UN Dispatches Administrators to Aid Libyan Rebellion

Misrata – As civil war between Libyan rebels and tyrannical dictator Colonel Gaddafi rages, the UN has responded by demanding the immediate dispatch of senior administrators, and called on the world to make sure they are adequately equipped with stationery.

The brutal conflict has already taken an immense toll on the people of Libya. A local doctor at Misrata told the BBC: “They bombed all the houses with heavy weapons. They intentionally gunned and exploded our drug store. They bombed even around our hospital but fortunately nobody was injured. More than five mosques which I know are bombed.”

Libyan refugees look hopefully to the skies for the arrival of the UN bureaucrats.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was quick to reprimand Gaddafi for his actions.

“I call for an immediate halt to the government’s disproportionate use of force and indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets,” read a statement from Mr. Ban’s office. “We would please ask Col. Gaddafi to use force proportionately, and be discriminating in his attacks on civilian targets.”

“I mean, was there really any good reason to blow up the drug store?” continued Mr. Ban. “I think there needs to be more common sense and respect for human values in the artillery shelling of your population.”

As tens of thousands of refugees flee the violence, the different UN agencies swung into action.

Valerie Amos, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that she is “rapidly deploying a team to Cairo to reinforce the UN Resident Coordinator in Tripoli, Libya’s capital, and put in place immediately coordination mechanisms.”

"It's hard to tell from here if this particular act of violence is disproportionate or indiscriminate," said Mr. Ban.

“There is only one response to the violent and destructive actions of Col. Gaddafi in suppressing the rights of the Libyan people,” said Ms. Amos sternly. “The immediate dispatch to somewhere nearby of a team of crack bureaucrats.”

“Once in place these bureaucrats will proceed to compile reports on how we may best proceed to process the procession of refugees fleeing Libya, and what structures may be constructed to prevent the obstruction of the democratic desires of the Libyan people.”

Ms. Amos then called on the US to finally pay its UN dues, so the bureaucrats could have adequate supplies of notepads, pencils, printing paper, ink cartridges, staples, and paper clips.

As the OCHA raced to implement procedural guidelines for the draft formatting of provisional reports to the UN General Assembly for consideration in debating a resolution on the ongoing violence in Libya, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) took immediate action against the humanitarian crisis emerging on the ground.

Valerie Amos explains the critical importance of pens to the UN General Assembly.

According to Ms. Amos, the WFP is dispatching staff to the Egyptian and Tunisian borders to assess needs and “do contingency planning for delivering food assistance to people affected by the violence inside Libya, if there is a need and once the security situation allows.”

This contingency planning will require filing cabinets, folders, and biros to be effective, so the WFP is calling on all member nations to look in their office basements and see if they have anything they could spare.

“We want to go in and do proper assessments,” said Ms. Amos. “But we can’t do that unless the world’s leading nations agree to help us with our dire stationery shortages.”

“Surely the EU and US have plenty of stationery,” she grumbled. “Could they not spare some pencils and paper so we can do our jobs properly?”

Liberals Vow to Fight Bush’s Democratic Wave in Middle East

Washington – In developments that have struck nausea and outrage into America’s liberals, the people of the Middle East are rising up to overthrow dictators and demand their democratic human rights, exactly as George Bush planned.

To the fury of American liberals, the Bush Push for Arab democracy is working.

In 2003, the liberal community mocked George Bush’s ‘Greater Middle East Initiative,’ which was a “forward strategy of freedom” that would bring “God’s gift of democracy” to the Arab world through a righteous war that would make Iraq a “beacon of freedom” in the Middle East.

“One cannot simply impose one’s own ethnocentric practices onto a different region,” said well-known liberal activist Prof. Gerald Jose-Nibombe-Kwang-Tatanka Huffington in 2003. “The war in Iraq is simply a machination of transnational capitalist interests launching a neo-colonial drive against the oppressed masses, on whose behalf I campaign so tirelessly.”

“This medieval ‘Greater Middle East Initiative’ is an embarrassment to our enlightened liberal values,” he added superciliously.

Now, in 2011, much to the gobsmacked disgust of Prof Huffington and liberal cosmopolitan elites everywhere, the Bush plan seems to be working.

After establishing democracy in Iraq, a democratic wave is sweeping the Middle East, with massive protests toppling dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, and now further pro-democracy demonstrations are erupting in Algeria, Yemen, Libya and Bahrein.

