[humorix] April Fool's Day Conspiracy

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

April Fool's Day Conspiracy

The Humorix Vast Spy Network(tm) has done it again.  Our
spies have unraveled yet another global conspiracy, this
time involving one of the biggest cover-ups in the history
of cover-ups.  "April Fool's Day" is an invention by an
unholy alliance of Big Evil Companies (BECs) and Big
Bloated Governments (BBGs) to fool all of the sheeple into
ignoring real news stories published on April 1st. 

According to secret documents not obtained by the Vast Spy
Network(tm), April Fool's Day originates from a clandestine
meeting of world leaders that took place on April 1, 1902
somewhere in Europe.  The goal was to invent a holiday
during which people would assume all news stories were
bogus.  In this way, scandalous and controversial news
could be quietly released by BECs and BBGs and these
stories would remain unnoticed by the public.

"It's a brilliant strategy," one informant told us. This
source claims to be the grandson of a half-brother of a
neighbor of a janitor that overheard a discussion about the
April Fool's Meeting while waiting at a train station. He
continued, "They can announce a tax increase or a  new
draconian policy on April 1 and everybody will assume the
story was intended as a prank.  By April 2nd, the bad news
is completely forgotten and the company or government can
get away with whatever they want."

For instance, our spies uncovered a Securities and Exchange
Commission filing by Enron made April 1, 2001.  In this
document the company stated in fine print that, "We advise
anybody still holding Enron stock to refrain from quitting
their day jobs..." and "We have $12.52 left in our company
bank account and our accountants aren't sure if that money
is even ours..."  Of course, anybody who happened to read
this S-1 filing just assumed (like everything else
published that day) this was an April Fool's gag
perpetrated by some bored SEC employee.  Instead, it was
another salvo in the long-running April Fool's Day
Conspiracy.

This year, several real stories broke that were dismissed
by almost everybody as fake news.  Microsoft announced a
change to the End User License Agreement for Windows XP
that makes it illegal to install or use software covered by
the GNU General Public License within one hundred feet of a
Microsoft product.  A press release issued April 1 from
Redmond stated that the licensing change was intended
"...to ensure the best possible computing experience for
our users and to protect Microsoft's valuable intellectual
property rights from anti-American Communist
sympathizers..."  The press release, with the headline
"Microsoft Plots World Domination By Banning Open Source
Software", was dismissed as an outlandish parody produced
by some anti-Microsoft humor website.  Nobody suspected the
story was an authentic product of the Microsoft Marketing &
Brainwashing Department.

In addition, the Federal Bureau of Investigation & Privacy
Violations issued the result of an internal study which
concluded that even if the Carnivore/DCS-1000/Whatever
spyware program was deployed at every single ISP in the
country, only 0.000000000000000000001% of crimes would be
prevented or uncovered by the technology.  Naturally, the
Feds didn't want those left-leaning Libertarian
Constitution-quoting right-wing zealots to get ahold of
this little gem, so they buried the story on April Fool's
Day. 

Apparently Fritz Hollings (D-Mickey Mouse) also had plans
to take advantage of the April Fool's opportunity, but an
internal miscommunication among his staff caused
everybody's favorite senator to miss the boat.  He was
going to announce a new law under consideration (the "It's
For The Children Act With A Really Long Name That Nobody
Can Pronounce Or Remember" [IFTCAWARLNTNCPOR]) that would
make it an impeachable offense for any fellow member of
Congress to vote against a bill with the words "It's For
The Children" in the title, including bills that have
nothing to do with the children or any other feel-good
topic.  At any rate, Sen. Hollings was unable to capitalize
on the Conspiracy and so the bill will thankfully remain on
the drawing board until next year.  

(We haven't received word yet on whether Hollywood will
demand a refund of their campaign contributions because
Hollings was unable to deliver the bill they ordered and
paid for.)

We here at Humorix would like to point out that the we
didn't publish any April Fool's Day articles this year
because we did not want to be associated with this, one of
the evilest of evil conspiracies. It's not because we were
too lazy to create any amusing April Fool's Day pranks, we
just didn't want to align ourselves with any shadowy
organizations.  Well, okay, so maybe we were lazy and maybe
we couldn't think of anything funny to publish on April
1st.  That still doesn't make the Conspiracy any less
horrible or terrible!

--
Humorix:      Linux and Open Source(nontm) on a lighter note
Archive:      http://mail.nl.linux.org/humorix/
Web site:     http://www.i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/