figure even with the most hawkish US circles. With his decisions to vote against the release from prison of Nelson Mandela, plans to ban peace, and policy of personally strangling at least one local pauper a day, many were critical of Cheney until he revealed his master-plan to reshape the Middle East and thrust the US economy back into the kind of acceleration seen through the early nineties.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer vehemently denied the reports that the Vice President was dead. "Total rubbish," Fleischer told journalists, "total, total, utter rubbish. Mr Vice President is alive and well and , oh look, there behind you, he just went passed the window! Aah shucks! Just missed him!"

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whitehouse.org

FORMAL STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT RESPONDING TO RECENT CONDEMNATION OF CLUSTER BOMBS BY SIR PAUL "FRUITY-FOGEY WASHED-UP LIMEY VEGAN ZOMBIE" McCARTNEY

Statement by the President

THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon. Today, virtually anyone and everyone who ever dared question the heft of my hairy war balls is standing in humiliated shock and humble awe now that I've effortlessly run roughshod over the ridiculous concept of Arab sovereignty... Yes, it is an amazing feat to actually win a war when you only spend thirty billion dollars to defeat a country whose army has less fire-power than Jennifer Lopez's personal security detail.

...While I thought I had successfully squashed every last dissenting anti-death cockroach there was, it seems I missed a Beatle in the process - namely, Paul "the cute one" McCartney. Yes, earlier today – "Sir Paul," as those wig-wearing limeys still like to call their men who've been "honored" ...voiced his worthless opposition to the continued military use of cluster bombs.

...Talking trash about harmless mommy bombs that bloom mid-air and release their pink bonnet of little baby bombs that go POW and hurt the bad men is not in his financial interest. If Paul was smart, he'd write a song called "Happiness Is A Freedom-Protecting Cluster Bomb." [and so on.]

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wittytirade.net

CHARLESTON, SC (WT) - A devastating Iraqi rocket attack on a Kuwait City shopping center was inadvertently cheered by a local man.

While watching live footage of the attack Saturday afternoon, Ed Winsch, 45, a factory worker and married father of two, celebrated the explosion, believing the video was that of Baghdad. Ironically, the conflagration had actually occurred in Kuwait City, in a nation counted as an ally in the war against Iraq.... Winsch also laughed at the sight of American anti-air missiles, under the impression that the trails were Iraqi tracer fire. When informed of his error, Winsch issued a terse apology and resumed watching FOXNews.

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brokennewz.com

Washington D.C. - The recent protests in Oakland, California, by the organization Direct Action to Stop the War, has prompted the U.S. Department of Transportation to change their policy on running over pedestrians with vehicles. The protesters, seeking to stop shipment of military supplies to troops, blocked an exit ramp off Interstate 280 in San Francisco. The truck drivers, heading previous DOT guidelines, chose not to embed the protesters into the interstate. Under the new guidelines, announced Monday, war protesters are no longer considered pedestrians and, therefore, can be ground into the pavement without ramification.

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deadbrain.co.uk

Airlines in the United States are to cease carrying passengers on domestic flights after fears over security, it was announced yesterday. Since September 11th 2001 plane operators have been keen to find a way of securing aircraft and the buildings they fly over from terrorist attack, but this latest measure is hoped to be the most effective yet.

"Historically, the vast majority of the threats to the security of our aircraft have come from the people on them," explained American Airlines spokesman, Douglas Ramsbottom. "By doing away with passengers altogether we should eliminate the threat from them, leaving only the threat from the ground. The next logical step is to do away with flying altogether for the ultimate in safety, and that's something we're actively considering."

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borowitzreport.com

North Korean President Kim Jung-Il threw a monkey wrench into plans for the upcoming nuclear summit between the U.S. and North Korea by announcing today that he plans to bring an enormous nuclear bomb with him to the Beijing meeting. Mr. Kim, observers say, may believe that having an enormous nuclear bomb with him at the negotiating table could prove helpful as a bargaining chip in the upcoming talks. Moments after the controversial announcement, U.S. officials worried aloud that by bringing a huge nuclear bomb with him to Beijing Mr. Kim could be endangering the summit’s chances for success. “If Kim Jung-Il shows up in Beijing and there’s a big nuclear bomb sitting next to him at that table, that could wreck everything,” one State Department official said today.

At the White House, spokesman Ari Fleischer said that the move by Kim would not scuttle Secretary of State Colin Powell’s appearance at the Beijing summit, but that Mr.Powell now intended to show up with an anti-ballistic missile system and three aircraft carriers. Mr. Fleischer added that while war with Pyongyang was not inevitable, the Bush administration had just awarded a $16,200,000,000.00 contract to the Bechtel Group for the reconstruction of North Korea “just in case.”

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ridiculopathy.com

WASHINGTON, D.C.- Now that the war with Iraq has begun to wind down, President George W. Bush says he will refocus his attention on the American economy, even though many financial experts wish he wouldn't... While still ailing, jobless figures, the stock market and other key indices all appear to have improved significantly over the past six months. While credit for the trend cannot be directly given to the President's inattention, economists and Wall Street insiders don't want to risk it.