The cosmpolitan multi-ethnic liberal Prof. Huffington said he wanted to rip off Bush's nuts and shove them up his ass.

“But surely this has much more to do with Obama and his inspirational liberal visions!” spluttered Prof. Huffington. “That barbaric, ill-educated Texan yahoo had nothing to do with it!”

Sadly for Prof. Huffington, the historical record shows otherwise. In 2005, as part of the Greater Middle East Initiative, Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a major policy speech in Cairo: “For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither. Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people. It is time to abandon the excuses that are made to avoid the hard work of democracy.”

In 2009, Obama did his level best to backtrack from this position and explain that the US had no intention of supporting democracy in the Middle East.

Said Obama: “I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.”

Pro-democracy activists in the Middle East march under the banner of their hero, George Bush.

Fortunately for the people of Egypt, Obama’s craven liberal climbdown came too late to halt the ‘Bush Push’ for democracy.

“Why did American liberals think we would listen to some black Muslim? That’s exactly the kind of person who’s oppressing us,” said Rafina Larat (27), one of the pro-democracy protesters in Tahrir Square.

“What we needed was a big white American man wearing a Stetson hat, a real-life John Wayne ready to take his Winchester and bring Texas justice to the lawless and anti-democratic frontier.”

“George Bush WE LOVE YOU!” screamed Ms. Larat to cheers, before the crowd began waving posters of Bush and chanting “George Bush-u Akbar! George Bush-u Akbar!”

Seeing millions of democratic activists in the Middle East idolise their hero George Bush has sparked fury across the American liberal establishment.

American liberals fight pro-democracy activists in the Middle East.

“This outrage cannot be allowed to spread!” roared Prof. Huffington at a convention for literary academics and social scientists. “We must don our riot gear and immediately leave for these troubled dictatorships to help beat some sense into these protesting morons.”

“My fellow liberals, we must take up arms to fight democracy in the Middle East!”

The matter was then put to a vote, which unanimously called for a state-funded conference to discuss how best to uphold repressive Middle East dictatorships and thwart the evil plans of George Bush.

Twittering Media Fascinated by Egyptian Tweets, Popular Uprising

New York – As angry and downtrodden Egyptians rise up against the dictatorial rule of Hosni Mubarak, sparking global discussion about social and political transformation in the Middle East, the titans of world media have concluded that, really, Twitter is just so awesome.

Only 20% of the Egyptian population may have access to the Internet, and hardly anyone now that Mubarak has shut down the Internet service providers, but that hasn’t stopped news networks recognising and praising the power of social media whenever they talk about Egypt.

Egyptian protesters said they were mystified by these bizarre questions from US news networks.

“The use of social media is the most fascinating aspect of this whole revolution,” declared Piers Morgan of CNN as thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square stood up for justice, human rights, and democracy. “I mean, where would these people be without Facebook and, in particular, Twitter?”

“Where would any of us be?” he asked. “Just the other night I tweeted my private list to see if anyone wanted to try out the new French restaurant on 42^nd street and in thirty minutes a group of us met up and had a lovely basil salmon terrine with an exquisite Chablis.”

“Egyptian and New Yorker alike are united by the global power of Twitter,” announced Morgan grandly.

In just a couple of years, Twitter has transformed the lives of leading media journalists and thus, by extension, the rest of humanity. Most leading journalists now operate a Twitter feed so that they can Twitter on in public throughout the day.

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times was quick to extol the power of social media to make the world more American. “The diffusion of Twitter, Facebook and texting finally gives them a voice to talk back to their leaders and directly to each other,” wrote Friedman.

"Just think how quickly they could have built those things using Twitter," said Friedman.

“Prior to these innovative American inventions, Egyptians were unable to talk to each other directly. They had to use a primitive sign language and sniff each others’ bottoms for recognition.”

“But now that they have social media, they seem to be rapidly developing the rudiments of American culture! I’ll bet pretty soon they won’t dislike Israel any more, and will enjoy a peaceful democratic non-Islamic lifestyle, with plenty of bacon.”

No one, however, eclipsed MSNBC in its in-depth analysis of social media in Egypt. (None of the following dialogue is invented – Ed.)

“Where would we be today, this week literally now, without this electronic communication in Egypt?” asked Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC to Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook, who was naturally on air to discuss the Egyptian crisis.

“Technology is a lifeblood of what’s going on here,” said Hughes. “I mean, we can even imagine here in America, if we didn‘t have cell phones, if we only had limited access to land lines, no Twitter, no Facebook, none of this stuff, we wouldn‘t know how to find a mass group of people in a small town or a city.”

