Earth-Like Planet Teeming With Earth-Like Arseholes

Visitors from Kepler 22-b may already be among us

Although they are yet to ascertain whether whether the newly-discovered “Earth-like” planet Kepler 22-b is actually solid, liquid or gas, NASA scientists have confirmed that – just like Earth – its surface is absolutely crawling with complete and utter arseholes.

“We’ve picked up faint transmissions which, when amplified and run through an NTSC decoder, reveal the planet’s vapid inhabitants indulging in a depressing variety of tedious activities,” revealed project leader Randy Von Braun. “It seems that their chief religious ritual involves individual Kepleroids singing and dancing themselves into an emotional frenzy in front of a panel of tribal chiefs. Every night apparently resounds to gunfire exchanged by the citizenry and their law enforcers, while both groups seem to spend the entire daytime arguing amongst themselves. Sound familiar?”

“All we know about Kepler 22-b’s atmosphere is that it seems to be full of burnt hydrocarbons, with large stratospheric gaps at both poles,” he added. “Bearing in mind that everything we’re seeing happened 600 years ago, though, it’s quite likely that the Kepleroid infestation has managed to wipe itself out by now, so it’s probably not as bad as it sounds.”

NASA: Plummeting Six-Ton Satellite Will Only Kill 2,250,000

Considerably fewer than 3m people will be crushed to pulp by fragments of the tumbling ARSE satellite when it crashes to earth later today, according to reassuring calculations issued by top NASA gamblers.

It's fairly possible that this might not happen

“Yes, folks, there’s just one chance in 3,200 that you will be flattened by a red-hot, refrigerator-sized chunk of ARSE!” beamed Dr Randy von Braun from a bunker deep under Texas. “With seven billion potential targets out there, our new supercalculators confidently predict that 6.9775 billion of you have absolutely nothing to fear.”

Dr von Braun helpfully explained that the actual toll might be affected by a small degree of statistical variance, according to whether the larger chunks of flaming wreckage hurtled into the sparsely-populated Southern Ocean or a nuclear reactor close to a major metropolis.

“Er… whoops, that should be 6.99775 billion,” he added sheepishly. “Hey, you’d think I’d have picked up something from that Math 101 refresher they sent me on after the Mars Orbiter went AWOL because I forgot you guys in Europe are metric, wouldn’t you? Live and learn – well, unless you die tonight, but it probably won’t happen. Trust me. No, really. I’m hardly ever wrong.”

History Officially Ends With Last Space Shuttle Launch

Tell your grandchildren to watch out for this bugger

8,000 years of human civilisation officially ended today at 0856 Eastern Daylight Time, with the final launch of Endeavour - the last remaining space shuttle in operation – from Cape Kennedy Space Center.

“Well, guys, I guess that’s end of the line for the human race,” announced NASA mission director Randy Von Braun as Endeavour separated from its rocket booster. “It’s all downhill from here.”

With the end of the space shuttle program the only way for astronauts to reach the International Space Station will be old-fashioned rockets, although the European Sapce Agency is working on a manned version of its space truck – thought to be an old Ford Transit, although Britain is keen to promote its own Commer Van – as soon as it can figure out how to get the brakes to work at 25,000mph.

Futurologists awaiting their P45s say that global warming is already becoming less of a worry for people, although they fear a mini Ice Age will occur in about 700 years. Before that, however, they warn that the Earth will be plunged into two horrific world wars in the next century - the first beginning with two nuclear strikes on Japan, and the second ending only when the heir to the four-year-old Austro-Hungarian Empire is assassinated.

There is some good news to come from the reversal of history, though. Mobile phones will become less and less irritating until they finally fall out of use altogether in around 25 years’ time, when nobody will be able to imagine how such a gadget could be ever made small enough to fit inside a briefcase.

Defence Secretary Declares War On Sun

Whilst delivering a keynote speech in an international conference on the vulnerability of electricity grids to hostile attack and natural disasters, Britain’s swivel-eyed secretary of state for defence, Dr Liam Fox, today seized the opportunity to call for a pan-global alliance to launch an all-out pre-emptive nuclear strike on the sun.

