chimptron.com

As part of their continuing efforts to make Britain a fairer place, labour have announced that the football team Manchester United is to be fully nationalised. The club is to be used as a flagship for labour’s equality and diversity agenda and will be streamlined accordingly.

Sports Secretary Ben Bradshaw will be responsible for picking the teams for each game, which are expected to be racially diverse and will include at least one lesbian, as well as a handicapped player. It is unclear if existing players will be able to take on the handicapped role if injured.

Expensive ’star’ players such as Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen will be ditched in favour of a more diverse line up expected to include ordinary people (who vote labour), labour councillors and MP’s children. Players will be paid a fixed annual salary of £25,000, but given 280 days holiday a year as well as a generous pension when their soccer careers end at the ripe old age of fifty. Flair and talent will be punished severely under the new regime with fines for scoring more than team mates, and suspensions for tricks, particularly step-overs. The new rules mean the entire existing team are expected to be sacked within days, with the possible exception of Gary Neville.

The traditional 4-4-2 line up will be a thing of the past for Mr. Bradshaw’s new team. A 3-3-3 formation will be used at all times along with a goalkeeper who will swap positions with the other players at regular intervals. The eleventh member of the team will be a local administrator responsible for making sure players  fill in the necessary forms as the game progresses. Players will be required to submit forms at the beginning and end of the game, when scoring a goal, when taking a throw in or free kick or when needing to leave the pitch for treatment (which will be carried out by the NHS, not some overpaid physiotherapist).

The new United will target a mid-table finish. If they don’t achieve this, it may be time to nationalise the referees.

Gordon doesn’t need our votes. He’s far too good for that kind of nonsense. Let the world know how great he is with this stylish t-shirt:

Evil Gordon Brown T-Shirt

SHAMELESSY BLATANT PRODUCT PLACEMENT DISCLAIMER - “Hey, we need to buy bananas somehow. Please support Chimptron by purchasing this lovely shirt.”

Gordon Brown was the man who appointed disgraced speaker Michael Martin and who pulled every political trick in the book to keep him in place. Now, however, he is trying to portray himself as a reformer, someone who understands the angst of the British people and will do everything in his power to support them and their leader, who happens to be him, half-wit prime minister, Gordon Brown.

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Another blogger has been arrested, this time in South Korea. Prosecuters for the supposedly democratic government claimed his posts undermined the country’s credibility. He is accused of claiming that South Korean banks were barred from purchasing US currency. Since the story has now been picked up by Slashdot and Wired, it looks like a molehill has been turned into a mountain.

[Read, via Slashdot]

In the midst of the economic crisis, what is the government spending your money on:

£30,000 on a cloud viewing project.

£400,000 advertising on Pakistani TV that Britain is Muslim friendly.

More than £100,000 salary for Daniel McBride to invent scandals.

The US army has been using pigs to test the effectiveness of it’s body armour against roadside bombs. A pentagon spokesman claimed the pigs were ‘treated humanely at all times’. Right up until the moment they were blown up we suppose? If any soldiers out in the field have noticed hard metal lumps in their army-issue bacon rations, the mystery is now solved.

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Radiohead are standing up to the corporate bullying of the RIAA:

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Don’t you just love spin doctors? Apparently most of the fiscal stimulus we’ve been promised is nothing but smoke and mirrors. Read Dominic Lawson’s analysis here.

Ever keen to stimulate the world economy, the UK is now jailing fisherman who catch the wrong kind of fish. Two British fisherman, a father and son team, were handed a £385,000 fine by Judge Nigel Gilmour for breaking a quota regulation. Having been forced to remortgage their house to pay off the fine they were then sentenced to jail for contempt of court since the house was ruled a ‘proceed of crime’.

Perhaps if they’d stabbed someone or punched someone in the face they would have been treated more leniently. Teen murderer Jake Fahri was able to commit the following crimes before being jailed for the murder of schoolboy Jimmy Mizen:

Punching and robbing a boy - no action taken
Assaulting the same boy - a warning from the police
Selling drugs on the street - no action taken
Punching and kicking a girl and spitting in her face - the police got tough with a £50 fine
Street robbery - supervision orders/referrals (stern tellings off)
Street robbery with a knife while on bail - supervision orders/referrals
Burglary - supervision orders/referrals
“Happy Slapping” attacks - nothing

Remember, that’s just what the police actually know about. Fahri was jailed for ‘life’ which the judge stated would mean serving at least 14 years. Under the British system offenders are usually released on parole after half the official sentence is served, meaning Fahri could be out of jail at 26, no doubt ready to kill again.

Real criminals are just so hard to catch. Bloggers, on the other hand, are slow, pasty creatures who sit in front of their computers all day. That’s why bumbling Phoenix police officers arrested the guy who writes this. An easy arrest, a silent critic, and that funny looking computer equipment is great for warming doughnuts.

[Read, via Slashdot]