As well as allowing people who live a stone’s throw from each other to communicate without throwing stones, Facebook also apparently maintains world peace.

"Facebook and Twitter are the uncovered breasts of Liberty leading the people," declared O'Donnell.

“I mean, it sounds to me, Chris—you‘ve thought about this more than the rest of us,” began O’Donnell, deferentially bowing to the Facebook co-founder’s knowledge of Egyptian politics, “that turning off the Internet could actually lead to more violence, because people could find themselves with less ability to organize peacefully and their actions would start to become more random.”

“Yeah, that’s absolutely true,” said Hughes, as the screen behind him showed thousands of people chanting in unison, being led by a man with a megaphone.

“Although somehow the French managed to have a revolution without Facebook or Twitter,” added O’Donnell, mystified.

As the protests continue, media networks have pledged that they will continue to follow events live on Facebook and Twitter, rather than go to Egypt and find out what’s going on.

Mubarak Explains Democracy to Increasingly Despondent Protesters

Cairo – Annoyed by senseless demands for greater democracy and citizen participation in government, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak faced the protesters today to ask them to think seriously about taking the country down such a reckless and destructive path.

Mubarak explained real democracy to a dwindling set of pro-democracy activists.

“My fellow Egyptians,” began Mubarak sternly. “I have heard your calls for more democratic government by freely elected representatives of the people. All I have to say to you is this – have you lost your fucking minds?”

Mubarak was speaking on the sixth night of widespread protests against his autocratic rule, as angry demonstrators refused to leave Tahrir Square. Mubarak was originally in favour of the ‘Tiananmen solution’ using his army’s shiny new American tanks, but has been warned by the US that this would provide bad publicity for the American arms industry when it is trying to keep a low profile after the Arizona shootings.

Irritated with being forced to use peaceful methods by lunatic gun-waving American fanatics, Mubarak has reluctantly decided to reason with the protesters.

“Stop chanting for a moment and think about what you’re asking for,” said Mubarak. “You want to choose locally elected representatives to sit in a parliament that then runs the country, and you think this would be a good idea?”

“Let me present Exhibit A: Ireland,” said Mubarak, putting up an image of Brian Cowen on screen. The chanting died off quite quickly as the people of Egypt saw the face of democracy.

Exhibit A: The face of democracy.

“Locally elected representatives?” asked Mubarak. “You would end up voting for the man who promised you a free sheep. He may not know how to run the country, but he can get you a free sheep. That’s how it works in Ireland, and we all know what they do to sheep there.”

“Then your parliament consists of nothing but sheep merchants!” he said. “What do you think will happen next? They will collude with bankers and textile manufacturers to raise the price of wool. Soon, they will be rich and you won’t even have a scratchy wool shirt on your back.

“That’s what happened in Ireland,” concluded Mubarak. “Do you want Egypt to be Ireland, is that what you want?”

The crowd muttered angrily among itself and a few people at the edges drifted away disconsolately. The remainder, however, after a few minutes of heated argument, began chanting, “Obama! Obama!”

Many protesters were happy to accept a free sheep in lieu of democracy.

Mubarak rolled his eyes and appealed for silence. “Listen to yourselves!” he exclaimed passionately. “The USA is a country that voted in Obama to raise taxes on the super-rich and spend it on reviving the national economy, then voted in a Republican Congress to cut spending on the national economy and raise the wealth of the super-rich.”

“That’s because the average citizen doesn’t have a fucking clue what he wants, and changes his mind the second he gets the thing he thought he wanted before he had it.”

“And in a democracy the system of checks and balances means that anyone who actually has sensible ideas on governance is equally opposed by a gibbering vegetable – that way everyone has a say in whether or not to press the accelerator or brake as the nation heads for the cliff edge.”

“So what has your precious Obama done for America? What has actually gotten better since he came to power? Can you tell me that?” challenged Mubarak.

Watching the speech on TV, an isolated and dejected Obama concludes that Mubarak has a real point.

“You people are as naïve as the Nobel Peace Prize Committee,” he sneered.

The crowd began arguing among itself again as people began leaving to loot a few supermarkets. Even the hardcore protesters eventually shrugged and admitted that Mubarak had a point.

“You know, I’d never really thought about it,” said Mohammed bin-Khaloud (32) as he made his way home. “But this democracy thing really sounds like a lot more work than I’m willing to do. I mean, I’d have to keep a close eye on the government’s national policies, evaluate their effectiveness, and also evaluate the politicians’ willingness and ability to keep us informed on national issues.”

