Swaziland witches protest govt flight restriction

The Swaziland Association for Witchcraft and Wizardry has this morning announced plans for a series of strikes and protest actions against the Swaziland government following its controversial decision to restrict all witches from flying above 150m.

The flight altitude restrictions, which were put into law last week, would fine any lawbreaking masters of muti, the dark arts or black magic R500 000 for going over the newly imposed limit.

"It's backwards and utterly ridiculous to put in such a law. It makes no sense," said Swaziland citizen Matt Henderson, who asked not to be named. "No one would have ever thought that such a law would even be entertained by citizens and lawmakers - I mean, we all know Swazi witches use their brooms to fling potions at houses and perform incantations, not fly."

The Swaziland government, however, is adamant that such a move is necessary.

"We can't have sorcery in plane engines," said Civil Aviation Authority spokeswoman Seess Wichcroft. "The tokoloshe-bringing hazards they pose on ground-level must not be allowed in the skies." He added, however, that witches were still free to fly below this level. "We don't want the people of other countries to think we're backwards, anti-progressive and witchophobic."

However, the law has been extensively critised by the Sangoma and N'anga Association of Southern Africa.

"Many of our members are not evil witches, but are still grouped under this hurtful law. Some of them make a fair amount of their money protecting would-be air travellers from the dangers of modern aviation," said Chairwizard Aldus Bumblemoore. "We also have a ten-year contract to provide muti application processes to all the 747s and A-380s in the Swazi fleet." This, said Bumblemoore, constitutes an illegal reversal of a contractual agreement, as the airlines argue that they no longer need protection.

He went to outline the dangers of this arguement. "You see, they haven't yet passed legislature restircting the operational limits of tokoloshes and evil spirits. Unless we have formal laws and limitations on where these insidious creatures can practice their trickery, passengers are still in danger."

The government declined to comment on the matter, saying that they were still waiting for their bone-throwers and intestine-readers to get back to them with an official response.

Study finds 96% of men “really good at doing the sex”

Recent inferences in the media and society that not all men are irresistible and fantastic lovers were utterly shattered today, after a survey has found that a staggering 96% of men are “like, really really great at doing the sex” and that 93% of men have “totally massive” dicks.

The survey, which was conducted over the past three years and involved over 160 000 male respondents between the ages of 12 and 42, has irrefutably found out that a vast majority of men are without equal in the sack, are very well hung, are excellent chefs, bone different totally hot binnets each weekend and have definitely banged both your mother and your sisters.

“Recent media misconceptions might paint men as just these overhyping, overexaggerating fools who are of average girth and length, and who have far fewer sexual conquests than they claim to have when surrounded by mates and various quantities of alcohol,” said head of the research team, Muhst Askew, “but these claims – according to our scientific research – are just a bunch of lies.”

The survey comes hot on the heels of last month’s shock scientific discovery in which a survey found that over 92% of all men are “completely dangerous cage fighters, deadly brawlers and MMA masters” who could “totally take like three guys at once in a bar”.

“It’s just like I’ve been saying for years,” said Tap-out t-shirt porting MMA fan, Marshall Harts. “I mean, maybe someone tunes me or checks me skiff in the bar, or looks at my chick. Boom! Elbow to the face! I mean, I wouldn’t want to though. I might, you know, fuckin’ totally kill someone,” he said before adding that “someone would definitely go to hospital [and] I don’t know if I want to do that to another guy.”

However, in light of these revelations, many experts and members of the public are now asking why there are not similar studies of woman – a question that the scientific community has attacked viciously.

“We obviously can’t ask women, like Jennifer or Christine, my ex-girlfriends,” said Askew, “because they’d probably lie about how tiny and laughably inadequate my penis is, the lying skanks.”

Government secret service agent ordered to repay misused funds

Following the discovery of mismanagement and abuse of funds, equipment and their Code of Conduct, world-renowned British Secret Service Agency MI6 has ordered one of their most noted agents to reimburse them and the state.

Head of the MI6, Miss M (no surname), said in a press conference this morning that their leading agent and covert operative Mr Bond James Bond has been ordered to pay almost £12 million back to the agency.

“For a number of years now we have exercised a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy with the majority of our agents’ expenditure and behaviour in the field, and we’ve always thought the outcomes of their missions more important than the sums spent to achieve them,” she said. “But this is becoming ridiculous.”

M said that Mr Bond’s expenses account when out in the field was “exorbitantly high and completely out of proportion”.

“Something must be done to curb this wastefulness,” she said. “Every mission, we have to pick up the tab on endless Whiskeys, Dry Martinis shaken not stirred, and massive gambling debts – and we won’t even mention the condition he returns his Agency-issue equipment in, if he returns it at all!”

Quartermaster for the Agency, Q (also no surname), agreed with The Agency’s decision, saying that Bond’s reputation of carelessness and recklessness was costing British taxpayers millions of pounds a year.

“I work my ass off making these gadgets and disguised weapons so that his mission will be a success,” said Q. “Laser-beam watches, exploding pens, grappling-hook cellphones, gas-grenades disguised as two-pound coins – it doesn’t matter what ingenious contraption I devise. If he bothers to return it, it’s usually irreparably damaged. A little respect would be nice.”

Bond's excessive love of plastic surgery
has hit taxpayers hard.

Also hitting the taxpayers’ wallets was Bond’s overly excessive love for plastic surgery.

“Every few years, it’s like we’re getting a different Bond. He has his face and voice altered every couple of missions, and we have to pay for those expensive treatments as well as the cover stories to match it. I don’t even know who he is anymore: one minute he’s a throaty-baritone Scotsman going under the pseudonym ‘Connery’, and the next he’s a wiry, silver-haired Englishman under the passport name ‘Craig’. I can barely keep up.”

