“World of Warcraft has an economy that is strong and trustworthy, and attaching our economy to this one is an important step in getting our country back on track,” explained Geithner. “By marrying the dollar to World of Warcraft gold, we may be able to achieve the economic strength enjoyed by Dwarven Miners, or the Blood Elves.”

Geithner asked that congress move quickly on this proposal, as “a delay of even a month could endanger our recovery, and doom us to the economic status of the tree dwelling Night Elves.”

Geithner’s proposal has been met with mixed responses. Democrats, by in large, seem to support Geithner’s plan, while Republicans have signaled opposition.

“This is nothing but wealth redistribution,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “Nearly all of World of Warcraft wealth is held by the nations poorest 5%. Making World of Warcraft Gold into legal tender is part of a radical socialist agenda that we must stop at all costs.”

Former Speaker Dennis Hastert agreed, adding “Geithner’s proposal is dangerous, and makes us staggeringly vulnerable to foreign interests. Significant amounts of World of Warcraft Gold is owned by Korea – legitimizing this currency could make us as weak as a level 4 Druid. Geithner is such a n00b.”

Republicans are not alone in their opposition to Geithner. Although most gamers welcomed Geithner’s plan, many World of Warcraft veterans have voiced concern over the legalization of World of Warcraft gold.

Said level 75 Gnome Mage Pom Pom: “This new recovery plan will permanently damage the World of Warcraft economy, and is an infringement on the rights of WOW players. World of Warcraft gold is much more valuable than the American dollar, and equating the two through an unfair law will cause significant unrest. Not even a million dollars can buy +3 enchanted shoulder pads, which run only 500 in World of Warcraft gold.”

Nonetheless, in spite of criticism from the right and from the virtual, most political observers say that Geithner’s plan is bound to pass through congress quickly.

“It’s important to remember how popular President Obama still is, and how desperate many in congress are to take action – any action,” said University of Michigan Political Science Professor Gary Vanderbuilt. “Nobody knows what to do, which means any and every idea is attractive. And I think that the plan is bound to get a few Republican crossovers voting for it, as both Senators Arlen Specter and Sam Brownback are huge gamers, with significant amounts to gain.

Geithner, for his part, stands by his plan and is confidant it will pass.

“Getting out of this economic rut is not going to be easy,” he told Congress. “But it is with bold action that we will do so. We cannot improve the economy with business as usual and economic Band-Aids any more than we can defeat a mega boss demon by just healing all the time. We need to approve this bold action now, and become the level 80 nation that we fully capable of being. Also, fuck the Horde.”

The PATH train, which stands for Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation, is a train which runs from New Jersey’s eastern border across the Hudson to New York city. It is a popular commuter train and, as it turns out, daily plays host to carload after carload of resourceful people – people who know how to abuse a defibrillator in ways the rest of us can only dream of.

Jose Vallarta was one early user of the defibrillator. “I was just waiting for the train one day,” says Vallarta, “and this guy was standing next to me with a hot dog. I guess this hot dog of his had gotten a little cold by the time he got down to the tracks. I say I guess, but really I know because the guy was talking out loud about it as if someone was listening or would respond or care or something. Anyway, this guy just strolls right up to the defibrillator and shocks the hell out of his hot dog, commentating the whole time and making a big fuss about how good it was. The next time I rode the subway I bought a cold dog at the stand near the entrance just to try it out. The guy at the stand thought I was crazy, but I tell you what, it’s so good I do it every day now.”

Only a few short weeks after Vallarta’s first defibrillator cooking experiment there are now lines every morning to use the emergency medical device to heat up any number of foods such as breakfast rolls, eggs, bacon and other breakfast items. Coffee is often heated in mugs, although there have been a few incidents involving metal thermoses.

“It’s pretty nuts,” admits Vallarta, “that all these people heat up their food waiting for the subway instead of at home. They’re not really saving that much time, but the shock from the defibrillator flash-cooks it so much better than any normal way of cooking.”