“Honestly, I just want to pay someone else to do the job so I don’t have to think too much about the price of wool,” he concluded with a weary sigh.

Baby Doc Duvalier “Just Chillin’ Out” in Gobsmacked Haiti

Port-au-Prince – “Who wouldn’t want to spend more time in Haiti?” asked Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier in surprise as he stepped carefully through the rubble of this earthquake and violence-struck island in his shorts and sandals, breathing in the salty air with a satisfied grin.

“I grew up here, you know, I have very fond memories of this place,” he explained, looking nostalgically at the shanty dwellings of his people.

A relaxed Baby Doc waves to some of the people he let live during his reign of terror.

“My God, this place hasn’t changed a bit,” he chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief as he saw the recently destroyed remains of a house he had once burned down himself back in the 1980s.

Duvalier, the son of feared Haitian dictator Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier, came to power in Haiti at the age of just 19 when his father died in 1971. Recognising that he had big shoes to fill, Duvalier tried his best to emulate his legendary father’s record of mass killings, corruption, and embezzlement by killing tens of thousands of people and then fleeing the impoverished country in 1986 with over $300 million in State funds.

Duvalier suddenly returned to Haiti last week, with no explanation as to why.

“I’m just chillin’ with my homeboys,” said Duvalier simply as he waved to neighbours staring at him with gaping, open-mouthed astonishment.

"Just like it used to be when I ran this town," recalled Baby Doc nostalgically.

“Hey, y’all, how you doin’? What’s happenin’?” he asked casually, reaching out to clasp the hand of a man with one leg who just stared back at him in slack-jawed bewilderment.

“Yes, sir, it is a fine day today!” enthused Baby Doc to some gobsmacked locals who had simply stopped in the middle of scavenging a local rubbish dump and looked dumbfounded at their former dictator suddenly once more in their midst.

“The slum dwellers were never very bright,” whispered Duvalier confidentially. “It’s the malnutrition, I think. It always took them ages to do what I said back in the 1970s.”

“Of course, back then I had my Tonton Macoutes to prod them into action,” he added. “Now those were a bunch of men who knew how to get things done.”

“Any time of day or night, if I wanted to throw a big orgy in my palace with some beautiful women, those boys would go out and come back with a dozen girls who were willing to do anything,” said Duvalier with a raucous laugh.

"Of course, I was voted world's best looking playboy dictator in 1978," said Baby Doc proudly.

“I don’t know how they were able to persuade them all so quickly, but then Haiti is a very friendly and obliging place.”

As he walked through the streets of his old hometown, with a growing mob of Haitians following him while weaving some kind of circular design out of old pieces of rope, Baby Doc became more and more nostalgic.

“I really should try to get back here more often,” he said, a tear in his eye as he heard the distant sound of explosions. “You know, just to chill out a bit, see the slums, smell the cholera-riddled air, hear the guns chattering in the early morning hours, catch up with the people I once terrorised, you know?”

Passing a woman with four children, Baby Doc suddenly broke into a huge grin. “Juliette, is that you? Woah, girl, how you been?” he asked, as the woman turned pale and staggered backwards like she’d been hit in the stomach. “It’s me, baby! You remember the wild times we had together up in the palace, when my boys would bring you and your sisters round and we’d play ‘Who’s Baby Doc’s favourite tonight?’”

“So you got kids, now? You married? Hey, if not, give me a call. I’m staying at the hotel,” said Baby Doc, scribbling his number on a piece of paper and handing it to the woman, who had curled into a foetal ball and lay with shaking shoulders in the dust.

Haitians rush to greet the unprotected former tyrannical dictator.

“Man, I wouldn’t mind hitting that again,” said Baby Doc with a low whistle.

While the trailing mob finished its rope design, a long cord with a ring at the end, and began to move purposefully after the former dictator, Baby Doc sighed happily as he looked down on the ruins of his homeland.

“God, I love this place and its people,” he exclaimed, waving a hand at the shattered city sprawled before him.

“It’s the homecoming I always dreamed of but never dared hope for,” he said with a tear as he turned to welcome the mob charging joyfully towards him.

Climatologists Suspect Al Gore Behind Global Floods

Sydney – As Brisbane disappears underwater, Brazil sends in the army to try and deal with the ravages of severe flooding, and Sri Lanka struggles to deal with an unprecedented deluge, climatologists at a conference in Sydney have gathered to condemn Al Gore for his latest acts of eco-terrorism.