This is not the first bit of controversy to engulf the long-time secret agent, however, after recent calls by the Agency forced him into a rehabilitation and treatment program for drugs, alcohol and sexually transmitted diseases.

“It’s been an issue for year now – he’ll get hammered while on the job, and then invariably bang some Russian secret agent whose name is a weak sexual innuendo,” said the Agency’s statement. “But we’re pleased to report Mr Bond is making steady progress.”

The Agency is still cautious about the controversial operative, and has as a precautionary measure introduced a new set of gadgets so that Mr Bond does not sink back into his old ways.

“Our Quartermaster is now making all sorts of clever devices,” they said. “Including a breathalyser disguised as a ball-point pen, and a watch that dispenses condoms and a six-week course of antibiotics.”

Most wizards “horribly underprepared” for normal society

A new study co-released by the Ministry of Magic’s Departments of Education and Statistics has shocked the wand-wielding world this morning, after it unleashed a scathing indictment of Schooling for Witchcraft and Wizardry, saying that the mostly magic-focussed schooling system leaves almost 90% of young wizards “horribly unprepared” for normal and everyday society.

According to the study, many famous institutions, such as Hogwarts School, focus too much on “arcane and not-that-useful subjects such as Potions, Alchemy and Defense Against the Dark Arts” and entirely leave out vital fields of study such as languages, mathematics, statistics, geography, politics, and sexual education.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Minister of Magic Neville Shortbottom. “Our schools teach skills that you might use once or twice in your life, like Alohamora or Expecto Patronum and yet they teach you nothing about basic addition or subtraction, calculus, grammar or spelling. Many say, ‘oh, but we have magic for that,’ but what if you’re out in the Muggle world or don’t have your wand?”

This isn't the first criticism of the Wizarding world's governance, legislation, social bounds and norms and general normalised societal conventions. In early 2011, the Wizard world was accused of being a "racist, almost Apartheid-like separation of races, magic and non-magic, which revels in secrecy, discrimination, technophobia and incredibly dangerous and unnecessary inventions", such as the ridiculous risky game of Quidditch, and prisons full of dangerous sorcerers guarded by horrific soul-sucking demons (which are then posted to guard schools).

However, this is just the beginning of scandalous findings against the Magic world’s schooling system, after a seven-book report, published by Rowling, J et al exposed the horrific dangers that school-going wizards face on a daily basis.

This report, which focused mostly on Hogwarts School, showed how schools have declined under the headmastership of noted wizards, such as maybe-homosexual-maybe-not Albus Dumbledore.

“Hogwarts in particular was a real shock to all parents,” said Head of The Association for Schooling Safety, Mandy Castmoore. “We found that in many cases, there had been no rigorous HR-approved hiring policy or system of controls, background scrutiny or checks and balances for employing new teachers, often hiring dangerous and entirely unqualified madmen and servants of the Dark Lord himself as educational instructors and professors. The school grounds and classrooms are filled with deadly poisons and vicious animals, and there were no Emergency Medical Services available during any of the Quidditch Matches, which were often played in lightning and rain. Add to this the fact that some idiot thought it would be a good idea to let walking undead Soul-Vacuum-cleaners prowl around the campus on the flimsy basis of ‘security’, and you have yourself a ticking timebomb.”

Wizards who have been through the schooling system are reportedly already feeling the brunt of this ruinous education system.

“This guy walked into my shop the other day and bought a chocolate frog for 32 Knuts, a bag of unicorn hair and serpent’s venom for 53 Sickles, and a new wand for 6 Galleons 82 Sickles. When he asked me how much I owed him, I had no clue,”said shop owner Eric Mandelson. “When I admitted it to him and asked him if he knew, he said no, and we just stood there awkwardly. I don’t even have a calculator spell. I know Muggles have machines and 'apps' to prevent this problem, but even if I had one I wouldn’t know how to use it.”

The Ministry is reportedly now looking at improving wizards' and witches' education by replacing "arcane and outdated subjects", such as Divinity and Levitation, with more modern fields of study such as Maths, Physics and Language studies.

"We're excited," said Minister Shortbottom. "This will be a Patronus of knowledge right up the arse of the Dementor of ignorance."

Rhodes University to shorten semesters to two weeks

Rhodes University has this morning announced its decision to shorten the duration of a semester to just two weeks.

The decision comes in light of developments leading into the notorious alcohol-free cram-fest that is SWOT week and also of studies into students' behaviour over the last five years.

"Our meticulous research has shown that people don't do any readings the whole semester, and just pull the last few essays out of thin air in the last few hours before a deadline - kind of like an exam," said research manager and clinical behaviourist Howie Euaktin.

He pointed out that they've had to contend with public perceptions that University should take many months out of your year in its transfer of knowledge.

"We've tried to get them more critically engaged and involved by saying that 'this essay/dissertation/thesis is not something that you can do the night or day before', but we're not fooling anyone," he said. "Especially when they basically have to do exactly that during exams, several times in quick succession. For years now, we've had people thinking that it should take months to learn all the important bits, but really this can be done in mere hours between lunch and back-to-back episodes of Community or Suits.

Rhodes students will now be given their year's coursework two weeks before a series of exams, thus eliminating the need for weeks of essays and practicals. It is a move that has been met with mixed reactions.

"I think it's great!" said third-year BCom student Carrie Balance. "This means I'll won't have to spend as much time pretending I'm doing work and complaining about the workload that I invariably leave until the last minute before telling every goddamn person on Facebook."

Others, however, have not been so happy.

"It's a load of garbage," said fourth-year Mark Reader. "Now how am I supposed to convince my dad that I need R1500 a month for 'printing', 'stationary' and 'sundry costs'?"

