Russian Space Probe Sent to Study Pacific Ocean Lands Successfully

By Robotman

Russian space probe in low-earth orbit

MOSCOW – Engineers and scientists at the Russian Space Federation cheered wildly on Sunday when their $127 spacecraft, Czar Trek II, successfully smashed to pieces upon crashing into the Pacific Ocean. The impact was the culmination of years of planning, followed by a week of scrambling after the vehicle was unable to escape Earth’s orbit and head to its original destination, Mars.

“We had to go with Plan Б,” said Space Federation spokesman Dmitri Crashnikov at yesterday’s press conference. “We can’t go to Mars, so we study ocean. Anyway, Mars is boring. Ocean has lots of creatures.”

Some critics accused the Russians of cutting corners by using an old Atari game console to navigate the craft, while other critics say the new film in the Mission Impossible franchise, Ghost Protocol, is the best of the four.

Not everyone agrees.

“When was the last good movie about Mars?” asks film enthusiast and redneck Pinky Middleton, conflating two unrelated concepts from a previous paragraph. “Angry Red Planet from 1959? Meanwhile, there are tons of good movies about the Pacific Ocean, like The Abyss, and all those World War II films where we fought the Japs.”

Data from Russia’s Pacific Ocean probe is not expected to be transmitted, as the craft was obliterated on impact.

“You American are too – how do you say it – old fashioned,” says Crashnikov. “Always with boring data about rocks and more rocks. In Russia, we study splash.”

 ****************************************************************

Hey kids, why not head over to PFC to check out Why Did They Cancel the Leper Hockey Game?, my write-up of SyFy channel’s special effects reality show Face Off, which includes the usual digressions and perversions. Better yet, maybe adults should be the ones who check it out.

Door hit Kim Jong Il’s ass on the way out, despite warnings

By Lacy Thundercake

 

Kim Jong Il in happier times, when he was less dead.

CAPE KENNEDY, FL – 2011 was already shaping up to be the worst year on record for evil scumbags when it was learned yesterday that the asses of terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden, Libyan fashionista Moammar Gadhafi, and North Korean hair model Kim Jong Il were all struck by the door on the way out. This despite repeated warnings from colloquial English speakers not to let it happen.

Discovery of the ass-hitting provided small consolation for those who believe the three men, all of whom died this year, did not suffer enough in passing.

“I’d like to have seen them dipped in honey and covered in fire ants, and then I would have watched as the ants slowly ate away at their flesh over several days, only to have someone come along and rub salt into their open wounds. But not enough to kill them, just enough to make them get all screamed out before someone else came along and ripped their finger nails off with pliers and then took a hammer and chisel to their teeth right before pouring boiling oil all over them and then, once they cooled off, sending in some baboons to rape them in the ears and eye sockets for fifteen hours,” said the Dalai Lama, a noted pacifist. “But I’ll take the ass smacking.”

Not everyone was so happy to hear the news.

“Evil took at hit in 2011, no doubt,” laments Pinky Middleton, owner of In Yo Face, Ltd., a company that sells novelty shooting targets featuring the likenesses of international villains. “I’m sitting a pile of inventory depicting people no one wants to pretend shoot anymore. Ah, well. Maybe Celine Dion will put out an album this year.”

The ass-hitting incident was discovered by NASA’s newest rover, the Godbot3000, which can see the past, the future, and all planes of existence, including the afterworld, over infinite distances of time and space. It can also take soil samples.

In related but less-important news, NASA scientists discovered the meaning of life, the origin of the universe, and whether God exists yesterday using their newest rover, the Godbot3000, which can see the past, the future, and all planes of existence, including the afterworld, over infinite distances of time and space. Details are available on The Anvil Pro Edition, available now for a low introductory subscription rate of $39.99 per month.*

 

 

*put the money inside a stuffed giraffe and leave it behind the cardboard recycling dumpster across the parking lot from my apartment tonight. Don’t let anyone see you, especially NASA, though that’s a fruitless endeavor these days, isn’t it?

