Monday 30 November 2009

Bye

This was fun, but I can't keep it up.

(I think maybe the words "be bothered to" were missing from that sentence.)

Wednesday 25 November 2009

Men think about sex every 7.3 seconds, new measurements reveal

New research into the frequency with which sex crosses men's minds has revealed this week that scientists' previous estimate was somewhat inaccurate.

The fact that "men think about sex every seven seconds" has been so widely established and generally accepted by the scientific community for so long, that it has become a widespread truism whose empirical origins are often unknown by those repeating it as an interesting tidbit of trivia. But data gathered recently in experiments performed at Maudlin College, Oxbridge, have refined results that had been universally considered factually solid.

"This has profound implications in many fields of science," said Professor Fringlebert Zuppp, chief researcher on the project for the whole of its eight-month duration. "It may seem like a minor adjustment to a well understood natural law, but it goes to show that even the most solid, firm, pert scientific theory can be overturned or altered by the objective assessment of new tits."

"Evidence," Professor Zuppp added, looking slightly flustered. "I meant to say evidence. Not tits. Sorry. Mind wandering a little."

As these results are replicated and verified in other labs across the world, scientists are beginning to speculate on what other facts often taken for granted may turn out to be less certain than was once thought. Already a growing campaign exists for the "five-second law", regarding the time-frame in which it is considered safe to pick up food that has been dropped on the floor, to be replaced by the "four-point-three-seconds law" in the interests of public health.

Tuesday 24 November 2009

LHC operational - mankind wins hide-and-seek against God

The Large Hadron Collider achieved its long-awaited goal and then some yesterday, when God came out of apparent hiding as a direct result of its operation.

Scientists had hoped that the five mile wide particle accelerator based near Geneva, Switzerland, would provide empirical evidence supporting the existence of the hypothetical Higgs boson, known informally as the "God particle". This nickname was thought only to be a reference to the particle's importance, but turned out to be rather more literal when God himself manifested at CERN during an otherwise routine procedure.

The event is being hailed as the first truly undisputed instance of divine visitation in human history. God, as we now know, had done such a good job of hiding from us, that no consensus as to any aspect of his nature had ever successfully been reached, with some groups questioning even his very existence.

"Well, you found me," were the first words uttered by the creator of the Universe to mankind, according to several badly shaken physicists who had been present at his abrupt arrival. "It didn't take you that many billion years, either. You must be really good at seeking."

"Now I'll count to a quadrillion, and you guys all hide," he added.

Tuesday 17 November 2009

"Dr Brooke Magnanti" identity revealed

The secret identity of PhD scientist Dr Brooke Magnanti has finally been revealed this week, as well known call-girl and writer Belle de Jour admitted to being the one behind the enigmatic persona.

The truth behind just who "Dr Magnanti" really was has been the subject of much debate in recent years, and has held the nation's attention ever since she began work in her specialist area of developmental neurotoxicology in Bristol. Speculation has been rife about the woman - though some doubted even the basic fact of her gender - behind this elusive character, ranging from the mundane to the bizarre. Some commentators suggested that she was the estranged sister of Piers Morgan, and hid the truth about her background to avoid the negative association.

In the far fringes of uninformed guesswork, it was also mooted that she was in fact Shergar.

But the debate was settled when Belle de Jour outed herself as being the real Dr Magnanti, saying only that it "feels like a good time" to reveal it now. She admitted to being nervous about how her friends and family, who know her only as a blog-writing prostitute, will react to learning that she's secretly been working as an epidemiologist researching the effects of exposure to the pesticide chlorpyrifos on foetuses and infants, but is sure that those closest to her will understand.

Monday 16 November 2009

In memoriam

The Daily Half-Truth will not be published as usual today, out of respect for everyone who has ever tragically lost their lives on November 16th.

