SIDE STORY

A divided UK would be ‘a beautiful simile torn asunder by a stupid analogy,’ says Cameron

September 16, 2014

LONDON — British prime minister David Cameron appeared on television Monday in a last-ditch effort to convince voters in Scotland to reject independence, insisting that a divided United Kingdom would be “a beautiful simile torn asunder by a stupid analogy.”

“And that’s not all,” Cameron said, delivering an impassioned speech in Aberdeen, Scotland’s third most depressing city. “By voting to leave the U.K., you would be left with nothing more than an empty metaphor floating on a sea of fading memories.”

“Let me put it this way,” he said. “Scotland is like a rustic peasant girl with bad teeth and a scent that reminds one of putrid fish, who nonetheless got to marry a dashing chap, vastly more sophisticated and charming.”

“And this girl, in spite of her incomprehensible speech, crude manners and tendency to drool on herself, earns in her village a modest degree of respect and admiration, due to her husband who is clever and works hard, so she settles into her role as the lesser partner within a mutually advantageous marriage, because even though she’s homely, she has a pleasant laugh, and she’s quite adept at pulling weeds,” he said. “And in that union she happily remains for 300 years, occupying herself with knitting and eating boiled organ meat wrapped in sheep’s stomach while her husband actually does something productive.”

“Yet one day, wicked nationalist bacteria thriving in her gut poison her mind and inflate her ego, making her think she’s something other than a homely but agreeable old useless woman, and she starts to believe she could have got where she is on her own, without the protection and support of her gentle husband,” Cameron continued. “Instead of speaking to her husband, who is by his very nature an accommodating person and could have taken her to a proper doctor to cure her digestive ailment, she pays a visit to her witch-like sisters, who feed her a wicked potion of pride and bathe in her false compliments about her beauty and wits, when in reality she has little of which to boast.”

Confused Obama can’t remember if he promised to end, or start more foreign engagements

September 12, 2014

WASHINGTON — Suffering from a memory lapse that could happen to anyone, really, President Obama said he couldn’t recall if he had promised to end U.S. military involvement abroad, or increase it. “I know while I was campaigning in 2008, I said something about wars in the Middle East, but for the life of me I can’t remember what,” Obama said in a speech on Wednesday. “You folks at home would be amazed, but being president is very difficult because you have to say a great number of things, then it’s like everyone literally takes notes, and if you don’t do exactly what you promised to do, they’re all, like, hey.” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the public shouldn’t be surprised if Obama starts behaving in a manner suggestive of starting a long-term military campaign against, say, some militant organization operating in Iraq and Syria, because even if Obama did promise to end to foreign military engagements, the U.S. public “knew what he meant, right?”

God apologizes for answering prayers for Jennifer Lawrence nudes

September 3, 2014

Saying He was merely responding to an unprecedented flood of prayers, God has apologized for facilitating the release of hacked nude photos of actress Jennifer Lawrence. He says He is often unaware of the minutiae of life on Earth, and He was simply trying to make everyone happy. “It’s fair to say God has heard literally millions of impassioned pleas that if such selfies existed, they be quickly released for the public good,” said a spokesperson. She added that God expresses His regret for any embarrassment or feelings of violation from which the 24-year-old “Hunger Games” stars is suffering, admitting He should probably better investigate such popular requests before fulfilling them, particularly if they are mostly submitted by men. He added He does deserve credit for ignoring the trickle of demands for fresh nudes of Lena Dunham, saying those prayers struck Him as rather weird.

Most people opposed to being shot in face

August 27, 2014

A survey conducted by the Mariah K. Blair Center has demonstrated that most people are opposed to being shot in the face. Out of 1400 individuals questioned, only three responded favorably to the idea of “having a bullet exploded” through their faces. The remaining 1397 people said they were “strongly opposed” to the idea. “This explains a lot,” said Ian Keller, the sociologist who designed the survey. “From the fury about what happened in Ferguson, to the reluctance of parents to let their children watch torture porn, we can now say we know why.” Keller said his next survey will try to determine if women like having their feet stomped.

All socially desirable people have completed ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’

August 25, 2014

Everyone who enjoys even a small degree of social buoyancy has already been asked to do the Ice Bucket Challenge, experts say, leaving only “socially undesirable” types who would actually do more harm for the cause than good.

Researchers at the Bennett Institute of Social Science examined thousands of social networks, noting every interesting, attractive or successful member of each network has already been “called out” to participate in the challenge, requiring them to bask in the glow of social approval while pouring ice on their heads to raise money for research into ALS, the neurodegenerative disease commonly known as “Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

The team concluded any remaining individuals must be socially awkward introverts, if not actually despised by their peers and viewed as a lethal form of social plague. However, the researchers do wish to inform such rejects it is not the end of the world.

“Not getting tagged to do the Ice Bucket Challenge doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, or that your clumsy attempts at making lunchtime conversation with coworkers is abnormal,” said Rebecca Stapleton, who has written a number of books on social diseases.

“It just means you don’t rank in the top three of anyone’s list of friends,” she said, referring to the rule that each participant has to publicly call out three other people to complete the challenge.

“Actually,” she added, “you’re what we affectionately refer to as, well, we don’t really refer to you, do we?”

The organizers of the challenge have expressed their agreement with the research team’s findings, confirming that the number of socially desirable people doing the challenge peaked near the middle of last week. On Monday, the ALS Association released a statement saying, “We’ve had a great run, and we’ve earned a lot of money for ALS research, so we’re calling it quits. If you didn’t get a chance to participate, well, don’t get any ideas.”

The statement continues: “Pouring a bucket of ice on your head now, without being asked to, will only make you look very silly, and if you’re so shameless as to record your sad attempt, and if you put such a video on YouTube, you might actually do serious harm to ALS research, causing people to take back their donations out of fear of being associated with you.”