The move mirrors similar changes in the Education Sector by Minister for Basic Education Angie Motshekga, who recently changed the system of seven years of schooling to just a 'Yes or No' style multiple choice exam at the end of a three-day seminar.

Archive footage proves cricket once contained sport

Fans of going to stadia to get drunk, wear colourful gear and ogle the dancing cheerleaders were left in speechless shock today, after Television Sports Channel directors announced this week their discovery of stunning proof that Cricket once actually contained elements of sport.

"It's definitely proof," said DSTV Sport Channel Director Hyle Eiyts. "We have found video evidence that proves once and for all those claims that we all found so ridiculous: that cricket once actually had scores and players and teams and stuff."

Many fans, however, are staunchly disbelieving, saying that it's impossible.

"We all know and love Cricket. The colours, the flags, the beer, the dancing chicks, cheering every once in a while because someone in the middle of the field where we all go to celebrate the festival hits a ball over the fence dividing us from the VIP members in pads and helmets. I just can't believe that such a wonderful thing would have come from a such a blatant snooze-fest."

However, sports historians say the discovery is a real eye-opener.

“Watching the footage, we finally have some idea of how exciting, how truly riveting this sport once was,” said sports footage curator and discoverer Shu-Tsin Slomo. “In fact, it was considered TOO exciting. They had to control, limit, the sport to stop people descending into mad chaos caused by the sheer adrenaline flood that inevitably stems from watching a bunch of men standing on a field of grass for hours on end while pairs of them run up and down a short stretch of dirt, every once in a while doing something you can actually see from the stands.”

Slomo outlined the changes they were forced to make to conserve the fabric of social integrity.

"The sport was so exciting, so mind-bogglingly brain-blowing that they had to shorten games to just one day instead of five days," he explained. "It was so breath-takingly intense, so life-alteringly incredible, that they had to cut the sport from 50 awe-inspiring 'overs' to just 20. It was that hectic."

Since the discovery, many historians have stepped forward with corroborating evidence, showing how these massive changes were just not enough to stop fans rioting out of sheer, psyche-destroying ecstacy.

"The changes they made were big, but not big enough," they said in a joint collaborative report. "They soon realised that this day-long drama was too dangerously moving to intense states of interest and euphoria that they had to alter it even more."

They explained in more depth.

"After television was invented, they had to limit the damage. They cut out vast tracts of the sport, showing just highlights and replays of single interesting aspects - like a hit, or a catch, or a wicket being blown out of the ground. They would water down these images with what were then frivolous distractions and add-ons: the drinking, the wild fans, the bright colours, the crying spectators, the batsman making a religious sign after hitting a ball, the dancing girls. It is from this tradition that our modern Cricket originates."

Fans who have heard about the news, however, say that the changes to Cricket will no revert anytime soon.

"The world has changed," one said. "To go back to long so-called games and these weird Five-Day-Internationals with 50 overs and multiple innings - why would we do that? That would be like reading a long, boring news story in a newspaper when you could just read the tweet online."

Readers wanting to know more about this but, like, TLDR, can just read the tweet on @WheresMattyNow.

Emergency services send teen girl help

NetCare24 has released a statement this morning, telling of their decision to send an ambulance to a 15-year-old girl's house, shortly after they realised that she hadn't updated her status in the last 5 minutes.

"We were just sitting there, minding our own newsfeeds, when we suddenly realised that we hadn't read anything about her totz amazeballs trip with her gorjus frenz xoxoxox to Balito bay last weekend," said head of the Help Centre Tay Kincalls. "We thought nothing of it for a while - sometimes these lapses happen."

However, they immediately flew into action when they realised there was something serious going on.

"That was when her best friend Kelly, who just left her asshole boyfriend Jake and she totally deserves a better guy a guy hu will make her feel special and we neva liked him anyway cos of his weird eyebrows, posted 184 photos of herself on Facebook," said Net24 social media watchdog, Julia Henderson.

When the girl hadn't liked a single one after a whole eight seconds, the emergency services flew into action.

"She just doesn't possess that kind of social media network selfcontrol that most normal fucking people have," said Henderson.

Normal Facebook users who don't post statuses about every goddamn thing that happens in their life who see these kinds of people suddenly falling silent can call the NetCare 24-hour emergency line at 1-800-UNFRIEND.

Makana launch probe into unbroken pipe

Makana Municipality has announced their intention to launch a series of in-depth investigations and reports into the water pipe running up High Street, saying that there has got to be some insidious reason it hasn't broken yet.

The pipe, located on the corner of High Street, has apparently not leaked once since its installation in 1989.

"The pipes of Grahamstown have been incorporated into the ground to naturally, automatically and eventually convert into fountains, free car-washes, and small rivers," said Mayor of the City of Saints, Jake Kalimba. "This pipe, this one is a whole different story."

According to the Municipality, all the pipe does all day is merely transport water from A to B.

"It has not served all the other functions that we equate with Gtown water pipes," he said.

Grahamstonians have been equally mystified.

"We just don't get it," said Fingo resident Rob Dabiedamuni. "Raglan Road, New Street, the higher suburbs... they are all broken. What makes this one pipe so special?"

Many local residents have applauded the Municipality's decision, but have said that there is still much more that needs similar investigation.

"It's a step in the right direction, but the Mayor needs to look into other things, like the small section of road at the bottom of my driveway, and the electricity supply at my neighbour's house," said resident John Tom. "These two have been respectively pothole-free and uninterrupted since we came here."

The Mayor has promised action.

"We will get to the bottom of this, even if we have to dig all day," he said

Skrillex now most highly paid, decorated Solitaire player

In a report by competitive solitaire ranking organisation Card Sharks International (CSI), part-time button pusher and mouse-clicker, Apple-product whore and full-time solitaire aficionado Skrillex has trumped other part-time phase/volume knob spinners and soundboard dial turners to win the prestigious title of International Man of Solitaire.