Thousands are fleeing the destructive power of Al Gore while the world's leading nations procrastinate.

“It is often difficult to perceive patterns within seemingly random events,” said an official statement published after the conference. “But over time the long-term trends become clear. We can no longer consider it a coincidence that destructive floods have occurred in many regions of the globe since Al Gore released his documentary on climate change.”

“The inconvenient truth is clear: Al Gore is systematically causing mass flooding around the world.”

“We call on all nations to take action to stop Mr. Gore, for the sake of all humanity,” concluded the statement.

Al Gore, the former vice-president who narrowly lost the presidential election to George W. Bush in 2000, made a come back on the world stage with a brilliant PowerPoint presentation, for which he won both an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize.

Since then he has campaigned tirelessly and futilely for climate change, regularly denouncing how little action anyone is taking as conference after conference fails to produce any consensus, meaningful action, or respect for Al Gore.

Al Gore smiles evilly as his plans for world domination, destruction, come to fruition.

Climatologists now fear that Gore may have resorted to more drastic measures in order to gain the world’s attention.

“While one act of flooding would seem unfortunate, two simultaneously would seem suspicious,” said Prof. Jemal Bahreini to reporters. “Three at the same time definitely points to the involvement of Al Gore.”

“Some of our satellite photos are now showing that flood patterns are spelling out the letters AG,” said Prof. Bahreini. “I think we all know what that means.”

Criminologists say that the patterns surrounding Mr. Gore had now become alarming. “In 2000 he narrowly lost an election he was in prime position to win, and shortly afterwards America suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history,” said Dr. Robert Park. “Then in 2006 it looked like he was convincing the world about the need for action on climate change, and nothing happened, and now we are being hit with unprecedented acts of eco-terrorism.”

“It’s beginning to look like the hunt for bin Laden was just a wild goose chase.”

Despite the mounting circumstantial evidence against Al Gore, the world’s leading nations still seem incapable of agreeing to a coherent plan of action.

Daily life continues in China despite Al Gore.

“We developing nations did not create the problem of Al Gore,” said Chinese Ministry of the Environment spokeswoman Jinhui Wang. “Al Gore is primarily a creation of developed Western nations and they should be the ones to deal with the problem.”

“Meanwhile, we will just carry on as if Al Gore didn’t exist.”

The EU said that it had planned a multilateral approach to dealing with Al Gore, but was having difficulty with enforcement mechanisms. “Ja, naturally a multilateral international agreement is important,” said Torsten Lahm, head of the EU Environmental Agency. “But the thing is these agreements only work when everyone involved is German. We could ask the Greeks and they would say that they had done it, but we all know that this country is a case of baskets.”

“And let’s not even get started on those pixieheads in Ireland,” he said, lifting his glasses to rub his eyes exhaustedly. “But the biggest problem is the Americans.”

Many Americans continue to deny the existence of Al Gore.

The USA is the world’s largest producer of Al Gore, but many Americans refuse to believe in the existence of Al Gore and the damage he is doing around the world.

“If there’s flooding then that’s the work of our good Lord Jesus Christ laying waste to the heathens,” said the head of the US EPA the Rev. Wilson Warnabacker.  “There ain’t no Al Gore. People tried to tell us there was Al Gore in 2000 and that we should all watch out for Al Gore – I didn’t see no Al Gore in the White House, did you?”

“This Al Gore nonsense is just a construction of the liberal media.”

Climatologists said they would continue to build evidence for the existence of Al Gore, but time was growing short to take action against the former vice-president.

Pakistan Worried About Political Violence, Instability in the USA

Islamabad – These are worrying times in Pakistan, as political violence strongly influenced by religious fundamentalism and fuelled by the inflammatory rhetoric of demagogues threatens to destabilise the nation’s key ally in the War on Terror, America.

In an official statement today, President Arif Zardari said: “We in Pakistan are extremely worried about the increasingly polemical rhetoric and calls for violent action in American politics. We call on all Americans to respect everyone’s democratic rights and work together to secure peace and stability.”

President Zardari called on the USA to respect basic human rights by not arming crazies.

The USA has recently been rocked by the shooting of Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the murder of 6 bystanders, including a nine year-old girl. Commentators were quick to blame the shooting on the poisonous political atmosphere of open insurrection associated with the powerful Tea Party movement, which favours immediate armed conflict with the Soviet Union, the complete dismantling of all forms of governance within the sovereign and impenetrable borders of the USA, and mass suicide to hasten the Second Coming of Jesus.