Friday 13 November 2009

Beauty queen says something unimportant, is attractive naked

Carrie Prejean, winner of the Miss California USA pageant for 2009, featured in a "sex tape" leaked to the internet recently, and also said some things a while ago that don't really matter.

The 22-year-old model appears alone in the video footage, which has sparked controversy due to its erotic nature, and to claims made by Prejean that she was 17 at the time of its filming. She first came to national prominence when responding to a question about same-sex marriage during the Miss USA pageant, but this was generally agreed to be of very little concern to anyone interested primarily in visually admiring attractive young women.

"That Kerry Pray-jun, yeah, she's hot," said Dwight M. Daberhasher, a 43-year-old trucker from Massachusetts, when asked his views on the controversy. "Apparently she said something about gay marriage that one time, which might not have been as progressive as you might hope for, but I wasn't really listening too closely when the woman whose job is to be pretty and smile started talking about politics."

"She's entitled to her opinions, and all," he added. "I'm just not that interested in them."

Another contestant in the Miss USA pageant, Amanda Snibblington, is thought to have expressed an opinion on the war in Iraq recently, but since she was displaying her stunningly beautiful 19-year-old body in a bikini at the time, nobody has yet taken any notice of what she was saying.

Thursday 12 November 2009

Washington sniper executed

John Allen Muhammad, the mastermind behind the "Washington sniper" attacks in which ten people were killed during October 2002, was executed by the state on Tuesday.

His death was the first in a trial series of themed punishments being rolled out across the country by the newly formed "Agency of Ironic Retribution". Accordingly, he was shot in the head at a distance of 300 yards from the boot of a car.

The exact purpose of rendering capital or corporal punishment more narratively pleasing at great financial expense has never been fully explained, but this project has strong governmental support across the US. Numerous senators and members of Congress have spoken in favour of the programme, and of the need to bring some truly creative minds to the project, to come up with new punishments that are really, deliciously ironic, while at the same time not flouting national law or the Geneva Convention too blatantly.

Suggested forms of execution for future offenders include:

- Kidnappers (when the total conviction is deemed a capital offence) to be held in an airtight cell until expiration.
- Child abusers to be hypnotically regressed to pre-adolescence and psychologically tormented.
- School shooters to be shackled to a desk in a classroom and made to write out all the chemical components of the lethal injection they are about to receive 100 times (the quality of their handwriting to be graded before the injection is administered).
- Terrorists to be introduced to a typical "water-boarding" scenario, interrogated, and then actually drowned.

These ideas have not been formally approved as yet, and questions into their possibly inhumane nature are due to be addressed before any decisions are made.

Civil rights campaigners have lambasted the plans to increase AIR's role, calling it "yet further trivialisation of our deplorable attitude to the sanctity of human life". Irate grammarians have also made been protesting AIR, on the grounds that the penalties being enacted are not good examples of true irony.

Wednesday 11 November 2009

Modern Warfare 2 released

The much-anticipated video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was released globally yesterday, much to the delight of parents and authority figures across the world.

The new first-person shooter, published by Activision, gives players the chance to control the character of an elite commando and engage in a series of undercover military missions. The realism with which the violence and gore is depicted is as intense as has come to be expected of the genre, and like the previous games in the series, the game has received considerable praise from parents' and teachers' organisations, law enforcement agencies, politicians, and children's advocacy groups, as a safe and effective way of restraining the murderous urges of every adolescent on the planet.

"Games like Modern Warfare 2 allow young people to indulge in all the sick, homicidal fantasies that we all know plague their every waking thought," said Bilbert Omphalomph, spokesman for activist group Concerned Citizens For Violent Video Games, in a statement yesterday. "This plays a vital role in mollifying the today's youth, and making teenagers far less likely to be tempted to turn their explosive criminal rage on the rest of us."