"When it came to picking a champion, someone who utterly defined the lifelong commitment to the game of Solitaire, there really was no other choice," said head of the awards selection committee Dubs Teip. "I mean, his Solitaire skills are off the charts. He jets around the world, practicing and competing almost every night in front of crowds of thousands of screaming fans, even going so far to play the game until the wee hours of the morning, in clubs and festivals filled with hundreds of distracting bright lights, laser displays and loud music, winning game after game after game, even in face of endless high-pace wub wub sounds mixed with recordings of breaking appliances."

Skrillex will now join the ranks of some of the greatest and much-loved Solitaire players in history, such as Deadmau5, Aviici and the Friar's DJ.

"I'm proud," said the Friar's DJ, who took time out of his busy schedule asking if there were any first-years in the club to speak to reporters. "He's finally rolling in the big leagues. Oh, and ten minutes until the Russian Bear special ends, make some fucking nooooooiiise!"

Tiep agreed wholeheartedly.

"The fact that he consistently lights up that MacBook screen with badly pixellated victory fireworks even when he's pretending to actively make music that isn't all premixed and prerecorded is just an incredible testament to his skill as a card sharp."

While many might consider Solitaire a silly waste of time to dabble with because you're desperately lonely, bored, and don't know how to play Minesweeper or have a laptop that can't run a real game, CSI says otherwise.

"It's a bold and world-reknowned game going back thousands of years," said Tiep. "It requires skill and determination. There might be prerecording, shuffling, crossfading and auto-equalising apps for music, but Solitaire is something that you have to do yourself."

Fans of the game should be sure to attend this month's current league Championships, which are being hosted in nightclubs and at trance festivals across the country. Entry is between R10 and R50.

God personally awards ManU with win over Arsenal

Thousands of Manchester United fans took to the streets in celebration last weekend, after God took time out of his busy schedule of ignoring starvation, racial discrimination, poverty and war to give the Red Devils a clean 4 - 0 win against rivals Arsenal.

According to the best-selling author and divine creator, he was ignoring a three-year-old paraplegic and blind wheelchair-bound boy's cry for help when he decided to get involved in the hotly-contested and "far more important" 90 minute period of a bunch of millionaires kicking a plastic sphere of air around a patch of grass.

"St Peter and Jesus and I were kicking it in my pearly crib, when J-C said that Christianity has been getting a really bad rap these days. We spoke about how best to make an impact, you know, really reconnect with our fanbase. We could have solved hunger or saved a dying baby or something, but no one posts about that shit on Facebook and Twitter every day. It's just not popular," said the divine being of unknowable age.

Then Jesus remembered how football was, like, everywhere: in slow motion replays, dedicated sports channels and packed bars.

"It's basically its own religion," said Our Lord and Saviour. "It quickly became apparent that we could look really good by doing something that takes really no effort at all. I mean, I once fed thousands of people with just a few fish and a loaf of bread. I think I can put a plastic ball into a net. Come on."

The Almighty and Heavenly Father's religion, Christianity, is now the second-most popular in England (home of Premier League Football), with almost 23 followers.

The miraculous four last-minute goals mark one of the Holy Father's most widely praised miracles in almost 2000 years. Religious and political analysts have since been debating the divine appearance in great depth.

Other critics have, however, defended the Holy Father's decision, saying that it was a fresh new take on world problems.

"We see pictures of starving children with distended bellies and sawn-off or blown-off limbs everyday," said media analyst Mizrep Risent. "It's just getting stale. So when we saw pictures in the paper of a young boy in a football stadium with that wonderful smile on his face, shining tears of joy streaking his face after his Football team had scored a point, I immediately felt the old heart strings tug. It's a bold new take on an age-old problem."

However, some have critisised the miracle, saying that the match had been looking pretty much dead even up until the intervention.

"In terms of miraculousness, it was about a 4 out of 10," said Cardinal Archie Bishup, "and so it falls somewhere between a plague of frogs and a turning water to wine. Man-U has had a great season, and so some say that they didn't really need the extra help. Hell, they're already ahead on the log. It would have been impressive if it had been 4 - 0 to Everton."

Arsenal fans and players alike have since expressed their displeasure at God's action, saying that they, too, prayed for victory. Notable examples include ex-defender and current multimillionaire Hover Payd."I would like to blame God for the loss," he said. "Without, him, we might have actually won. Thanks a lot. Now all I have is my incredible pile of money to wallow inconsolably in for the rest of the day. You know how many strippers and cocaine i'm going to have to go through to recover from this?"

God, however, personally defended his actions, saying that there was a "special place reserved in hell" for those "festering rectal sores" who support anyone else.

"Every time I see a player from any other team putting his hands together and looking up, or kissing the silver cross around their neck, or genuflecting after scoring a goal, it gets my tits in a twist," he said, snapping a vuvuzela in two. "Obviously it's not me - why would I rob the Devils by having some fancy-haired idiot from another team scoring against us? It just makes no sense."

Longevity, healthy lifestyle potentially fatal – study

The news got scarier and the world a considerably more bleak, depressing place to live this morning, after doctors working in conjunction with medical researchers at the Institute for The Study of Dangerous and Inevitable Illnesses announced yet another way you are probably going to die.

“The first few symptoms of this disease are iniquitous and dangerous because you feel normal, like a normal, healthy sixty-to-seventy-year-old,” said Dr Koff Formiplese. “And then BOOM: you’ve got it.”

The so-called Old Age Syndrome (OAS) has been shown to affect nearly one in a thousand people, mostly senior citizens between the ages of 60 and 90. The disease has a mortality rate of 100%, and is likely to affect you or someone you know at least once in your or his or her lifetime.