“We know that Christianity is a religion of peace,” continued Zardari. “We respect Christian values and know that the 50 million fundamentalist evangelicals in the USA are not representative of the teachings of Jesus and the Bible.”

“We call on President Obama to do more to restrain these radical Christian sects and prevent them spreading their message of violence and hate.”

President Zardari’s call for peace and stability was welcomed across the Pakistani political spectrum.

“The USA is a critical region of the world for Pakistani security,” said former president Pervez Musharraf. “If these acts of insanity continue then hundreds of nuclear warheads could fall into the hands of radical fundamentalists.”

Sarah Palin admits she doesn't know exactly where Washington is, but with a nuke you only need the right ballpark.

“Can you imagine Sarah Palin with her finger on the button?” he asked in disbelief. “I’d rather give those WMDs to Osama bin Laden. At least he can find Washington on a map; Palin could shoot those things anywhere.”

Many Pakistanis believed that President Zardari’s appeals are futile, however. “Christianity is a fundamentally intolerant, apocalyptic religion,” declared Imam Moqtada al-Birani. “We have seen Christian armies invade Muslim lands for centuries, killing, raping, and pillaging in the name of their God. The facts speak for themselves.”

“And their heaven doesn’t have 72 virgins in it!” he exclaimed in disbelief. “What else would you like to spend eternity doing other than making love to beautiful young women? What exactly do they plan to do in heaven that will make them so happy?”

“It’s all this repression of normal, healthy sexual fantasies that drives them to radical politics,” concluded Imam al-Birani.

"Now THAT is a sensible, healthy vision of heaven," said al-Birani, disrobing.

Local woman Rubeena Khoteimi (42) said that there was a limit to what Pakistan could do to prevent the USA becoming more unstable.

“It is an alien culture,” she said simply. “I really don’t understand those people at all. I mean, they want every citizen to have the right to bear arms; why, in the name of Allah, when they obviously can’t be trusted to use them responsibly? You’d think taking away the right to bear arms, given how often Americans shoot each other, would be the first thing on everyone’s mind.”

“Peace is an easy thing – just don’t shoot anyone,” said Mrs. Khoteimi. “But America’s not ready for such a message.”

As if to prove Mrs. Khoteimi right, President Barack Obama immediately issued a populist response, saying Pakistan should keep its nose out of other countries’ business.

“America’s business is no business of yours,” said Obama. “If we want to shoot ourselves down to the last free man standing, then that’s the American Way. Stay out of it.”

Republicans immediately criticised Obama for not adding “or else!” and called on all patriots to bear arms and secede from the Union.

Ivorian Crisis Sparks False Hopes of Irish Revolution as Diaspora Confuse Flags

Yamoussoukro – There have been many strange twists in the recent Ivorian crisis over the disputed election results between incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo and challenger Alassane Ouattara, but the strangest may have come last week when a petition signed by 12,000 members of the Irish diaspora urged Mr. Ouattara to “shove those Fianna Fáil bastards into the Irish Sea.”

The Ivory Coast has traditionally been divided between a Muslim North and Christian South and its national flag attempts to bond the two groups by showing an orange (Christian) and green (Muslim) stripe united by the white stripe of peace.

Ivorians protest under a confusingly Irish-looking flag.

Observers have speculated that this flag’s similarity to the Irish flag may have caused some confusion among the Irish diaspora, many of whom were somewhat inebriated when they saw the reports on CNN.

Read the petition, “It is with great delight that we, the Irish diaspora, have viewed public images of people taking to the streets in protest while waving the proud Irish tricolour. We fully support these revolutionary actions and will offer material support to everyone working to bury Fianna Fáil with the 20^th century, where it belongs.”

“On a side note, we are also surprised and encouraged by the number of black Irish people protesting,” remarked the petition. “We had no idea the country was now so ethnically diverse.”

Mr. Ouattara said he was both humbled and baffled by the unexpected level of Irish support. “I do not know who these people you speak of are, or what exactly you think is going on here,” said Mr. Ouattara in a speech to the Irish diaspora. “And we have had great difficulty understanding the reference to ‘hounding the cute hoors out of politics.’”

Alassane Ouattara has become a hero to the Irish diaspora, despite repeatedly hanging the flag the wrong way up.

“But your donations have been most welcome. Please continue to send us financial aid, although we are not sure sending us guns is a good idea.”