****************************************************************

Scientists say cavemen were disgusting

By Lacy Thundercake

 

The chicken: Victim or Accomplice?

 

 

NEW YORK – A team of archeologists at New York’s Columbia University announced today that cavemen were disgusting. The discovery was made after the researchers did research.

 

“Humans who lived in the first agricultural societies about 10,000 years ago had some repulsive eating habits,” said Dr. Doug Bones, who led the project. “Can you believe they actually monitored the menstrual cycle of captive hens [female chickens] and devoured the animals’ output? They even used the stuff for cooking prehistoric pancakes.”

 

The scientists were able to piece the evidence together after unearthing stone frying pans and spatulas alongside early boxes of Bisquick.

 

Dr. Bones adds, “What do you expect from people who were too lazy to write anything down, forcing folks like me to spend our precious time digging in dirty fields instead of playing golf?”

 

When asked if it was appropriate for reporters to call these early farmers ‘cavemen,’ Bones said, “Don’t be stupid. They didn’t live in caves. You’re thinking of Neanderthals, a human subspecies that died out thousands of years beforehand. But if it makes your trashy headline more lurid, go for it.”

 

So what caused the Neanderthals to perish while our ancestors thrived?

 

“Did I say they died out? I meant to say they became reporters,” Dr. Bones explains.

 

Scientists aren’t the only ones who think eating a hen period is disgusting. Sunny Sydupp, who owns Sunny’s House of Omelets in Muncie, Indiana says, “So you mean this stuff came out of a chicken’s you-who-what and then they ate it? That doesn’t go over easy with me.”

 

Disgusting? Science says "yes"

Sydupp’s business partner, Meg Benedict, adds, “Are we talking about those guys on the Geico commercial? Ew. I knew they were perverts.”

 

Adding to the mystery is why a South American university, Columbia, is located in New York City.

 

Oxford professor and expert on weird university names, Sir Edmund Bollocks, says, “I think you’re confusing Columbia with Colombia. One has a ‘u’ and the other has an ‘o,’” which makes him look like a pompous jerk, since we can obviously tell our vowels apart.

 

When asked if he was willing to say something topical about the Anthony Weiner photo scandal, Sarah Palin’s e-mails, or Tracy Morgan’s homophobic rant to help this story draw more clicks, he said, “No.”

Lady Gaga?

“No.”

 

**********************************************************

Punxsutawney Phil escapes Doomsday in tiny rocket

By Lacy Thundercake

 

Sayonara, Earth!

PITTSBURGH, PA – Clairvoyant groundhog Punxsutawney Phil was spotted leaving our planet in his mini-starship today, likely in anticipation of tomorrow’s apocalypse. Most credible scientists view his escape as confirmation of the May 21^st doomsday prediction made by noted predictor Harold Camping, who has won many converts with his zero-for-zero accuracy record.

Startled witnesses reported seeing the famous groundhog’s tiny craft lift off this morning from the western Pennsylvania woods near Punxsutawney Phil’s hometown, ironically also called Punxsutawney.

“He must have seen his shadow… in Hell,” said local resident Otis Toole, a follower of Camping, when asked why he thought Phil decided to skip the impending Rapture.

NASA scientists are unsure where the popular rodent will go, given the lack of groundhog-friendly planets in our solar system.

Cracky McShake, a geologist with the University of Detroit Online, said he doubted the doomsday prediction for too long.

“I’m only half done building my UFO,” he says. “All I needed was to figure out how it would fly. And how to get it out of my basement without cutting a big hole in the house. Oh well.”

Professor McShake holds out hope that Jesus will take a while to judge everyone.

“They’re saying six months, on account of Jesus being somewhat of a micromanager who doesn’t like to delegate tasks to subordinates,” he explains. “I’ll just hang low, Mel-Gibson-in-The-Road-Warrior style, until my ship is done.”