Science has repeatedly shown that all young people, especially those who might play violent video games that are intended for more adult players and given an 18 certificate, are barely controlled and tightly wound balls of fury, simmering just below boiling point, constantly on the verge of being pushed over the edge and slaughtering dozens of their classmates. Even in children who have never shown any signs of aggression and in whom no conscious or unconscious thoughts or urges of bloody murder can be detected, a scientist has done some science and found that it's always true, about all of them.

The arrival of a new peaceful outlet by which gamers can inflict brutal head injuries on mere simulations of innocent citizens comes as a great relief to many. After popular non-violent platformer Fluffy the Kitten's Adventure World of Cake and Hugs was released last month, the rate of neck-stabbing incidents in US schools spiked by 3000%.

Tuesday 10 November 2009

Actor's secret life as journalist revealed

New documentary film The Men Who Stare At Goats hit cinemas this past week, and revealed to the world a number of shocking truths brought to light by actor Ewan McGregor, in his surprising undercover role as an investigative journalist.

The star of Trainspotting and Moulin Rouge reveals in his latest release that, in the early years of this decade, he spent many months doing research into the US military's exploration of paranormal and New Age concepts. The well known actor attained a surprising level of access, earning the trust of many leading psychic researchers employed by the army.

"I didn't use my real name, obviously," said McGregor, in response to questions about how one of the world's most bankable film stars managed to pass as an unknown journalist and surreptitiously acquire such impressive footage. "And if anyone ever noticed a resemblance between 'Bob Wilton' and someone they'd seen in Star Wars, they didn't mention anything."

When asked how he'd managed to continue operating his cameras and recording equipment in such hostile conditions as an Iraqi terrorist prison, he shuffled awkwardly and changed the subject.

The film is now showing in cinemas nationwide, and was based on the 2004 book of the same name, written by McGregor under a pseudonym.

Monday 9 November 2009

Michael Jackson séance unfortunately a failure

An attempt to psychically contact the spirit of deceased music legend Michael Jackson, which aired live in the UK on Friday night, sadly did not achieve this desired aim - and nobody was more disappointed than psychic Derek Acorah.

"I really thought we were going to get somewhere with this," Acorah said in a discussion segment at the end of the hour-long show. "I really thought our chances were good of magically reaching through to another plane of existence and communicating with the dead soul of the King of Pop from whatever fantastical realm he might now inhabit. But, though I had been optimistic, he didn't seem to be present."

The disappointment was heightened by the fact that, for the first ten minutes or so, Derek did seem to be truly receiving answers from the beyond, as he asked the singer questions out loud. Those of Jackson's friends and family who were present were obviously very emotionally moved, and in many cases tearful, to be told that their dearly departed was in fact present, and was passing on messages of love and peace through Acorah.

"But then I realised that there was just no reason to take it seriously," Acorah admitted. "As much as I would like to be able to offer genuine reassurances to the deceased's loved ones, I really don't think I was actually channeling Michael in any sense. It's far more likely that I just felt so personally invested in things, and had promised so much in bringing all these people here and persuading so many to watch at home, that I managed to convince myself that the thoughts I was having were coming from Michael's spirit, and that the creative workings of my own vivid imagination were something more ethereal and miraculous."

"Obviously I couldn't keep a charade like that up," he continued, "however embarrassing or humiliating it might be to admit to a complete failure and utter lack of psychic ability at this stage in my career. It would be entirely unethical. There'd be no way I could live with myself, knowing I was the sort of person who could be so disingenuous and toy with people's emotions for my own personal gain."

Acorah spoke humbly and at length, and closed the show what was widely regarded as an eloquent and fittingly touching reminder of the importance of honesty and integrity, particularly when dealing with such an evocative subject.

Next week on Sky 1, Derek Ogilvie reads some babies' minds and tells their parents about all the ways they're screwing up their children.

Friday 6 November 2009

Parents' fury at sex lessons

Parents of school-age children across the country are up in arms at government plans to bring the physical act of hot, sweaty love to classrooms in the new school year.

