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Post by pjotr on Apr 1, 2011 17:47:58 GMT 1
Belgium invades HollandI just heard that Belgium has occupied the Southern-Dutch province of Limburg today and united it with it's own Belgium province of Limburg. After years of tensions and discrimination of the Southern-Lumburgian people by the North, the Belgians were fed up with it and decided to take action. I am shocked about the Belgian agression. There is a live-stream connection on Dutch public tv about the situation.  Belgian Leopard 2A6 tank in LimburgThe Dutch government filed in complaints in Brussels to the Belgian government and the EU and stationed army units in the Eastern Province Gelderland and in Brabant, both bordering the Dutch Limburg province. There were no reports of deaths or wounded people. The Limburg people were quiet and welcomed the Belgians in some cases. Many Limburgian people traditionally feel more close to Belgium, because both Belgians and Dutch-Limburgians share a Southern-Dutch culture. There are diplomatic negociations going on and the Dutch and Belgian governments are in contact. Foreign media are silent about it due to the attention Portugal, North-Africa, Ivory Coast and Japan are getting. Berlin, Paris and London expressed their concern and called on Belgium to retreat from the South-Eastern part of the Netherlands.  Belgian soldiers carry a wounded colleage which was attacked by Northern-Dutch
elements in Dutch LimburgPieter
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uncltim
Just born
I oppose most nonsense.
Posts: 73
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Post by uncltim on Apr 1, 2011 18:52:44 GMT 1
I'm on my way! I should be arriving in Brussels this afternoon with a cadre of Hill-billys to stop this blatant act of agression!
Bubba wants to know if y'all got squirrels in the Nederlands. He says "We all is gonna need to feed them prisoners sumthin". He added," I ain't gonna share the possum vittals that granny packed in my lunchpail with them!" Its too good for 'em.
-Tim
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Post by pjotr on Apr 1, 2011 21:34:44 GMT 1
Tim,
You got me there right. It was a April 1 joke.
Pieter
April Fools' Day
April Fools' Day is celebrated in different countries around the world on the April 1 of every year. Sometimes referred to as All Fools' Day, April 1 is not a national holiday, but is widely recognized and celebrated as a day where many people play all kinds of jokes and foolishness. The day is marked by the commission of good humoured or funny jokes, hoaxes, and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends, family members, teachers, neighbors, work associates, etc.
The earliest recorded association between April 1 and foolishness can be found in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1392). Many writers suggest that the restoration of January 1 as New Year's Day in the 16th century was responsible for the creation of the holiday, but this theory does not explain earlier references.
Origins
In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1392), the "Nun's Priest's Tale" is set Syn March bigan thritty dayes and two. Modern scholars believe that there is a copying error in the extant manuscripts and that Chaucer actually wrote, Syn March was gon. Thus the passage originally meant 32 days after March, i.e. May 2, the anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, which took place in 1381. However, readers apparently misunderstood this line to mean "32nd of March," i.e. 1st April. In Chaucer's tale, the vain coc...k Chauntecleer is tricked by a fox.
In 1509, a French poet referred to a poisson d’avril (April fool, literally "April fish"), a possible reference to the holiday. In 1539, Flemish poet Eduard de Dene wrote of a nobleman who sent his servants on foolish errands on the 1st of April. In 1686, John Aubrey referred to the holiday as "Fooles holy day", the first British reference. On 1st April, 1698, several people were tricked into going to the Tower of London to "see the Lions washed". The name "April Fools" echoes that of the Feast of Fools, a Medieval holiday held on the 28th December.
In the Middle Ages, New Year's Day was celebrated on the 25th of March in most European towns. In some areas of France, New Year's was a week-long holiday ending on the 1st of April. So it is possible that April Fools originated because those who celebrated on the 1st of January made fun of those who celebrated on other dates. The use of the 1st of January as New Year's Day was common in France by the mid-sixteenth century, and this date was adopted officially in 1564 by the Edict of Roussillon.
In the eighteenth century, the festival was often posited as going back to the time of Noah. According to an English newspaper article published in 1789, the day had its origin when Noah sent his dove off too early, before the waters had receded; he did this on the first day of the Hebrew month that corresponds with April.
Well-known pranks
* Write-only memory: Signetics advertised write-only memory (WOM) IC databooks in 1972 through the late 1970s.[9]
* Decimal time: Repeated several times in various countries, this hoax involves claiming that the time system will be changed to one in which units of time are based on powers of 10.
* Taco Liberty Bell: In 1996, Taco Bell took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times announcing that they had purchased the Liberty Bell to "reduce the country's debt" and renamed it the "Taco Liberty Bell". When asked about the sale, White House press secretary Mike McCurry replied tongue-in-cheek that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold and would henceforth be known as the Lincoln Mercury Memorial.