He later added, “Plywood, baby!”

Punxsutawney Phil’s departure is sure to boost the ratings of tonight’s ABC television special, Dick Clark’s End of the World Rockin’ Eve, airing at 11 pm. Set to be broadcast live from Times Square in New York City, the show will feature live performances from Beyonce, Green Day, Katie Perry, Elton John, Placido Domingo, and Lady Gaga. Justin Bieber was also scheduled to appear, but advertisers feared his presence might invite an early start to Armageddon and demanded a cancellation.

Lady Gaga said she plans to dress as the Virgin Mary, including the shrink wrap, magenta panties, and a metallic bra with glow-in-the-dark nipple stars described in the Gospels.

“Jesus wouldn’t send his mother to hell, would he?” Gaga told The Anvil via telephone this afternoon. “Then again, he probably will in my case, because I’m so persecuted all the time.”

No one is sure when the apocalypse will start tomorrow or if Jesus will respect the International Date Line, thus giving Hawaiians a little extra breathing room but royally screwing Fiji. Calls to Jesus’ 24-hour-hotline, 1-88-JUDGMENT, went unanswered.

******************************************************

Editorial note: This version corrects an earlier headline that wasn’t drawing enough clicks

******************************************************

Experts predict unprecedented weather catastrophe in next century

Also: Duke upset… What does it mean? See below.

 

By Eric J Baker

For hack artists, lightning bolts are the easiest weather phenomenon to draw

SILVER SPRING, MD – Meteorologists at the National Weather Service made a startling prediction today that, if true, will have far-reaching effects on global economic development, transportation, and modern lifestyle. Their claim?

By 2115, the world may run out of weather.

Speaking to reporters at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) headquarters in Silver Spring, agency director Wendy Day said, “The rate at which modern humans are using weather cannot be sustained. Rain Tuesday and Wednesday, sun on Thursday, windy and cold on Friday… it’s irresponsible to say the least.”

Day also pointed out that, if people need an idea of what life would be like without weather, we need look no further than to our nearest neighbor in the sky, the moon, which is devoid of weather.

“Why do you think no one goes there anymore?” she said. “It sucks.”

Conservatives around the country rejoiced at the news.

“So I guess without weather, there’s no global warming,” Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann said in an interview that aired on Cartoon Network earlier tonight. “American colonists fought the British in Vietnam so we could be free of environmental regulations. Finally, 2000 years later, the victory is complete.”

Former Vice President Al Gore, who has devoted his energy to combating the alleged dangers of global warming in recent years, quickly called his own news conference following the NOAA prediction.

Speaking from his office in Nashville, Gore told reporters, “Global warming uses up weather faster than no global warming. You get extra weather now, no weather later. Not to be alarmist, but within 150 years, humans will be living as our cousins, the worms, do, crawling through the mud, blind and armless and legless, wallowing in our weatherless world of,” at which point everyone present drifted into a peaceful, uninterrupted sleep.

When we awoke, he was gone.

Though some scientists dispute the NOAA findings, Zeus, the king of the gods, believes the prediction has merit.

“I’ve been tossing lightning bolts at the Earth for eons,” he told The Anvil via telephone. “Every time I reached into the pile, there were always more. Until the other day, when I looked and thought, hmmm, there’s maybe only a hundred years’ worth left.”

He added, “Which is just as well, since I’m going to need rotator cuff surgery at some point from all this bolt throwing.”

*****************************************************************

Duke upset… what does it mean?

By Eric J Baker

DURHAM, UK – Sir Percival Pantywaist, the current Duke of Fluffington in Durham County, England, was upset yesterday when he spilled grape juice on his yellow velvet breeches, staining them.

Eyewitnesses said the Duke flitted his hands like a bird and stomped on the floor while shouting, “Oh crikey! It’s beastly I tell you. Just beastly!”