The matter of sex education has long been a contentious issue, with some countries adopting a policy of teaching "abstinence only". This approach has been widely criticised, largely due to the substantial and constantly increasing body of evidence that it utterly fails to achieve anything beneficial. Now, some school districts are courting controversy at the other extreme end of the scale, introducing regular study of hardcore pornography to the weekly timetable.

Many conservative commentators are up in arms about this development, claiming that it's just what they've been predicting for years. But teachers involved in the trial schemes where these lessons are being rolled out deny that what they're doing is detrimental to society, or an erosion of moral values. Patrichard Bilifuster, headteacher at Aaron Burr elementary school in Miami, Florida, insists that he's just trying to provide a balanced, well rounded education.

"Sex is an integral part of every human being's life," said Bilifuster recently, "and equipping children with some basic information about it will give them a much better chance of being able to approach it safely and maturely when it becomes a relevant part of their own lives. And a vital part of so equipping them is to provide vivid, graphic, and perhaps even emotionally scarring demonstrations of the many and varied forms in which this most intimate of acts can be enjoyed. This will obviously include group discussion, video presentations, and guest performers being regularly present in the classroom environment, to provide a more 'hands-on' experience."

"Oh, and we're merging sex education with our evil communist promotion of the gay agenda," he added, "which obviously requires explicit viewing and rigidly enforced tolerance of hot man-on-man action for all students above the fourth grade."

Critics of this new scheme have suggested that, rather than anything so extreme as supplying pornography in classrooms, liberal plans for sex education have always involved providing a forum for mature and informed discussion, both about the biology of sexual reproduction and the social aspects of romantic relationships, at a level of depth and openness appropriate to the ages of the particular students. Although this idea still has some support, it's currently losing ground to the "just let them watch some fucking and they'll figure it out" educational model.

Thursday 5 November 2009

Cameron Diaz finally gets hair gel joke

Actress Cameron Diaz, star of the Charlie's Angels film franchise among many other major Hollywood successes, has revealed in an exclusive interview with The Daily Half-Truth that she "just got" the joke from an iconic moment in modern cinema - the famous "hair gel" scene in 1998 film There's Something About Mary.

In the memorable scene, protagonist character Ted (played by Ben Stiller) is masturbating at his home prior to a date with the titular Mary (Diaz). After successfully reaching orgasm, he is perplexed to realise that he cannot determine where the ejaculate landed. Almost immediately, the doorbell rings, and he goes to answer it. Mary is there for their date, but notices Ted's semen adhering to his ear. She enquires whether it is hair gel, and Ted - realising the embarrassing truth of the situation - pretends that it is. She proceeds to scoop it up in her fingers and run it through her hair, explaining that she "just ran out" of hair gel herself, to Ted's mortification and the amusement of the audience.

The humour is evident to anyone watching the film, but Diaz confessed to being unaware of the exact nature of her role at the time, and claimed to be "appalled and disgusted" to realise what was in fact taking place.

"My scene at his front door was shot on, like, a totally different set to where he'd... been doing that," she told us today. "I had no idea what was going on in the previous shot. I just thought it was some gag about, like, him being incompetent at putting on hair gel, or something. God, I can't believe what they had me do."

"That stuff better have been some kind of prop," she added. "There's no way they'd let him... actually do that, right? In my hair?"

Diaz also expressed concern at the possibility of there being other obscene or prurient jokes in her movies, of which she might also have been the inadvertent butt.

"Did Jude Law keep making sex faces behind me throughout The Holiday?" she asked. "That would explain a few things."

Wednesday 4 November 2009

Heroin defeated in military skirmish

A major victory has been won this week in the war on drugs, as several heroin battalions were successfully routed by US military forces.

Heroin, also known as diamorphine or by any of dozens of colloquial street names, is one of numerous illicit narcotics continuously trying to gain ground in just about every country in the world, generally by guerilla warfare and similar underhand tactics. The United States in particular have been waging a vigorous war against any such invasion for some decades, and with mixed results. Despite billions of dollars having been spent on the campaign, there is little sign of any members of the drug axis ever being conquered or forced into a surrender.