“This rare medical condition has diverse and wide-ranging symptoms,” said Formiplese, “such as hair loss, flaccid and weathered skin, brittle bones, arthritis and an increased susceptibility to infection from cuts and bruises. Also, it massively degrades their driving skills, and makes them give really strange birthday presents to people. The people who have this disease carry an unacceptably elevated risk of dying and they have a much higher than ordinary chance of developing cancers, lung, bone and liver diseases, and usually have a much poorer immune system. We need to find out what is causing this terrible affliction and end it once and for all.”

To deal with the disease, many people now resort to lumping all the infected into one huge Hospice Village, where activities like tennis, water aerobics and increasingly infrequent family visits are used to provide some relief from the condition.

However, there is a silver lining.

“Though everyone who catches the disease eventually and inevitably dies, many of them live for a very long time with the disease,” said Formiplese. “You could say it’s a manageable condition. And many studies show that simply smoking a few packs of cigarettes a day, taking high doses of illegal narcotics, avoiding the gym, eating deep-fried butter... these are all proved methods for guaranteeing you don't catch OAS.”

In light of many diagnoses like these by healthcare specialists, lawyers and legal representatives now believe they have identified two of the most leading causes of OAS, and are now gathering cases and names to back up what is set to be one of the largest a class action lawsuits in the history of the world, eclipsing the comparatively meagre settlements won from tobacco giants and poisoned water suppliers.

“We now know that statistically if you spend time in a gym or in the vegetable section of a supermarket, you’re more likely to develop symptoms,” said legal professional Claus Akshin. “as such, we’re preparing litigation against the Health Industry – places like Virgin Active and other gyms – and against fruit producers, farmers and grocers who stock produce that is dangerously high in vitamins, minerals and fibre, all of which are proven to directly contribute towards OAS.”

He went on to say how these insidious farmers were exacerbating and already out-of-control problem.

“There’s apparently a greenish sticky thing called celery that actually has a negative calorie count,” said a legal expert. “What kind of sick bastard would force his clients to burn energy to eat his food?”

They are also considering the Home Shopping Network and other infomercial channels, but proving causation will be tough if not impossible.

“They say ‘Guaranteed Results’ and ‘Money-back Guarantee’ and stuff like ‘get the abs you always wanted in no time’ but we can’t really find a single example where these products have actually inflicted one of our unfortunate victims with the kinds of Body and Muscle Mass changes that indicate the onset of OAS.”

However, Virgin Active CEO and farmers everywhere have been staunchly defensive.

“We’ll defend ourselves to the last,” said Virgin Active CEO Richard Branson. “I’m not even sure if the research is sound: in fact, most of the people who come to our gyms don’t end up being healthy and ripped anyway. Hell, the largest percentage of our subscribers is Guilty New Year’s Resolution folk, and they all quit almost immediately after Day One.”

Farmers, too, have defended their actions.

“Eating our produce might bring you OAS, sure,” said murder carrots and grim reaper corn grower Moor Talitie, “But eating alternative foods – fatty foods and carbohydrates – is clinically proven to give you higher cholesterol, excess adipose tissue and heart conditions: what doctors are now calling Fat Fuck Syndrome. I mean, I know it’s choosing between two evils, but ours is definitely the lesser of the two.”

Russian hard diplomacy could threaten illegal downloads, mail order brides – America Political Analysts

Thousands of anxious Americans packed the streets across the state capital this morning in an act of widespread protest against hard-ball diplomacy against Russian leaders, after Political Analysts realised how this kind of foreign diplomacy could influence their ability to illegally download the latest episode of Game of Thrones or order a wife over the internet.

“We’re all worried,” said local placard-waver John Wilken. “This move by our government has us all worried about far-reaching political and social repercussions, like how I’m supposed to get my next fix of medieval porn-drama-fantasy that is filled with absurd amounts of characters, strange made-up languages and full-frontal nudity.”

He added that “I just really need to know when that piece of shit Joffrey is going to die. I’m not an HBO subscriber, and if Obama’s policies cut me off… well, I don’t know what I’ll do. Lose my mind and shoot up a school most likely. At least it’s still easy to buy a gun, Praise Jesus.”

However, protesters said that these worries were “among the most trivial and smallest”.

“The real issue here isn’t as flippant as downloading HBO episodes of fantasy dark-ages political murder porn,” said protest organiser Jerry Halfords, “but rather about what is going to happen in the new season of Suits, or Homeland.”

Political experts have agreed that the protest’s worries are valid.

“Most seeders and film-rippers and camcord owners are Russian,” said Head of the Department of Politics at Rhodes Unversity Dr Mally Satthews. “Just think how this will affect the supply of hot, sex-hungry young brides, or people to screw with on public DOTA 2 servers? If relations between these two powerhouses – East and West - become any more tense, Americans might be forced to marry each other, or yell hateful diatribes about being ‘Feeder noobs’ at Spanish or Chinese people.”

The international Russian Brides industry, which is reportedly worth over four billion dollars globally, has in the past taken massive knocks due to internet paranoia, and industry experts are now worried that the trade might be stopped entirely.

"Last year bride suppliers in Russia reported stunning financial losses," said Industry analyst and Economics lecturer Prof Eits Ahndloss. "If the same happens this year, we might see a future where women aren't shipped around the world and sold like animals into church-sanctioned indentured servitude. God forbid that dark day should come."

In spite of all this, Obama remained steadfast in his attitude toward the “commie pricks”.

“I urge all Americans to support me and your country in this endeavour,” he said, before adding that if you wanted to know what’s going to happen in GOT, you should just read the book or something.

"I mean, would paying for a song in the iTunes store every once in a while really kill you?”

Peace, security would “cripple” South African economy

Economic and financial experts have today blasted various religious and political parties’ calls for “peace and non-violence between South Africans and an end to rampant theft, rape and murder rates”, saying that such an outcome would “utterly devastate” the South African economy.