The velvet clothes worn by royal subjects in England are considered expensive and hard to replace when damaged, as they are often custom made.

Sir Edmund Bollocks, an expert on public figures in Great Britain, says Sir Percival is, “a complete pillow biter, don’t you think?”

So what does the Duke’s frustration mean for the future?

“It means I’ll be feeding that wanker grape juice with an eye dropper for the next six months,” said his only housekeeper, who declined to give her name for fear of being sacked.

Humans no longer the dominant species on Earth by 2015?

By Eric J Baker

Meet the new boss: Sharkalope

DETROIT – Researchers at the University of Detroit Online say that, within a scant 4 years, Homo sapiens will rule this planet no more. Our replacement? The sharkalope, according to UDO Science Professor Pinky Middleton.

 “It’s the only species of shark with opposable thumbs,” says Middleton. “Plus it has wicked antlers. If you took nature’s most perfect killing machine and wanted to make it even perfecter, you’d add thumbs and antlers.”

Middleton has been studying the creatures for over 20 years, after his first two wives were suffocated in their beds by sharkalopes, as well as his college-dorm roommate and his mother’s boyfriend.

“I don’t blame sharkalopes for my personal tragedies,” he says. “They were just doing what nature evolved them to do.”

While most scientists agree that humans are about to be wiped out by a land/sea animal hybrid, not all of them believe our demise will come at the fins of a sharkalope.

“It’s the dinopus you should be watching out for,” says Middleton’s UDO colleague, Dr. Shinji Mafune. That organism, never observed in the wild by anyone but Dr. Mafune, may be rare, but it has the advantage of size.    

Same as the old boss: Dinopus

“Trust me,” says Mafune. “You don’t want to see this thing walking down the street. A dinopus would eat a sharkalope like it’s a biscuit at tea time.”

The looming clash of beasts that will determine a new world order not only threatens the existence of mankind but also raises serious questions about the immediate political landscape. While pundits and would-be candidates are focused on the 2012 presidential campaign, Sharkalope and Dinopus may be positioning themselves for a 2016 run. But would they share a ticket and run against a human? If they run against each other, which one is a Democrat and which one is a Republican? Is it too early for either of them to put together a political action committee?

To answer these questions, we contacted Princeton University’s Dean of Political Science, Dr. Herbert West.

“There’s no such thing as a sharkalope, you idiot,” explains West. “Even if there were, how could an unarmed fish without a cerebral cortex possibly conceive of world domination much less hatch a plan to accomplish it?”

He also said, “And there’s no such place as the University of Detroit Online. I guess you guys never heard of something called ‘fact checking,’” though it was not immediately clear what he meant.

Keep reading The Anvil for updates on this developing story.

*****************************************************************

NASA: Asteroid Strike Probable in Near Future

By Eric J Baker

Space, once thought empty, is full of rocks.

WASHINGTON DC – NASA scientists said today that a massive asteroid strike could occur as early as next week.

“Apparently, the asteroid union has filed a grievance with Solar System, Inc. and says it will go on strike if unfair practices are not redressed,” NASA labor-relations expert Pinky Middleton told reporters earlier today. “We’re monitoring the situation carefully.”

Space Rock Local 124, the asteroid union that serves our solar system, claims that it is being forced to operate in an unsafe work environment. Union leaders say all they want are new orbital paths, not pay raises.

Union president Rocky Ele said in a statement released to the press this morning, “The planets whine and cry about the occasional collision. I suppose they whine and cry about bird feathers on their French doors too. Well, how do you think the bird feels?”

Talk of sending unmanned spacecraft into the solar system to destroy near-earth asteroids has some space rocks spooked. The asteroid Apophis, one of an estimated 45,000 large rocks orbiting the sun, told The Anvil he feels increasingly nervous going to work every day.

“I’m just trying to execute my trajectory,” he says. “But now they [Earthlings] want to blow me up, like I’m some kind of planet hunter. Hey, I never asked to be affected by Earth’s gravitational pull. Where’s the off switch on that thing?”