* Left-handed Whoppers: In 1998, Burger King ran an ad in USA Today, saying that people could get a Whopper for left-handed people whose condiments were designed to drip out of the right side. Not only did customers order the new burgers, but some specifically requested the "old", right-handed burger.
* Apple buys the Beatles: In 2010, Bob Lefsetz released an April Fools' Day letter which had rumours circulating around the music industry.
* In 1983, Australian millionaire businessman d....k Smith claimed to have towed an iceberg from Antarctica to Sydney Harbour. He used a barge covered with white plastic and fire extinguisher foam to convince witnesses.
By radio stations
* Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect: In 1976, British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore told listeners of BBC Radio 2 that unique alignment of two planets would result in an upward gravitational pull making people lighter at precisely 9:47 a.m. that day. He invited his audience to jump in the air and experience "a strange floating sensation". Dozens of listeners phoned in to say the experiment had worked.
* Space Shuttle lands in San Diego: In 1993, DJ Dave Rickards told listeners of KGB-FM in San Diego that Space Shuttle Discovery had been diverted from Edwards Air Force Base and would be landing at Montgomery Field, a small municipal airport with a 4,577 foot runway. Thousands of people went to the airport to watch the purported landing, causing traffic jams throughout Kearny Mesa. Moreover, there wasn't even a shuttle in orbit at the time.
* Death of a mayor: In 1998, local WAAF shock jocks Opie and Anthony reported that Boston mayor Thomas Menino had been killed in a car accident. Menino happened to be on a flight at the time, lending credence to the prank as he could not be reached. The rumor spread quickly across the city, eventually causing news stations to issue alerts denying the hoax. The pair were fired shortly thereafter.
* Phone call: In 1998, UK presenter Nic Tuff of West Midlands radio station pretended to be the British Prime Minister Tony Blair when he called the then South African President Nelson Mandela for a chat. It was only at the end of the call when Nic asked Nelson what he was doing for April Fools' Day that the line went dead.
* BBC Radio 4 (2005): The Today Programme announced in the news that the long-running serial The Archers had changed their theme tune to an upbeat disco style.
* National Public Radio: Every year, National Public Radio in the United States does an extensive news story on April 1. These usually start off more or less reasonably, and get more and more unusual. A recent example is the story on the "iBod," a portable body control device. In 2008 it reported that the IRS, to assure rebate checks were actually spent, was shipping consumer products instead of checks. It also runs false sponsor mentions, such as "Support for NPR comes from the Soylent Corporation, manufacturing protein-rich food products in a variety of colors. Soylent Green is People".
* Three-dollar coin: In 2008, the CBC Radio program As It Happens interviewed a Royal Canadian Mint spokesman who broke "news" of plans to replace the Canadian five-dollar bill with a three-dollar coin. The coin was dubbed a "threenie", in line with the nicknames of the country's one-dollar coin (commonly called a "loonie" due to its depiction of a common loon on the reverse) and two-dollar coin ("toonie").
* Country to metal: Country and gospel WIXE in Monroe, North Carolina does a prank every year. In 2009, midday host Bob Rogers announced he was changing his show to heavy metal. This resulted in numerous phone calls, but about half were from listeners wanting to request a song.[26]
* U2 live on rooftop in Cork: In 2009, hundreds of U2 fans were duped in an elaborate prank when they rushed to a shopping centre in Cork believing that the band were playing a surprise rooftop concert. The prank was organised by Cork radio station RedFM. The band were in fact just a tribute band called U2opia.
* Cellphone ban: In New Zealand, the radio station The Edge's Morning Madhouse enlisted the help of the Prime Minister on April 1st to inform the entire country that cellphones are to be banned in New Zealand. Hundreds of callers rang in disgruntled at the new law.
By television stations
* Tower of Pisa: The Dutch television news reported in the 1950s that the Tower of Pisa had fallen over. Many shocked people contacted the station.
* Spaghetti trees: The BBC television programme Panorama ran a famous hoax in 1957, showing Swiss harvesting spaghetti from trees. They had claimed that the despised pest, the spaghetti weevil, had been eradicated. A large number of people contacted the BBC wanting to know how to cultivate their own spaghetti trees. It was, in fact, filmed in St Albans.
* In 1962, the Swedish national television did a 5-minute special on how one could get color TV by placing a nylon stocking in front of the TV. A rather in-depth description on the physics behind the phenomenon was included.
* Smell-o-vision: In 1965, the BBC purported to conduct a trial of a new technology allowing the transmission of odor over the airwaves to all viewers. Many viewers reportedly contacted the BBC to report the trial's success. In 2007, the BBC website repeated an online version of the hoax.