Over the past few days high-ranking members of Congress and White House officials have met in super-secret negotiations to hammer out some kind of solution that would give the war-weathered President what he wants without actually giving the President what he wants. After a bipartisan compromise proposal met with an almost violent reception in the Oval Office, negotiators opted for the most radical solution they could think of: to convene a special session of the Stunt Congress to "pass" the President's plan into "law." According to Constitutional scholars we spoke with, the Stunt Congress is just like the real one with one basic exception: lawmakers must place "air quotes" around everything they say relating to actual matters of law and government.

...Prominent Democrats have promised to put up a fight when the "measure" comes up for debate on Friday but capitulate in the end for the good of the country. Insiders expect the "bill" will become "law" when the president signs it some time late next week. If all goes well, the he will quietly celebrate his victory and never give it a second thought.

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smthop.com

Over the past few years, the West Nile Virus has been ripping through the United States... "I'm scared of things I don't understand," said local man Tommy Thompson, a man who also admits to being scared of ghosts, vampires, and the 1993 New York Mets. "I haven't a clue who or what the West Nile is, and thus I am very, very fearful of whatever it is or might be and I am even more fearful of what it might stand for." It's with these sort of thoughts in mind, and dreams of gold doubloons in their pockets, the Center for Disease and Kool-Aid Flavor Naming (CDKFN) has proposed the new, less threatening name A-OK Virus over the previous more threatening and slightly confusing West Nile Virus.

"Before when people heard mention of the West Nile Virus, or even contracted it, they were frightened," says CDKFN chairman Don Sampson. "But now when people hear the name A-OK Virus, they think to themselves, 'That doesn't sound that bad' or 'you know, I might like to get that sometime'. I think it's really put a positive spin on the virus. A lot of people are finally going to give the West Nile Virus a second look."

..."We here at the Center for Disease and Kool-Aid Flavor Naming are good at making names, but not at making nicknames," says Sampson. "Our initial attempts lead us to such laughable nicknames as 'Super Happy Fun Death Time', 'The Eternal Sleep', and 'Black Death 2: A New Beginning'. It became clear early on that we'd have to take the entire West Nile name back to the drawing board less suffer with a sub par and still threatening nickname."

...Even with all the glory, praise, and huge endorsement checks that come with this triumphant name change, those proud workers at the Center for Disease and Kool-Aid Flavor Naming aren't content to rest on their figurative laurels and let the rest of the world's diseases remain with threatening sounding names. "We're working on a new name for SARS right now," says Sampson. "We're leaning towards SARS-tacular, but nothing is set in stone just yet. You'll just have to wait and see."

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bbspot.com

Santa Cruz, CA - A rift in the space-time continuum was created today when overclocker Jamie Aperman ran a 750 MHz Coppermine Pentium III at 1.6 GHz. Overclocking has long been blamed for causing global warming, but this is the first occasion that the fabric of space-time has been damaged.

MIT Professor George Greznowski said, "It appears that the CPU was operating so fast that it began to execute instructions before they arrived. This execution of future instructions created a small tear in the fabric of space-time itself through which part of the motherboard passed into a parallel universe." No one was injured in the accident, but a computer motherboard was partially damaged. Mr. Aperman, better known as speed_phreeek, said, "I'm pissed. I lost a brand new Alpha Cooler and Coppermine to a parallel universe. I called my insurance company and they don't cover losses to rifts in the space-time continuum."

Intel researchers have long warned of such damage to the space-time continuum, and added clock multiplier locks to their CPUs before they were required by Congress. A bill is now in the US Senate which would require a three day waiting period for purchasers of Alpha Cooling Fans and Peltier cooling devices. The bill would also require clock multiplier locks on all new processors.

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http://theonion.com/onion3915/christopher_hitchens.html

SPARTA, TN—Noted author, social critic, and political gadfly Christopher Hitchens was once again the focus of controversy Monday, when he was forcibly removed from Happy Trails trailer park following a drunken confrontation with Noreen Bodell, 39, his common-law wife of 14 years. Responding to a domestic-disturbance call, police arrived at the couple's double-wide trailer at approximately 2:15 p.m. to find Hitchens and Bodell throwing dishes at each other. When the officers attempted to remove Hitchens from the premises, the leftist intellectual became physically and verbally abusive toward the officers, calling them "shitkickers," "bitches," and "effete liberal apologists for the atrocities of late-stage capitalism."

...Police were initially summoned when neighbors reported hearing shouting and a loud crash, followed by a rambling polemic on Kissinger's alleged covert approval of Indonesia's illegal invasion of East Timor in 1975 "Hitch is an all-right guy once he sobers up," [Sgt. Wilson] Vernon said. "He just gets a little wound-up sometimes, like when his woman stays out all night down at Smokey Joe's Tavern, or he has a deadline looming for his Vanity Fair column."

...Town officials in Sparta... admit that he may be "a handful" at times, but they insist he is not a danger to himself or others. "If I know Hitch, by the end of the week, he and Noreen'll be back together, cuddlin' and kissin', just as happy as two crawdads in a pond," Sparta Police Chief Buck Perkins said. "We don't get a lot of ultra-progressive agitators 'round these parts, but Hitch is okay. Plus, he earned a lot of points with the townsfolk for his vocal criticism of the anti-war movement. Even though he was attacking the war opponents from the left, folks around here don't necessarily understand the implications of that, so he's an all-right Joe in their book."

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