In a surprise move this week, the Obama administration cancelled funding for NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program, which monitors threats from space, claiming the cuts were necessary for the sake of trimming the budget deficit. That explanation did not stop some Republicans from crying foul.

In an interview that aired on CNN last night, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “We think it’s interesting that the President can suddenly make billions disappear from the budget when his labor union friends complain about some perceived injustice.”

Indeed, Space Rock Local 124 was one of the biggest contributors to the Obama campaign in 2008, and, with the Supreme Court having lessened restrictions on outside political donations in a recent ruling, the asteroids figure to be even bigger contributors to Democrats in 2012.

In response to McConnell’s assertions, outgoing White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, “Bullsh*t.”

He later added, “Man, I’ve been wanting to say that to someone for the past two and a half years.”

No one is quite sure what will happen if the solar system’s asteroids all go on strike at once. Could thousands of no-longer-orbiting space boulders cause gravitational disturbances that ripple across the orbital path of the eight planets? Will the asteroids begin to collect and form a new planet between Mars and Jupiter that pulls the Earth farther from the sun, plunging our planet into a new, permanent ice age? Or, perhaps, could the moon simply be slammed into Earth at thousands of miles per second, destroying both worlds and ending life as we know it?”

“No,” says NASA’s Middleton. “None of those things will happen. Asteroids can’t stop moving through space, no more than Geico can stop running ads all day. A strike would be a symbolic gesture.”

That hasn’t stopped Russian Space Agency officials from launching the new deep space probe, Preparation H [the H is for Hydrogen Bomb], a warhead-tipped rocket that can be reprogrammed from Earth to hunt down specific targets that enter the inner solar system.

“We offer prompt, soothing relief from asteroids,” said former Cosmonaut Boris Blastikoff, now heading up the Motherland Defense division of the agency.

Union officials from United Comets Interplanetary local 84 were not willing to comment on this story.

___________________________________________________________

Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell 2012!

By Eric J Baker

 

Brain Chart (Courtesy of Princeton University’s Neuroscience Department)

WASHINGTON DC – Scientists from Princeton University reported yesterday that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Delaware’s Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate Christine O’Donnell each have 2,012 stupid thoughts per day. Only about five to ten of these thoughts are articulated verbally, say scientists.

“We didn’t think it was possible for people whose heads are crowded with so much nonsense to function in society,” says head researcher Dr. Herbert West. “But there you have it.”

West says these stupid thoughts most likely explain the string of ethics lapses, acts of hypocrisy, and “almost pathological” misunderstanding of civics displayed by both women.

Then how does one account for the financial success and notoriety garnered by Palin and O’Donnell?

“Look, I’m sure the dodo bird was a shrewd animal,” says West.

According to the Princeton report, researchers asked each woman to wear a university-provided thought-reading helmet for ten days. The helmet, constructed from coconuts, a police car flasher, and the rudder from the S.S. Minnow, collects thoughts on a flash drive and sorts them into stupid and non-stupid files. Palin’s least-stupid thoughts came when she was eating Cheerios and putting her shoes on the correct feet. O’Donnell’s occurred when she brushed her teeth using the gentle, short strokes suggested by her dentist.

Despite the apparent effectiveness of the helmet, some are questioning the researchers’ ethics.

“I think these women were duped for the purpose of making Republicans look bad,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) told Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “They were told it was a ‘GOP purity helmet.’ Then again, if they believed that, I guess they are stupid.”

Boehner did maintain that the Princeton University report is the kind of document that gives fake-news journals easy opportunity to make fun of conservatives.

“The left-wing media bias extends to fake news,” he told Morning Joe viewers. “Where are all the stories making Democrats look bad?”

Is it true that fake-news journalists unfairly target Republicans?

