(2007-02-12) — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today confirmed U.S. allegations that high-ranking Iranian officials provide Shiite militias in Iraq with armor-piercing explosives, however, Iran’s president said the devices are for peaceful purposes only.

“No one can deny the right of the Iranian people to develop technology that improves our lives,” said Mr. Ahmadinejad. “Although we cannot control how our Iraqi customers use our products, we make these armor-piercing devices to generate energy.”

The Iranian leader noted that the devices are “especially useful for bringing light to confined dark places, like the inside of an Abrams tank or Humvee, as well as for providing a plentiful source of instant heat.”

(2006-12-05) — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on NASA to include a Muslim prayer room in its planned moon base, and on all passenger spacecraft shuttling between earth and the moon.

“The moon was the inspiration for the Islamic crescent symbol,” said CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper, “By all rights, Islam should be the official religion of the moon, but we’re willing to tolerate diversity, for the time being, in exchange for protection of our civil rights.”

CAIR, a non-profit organization which promotes understanding, justice and “appropriate limits on freedom of speech” for its ideological adversaries, initially intended to organize a boycott of moon flights to protest NASA’s development of the moon.

“But then we realized,” Mr. Hooper said, “that the only way to reach the moon people with the message of our peaceful religion is to live among them, blend in and act normal, and then periodically to burst into loud cries of Allahu Akbar in public places.”

(2006-11-18) — The United Nations announced today that it would cancel its annual conference on climate change after it was discovered that the nearly two-week meeting of 6,000 people had emitted more than 82.8 million liters of a dangerous greenhouse gas in Nairobi, Kenya.

“All that carbon dioxide was just from the participants breathing,” said an unnamed UN climate change expert. “It doesn’t include the airplanes, cars, electricity use and other forms of greenhouse gas emissions we produced. It’s horrifying.”

Experts estimated that climate-change conference slices as much as 3.5 seconds off of the useful life of the planet each time it’s held.

A distressed former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, a leading proponent of such conferences, released a brief statement saying only: “Now, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

(2006-09-15) — Pope Benedict XVI today apologized for using a quotation in a recent speech that has offended Muslim leaders by implying that the religion of Muhammad has brought little good to the world, and much evil.

Speaking at a German university this week, the Pontiff quoted a Byzantine emperor, who said, “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

However, upon his return to the Vatican a contrite Mr. XVI today said, “I’m sorry if I gave the wrong impression about what Muhammad has done for the world. I was just quoting the old emperor. But upon further reflection, I was reminded of the mighty civilizations that Islam has spawned, and I marveled at their profound contribution to humanity.”

The Pope listed some of the best known predominantly-Muslim nations — Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh.

“Reciting the names of these Muslim lands makes me even more sorry,” he added.

A leading Muslim cleric in Baghdad welcomed the apology as he declared a Fatwa calling for the brutal execution of the 79 year-old Pontiff whom he referred to as “an infidel puppet of the Zionist pig baboons.”

(2006-07-22) — Apple Computer executives scrambled yesterday to put the best spin on devastating news that arch rival Microsoft will soon launch a competitor to the iPod, tentatively dubbed Windows ME2Pod.

While Apple’s iconic mp3 player currently owns a 77 percent share of the market for such devices, industry experts with contractual obligations to Microsoft warned that the Windows ME2Pod could quickly become the dominant player.

“It’s a category killer,” said one unnamed source who lives in Redmond, Washington, and has seen preliminary sketches of the product on an in-house blog.

In addition to the hardware, Microsoft also plans to launch a challenge to Apple’s wildly successful iTunes music service.

Unlike iTunes, which allows customers to select and download their favorite music, the new Windows VistaTunes application will automatically download songs to the user’s computer based on “a robust algorithm that determines not just what the customer might like, but what he should be listening to,” according to the source.

Each morning, the VistaTunes customer will find new music has appeared on his PC and been sent via Bluetooth to his ME2Pod. At that point, the user simply reboots both machines and enjoys the music.

Microsoft refused to comment on the report, but confirmed that if such a product were under development, it could be released “sometime in late 2007, early 2008 or perhaps June 2010.”

(2006-06-16) — Just a day after Microsoft founder Bill Gates said he would begin stepping back from day-to-day operations at the software giant to focus on his philanthropic work, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told a spellbound crowd that he had developed the cure for AIDS, and expects to ship the cure for cancer in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Mr. Jobs said his AIDS cure is “fast, easy to use and comes in a cool white package that’s so hip people will want to wear it.”