Food scientist Tyra Johnson says that this theory has absolutely no validity whatsoever.

For Alfred “Alfredo” Allen, head of security at the Journal Square PATH station, the defibrillators have been more trouble than they’re worth. “People are having a good time with those defibrillators,” says Allen, “but that’s not what they’re for. Besides being such a grievous misuse of medical equipment, it is quite clear from the overhead security announcements that you should not be eating, smoking, or carrying on in the station, and people are using the defibrillators to do all of three of these things.”

One of the biggest problems Allen has reported dealing with are the groups of teenagers and children who are not afraid to grab the defibrillators and play with them. These children have devised games in which the odd man out or the loser are subjected to quick shocks, an eerie echo of the old “Johnny Third Rail” games that used to be played in the dark days of the 1970s and 80s.

“It seems like kid’s games keep getting more violenter and violenter,” says passive observer Julius Milton. “At first I didn’t really get it and I wanted to tell those kids they should play something nice like quarters or butts up or knives. But they look like they’re having fun so who am I to stop them. Besides, it’s good practice for them in case they have to shock some crazy person who’s hanging around by the tracks, which is what I use it for.”

While homeless advocacy groups have spoken out about ending the kind of amateur, DIY shock therapy treatments Milton describes, community safety groups are thundering about their benefits.

“It’s about time we had a way to keep ourselves safe right down there in the subway that helps not only everyday commuters, but the crazy people they’re so scared, threatened and annoyed by,” says Fran Fishyakker, head of Stand Up for Sitting Down, a subways rider’s rights organization. “The fact that you can shock a crazy person into passivity right down there by yourself makes riding the subway a lot more comfortable. And the homeless people benefit too because I’m sure not being able to remember who you are for more than 10 minutes at a time is a big relief considering the state they’re in.”

No Sympathy Inc is a brand new internet company specializing in security camera systems determined to catch cough-faking employees at their worst. The twist on their product: security camera systems come in the form of sympathy flowers. Video and audio recording, digital relays, temperature taking flying robots, skin swabs are the tip of this liar-catching industry.

“With the provisions in the Patriot Act, we were able to launch our internet company,” said founder and CEO James Black.

Now you may have seen Nanny Diaries with Scarlett Johannsen getting rough with a teddy bear, but that hidden security camera has nothing on No Sympathy Inc. Not even James Bond’s faithful master of devices M would have offered companies such a commodity. Talk about finding out who is loyal to the company.

“We were tired of losing so many employees to ‘sick days’ when we were in the crunch of needed productivity,” said a frequent user of No Sympathy Inc who declined to be identified. “Come on people, how often do you really get sick enough not to go to work? Toughen up and walk it off. It’s called Walking Pneumonia for a reason.”

Many customers of No Sympathy Inc are really pleased with the product and the result. Customers are able to choose from an array of sympathy floral arrangements ranging from $100 to $10,000. The most popular floral arrangements usually include roses, Gerber daises, lilies, tulips, and sunflowers.

Here is how it works: Once an order has been placed, No Sympathy Inc takes one of their pre-made floral arrangements and sends it to the security systems department for outfitting. Depending on the order, a security camera, microphone, temperature gauge, or Bio-swab will be installed.

The security system, digital relay and microphone are typically the standard package and are installed in multiple ways, not to be disclosed here. The temperature gauges and Bio-swabs on the other hand are electronic robots, disguised as part of the flowers or “having come in from the garden” with the flowers. An insider reports that flying robots dressed as ladybugs and fruit flies can do everything from check your temperature to test your white-blood cell count.

CEO Black commented on the security camera technology, “It can’t be obvious or the sick employee will cop onto it. And it’s not the stamen either. Don’t be stupid.”

The flowers are delivered the house of residence listed in the employee file, unless the employee is said to be at the hospital, in which case they are delivered there. The delivery person is compassionate and trust-worthy, and in charge of placing the flowers in the room for optimal viewing. From there a digital relay video feed is sent directly to the employers computer screen for monitoring while other test results are sent to a nearby lab for subsequent delivery.