“It’s more complicated than that,” says Angry Pink Bunny, head writer for the fake-news journal, The Avocado. “Anyone who holds extreme views deserves to be mocked. But the far right tends to be more outlandish than the far left. Creation museums where men are depicted riding dinosaurs, airheaded beauty queens holding public office, and people wearing tea-bag hats are just inherently funnier than bloated healthcare bills and amnesty for illegal aliens.”

Perhaps Boehner has a point, though. A quick, unscientific analysis of fake-news articles appearing in The Avocado and its rival journal, The Anvil, shows that conservatives and Republicans tend to be mocked on policy and viewpoint while Democrats and liberals are more often the focus of bizarre, non-political stories. President Obama has shown up in numerous articles published by both journals, but seldom is his leadership the subject of satire.

“I can’t speak for those jokers at The Anvil, who have this bizarre obsession with zombies,” says Bunny, “but the thing with Obama is… how do you make disappointment funny?”

Some on the left are unhappy with Bunny’s comments. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is calling for Congress to pass a new Fairness in Reporting bill that requires every comment critical of Democrats to be balanced by a comment equally critical of Republicans.

When reached for their views on this story, both Palin and O’Donnell said Fox News told them not to talk to reporters or they couldn’t have dessert.

*********************

*********************

Abe Lincoln booted from history books!

By Eric J Baker

 

Artist’s rendering of what Abe Lincoln might look like today, if his body were injected with Evil-X Reanimating Fluid by a mad scientist

QUANTUM WASHINGTON DC – In the alternate universe yesterday, President Sarah Palin issued an executive order invalidating Abraham Lincoln’s presidency. According to Palin, Lincoln violated the Quantum US Constitution by freeing the slaves and not allowing the south to secede from the union.

Andrew Johnson will now be considered the 16^th president, and banks have been ordered to turn in all pennies to the US mint so Lincoln’s image on each coin can be recut to resemble that of Johnson. Palin’s portrait will replace Lincoln’s on the five-dollar bill. Stickers bearing Palin’s likeness have already been mailed to every citizen in possession of more than five dollars.

“When Baby Jesus wrote our Constitution, he wanted that document to be totally fubu,” President Palin told Americans in a speech televised during primetime last night. “That means we can remake the government if we don’t like what our government does.”

Palin also said slavery was a state’s rights issue and that the federal government shouldn’t be permitted to impose its moral values on individuals.

“It’s like, ‘Hello, my name is Big Government, now pay me taxes and give me your personal property,’” Palin said in the speech that many are calling one of the greatest in presidential history.

“It’s her Gettysburg Address,” said TV news pundit Rex Kramer. “Except that, with Lincoln’s presidency rescinded, there was no Gettysburg Address. And it didn’t take place in Pennsylvania. So I guess it was nothing like that. Never mind. It wasn’t a great speech. Forget I said it.”

Vice President Bristol Palin, who was unable to attend the speech because she was starring in a reality show about a trashy bimbo with a mother who inexplicably draws thousands of people to her public appearances where she spews nothing but pure drivel, said, “Like, Abe Lincoln is dead to me. I’m soooo ignoring him from now on. And that beard? Ew.”

President Palin’s cabinet members, Track, Trig, Traipse, Tron, Tribble, Trash, Trinket, and Trog Palin, issued a joint statement in support of the ruling. The statement said, in part, “We believe in the absolute authority of the US Constitution, and anyone who speaks out against the President’s interpretation of it will be summarily executed.”

The statement also said, “All hail President Palin. All hail President Palin.”

Not everyone approves of the President’s approach to enforcing the quantum founding fathers’ vision for America.

Barak Obama, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University, said in an interview recently, “George Bush! Wall Street! Tax cuts for the rich! George Bush! Wall Street! Tax cuts for the rich! George Bush! Wall Street! Tax cuts for the rich!”