Dr Fox has been out in the sun for some considerable time now

“Make no mistake,” he warned delegates, adjusting his tinfoil hat to deflect deadly UV radiation from his mortal enemy, “According to NASA, in the year 2013 - or possibly earlier – a massive peak in the sun’s magnetic energy cycle and sunspot activity might very well create a solar storm of unprecedented ferocity. The inevitable worldwide geomagnetic storm this would unleash upon a defenceless Earth would undoubtedly knock out electricity grids for hours, days, weeks, months or most likely forever - bringing civilisation as we know it to a crashing halt and hurling the handful of terrified survivors back to the stone age, only to be mercilessly hunted down and eaten by irradiated mutant dinosaurs as tall as skyscrapers.”

“The only way that the people of Earth can save themselves from catastrophe is to lay aside their petty squabbles and unite to launch the world’s entire stock of thermonuclear warheads at our terrible enemy, the sun,” he shrieked, producing a battered Walkman cassette player from his pocket and jabbing at the play button until the batteries fell out. “As I know this idea will sound altogether too fantastic to the narrow minds of disbelievers, I have just set the process in motion by launching Britain’s entire stock of Trident missiles into space. Now you have no choice but to follow suit, or the sun’s vengeful wrath will surely kill us all by teatime!”

“The self-destruct codes have been disabled by my trusty cyber-pet, Aibo,” he bellowed, as his white-coated attendants manhandled him back to the padded ambulance he arrived in, adding, “One day – mark my words – I, Dr Magnafox, will be revered as the visionary saviour of the human race. Incidentally, I have blueprints hidden in a secret compartment in my underpants for a gigantic golden statue of myself which will be visible from space, if a grateful human race wishes to honour me after the hour of destiny has safely passed.”

'Large Amounts' of Water Ice, Ben & Jerry's, Magnum Found On Moon

A jubilant NASA mission team indulged themselves in a truly embarrassing display of unco-ordinated dancing around their consoles today, after lengthy computer analysis of the data generated by bombing the moon with a double-decker bus last month revealed "large amounts" of water-ices in the resulting 1.6km-high plume of debris.

"We've got a complete blackcurrant Ribena Ice, Mini-Calippos at both the infra-orange and ultralemon-and-lime ends of the spectrum, plus traces of what we've tentatively identified as fragments of the astronomically rare strawberry Calippo," grinned mission leader Randy von Braun, spinning round and round in his executive chair as he delightedly wrapped himself in yards of printout. "And it looks like quite a few other tooth-rotting treats may also have been blown into orbit."

"We're picking up strong spectroscopic signatures of Mini Milk, Fruit Pastil-Lolly, Twister, Magnum, Solero and even dark choc-ice matter," he added. "You name it, if it's cold and delicious, the moon has it in stock."

Meanwhile, NASA's equally-nerdy counterparts in Europe are busily engaged in the search for the elusive Higgs Beer Cooler, which has long been predicted by quantum physicists to exist somewhere in the universe - possibly on one of the attractively-frosted outer planets.

"After our discovery of liquid cherryade on Mars last December, we are truly unlocking the mysteries of our solar system," enthused Dr von Braun. "It would appear that the cold vacuum of space provides a near-perfect refrigerator that may well satisfy the exploratory requirements of a future generation of geeky astronauts addicted to junk food and sugar rushes."

Obama First To Win Two Nobel Peace Prizes In One Day

US President Barack Obama made history today, by receiving two Nobel Peace Prizes within 24 hours of each other.

The Nobel Committee honoured the "deeply humbled" president for achieving everlasting peace on earth thanks to his tireless efforts to deliver a string of vaguely aspirational speeches about talking to other nations about nuclear weapons.

"Previous leaders of the free world have always got bogged down in the detail of actually having talks," said a spokesman for the committee. "As soon as you sit down around the table, somebody wants something in return, and somebody else says they'll only do this if everybody else does that, it all breaks down in arguments and you're right back to square one. Obama's genius lies in realising that it is possible to take the short cut to world peace by not actually having those pointless talks at all. Only by not doing anything can you change the world. Brilliant."