“Most of the time the person is really sick,” says Nick Stauss, a delivery man for No Sympathy Inc, “and they welcome the company while they’re under the weather.”

Stauss added, “Although when they’re not sick, they do all sorts of goofy stuff when I show up at their door with sympathy flowers. One lady pretended to faint right in her driveway just to try to convince me!”

No Sympathy Inc work, though, stops at the delivery. Once the information from the security camera system sympathy flowers is reviewed, it is up to the individual company to take responsive action.

From information from participating companies, only reprimands have been noted, but companies who use No Sympathy Inc services are gearing up now for future law suits. They see themselves in the right of way for insuring the utmost productivity from their employees.

To date, there is no record of employees that have complained or even noted the security camera systems hidden in their sympathy flowers.

And for No Sympathy Inc, there business will only continue to take off, predict stock market analysts.

“We go public next week,” said CEO Black. “I can’t wait to ring that opening bell.”

Needless to say, no employee at No Sympathy Inc takes too many sick days.

For those of you that have been living under rocks, or “working eight hour days at real jobs” instead of watching long stretches of basic cable, the MENOCU Magnetic Sleeper is rival product of the famous Kinoke Food Pads – a cloth pad, infused with ancient oils, sold in a box of twenty, for $29.99. These pads are strapped to the bottom of your feet before sleep and reputed to remove toxins from the blood stream while you sleep at night. The evidence of its healing properties is the way the pad has turned black while you sleep! White when it goes on at night, black in the morning. The longer you wear the pads, the less toxins you will have in your body and the less hard the pads will have to work. Each night, a new white pad will go on, and each morning, it should be less and less black. When the pads are pale grey or white, you can sleep soundly knowing the demons have been successfully sucked out the soles of your feet.

The MENOCU Magentic Sleeper functions under the exact same principle, but it’s fanatic following will be the first to frantically point out the ways in which it differs from Kinoke foot pads. Mainly, these differences are made of one difference: its size. As its ad states, “Ladies the world over have known it for years: bigger is always better.” And the MENOCU de-toxification product is indeed bigger. While Kinoke footpads measure a measley four by six inches, the smallest MENOCU Magnetic Sleeper is large enough to generously cover a twin size bed. (The largest drapes a California King).

This size also makes the MENOCU product work more quickly than its counterpart. While the foot pads detoxify through the feet, taking two to three weeks to fully remove toxins, the MENOCU magnetic mattress pad has access to a much larger surface area and therefore, takes only three nights to fully remove all harmful toxins.

Doctors warn that this rapid removal causes nervous system damage and hair loss, but the balding testimonials of the MENOCU Experience Show seem refreshed and rejuvenated. They cannot stop singing praises for MENOCU, nor can they stop blinking their left eyes.

Determined to get to the truth of the matter, Nonsense Newsperts and our advanced team of uncredentialed scientists tested the mattress pad to see if and how well it worked. They found that, it did not. The MENOCU Magnetic Sleeper claims to remove, among various other toxins, Diglyceral, a substance found in aerosol spray paint. Our scientists huffed paint for weeks before trying out the pads and later found no traces of Diglyceral in any of the thick, foul-smelling, layer of sticky blackness that coated the pads. As one lab operator put it, “at $59.99 a pop, the only thing this pad removes is money.” Pretty clever, Jake. Don’t get any ideas about being a writer now. You just keep feeding the lab rats.

DNA Vending Machines are now popping up all over workplaces across North America and Europe. These machines dispense easy-to-use DNA Test Kits that can be used by two people looking to find out if they are related and how closely. A kit costs $10 and is no larger than the box set of Season 1 of LOST. It contains two cotton swabs, four plastic pouches for hair follicles and a small, baseball sized device with a paper feeder that reads the DNA samples, lights up and prints out results.