“South Africa does have massive multi-million rand industries like agriculture and mining to buff up its GDP,” said Editor of The Financial Times magazine Ray Zintaxes, “but our biggest industry by far is the multi-billion-rand-a-year industry centred mostly on paranoid white people and combating crime. Without crime, our economy would fall to shambles.”

Many other experts and politicians have agreed with this assessment, saying that the calls for peace and safety for all in South Africa are “too rash, too hasty [and] totally short sighted.”

“If we look at projects like Nkandla, you can easily see how the economy would be affected,” said ANC spokesperson, Chi Fwip. “If Zuma didn’t fear for his life and safety, hundreds of security contractors, many of them my personal friends and family, would be homeless, broke, unemployed and destitute. We need crime now more than ever.”

Fwip added that without the constant fear of murder, rape, robbery, assault, farm killings, mugging, gang violence, grand theft auto and petty larceny, many thousands of South Africans would immediately lose their jobs as policemen, car guards, security guards, night-watchmen, private security company employees and security installation and maintenance professionals.

“It would decimate employment,” said Fwip. “And since ‘decimate’ means ‘to reduce by a tenth’ it would probably decimate it more than once.”

Fwip added that crime was the only source of income for many poor families and crack addicts in South Africa.

“Without crime, we’re taking away their only form of livelihood,” he said. “Every time a robber breaks into a house and stabs or shoots someone, he is creating employment and wealth not just for himself, but also for police officers, doctors, hospitals, funeral directors and grave diggers. You can see how such a call would create a domino-effect of havoc for our economy.”

This not the first bit of controversy to be raised about South African crime, however, as our Police Services, the SAPS, have been criticised and questioned time and time again, with theorists alternately saying South Africa would be a better place without them or defending the SAPS as “misrepresented by a biased, unfair media”.

Academics are now calling for more “thought and discourse” on the issue before making such rash calls.

“This whole problem is more complex than merely ‘oh, please stop raping and killing and stealing’,” said Securityologist at the Beijing University School of Security Studies, Shu Tsatukyl. “Without crime, there would be no police, and without Police around there would be no one left around to stop criminals. It would be hell. Like a South African Catch-22, but with fewer long words.”

Schools ban "racist, classist" Chess

It has been a fantastic day for equal rights, after schools around the world announced their decision to finally ban the overtly racist and classist piece of offensive intolerance disguised as a board game, Chess.

“Just look at the game,” said Headmaster of Checkerton High School, Chek Mayt, “It’s all about kings and queens forcing the poor proletariat pawns around a board, and about whites fighting blacks to control a limited bit of territory. We’re just glad we can finally throw this Nazi-esque piece of crude pro-supremacy propaganda in the bin.”

Chess, as we all know, was invented by 1623 by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, who came up with the concept after realising how charred or polished bones of innocent men and women could each be carved into different little figurines for use in board games aimed at whiling away the quiet moments between public executions. Chess was preceded by the far more bigoted Backgammon (a word which derives from the Old Latin, Bacchus Gammonius, meaning “slaughter of innocents”) which involved impaling white and black pieces on different colour spikes, with the winner being the one who can get rid of their particular ethic group the fastest.

Mayt is just one of many Education professionals who stand by the new ban. He added that what made the game even more like a mini Apartheid was how some pieces, like the Bishop, are forced to always remain on their specific coloured area.

“What are we trying to teach our kids? That we are all just expendable, exploited pieces on the board of life, divided up by the colour of our skin and never allowed by society to leave our predefined roles or change our lot in life? What if a rook wants to move in an ‘L’ shape? What if a pawn wants to take a step to the side? What if a king doesn’t want to sacrifice his subjects in a pointless war that has no real purpose or reason except racial hatred and territorial disputes?”

Schools have for a number of years now been trying to slowly marginalise chess out of their hallways through covert operations, but they say that it has not yet proven successful, and that there was finally no other choice than drastic action.

“We used to pay kids to beat up the smaller kids who played this game between AP Maths and Advance Chemistry, calling them ‘nerds’ and ‘dorks’ in the hopes that they would bow to peer pressure and social norms and give up the game, but it’s still played today,” said Mayt. “Extreme measures are necessary. If we want to teach our kids tolerance and acceptance, we have to ban this game and condemn anyone who plays it.”

Some theorists are now trying to work on a “more tolerant, less ethnically charged version” of the game, but say they have encountered some difficulties.

“We first tried to fix it by changing the colours of the pieces, but even this has proven not enough. We tried yellow and red, but now it just looks like we’re trying to portray Asian and Indian ethnic cleansing.” In spite of these difficulties, these hard-working men and women say they are optimistic that they are on the verge of a “much better game”.

“We’re making a new version in which every piece is a mutli-coloured rainbow pawn – so that we’re all equal and racially sensitive – and a new bunch of rules in which your pieces democratically elect a King, and then you spend the rest of the game exercising passive measures instead of violence, equipping your pieces with placards, marijuana, flowers and an iconic soundtrack to stop the pointless violence of war. Sure, there isn’t a winner or loser, and it’s not at all fun – but isn’t that the best way to teach kids the basic lessons of life?”

The game goes on sale next week, alongside the new anti-capitalist version of a popular board game, Marx-nopoly, in which players equally distribute land and spread their Pass-Go-Collect-200-Dollars income evenly among the masses.

Son developing nicely into entitled bigot

According to South African parents André and Jannita du Plessis, legal guardians of five-year-old Michael du Plessis, their son is “well on track” to becoming a privileged, entitled little shit with tendencies for casual racism and sexism.

“We’ve been working hard at this for a while now, and so it’s nice to see it all starting to pay off,” they said to gathered press this morning after young Michael said his first bad words about the ANC.