President Laurent Gbagbo cautioned his fellow Ivorians against allowing themselves be influenced by the Irish. “These people have systematically destroyed their own country and now they want to come here and destroy ours,” he warned. “If Ouattara gets in, he will feel obliged to grant these people residency permits and then we will be swarmed with these human locusts.”

“Do you want a drunk singing the ‘Wild Rover’ on every street corner?” demanded Gbagbo to shouts of ‘No!’ from the crowd. “Do you want to have to wear stupid green hats every March 17? Do you want to have to avoid your local bars because there’s some maudlin and lonely old expat sitting in the corner talking about the Ould Sod? Do you want to be Boston, is that what you want?”

The furious crowd roared ‘No!No! No!’ and tried to chant Gbagbo’s name but couldn’t pronounce it.

A spokesman for the UN peacekeeping mission, Sir Bernard Wolstoneham, said: “The last thing we need here is the damned Irish! Great Scott, are none of them sober enough to look at an atlas? Did none of them think it looked unseasonably sunny in those reports?”

Laurent Gbagbo cheers the one person able to pronounce his name properly.

“And all of the protesters were black!” he added in disbelief. “What part of Ireland did they think these protests were going on in?”

The diaspora have since apologised and retracted their original statements after a planeload of fired-up patriots flew into Dublin to join the revolution.

“Yeah, we just thought it was about fuckin’ time, y’know?” said Kevin McGrath (26), who has been working in the US since he lost his job in the financial crisis. “I mean, an undemocratically elected leader just bankrupted the nation and refuses to yield power – is there some reason why we shouldn’t take to the streets and have a revolution?”

“But then we got here and immediately realised our mistake. Things are worse than ever – a lot of people don’t even have running water any more – but everyone was just sittin’ around, wringin’ their hands and saying ‘wasn’t it terrible about poor Gerry Ryan?’”

“Now I just hope I can get out of here in time for the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Boston,” he said hopelessly, as he sat in Dublin Airport with thousands of docile others, waiting for a flight back to the US.

Australia Stubbornly Refuses to Set Israelites Free

Bundaberg, Australia – Most other countries would have yielded by now, but their stubborn pioneer spirit means that, despite years of having the wrath of Yahweh visited upon them in the form of terrible plagues of fire and flood, Australians continue to refuse to let the Israelites go free.

Said Prime Minister Julia Gillard: “’As devastating as these [biblical] floods are, we are seeing a magnificent response by all levels of government and by emergency personnel. The overwhelming sentiment is one of resilience and one of care and concern for their neighbours. That sense of community pulling together, that Australian sense that when times are tough we work together and look after each other.”

Gillard leads by example in casually ignoring the gigantic biblical flood behind her.

Added Gillard: “Those Israelites won’t be going anywhere.”

For some years now, Australia has been holding the Israelites in detention centres located in the desert while they process their right to asylum. Angered by bureaucratic delays and shoddy living conditions, Moses has demanded their immediate release to the Promised Land or else he will invoke the power of Yahweh to send ten deadly plagues upon the people of Australia.

In response the Australian government said it does not negotiate with terrorist divinities.

True to his word, however, Yahweh has brought plague on plague to the tormented Antipodes. First came the plague of rabbits, followed by dingoes that ate first-born babies, followed by crocs. However, Australia was saved by the heroic actions of legendary crocodile hunter Mick Dundee, who single-handedly tamed the crocs, ate the dingoes’ babies, and bested the rabbits in a trial of wits.

Legendary hero Mick Dundee plays with new tame crocodile, gives Yahweh the finger.

Angered, Yahweh stepped it up by plaguing Australians with the ten deadliest spiders, the ten deadliest snakes, and the ten most suicide-inducing soap operas, including such notorious serial killers as Neighbours and Home and Away. Again, Australians were saved by a tough-talking Queenslander – this time Steve Irwin, who single-handedly gave Australians something better to watch on TV by fighting the world’s deadliest animals in single combat.

Enraged by the invincible manliness of the average Australian digger, Yahweh has unleashed a serious of natural disaster plagues on the troubled continent. In 2007 a drought threatened the land, but was defeated when Australians prayed for rain to the Christian God, who is notoriously on bad terms with Yahweh and will do anything to make him look bad in front of the Israelites.

In 2009, Yahweh unleashed a plague of fire upon the burning land, and spoke to the people of Australia from out of the burning bush: “By Satan’s scrotum, the Egyptians were ready to wimp out after the plague of frogs! What will it take for you to give up?”