* TV license fee evasion discovery: In 1969, the Dutch TV news notified the public of a new device that would be handed out to civil servants tasked with finding TV license fee evaders. This device would be able to detect the presence of a television set in the house from the outside. Asked whether there was nothing that citizens could do about this, the interviewed "civil servant" said 'No', as - he said - it would be unlikely that people would be willing to wrap their TVs in aluminum foil. The next day aluminum foil was sold out in most stores in a matter of hours.
* In 1980, the BBC reported a proposed change to the famous clock tower known as Big Ben. The reporters stated that the clock would go digital.
* In 1989, a fight broke out on air between staff in the newsroom behind presenter Des Lynam on the BBC sports programme, Grandstand. This was later revealed to be an April Fool's Day joke.
* On Comedy Central, the creators of South Park aired a fake episode of Terrance and Phillip titled "Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus" instead of running the season premiere which was supposed to reveal the father of Eric Cartman. This caused angered fans to write about 2,000 complaints to Comedy Central in the week following the broadcast. The incident was parodied in the Season 13 episode "Eat, Pray, Queef", the first episode to broadcast on April Fool's Day since the incident.
* The Trouble with Tracy: In 2003, The Comedy Network in Canada announced that it would produce and air a remake of the 1970s Canadian sitcom The Trouble with Tracy, widely considered to be one of the worst sitcoms ever produced. Series star Diane Nyland Procter even gave interviews and press conferences promoting the alleged "revival", and several media outlets fell for the hoax.
* In 2004, British breakfast show GMTV produced a story claiming that Yorkshire Water were trialing a new 'diet tap water' that had already helped one customer lose a stone and a half in four months. After heralding the trial as successful, it was claimed that a third tap would be added to kitchen sinks, allowing customers easy access to the water. Following the story, Yorkshire Water received 10,000 enquiries from viewers.
* In 2004, the Italian television station Rai 2 reported that NASA discovered crude oil on Mars.
* In 2006, the same station reported the invention of a miraculous diet pill that should be accompanied to a diet rich of fish.
* In 2006, the BBC reported that the door to No. 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, had been painted red. They showed footage of workmen carrying a red door. Red was the official colour of the political party which formed the government at the time. The same story was also reported in the British newspaper, The Daily Mail which credited the new design to April Fewell. The door is in fact black.
* In 2008, the BBC reported on a newly discovered colony of flying penguins. An elaborate video segment was even produced, featuring Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) walking with the penguins in Antarctica, and following their flight to the Amazon rainforest.
* In 2008, Nick at Nite made a joke suggesting that it would disappear forever. This was seen on a few of Nick at Nite's promos for its April Fools Day marathon.
* In 2010, The One Show did a part on "Cloned Unicorns" and then revealed that it was an April Fool's Day joke.
* In 2010, Tony Kornheiser and Dan LeBatard of ESPN's Pardon the Interruption reported that at the Masters tournament, which began that day, Tiger Woods had requested that the news media refer to him by his given name of Eldrick in an attempt to distance himself further from his recent personal difficulties. The hosts then debated the advantages and disadvantages before revealing that the story was a joke.
By newspapers
In The Guardian newspaper, in the United Kingdom, on April Fool's Day, 1977, a fictional mid-ocean state of San Serriffe was created in a seven-page supplement.
In 2010, British newspaper The Sun ran an article about its new "Scratch and Sniff" paper, providing a sample of plain newspaper. This led to a lot of readers sniffing the paper in an attempt to smell the scent.
In 2011, The Telegraph posted an internal labour memo advertising a party requirement to celebrate the marriage of Ed Miliband and Justine Thornton by ordering trifle and having a street party.
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Post by pjotr on Apr 1, 2011 22:11:22 GMT 1
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Post by tufta on Apr 2, 2011 7:24:44 GMT 1
I'm on my way! I should be arriving in Brussels this afternoon with a cadre of Hill-billys to stop this blatant act of agression! Bubba wants to know if y'all got squirrels in the Nederlands. He says "We all is gonna need to feed them prisoners sumthin". He added," I ain't gonna share the possum vittals that granny packed in my lunchpail with them!" Its too good for 'em. -Tim I heard the Standard Poor's Push & Pull Brothers agency is organizing a brigade of the saddest soldiers from Poland to come help those Belgians! |
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Post by pjotr on Apr 2, 2011 12:20:38 GMT 1
I'm on my way! I should be arriving in Brussels this afternoon with a cadre of Hill-billys to stop this blatant act of agression! Bubba wants to know if y'all got squirrels in the Nederlands. He says "We all is gonna need to feed them prisoners sumthin". He added," I ain't gonna share the possum vittals that granny packed in my lunchpail with them!" Its too good for 'em. -Tim I heard the Standard Poor's Push & Pull Brothers agency is organizing a brigade of the saddest soldiers from Poland to come help those Belgians! ;D |
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