Satirical News Thread.

[classical_hero]

http://www.preoccupiedterritory.com/rabbinate-clear-your-browser-cookies-before-passover/

Jerusalem, April 9 – Israel’s ranking religious officials issued a reminder to Jews today to make sure they remove all the cookies from their computers by Monday morning, before the Passover prohibition against possessing leavened grain products goes into effect.

The Biblical practice of not owning, let alone eating, products made of grain flour, is part of the observance of Passover, the festival of redemption from Egyptian slavery, that begins at sundown Monday evening. However, the prohibition kicks in on the morning before, and practicing Jews are careful to remove, eat, or sell any such products, called Chametz, by that time. Noting that cookies are a grain product, the Chief Rabbinate warned those wishing to observe the festival to rid their domains of all browser cookies.

“The prohibition to possess Chametz begins at approximately e-leaven o’clock on Monday,” said a statement by the Rabbinate. “Eating even a single byte is forbidden.” The statement was signed by both the Ashkenazic and Sephardic Chief Rabbis, who reminded their constituents that although they formally differ on the permissibility of using soft unleavened bread – matza – for Passover, they agree on the importance of maintaining a Chametz-free computer. Traditionally, Ashkenazim insist on using only hard matza, baked to a crisp, while Sephardic authorities allow their followers to choose whether to use software or hardware.

Earlier authorities were silent on the issue of this type of cookies, but the trend in recent centuries, and especially in recent decades, is toward increasing stringency in Passover observance. Religiously liberal Jews have decried that tendency, even calling it a plague, but others hail it as fulfilling the spirit of the Biblical precept itself, which did not stop at barring the mere consumption of Chametz; even having it in one’s domain is prohibited.

In keeping with the prohibition of possession, Jews scan their domains the night before Passover, and quarantine whatever Chametz they find, to delete it the following morning and declare what might remain in the home directory ownerless and void.

Those who would find it to difficult to dispose of all their Chametz are permitted to sell it to a non-Jew. The broker of such transactions has usually been the community Rabbi, who would open a dialog box with a local gentile willing to put a deposit on the entire community’s Chametz, explains Rabbi Chumra Yetera of Congregation Minhag Shtut.

“Many Rabbis didn’t traditionally receive a formal salary,” he noted. “Instead, people would compensate them for their time. If someone came to the Rabbi to rule on the the kosher status of, say, a chicken, he or she would bring along a chicken for the Rabbi, for example. People would give the Rabbi a small sum to sell their Chametz, and that was his biggest single source of income all year.”

“You might call it our bread and butter.”

 

[dragonprobably]

It would of been funny if you added "99% Onion" in your title.

Drugs Named As Number One Cause Of Drug Taking

 

[classical_hero]

http://www.theonion.com/articles/everyone-in-middle-east-given-own-country-in-31700,36484/

EW YORK—Marking the latest and most ambitious attempt to bring stability to the region, the United Nations announced Wednesday that every single person in the Middle East will receive his or her own sovereign nation as part of a historic 317,000,000-state solution.

The broad and extensive compromise, which affects more than 3,000,000 square miles formerly occupied by the territories of Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Oman, Yemen, Egypt, and Jordan, will reportedly draw over 750,000,000 new borders in what experts claim will help drastically curb sectarian violence.

“Given the incredibly complex and volatile sociopolitical landscape throughout the Middle East, a 317,000,000-state solution is the only realistic means of achieving lasting peace,” said U.N. Security Council president Eugène-Richard Gasana, noting that the treaty was reached after lengthy negotiations, which brought together each of the more than 300,000,000 independent factions. “We are pleased to finally come to an agreement that will hopefully stabilize the entire region and adequately satisfy the demands of all parties.”

“We are confident that with every man, woman, and child possessing his or her own autonomous area of sovereignty to run as he or she sees fit, we will avoid many of the conflicts that have plagued this part of the world for centuries and left countless dead,” Gasana added. “This is a bright new future for the Middle East.”