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd spoke for all Australians when he said: “We’re not a bunch of Mediterranean wogs, mate – we’re Australians. There’s nothing you can dish out that we can’t barbecue and eat for breakfast.”

A local man nonchalantly pushes the biblical flood out of his shop with an old broom.

Now massively pissed off, Yahweh has unleashed the ninth plague of Australia, a flood covering an area the size of France and Germany combined which has displaced over 200,000 people.

“Drought, fire, flood, what does this Yahweh think we are – a bunch of wusses?” asked local man Geoff Harris (31) unconcernedly as he single-handedly rowed his entire town to safety on a makeshift raft made of crocodile skin. “Those Israelites better settle in for the long haul here, ‘coz we ain’t budgin’ for some Wog deity and his flamin’ plagues.”

Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that, as a security precaution, all first-born sons should be monitored closely over the next year. Those wishing to contribute to Australia’s heroic stand against God can do so at this website.

Canada Doing Just Fine

Edmonton – As the rest of the world surveys the carnage of 2010, from the continuing hardship of the global economic recession, the proliferation of wars, and the ongoing decline of good music, a bemused Canada announced today that it was doing just fine.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced in a speech reviewing the year that everything was all right. “My fellow Canadians,” he said in a relaxed, homely manner. “This has been a pretty good year for Canada, just like last year and the most of the years before that. We have a sound economy, a secure nation, and a quality of living that much of the world envies.”

"Yep, that's our national parliament," said Mr. Harper proudly. "Mighty fine."

“Although, really,” said Mr. Harper, suddenly thinking about the rest of the world. “How hard can it be?”

Leading analysts said Canada had benefited from a political tradition that discourages complete dumbasses from running for office.

“Canadian voters have traditionally been hostile to the idea of having mentally deranged ideological zealots with Ph.Ds from the Community College of Moronville running the government,” said James Green, Professor of Political Science at the University of Ottawa. “As we’ve seen in, say, the USA or Ireland, having such people in charge can cause serious problems for the average citizen. That’s why we would never vote in someone like George W. Bush or Brian Cowen – they were obviously going to make a balls of it, so why would you give them the job?”

“Well, technically the Irish didn’t vote Brian Cowen in,” admitted Professor Green. “But I actually find that more disturbing, don’t you?”

The tradition of voting for sane, intelligent individuals for public office has had knock-on benefits for the economy.

"No sir, you don't see signs like this at Canada's well regulated banks," said Mr. Lagrange.

“I think that’s obvious if we take a look at the different trends following the recession,” said Kenneth Lagrange, a market analyst for Goldman Sachs. “Canada survived a global financial meltdown pretty much intact because its government actually regulated the banks. Now, our banks and our money are doing just fine.”

“Compare that with the US, where Republicans have been and still are actively campaigning for deregulation,” he said, shaking his head in puzzlement. “Yeah, like when someone goes nuts and trashes your home, the last thing you’d want to do is call the police, right? Unless you’d like the Tea Party to come round and practice some good old-fashioned neighbourhood justice, with no need to get the government involved.”

“And don’t even ask about Ireland!” he added with a laugh. “From encouraging the housing bubble to agreeing to the bank bailout to the humiliating deal with the IMF, those guys are paying the price for having dumbasses at the wheel.”

General Howard Farlington said that responsible governance was also at the heart of Canada’s security policy.

"Now, really, who's that helping?" said General Farlington disapprovingly.

“We have one golden rule for keeping Canadians safe,” said General Farlington briskly. “Don’t invade other countries and kill people.”

“You see, killing thousands of unarmed civilians in Third World countries generally leaves a lot of people angry with you; then those people try to kill you back,” he explained. “That’s why here in Canada we don’t declare war on anyone, and it’s a policy that’s working just fine.”

“Compare that with the American policy, and you’ll see what I mean.”

Ordinary citizens declared themselves “satisfied” with Canada’s progress. “Sure, it’s not a bad place to live, not a bad place at all,” said Ottawa resident Jane Dearborn (37). “Although really, as our Prime Minister said, how hard can it be? I mean, vote in smart pragmatic leaders, don’t start any wars, and sensibly regulate the market – it doesn’t take a genius to work that out. I don’t see why life everywhere in the world can’t be just fine, like here.”

At the UN, representatives of the world’s other nations announced they would love it, just love it, if Canada fell flat on its smug complacent face in 2011.