"And, of course, he's not George W Bush," he added. "That's almost worth a prize in itself."

Meanwhile, hippies around the world expressed their shock and outrage at rampant US imperialism as NASA unexpectedly declared war on the moon by bombing it in an unprovoked sneak attack.

"Zoicks! They totally like blew the moon to pieces, man," said Shaggy, an organic mystery machine operator with self-inflicted dreads, who claimed he didn't speak for any particular group because everyone's opinion was like as valid as everyone else's yeah except some people's were shit. "It's like they fired a fucking Tranny van at the fucking moon at two million miles an hour. No shit, man, the Yanks blew a fuck-off great hole in the moon's karma, you know what I'm saying? It'll be your garden next, man, I tell you. Fuuuck."

"Rooby wooby woo," agreed his dog, speaking from the end of a piece of string.

The spent rocket stage which was actually crashed into the moon was followed by a probe seeking to detect the presence of ice particles in the cloud of dust hurled miles into the moon's virtually non-existent atmosphere by the impact, unhindered by any significant gravity field.

"It's like worse than Hiroshima yeah," screamed Moonchild Starflower, an anarcho-folkist aura decorator who sincerely believes she is powered by crystals. "The sick murdering bastards. Have some holistic cider, man, this stuff's well wicked."

When the rising tide of cannabis-addled protest reached the White House, President Obama wasted no time in declaring a worldwide war on anarchy and free-thinking radicalism, mobilising the remaining bits of the US Army not currently engaged in fighting abstract concepts in Iraq and Afghanistan and putting them on standby as soon as intelligence experts in the Pentagon had pinpointed the rogue state of mind responsible for the increasing outbreaks of twaddle that threatened world security.

He was immediately awarded a second Nobel Peace Prize for promising to rid the world of the fear of soap forever.

"I love the smell of Palmolive in the morning," said a peace-loving general.

Farting Planet Baffles French

Mars is farting methane at a truly frightening rate, according to puzzled French researchers from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris.

By modelling effects first seen by Americans through infrared spectroscopy, Franck Lefevre and François Forget discovered that not only does the red planet sporadically pump plumes of up to 19,000 tonnes of the noxious gas into the thin Martian atmosphere - far more than the Earth produces - but that the awful eggy stench also lingers for a shorter time than expected. The rate of methane production also appears to be seasonal, they added.

"Eet ees possible ze 'umble sprout may, en effet, 'ave originated on Mars," said Dr Lefevre, waving his arms about like an epileptic juggler and shrugging uncontrollably. "Wizout 'aving discovered ze actual vegetable patch, 'owever, eet ees 'ard to be certain when ees ze Martian growing season. But zees ees ze only explanation up with which we 'ave come. Mars ees exhibiting all ze farty signs of ze sprout-based diet. Zut alors."

"I would not go out zere eef I were you, mon brave," he warned.

After reading their Gallic colleagues' report in the journal Nature, however, NASA scientists believe they may have an explanation for the rapid disappearance of methane from the Martian atmosphere.

"Last night, in order to accurately replicate Mars under laboratory conditions, I set my team the task of consuming several crates of Coors," said mission leader Randy von Braun. "When they reached the appropriate level of methane production, I imitated the effect of Martian volcanoes by applying my Zippo to the gas plumes erupting from the appropriate fissures. And whaddya know - the methane disappeared completely, along with my eyebrows."

"But goddamn, it was one hell of an experiment," he added. "And we've invited the world's leading exologists along to what promises to be a truly awesome conference in Vegas to demonstrate our theory."

Moon Reunion 'Faked', Claim Conspiracy Theorists

On the 40th anniversary of mankind's first landing on the moon, conspiracy theorists are carefully examining TV footage to search for signs that the public reunion of the Apollo 11 astronauts was not really shot in Washington DC's National Air and Space Museum at all, but actually took place on the surface of the moon.