But some military personnel are hoping that this latest development may be an important step in that direction, as a substantial number (the exact details have not yet been released to the public) of opioid troops have been defeated in battle while trying to gain control of territory near the east coast of the US. Most military officers and politicians are resolute that the war will eventually be won, and must continue being fought until such time as no illegal drugs are left alive, anywhere, ever again.

Some have questioned the feasibility of this plan, however, and a growing number of the general population have begun questioning the wisdom of including some axis members on the list. Recent research indicates not only that the cannabis armed forces already have thousands of agents and outposts all over the country, but also that their overall detrimental effect on society is slight at best. Many are now suggesting that invasion and conquest was never the true intent of the coalition of narcotic substances, and that establishing some sort of legal immigration policy may allow a productive and beneficial integration of the two warring cultures.

In other western military news, the war on terror suffered a significant blow recently, as the film Paranormal Activity was given a general release in cinemas, substantially increasing levels of terror in many individuals for approximately 86 minutes.

Tuesday 3 November 2009

Music companies embrace illegal downloads

New research has shown that the same people who download the most music illegally are also spending the most money on legal music purchases, prompting a massive turn-around in some music executives' positions on file-sharing.

Whereas previously most music labels have done everything in their power to crack down on users sharing mp3 files of songs they haven't paid for, now industry moguls are now starting to see some serious potential in the idea of allowing their product to be downloaded illegally. Many are actively encouraging customers to upload ripped copies of their CDs to the internet, and some are even pushing for legislation mandating a certain level of bittorrent bandwidth every month.

"It's always been obvious that most illegal downloads can't be counted as lost sales," said Abercrombie Jaxtable, a spokesman for DLH Records, in a statement released earlier this week. "But to learn that they can in fact equate to a positive source of revenue was a surprise, and has prompted this change in policy. We now urge consumers to download as much content released on our label as they can find, wherever it's available."

"Let's face it," he went on, "everyone's downloading everything for free anyway, so any individual not also stealing our stuff may be unfairly damaging our profits, and we may seek to take legal action against them."

Some logicians have been seen trying to explain to these record companies the difference between correlation and causation, but were immediately told by everybody else on the internet to shut up before they ruined everything.

Monday 2 November 2009

Halloween a success - Satan a no-show

2009 appears to have been another successful year for Halloween, as the dark lord Satan was once again appeased by our candy offerings, and spared us his mighty wrath.

Satan - also known as Lucifer, Beelzebub, or simply "The Devil" - is known to have great influence at this time of year, and is credited with inspiring many of the traditions we associate with All Hallows' Eve. The enslavement of all mankind to his demonic will is, of course, a constant threat, but on October 31st he is strongest, and the barrier between the worlds is in the most danger of falling.

Every year at this time, brave and heroic children around the world take to the streets, determined to gather sufficient assorted confectionery to placate the Lord of Hell himself and prevent a diabolical apocalypse. Religious leaders urge that lay people help this effort as best they can, but that nobody involve themselves in any of the satanic rituals any more than is absolutely necessary.

"The Devil is a very real force for evil in the world," said Bishop Desmond Muumuu of Halifax. "This is not a subject to be approached lightly, as to undertake in many Halloween traditions will invite his attention upon you. He can only be countered by the inspiringly brave and selfless actions of several thousand eight-year-olds dressed up as Spiderman and Dracula, going door to door demanding Gummy Bears and Curly Wurlys."

"Only through this, and the grace of Jesus, are we saved," he continued.

This year's effort seems to have been a success, as Satan has not yet been seen to rise up from the pits of Hades and tear the land asunder, bringing desolation and despair to all. But already we are being warned not to get complacent - the annual festival to save us from zombie Jesus is less than two months away.