This Week in Ark Vol.2 No.1
E Teflon Piano
Vol.2 No.1
Feb.12, 1996
[Twark (formerly TWIA) is the official journal of the
proceedings in alt.religion.kibology, and is published
weekly by the Institute for Misapplied Psychometry, under
a grant from the National Silica Gel Council. All opinions
expressed herein are the product of the Hivemind and are
Fully Justified. If you see this header two weeks in a row,
then it has become Standardized.]
CONTENTS
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The Blue Ribbon Campaign
The Kibo for President Campaign
Where Kibo Is
THE BLUE RIBBON CAMPAIGN
http://www.eff.org/blueribbon.html
The Ark went dark this week to protest certain provisions of the
Communications Decency Act enacted by the US Congress and spearheaded by
giddy conservative freshman House members who huddled under the covers with
a flashlight and giggled at pictures in their moms' Victoria's Secrets
catalog.
"Pornography should be confined to printed materials such as books and
newspapers, which in the UK which have pictures of teens with big tits on
page 3, despite them not having a guarantee of freedom of speech, so that
God-fearing Republicans can hide them under the mattress, where they belong.
The CDA will do this, and my opinion on this has nothing to do with my
desire to have a media mogul's hand up my rump operating my mouth like a
hand puppet," said Senator Exon, disavowing any enlightened self-interest in
protecting potential publishers of his lunatic posturings.
"By closing down alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.amateur.wives, we will be
saving thousands of pounds of bandwidth, and sparing our teenaged mothers
and sisters in Iowa the embarrassment of seeing poorly-lighted, nude photos
of them, taken against a cheap trailer-trash-paneling-background, circulated
outside of the immediate family and local convenience stores, where they
belong," said the techno-savvy legislator. "This goes double for
rec.pets.cats," he added.
"We will also be able to put a stop to smartass punks, like the one
writing this, publishing political satire in accordance with Hustler v.
Falwell, 485 US 46 (1988)."
The CDA, which purports to outlaw speech deemed indecent by "Pacifica"
standards, has rendered mute countless energetic and vociferous, if somewhat
inarticulate, denizens of alt.games.doom and alt.games.marathon as the
autocensors installed by their ISPs kicked in to reject their postings.
Eli "111!!!!!11!" Higginz was unavailable for comment, said Eli "No, The
Other One" Balin, although a ragged cheer went up from rec.pets.cats, which
said in a prepared statement that *any* measure that would reduce spurious
crossposting to their group would be welcomed.
The Ark went dark in accordance with the Electronic Frontier Foundation's
Blue Ribbon Campaign, but not without a certain amount of controversy over
how to support the campaign and a related injury. Ark spokesman Tjames
Madison said the Ark would remain without running lights and have the
curtains drawn throughout the long voyage to Amsterdam for the international
Federation of United Computer Keyboarders' meeting to discuss the
legislation. "In the meantime, I suggest everybody obey the law and simply
resort to childish acronyms," added Gard Trask.
The injury associated with the Blue Ribbon Campaign was suffered by Ark
Aesthetician Andrew Damick, who received third-degree burns on the roof of
his mouth after biting into a slice of super-heated cheese pizza. Mr.
Damick tragically misread the instructions for the campaign and painted the
microwave oven door in the Ark galley black, and unable to observe the state
of a slice of pizza inside, failed to appropriately time the operation.
Ark Physicists Joe Ben Bay and Joe Ben Weiner said, "Well, this just goes
to show you that Schrodinger's Box is *no* plaything." Beverly White
concurred, saying, "That's cheese for you. It's just plain treacherous."
"What's the deal about cheese?" asked Ark newcomer Jaffo, who, along with
Louis Nick III, was attempting to distance himself as an accomplice to Mr.
Damick's injuries by the simple expedient of keeping his hands behind his
back to hide smudges of black paint on his fingers.
THE KIBO FOR PRESIDENT CAMPAIGN
http://www.ionet.net/~trichard/kibo.for.pres.html
The long search by Kibo Campaign officials for a running mate ended this
week with the selection of John Winston as Gaia Messiah, said Mr. Winston's
dog, Yogi. With Mr. Winston selected as GM, both the Kibo Machine's and
Doctress Neutopia's agonizing are finished. The two will be married and
together will co-captain the Vice Presidency for the Kibo Ticket. "Just
like Bill and Hillary," said Yogi.
Campaign D()()D3 Tom Richardson said the Winston/Neutopia merger was a
good fit for the ticket, but as hardly any of the links or, indeed, other
material that's supposed to be HTMLized behind all the slick graphics for
the Kibo Campaign Home Page had been finished, he would be unable to comment
further until he got Dave DeLaney to show him how Andy Damick copied all of
Lupus Yonderboy's stuff that he got from Kibo's archive at world.std.com,
except to say that if the Win-topia platform failed market tests, "Perhaps
we could work something out with the dog."
Kibo was unavailable for comment.
WHERE KIBO IS
alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000
Ark Matron Ellen Holmes this week disclosed the reason for Kibo's
unavailability was an astonishingly ill-advised choice in purchases for the
Kibo Campaign Computer Center.
Ms. Holmes admits that she and Nick Bensema of Perth, Austria, made a poor
match in purchasing an upgraded Gateway 2000 computer running a Windows 95
upgrade with a Creative Labs sound card.
"We can't get through to him. He's on hold for tech support," choked a
visibly distraught Ms. Holmes. "With that combination of vendors, we...
we... *choke* may NEVER hear from him AGAIN," said Ms. Holmes, with speech
balloon assistance from Matt McIrvin.
--
E Teflon Piano is a fellow at the Institute of Misapplied Psychometry and
founder of the Internet 'Lectronic Legal Society[dibs]. Teflon is DuPont
Corp.'s tradename for poly(tetrafluoroethylene). E is E poly(TFE) Piano
Enterprises' mark for satire, hyperbole and calculated misstatements.
(c)E 1995-96