"Look carefully at the BACKGROUND," insisted an unblinking Californian feng shui exorcist in a tinfoil hat. "IT'S SOLID BLACK. If this 'interview' actually took place in a 'museum', as the NEW WORLD ORDER want you to 'think' - WHERE are the WALLS? WHERE are the STUFFED ANIMALS in 'glass' cases? WHERE IS TUTANKHAMEN? No, what you're looking at is the EMPTY void of ENDLESS SPACE. Wise up to the 'government' LIES, people, WISE UP."

"Just LISTEN to their delivery when they SPEAK," added a homeopathic dreamweaver from Dorset, who lives with a pack of vegan dogs and a liberated parrot. "It's SLOW and DELIBERATE - JUST AS YOU'D EXPECT WORDS TO BE, if they were 'spoken' in ONE-SIXTH of the earth's 'gravity'. Millions of RESPECTED SCIENTISTS you've never heard of are desperately trying to get people to learn the true FACTS that the 'government' will STOP AT NOTHING to prevent you from knowing, in a series of lavishly-worded $50 BOOKS you can only track down in 'ramshackle' BOOKSHOPS run by hippies, or direct from their WEBSITES."

"And how else can you explain the TOTAL LACK of any discernible ATMOSPHERE in the ENTIRE 'broadcast'?" she added. "They're ON THE FUCKING MOON, obviously. If you don't believe me, ask your NEAREST lizard."

David Icke, the world's foremost expert on conspiracies, is expected to broadcast a definitive rambling statement on the internet soon - because the Illuminati-owned news media are willingly co-operating with a top-secret government D-notice ordering them not to allow him airtime - in which he is likely to provide the world's free-thinking truth-seekers with enough research material to fuel an estimated 30,000,000,000 unwinnable arguments on Facebook.

Arse Attacks!

Robotic anal probes have detected the presence of enormous farts on Mars, according to ecstatic NASA researchers.

Exobiologist sub-editors writing in the Sun immediately decided that the atmospheric methane clouds prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the red planet is teeming with life, kebabs and lager - although more cautious observers speculate that the massive Olympus Mons volcano may simply be some kind of gigantic, planet-sized rectum. 

"Jeezus H Christ, that planet stinks!" declared NASA's Mars mission chief, Wilbur von Braun. "I wouldn't go out there if I were you."

Red Planet Was Fizzy, Says NASA

NASA is a step closer to discovering whether life may once have existed on Mars, after the discovery by its Reconnaissance Orbiter of carbonate rocks on the red planet.  All of the necessary ingredients for the rocks exist on Mars, so their apparent absence was an ongoing mystery.

Some scientists think that their rarity may be due to high acidity levels in Mars' now-vanished waters. However, a new theory from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory suggests that Mars was once covered with seas of cherryade, providing a neat explanation for the redness of the planet, and the present absence of life.

"If Mars has carbonate rocks, then it must have had carbonated water to make them," explained NASA's excited chief rocket scientist, Randy von Braun. "As everybody knows, the main occurrence of red carbonated water on Earth is in cheap supermarket cherryade - and God only knows where it all comes from or how it's made. My theory, then - get this - is that all of the cherryade in the universe originally came from Mars. Yeah? Check it out."

Dr von Braun went on to surmise that cherryade would have occurred naturally on Mars millions of years ago, through the random molecular interaction of molecules and stuff. Vast oceans of cherryade swiftly covered the entire surface of the planet and, for a while, other civilisations flocked to the planetary soda fountain and spread the new wonder-beverage throughout the galaxies.

However, after a period of time - which may have been several million years, says Dr von Braun, or more likely a day or two - the oceans of fizzy pop went flat, as the now-located carbonate rocks absorbed the carbon dioxide. Interstellar interest in our solar system swiftly evaporated - as did the fizz-free cherryade, leaving behind only an unpleasant-tasting residue which has stained the entire planet red.

Researchers are studying the theory with interest, and are already talking about a mission to Jupiter, to see if its thick atmosphere conceals vast oceans of Coca-Cola.