MENO-DNA, the distributor of DNA Test Kit Vending Machines, has reported strong interest and sales since installing the machines in March. “The technology is very exciting to people and they are happy to finally have such unlimited access.” MENO-DNA seems to strongly believe that there is money to be made in vending-machine-style DNA Test Kits.

So who is buying and why? MENO-DNA’s monitoring results seem to say that everyone across the board is expressing interest, or at least everyone that happens to work in an establishment with a DNA Test Kit vending machine. And as to why, buyers cite sheer curiosity and novelty as their top two motivations. The ability to find out if you are related to your co-worker or boss for an affordable price is a hard temptation to ignore, and more often than not, people are finding they are related, albeit distantly. Mary Rose of San Jose, CA found out that she and Gerald Arson, affectionately deemed “the mail room guy,” are third cousins. And Steven Shlossing and his ex-fiancée Nancy Myers called off their engagement after discovering that they were brother and sister. When asked to comment Myers said, “We are both so extremely grateful to MENO-DNA for making this technology so affordable. We feel like we really dodged a bullet.”

But what happens when the novelty wears off? MENO-DNA does not seem worried. “We are working hard to keep these machines running at the top of the line and will be offering new add-ons and incentives soon. By Fall, you will be able to purchase a Premium Kit for $30. This version will look more like the Photo Booths you encounter at Beach Boulevards and sad malls. Instead of taking a picture, the curious customer will step inside and have their blood drawn by a small robotic arm. A computer screen will document your results and a print-out can be purchased for an additional $5. These DNA booths will tell you what nationality you are and the names of your true biological parents.”  MENO-DNA did not report their plans beyond the Premium Kit.

Very similar to the condoms we all know and love, computer condoms will simply be larger, designed to fit over a computer and serve as a thin plastic shield against viruses floating through the air and the Internet.

Condom historian Mitchell Blardman points out that the city’s new campaign reflects not only a major new development in the rich history of condom technology, but a bold leap forward in the conceptual uses of condoms.

“Condoms have been around ever since early homo sapiens hollowed out the penises of their enemies and put them on top of their own,” Blardman said. “Since then, we’ve seen everything from the wooden condoms of the French aristocracy during the 1700s to Victorian metal condoms of the industrial revolution. When we hit the space age, it’s like ‘Pow! Major breakthrough coming, guys! Plastic!’ Now we’ve reached a postmodern peak because these computer condoms aren’t even designed to fit on human penises. It really broadens the idea of what condom can and cannot be.”

Most people are excited and encouraged by what they see as a progressive step by the local government. Instead of just teaching people that looking at porn on the Internet is inherently bad because it increases the chance of getting a computer virus, the new campaign is not concerned with condemning the debatable concept of immorality; its focus is instead on teaching its populace how to use modern information technology safely to get off. The majority of San Franciscans interviewed were proud to have such a non-judgemental policy in place in their city.

Still, there are skeptics of the new plan lining the hallways.

“Stop me if I sound crazy,” said software technician Amanda Byrne, at which point I did. Undaunted, she continued on, stating that “[she] always thought that computer viruses were transferred through the Internet and wires and other computers, not the air.” Other people have voiced concerns about screen visibility and whether or not they would be able to open the CD tray through the plastic.

Seizing the opportunity to capitalize on its reputation for being nearly virus-free, Apple has gone so far as to implement a new ad in their well-received ‘Mac v. PC’ series centered around the computer condom. In the commercial, the charming young actor that portrays the Mac offers an apple to the portly actor representing the PC, who is unable to move or speak intelligibly due to the body-condom he has been squeezed into. The Mac laughs as he grinds the apple onto the plastic-covered face of the PC and then mumbles a dead-pan, ‘Dick,’ as he walks off-screen.

The government’s response has been a call to personal responsibility. As in the past, they say, people are going to have to learn to live with a little bit of discomfort in order to protect themselves and their work.