“He called them a bunch of corrupt thieves and liars, and then added that the blerrie country was going to hell,” they said with beaming smiles. “Usually, we have to tell him what to think and what political views to hold, but this he came up with all by himself!”

However, his parents said that they only became aware of the full extent of his progression into a fine young man who thinks the world owes him a favour and that his particular hubristic worldview is unassailable when he pulled out an empty beer can and a pair of braai tongs at breakfast yesterday and asked them, “can I tell you what’s wrong with this blerrie country?”

“Ever since his first words – ‘dada’ and ‘vok die ANC’ – we’ve known he was a natural,” they said, “but this was the cherry on the cake. Or rather, the ’blerrie’ on the hate.”

Since the announcement, his parents say they have ramped up their program to include sexism and homophobia.

“The other day we overheard him telling a friend to stop being such a faggot. When we hear him using such language, we immediately brought him an xBox, the latest Call of Duty game, a chat headset and uncapped high-speed ADSL internet. He now spends almost three hours a day belittling other kids his age and calling their sexuality into question after giving them a thorough teabagging.”

Michael is a natural, apparently, and is now taking his own initiative in his education.

“We were talking to a couple of his friends and they told us that he claims to have had sexual relations with half of their sisters and mothers, which is a nice touch that we didn’t even think about.”

And in related news, the Du Plessis’s daughter Chanté is also making her own rapid progress in becoming a lovely little sex object, with no real opinion, dreams, desires or ambition in life but to be a “nice piece of ass”.

“We make her watch at least eight hours of television a day, with enriching, empowering shows to further her growth, said her parents, “like Real Housewives of Orange Country, Geordie Shore and Mob Wives. Before you know it, we’ll be starring alongside her in our own episode of 16 and Pregnant.

Celebrities unite to raise 0.00001% of their net worth for charity

pic: wikimedia commons

Non-government charity organisations like OxFam and AfriCare have a new contender to deal with in the Save Africa campaign, after dozens of celebrities, signers, actors and politicians combined forces in a super-fund-raiser concert series aimed at raising up to one ten thousandth of a percent of their overall combined worth for African Aid Organisations and charities.

“This is big,” said coordinator of the fund-raising initiative, Bono. “We expect to raise in charity donations almost as much as what we spend in a year on cars and clothes. Every year we make tens of billions of dollars, so it’s just nice to be able to host a concert and make our fans give us almost a fraction of a minute shard of our net worth in ticket sales to give to starving Africans.”

Stars like Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Madonna and Lady Gaga will take to stages across America all throughout this week to raise awareness and millions of dollars, with a portion of that awareness and money going not just to their latest albums but also to a variety of charities.

“I’m just so glad I can do my part,” said amateur wrecking ball operator and pioneer of twerking for white people, Miley Cyrus. “Africa and these kinds of charities have been a huge part of my message and so close to my heart, ever since I learnt where Africa was and also that it isn’t a country nearly two years ago.”

Not all stars, however, were so pleased.

"Those mooching fucks in Somalia have never come to one of my concerts," said voice of our generation Kanye West, "why should I come to their help?"

Even some African citizens have stressed their displeasure.

"Two of our biggest industries are getting lots of money from guilty Europeans and Americans, and all the thousands of dollars we earn making teary-eyed poverty-porn commercials involving distended bellies and crying mothers that we produce for foreign aid companies," said Minister of Film in Southern Sudan, May Kafylm. "If these celebrities solve hunger and poverty, we will actively destroying the only source of income for tens of thousands of families across the Drought Belt."

In any case, in light of these announcements, dozens of recording studios and production companies have announced their unequivocal support of the concerts, saying that they were a wonderful opportunity to raise money for sad-looking black people on TV.

“We care a lot about African countries like Mozambia and Zimbalawi,” they said. “Some people might think that these concerts are just another opportunity to try and humanise our stars who barely even live on this planet or know what a normal life is like, or make them seem more loveable, caring and humane than they really in the eyes of crowds of mindless fans who idolise their every fart, but it isn’t. This is about charity. And giving. And a bunch of other nice-sounding words.”

However, many thousands of starving Africans have reported their happiness after some stars announced that they would be airlifting crates of their latest In Concert DVDS and albums into their countries.

“I love stars and rappers and their struggle songs, like with Drake and his ‘started at the bottom now we here’,” said one Ethiopian man. “Some of these stars lived with a dollar a day in their pockets, maybe eating out of bins and sleeping on concrete, having to go to performance venues night after night to perform and earn a name for themselves. Someday, I wish my children will live in such extreme wealth and leisure like that. Imagine that, actually eating – and out of an American bin!”

GuitarHero World Number One still sucks at guitar

Despite spending hundreds of hours on his plinky-plonky plastic GuitarHero guitar and winning dozens of international competitions across the globe, 22-year-old Eric Layla told reporters this morning that he is still terrible at “normal guitar”.

“I get a perfect 300-note streak time and time again,” he said, holding an old Taylor guitar out of which he could not coax even a shabby Wonderwall, that crappy beginner-guitarist’s bread and butter. “I get Ultra Perfect scores, even on Master difficultly, and I can destroy even the third piano solo on The Beatle’s Here Comes the Sun. It makes no sense. I should be at least as good as Angus Young by now.”

He said that while the Ten-Thousand-Hour rule had proven successful for many other video game addicts, it did not seem to be working at all for him.

“Violent video games make you violent, and all the people that play these turn into brutal cold killers with 100% accuracy on the gun range – so why can’t I shred like a boss yet? I mean, I can hit over 893 000 points on Smoke on the Water, and I can’t even do a barre chord yet,” he said. “You know, whatever ‘barre chord’ means.”