Critics, however, immediately noted that Apple’s iDose HIV-buster medication is expensive, and won’t work at all if the patient is taking any other drug by another manufacturer, even Tylenol.

Patients using iDose will also have to buy a new drinking glass and special water made only by Apple in order to swallow the medicine.

Physicians won’t be able to prescribe the drug, since it will be available only through Mac.com, and from iDose stores in four major cities nationwide.

Meanwhile, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation celebrated Mr. Gates’ announcement with a press release saying, “It will be good to have Bill’s complete attention at the Foundation. Thanks to Microsoft, he brings a wealth of expertise in preventing the spread of viruses.”

(2006-03-22) — Microsoft today announced it would speed the launch of its Windows 3rd Millenium Edition operating system (code named 3ME) making it available in stores “probably some time in 2007,” rather than the scheduled release date of November 2999.

The announcement comes just a day after Microsoft stock dipped when the company revealed yet another delay in the release of its Microsoft Vista operating system, which will come in six versions, 114 languages and seven savory aromas, including balsamic garbanzo.

However, for Windows 3ME, “the industry’s innovation leader has kicked the product development cycle into hyperdrive,” according to Microsoft Founder and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates, who has personally written most of the estimated 50 million lines of code for the new operating system.

“Generations yet to come will revel in the ease of use, bullet-proof security and robust pricing of Windows 3ME,” said Mr. Gates, who had reportedly downloaded his entire personality onto a 128MB thumb drive so he could be “booted up” for the planned product launch 993 years from now.

“I just couldn’t wait that long to see how much better life would be with Windows 3ME,” Mr. Gates said. “So, we’re putting it out in early-to-late 2007, or mid-2008 at the latest. But 2009 for sure. Certainly by June 2011.”

(2006-02-12) — A thick blanket of snow that covered much of the northeastern United States this weekend may increase global warming by preventing the heat that radiates from earth’s molten core from escaping into the atmosphere, according to former vice president Al Gore.

Mr. Gore, a noted global warming expert who also once ran for president, dismissed suggestions that the biggest snowstorm in New York City history diminishes his case that the planet is warming at an alarming rate.

“First of all,” Mr. Gore said, “the reason for all of this snow is that greenhouse gasses trap reflected solar heat causing the polar ice caps to melt, increasing the volume of oceanic water that evaporates, then freezes to become snow. The warmer the planet gets, the more massive snow storms we’ll see.”

The former vice president, former senator and founder of the red-hot Current TV Network, said the only solution is to remove the snow, not just from the ground, but from earth’s water cycle.

“We must pack the snow into giant containers and launch it into outer space,” Mr. Gore said. “Every day that George Bush fails to do this, the threat to Mother Earth grows exponentially.”

(2006-01-05) — Microsoft Corp. today announced that it would extend, until January 10, its program to promote the sales of rival Apple computers, as well as its drive to double the daily downloads of Linux operating systems.

The previously-secret promotional program, dubbed Operation Why Not Switch?, uses delayed-release of a Windows security patch to prompt customers to take a look at alternatives to Microsoft products.

The company will stall release of its latest security patch until January 10, to let consumers “shop around” and to give malicious hackers “a reasonable timeline” to finish up their work of taking over computers that use the popular Windows operating system.

“We’ve always been on the bleeding edge of innovation,” said Microsoft Founder and Chief Philanthropic Officer Bill Gates. “Now, we’re going to reinvigorate the whole computer industry by inviting consumers to experience its rich diversity of products. We want folks to see that there’s more to computing than just the fun of downloading Windows security patches.”

(2005-12-30) — In a recently-leaked secret memo, written in October 2005, President George Bush authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to “employ all of its tools and skills” to enhance the security of Microsoft Windows XP.

Existence of the highly-classified covert program, revealed in a frontpage New York Times story, could not be verified yesterday as Microsoft announced it had discovered yet another serious flaw in the code of its flagship XP operating system.

A White House spokesman today would not confirm or deny existence of the secret NSA program, dubbed Operation Patchwork Quilt, but reiterated that “the president believes history will judge him on how well he protected the American people from all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

Microsoft has not yet issued a patch for the latest vulnerability — a hole that hackers can exploit to infect a PC with spyware, adware or a malicious stomach virus.

About 90 percent of Americans use the Windows operating system and other Microsoft products — despite the free availability of reliable, easy-to-use alternative systems, office productivity suites and internet browsers — because they want to do their part to help Microsoft Philanthropist Bill Gates fight tropical diseases in foreign lands.