According to U.N. officials, the newly demarcated Middle East now consists of 8,000,000 independent Jewish states, 4,000,000 independent Palestinian states, 112,000,000 Shi’ite Islamic republics, 156,000,000 Sunni Islamic republics, and 19,000,000 Kurdish nations, as well as approximately 18,000,000 territories that include various Christian, Bahá'í, Druze, Zoroastrian, and secular countries.

According to reports, the treaty has largely been met with support from locals, with many praising the division of the region into nearly a third of a billion sovereign states as a practical and desperately needed solution after decades of ceaseless sectarian fighting.

“Frankly, giving every Middle Eastern citizen a country of his or her own is long overdue,” 49-year-old Naseer Khalidi told reporters from his newly formed 400-square-foot independent state along the former West Bank, which is adjacent to nations populated by his wife and two children. “After such a long history of violence and discord, we now have a region that is fairly and evenly divided among all religious factions, ethnic groups, and individual inhabitants. Finally, we can all live without oppression.”

The resolution, however, has not been without various complications, with the U.N. now struggling to accommodate its 317,000,183 member states, and the global economy still reportedly has yet to incorporate each of the 317,000,000 entirely new forms of currency.

Reports also confirmed that several hundred of the new states in what was formerly northeast Saudi Arabia contain highly valuable oil reserves within their borders, with top officials in those nations having already received a number of diplomatic visits from the U.S. and Western Europe, sparking tensions with their tens of thousands of neighboring countries.

“While this idea may work in theory, this is simply another shortsighted plan that will only further strain tensions in the region,” said 54-year-old former Syrian resident Ilyas al-Masry, adding that there have already been some hints of unrest between each of the 246 sovereign states within a 5,000-foot radius of his country. “How can we have stability and peace when more than 300,000,000 nations are inhabiting lands they have absolutely no right to occupy?”

“As long as everyone respects my borders, there will be no issues,” al-Masry added. “But I am prepared to use force if there are any attempts to destabilize or infringe upon my nation.”

At press time, reports confirmed the outbreak of more than 90,000,000 new wars across the region, with sources estimating the current death toll at approximately 700,000.

 

[stfoskey12]

How interesting.
http://www.theonion.com/article/anthropologists-discover-isolated-tribe-joyful-ame-54547

 

[Ferocitus]

Pizza drivers in China (Post-Trump Update)

CHINA: Hello?
US: We demand pizza.
CHINA: OK, where should we send it to?
US: It's too late for negotiations.
CHINA: Please, where should we send the pizza?
US: You're trying to distract us. The real issue here is pizza.
CHINA: Okay...
US: We demand unconditional delivery of pizza. No payment or anything.
CHINA: Hey, if we're sending pizza we better get paid for it...
US: This is duplicity. We won't be misled by you. You have had enough
opportunities to send pizza.
CHINA: That's the way it works. You get pizza, we get money.
US: We oppose linkage of pizza and money.
CHINA: Let's negotiate about this. I'm sure you'll get pizza soon.
US: We need pizza within 30 seconds or we'll bomb you.
CHINA: Do you even want pizza?
US: The time for negotiations is past.
CHINA: We can't send pizza if we're not going to get paid and we don't
even have somewhere to send this.
US: Our position is clear: send us pizza or be destroyed.
CHINA: But-!
US: NO NEGOTIATIONS! YOU AREN'T GOING TO SEND PIZZA, ARE YOU?? THE
ENTIRE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY DEMANDS PIZZA!
CHINA: Oh, great.
US: WE'VE GIVEN YOU AN ARBITRARILY LARGE NUMBER OF CHANCES, BUT YOU
JUST WON'T SEND PIZZA! IT'S TIME FOR WAR!!!
CHINA: Fine, fine!! We have pizza! We'll send pizza!
US: It's too late for that.