Scientists have since looked into this complaint.

“We have done science and chemicals and graphs over this problem, and I think we have found the solution,” said lead researcher Tess Tubes. “You see, where games like DJ Hero allow for the fully real and visceral experience of plugging in a flashstick, pressing play, and then touching buttons and turning dials that do nothing for three hours, GuitarHero is a little different.”

The problem, she said, lies with the instrument.

“What we need,” she said, “is a GuitarHero controller that has not just five buttons with different colours, but instead six rows of buttons with 22 columns. For a fully real experience, he should up the difficultly rating past Master all the way to Real Life.”

Artist's impression of what the all-new Future controller
might look like

Creators of the game have since said that they have taken heed of these complaints, saying they were coming up with a new game that more accurately represented the instrument.

“We just have some legal hurdles to vault,” they said in a statement yesterday, “but already we are working on GuitarHero: Real Life.”

The game, they said, would have a number of different modes.

“Practice Mode is set in the lifelike setting of your room, where you spend hours stumbling and fumbling away on one particular chord progression,” they said. “Once you have mastered this early campaign, you move onto Shitty Gig Mode, where you will cope with terrible equipment, a drunk, uninterested crowd, and a guy who keeps coming up to the mic and asking you to play songs you don’t know.”

However, at this stage the game is all in an early development phase.

“We have a whole lot of ideas – like towards the end of Shitty Gig Mode, we might have ‘Friends Asking You To Play At Their Society's Event For Free Mode’, and maybe a ‘Your First ‘Real’ Gig In A City, Which Only Your Sisters And Mom Come To Mode’. Like we said, it’s all in the early stages, but as you can see, when it comes out, it’ll be like you’re actually playing a real guitar.”

Teenage boy unsure whether to use smiley, heart emoticon

pic: wikimedia commons

Following Friday night’s message from 14-year-old Jane Hadley to 15-year-old Eric Carlson containing not one but two winking smileys, a hug emoticon and a colon and capital ‘D’ combined to make a grinning text face, the young boy is reportedly unsure how to respond, saying there isn’t a smiley or textual emoticon that fits neatly into the category of appropriate responses.

“We’ve been texting for a while now, and she sent me two x’s the other day, so it’s safe to say that things are getting pretty serious,” he said, gesturing to his Blackberry. “But I can’t use a single x, because we’re past that stage, and even the double x is getting a little stale. I just don’t know what to do.”

According to Carlson, a whole range of usual responses is now unsuitable.

“I can’t send her three x’s, because that might be too forward – you know, a little raunchy? – and if I send back a heart emoticon with a wink and a smile she might read into it too much,” he said. “Usually I would just type out a laugh, you know, ‘hahahahaha’ and then send a winking smiley or two back, but I really want this single instant message to make an impact, a real lasting impression, on her.”

Media Message experts have agreed that the young boy is in quite a conundrum, as moving forward into three x’s, or even a combination of ‘x’s and ‘o’s, is “a definitely too saucy”, and that “most normal smileys available to him are too benign and friendly to convey his true feelings about her”.

“As text smileys stand right now, he’s in a difficult spot,” said Reed Zintouet. “How can he tell the girl how he really feels, what he honestly thinks about her, if all he has are smileys that convey a very limited set of emotions?”

Sources close to the teenage boy now report that he is considering what could almost be proper spelling and grammar to show how much he cares for Jane.

“We looked at his phone the other day and saw that he is now using ‘yuo’ instead of ‘u’ and stuff like ‘too’ and ‘to’ and whole words instead of a garble of vowel-less bastard words,” they said to reporters.

Analysts now estimate Eric to be only four and a half months away from actually talking to Jane, and a mere eight months before they have a full conversation.

“If he keeps at this break-neck pace, they’ll be holding hands before his 17th birthday.”

However, there still is no reliable guess as to when they might one day have sex, as queries to this effect were met with stifled giggles and outbursts of laughter when we mentioned the word ‘penis’ or ‘vagina’.

“He said it again!” said Eric’s friend, Jake. “Hahahahaha, ’penis’!”

South Africans excited for their one day they can afford at Arts fest

South Africans across the country have expressed their unmitigated excitement this morning, saying they cannot wait to travel halfway across the country to enjoy the one day that can spend at this year’s National Festival of the Arts without declaring bankruptcy.

“I’m very excited,” said one Johannesburg resident. “There are hundreds of shows, dozens of food stalls, and a whole range of different clothing stores and other outlets selling stuff that is quite blatantly overpriced. I’m having difficulty deciding which three things I can afford to do.”

Much fervour and hype has met this year’s Festival, with many leading art critics saying that this one is going to be “the fucking weirdest one yet.”

“We know that in the past we’ve had guys in glass boxes sweating blue paint while music plays in the background, and we’ve had contemporary interpretive dance pieces that make you think ‘okay, what the fuck did I just watch?’," said a critic working at Art Times magazine. "Not to mention we've seen in the past a whole bunch of higher-concept plays and theatrical performances that went right over your head, after which you had to pretend to have understood their underlying postmodern and postcolonial thematic bases and socioeconomic critique to not look like a moron in front of your educated friends - but this year is set to make all of that look like a bunch of Leon Schuster films.”

Grahamstown and her inhabitants are now up in a flurry of preparations to get everything ready for the yearly fun and festivity of the NFA.

“I’ve filled up all my bottles and water tanks at the spring, I’ve bought candles and petrol for my generator for when the power goes out, and I’ve made sure I have enough basic foodstuffs in the fridge and pantry before Pick ‘n Pay invariably ups the price of bread, milk and other necessities by 28% each,” said one Grahamstonian who has also moved out of her own bedroom to rent it out to strangers so that she can afford to eat during the NAF week.

“I think everything is ready for just another typical festival week.”