Some ordinary Quantum Americans are taking a more radical approach to challenging Palin’s authority. A grassroots political movement, calling itself “The Boston Massacre” has been on the rise all across the country, largely made up of citizens opposed to the 28^th Amendment, which declares President Palin to be Queen Forever.

“We fought the French in the Revolutionary War so we wouldn’t have a queen anymore,” says Chester Tool of Twister Magnet, Quantum Oklahoma and chairman of the local Boston Massacre Party chapter. “My father fought in the Battle of Woodstock in 1969 when Jimi Hendrix was killed, and damn if I’m going to let some hick from Alaska parade around like she owns the place.”

Tool says he plans to join the pastor of his local church in burning a stack of Queen albums this week as a symbolic protest.

“Fat-bottomed girls, my ass!” he says.

Unfortunately for Tool and like-minded Quantum Americans, President Palin’s policies seem secure for now. The Boston Massacre movement has been having trouble gaining traction, as its members are required to kill each other with muskets at each meeting.

________________________

________________________

Earthquakes caused by angels’ incompetent bowling

“I thought they were supposed to watch over us!”

– Quake survivor

 

By Eric J Baker

The Pentagon's new AngelKiller 7000 attack helicopter. "We'll do what we must," says General Petraeus.

DETROIT, MI – Until 1970, scientists believed thunder was the sound of shock waves caused by the rapid expansion of superheated air following a lightning strike. That’s when Detroit University Online geophysicist Cracky McShake put forth the controversial theory that thunder was actually the sound of angels bowling. He was later proven right and went on to win the Nobel Prize for Science.

Now, 40 years later, Professor McShake is making headlines again. In this month’s issue of Seismology Today, the septuagenarian is claiming that earthquakes are caused by those same angels throwing gutter balls. 

“It’s simple,” says McShake. “Clouds are the lanes, those balls weigh fifty thousand tons each, and we’re the gutter. Not to sound overly technical, but when that ball impacts the planet’s surface, everything gets all vibratey and fally, and people run around going ‘AHHHHHH!!!’ Otherwise known as an earthquake.”

Though Dr. McShake’s theory prevails throughout much of the scientific world, not everyone agrees.

“Can anyone explain to me the absence of ball fragments?” asks geologist Gyro Spanakopita of Athens University in Greece. Spanakopita has visited the site of several recent quakes and has yet to find such fragments or, perhaps even more telling, evidence of impact craters.

Dr. McShake responded by saying, “We can’t think of angel balls as actual balls. They’re metaphysical balls. When you’re dealing with science, you just have to have faith.”

Televangelist Pat Robertson was quick to seize the Professor’s findings and put his own spin on them.

“Have you noticed that earthquakes usually strike in places where incorrect religions are practiced?” Robertson asked viewers of his show, The 700 Club, last night. “Where the professor and I differ is that I believe the angels are throwing those balls on purpose and saying, ‘F**k you, you heathen scum.’”

He later added, “Now let us pray.”

While McShake doesn’t openly dispute Robertson’s words, he did distance himself from the notion of wrathful judgment.

“I think what we need to do is find out why angels are so goddamned bad at bowling,” he said.

A small number of scientists, mostly weirdoes from community colleges and science-fiction films, have suggested the Earth goes through geologic cycles on a scale too broad for laymen to comprehend, hence the appearance of a looming Armageddon every time seismic activity spikes. They also point out that human population has more than doubled in the past century. As a result, a heavier concentration of people living along fault lines engenders a higher risk of structural damage and casualties when a quake does strike.

Those scientists are most likely misinformed idiots worshiping at the false idol of reason, say Internet posters.

McShake believes the best way humans can protect themselves is if all the world’s children write messages of peace to the angels (requesting that they, perhaps, take up billiards instead), attach them to helium balloons, and release them.

“But make sure you’re polite,” he warns kids, “or you might not wake up the next morning.”

Satan, former overlord of Hell but now unemployed, was quoted as telling mankind, “With friends like these, who needs me?”

__________________________

__________________________