“It’s a small price to pay in order to be sure your computer is safe,” said spokeswoman Brenda Chairzle.

As for the charges that a layer of plastic over the outsdie of a computer will not stop the communication of viral diseases through the Internet, the government feels completely confident in their scientific team, which assures them of the new condom’s effectiveness.

“Look, no one can tell what all this technical mumbo-jumbo means: Internet, wires, blah blah blah…” said Chairzle. “All I know is that we paid our highly skilled team to tell us what works and they have.”

The computer condoms will be distributed from vending machines in offices and at computer stores in San Francisco beginning with next week.

DETROIT, MI – Chief Investigator William Barrelton has been on the force for the better part of three decades, but even this hardened veteran was caught off guard last Tuesday by the grisly scene at an abandoned automobile manufacturing facility in Detroit.

At an unusually candid and emotional press conference, Barrelton described the crime scene at length:

“Upon entering the room a huge array of torture devices was immediately visible…drills, hammers, saws, soldering irons – even allen wrenches. Shards of metal floating in large puddles of grease. I knew right away something was very wrong. I crossed to the upright freezer and therein found several shelves full of auto body parts: an exhaust pipe sliced into tiny chunks, gas lines that had been ripped straight out, a [mangled] headlight, and a white fluffy substance our crime lab later identified as stuffing from what is most likely to have been fine, leather upholstered seats. It was awful, the stuff of nightmares.”

The case comes as part of a month-long police effort to crack down on a ring of car-bashers. The group typically arrives at night when the cars are soundly asleep and uses bats and other blunt objects to smash windshields and headlights.

“Sometimes the cars will be screaming for help for up to half and hour in as many as five different languages – ‘BLIP BLIP BLIP BLIP, WEEEOOO WEEEOOO, ZAGAZAGAZAGA’ – you know, and no one calls in,” said Staff Sergeant Ron Hubert.

“It’s like the Chevy Genovese case all over again,” added his partner Ron Hubbert.

The victim in Tuesday’s case, thought to be a 1997 Honda Civic, is the first reported incident of a car-napping and murder. The police say they’ve ruled it out as a hate-crime due to the non-discriminatory practices of the car-smashers.

“We’ve seen a whole range of cars targeted,” said Barrelton. “Anything from Dodge to Geo to BMW. It’s not a make issue.”

The tip-off came at roughly 11:00 pm when a car (to remain anonymous due to the ongoing nature of the investigation) arrived at the police station and started flashing its lights into the station’s windows and honking its horn. Night guard Arnold Palmer ignored the car for about 5 hours before deciding to go see what “all the ruckus” was about and was shocked to find there was no driver present in the car.

Sources close to Palmer say he “got spooked pretty bad by that devil car.”

A mere 3 inches away from Palmer’s bed at the pyschiatric ward when interviewed, Palmer’s nurse Gail Pritchard confided that, “that car may be a hero, but it’s just mad freaky.”

Freaked out as he was, Palmer did manage to call Chief Investigator Barrelton who immediately told Palmer to “stop drinking and join AA, for chrissakes.” Eventually convinced that he needed to “get the hell up and go take care of that [night guard] Palmer,” Barrelton drove out to the station. When he approached the phantom car, it opened its passenger seat door and revved its engine. Barreleton ordered Palmer to come with him and the car drove them directly to the scene of the crime. It was there that Barrelton discovered the torture room and the upright freezer filled with auto body parts. There were no other humans present at the abandonded factory and the basement had not been occupied for roughly two weeks, experts say.

Barrelton offered no speculation as to why the auto body parts were preserved in the freezer, though he did voice his outrage and condemnation of the perpetrators.

“These people are sick,” he said at the press conference. “They have mental problems, they’re sick. They disgust me, they have mental problems. They’re sick.”

Though there have been no further leads or witnesses or any concrete hope of finding out more information about the crimes, police are blindly confident in their ability to “nab the little nippers any day now.” Until then, they are strongly advising car owners to make use of garages if at all possible.