the Funnelwhich

List of humanitarian crises and their corresponding computational complexity

British researchers say the Darfur crisis is NP-complete

[VIJAYAWADA, INDIA] Recent breakthroughs in the field of complexity theory have yielded astonishing results about the computability of several international crises, or so a new British research report from the Dutch East Indian Genocide Company finds. Their findings culminate decades of international ignorance of humanitarian crises around the world because they are simply too boring and tragic. Ah, how many a journalist in this industry remembers the first humanitarian crisis way back in 1998 during the Great California Blackout when, faced with no computers, we were forced to talk to each other.

In complexity theory, a polynomial solution to a NP-complete, where NP is an acronym for Nasty Piles due to Alan Kay’s many kinky fetishes, problem implies nerds in 3M laboratories can solve all NP problems in polynomial time, provided the polynomials are very large and have many imaginary solutions. Also, due to the eccentricity of Alan Kay these polynomials must spell out “nasty piles” with their variables. Scientists balk at this rigid limitation but computer scientists nod sagely, as if they understand, leading many to suspsect a nasty piles revolution in the year 2182. Anyway, many occultists know for certain those solutions do not exist, a tragedy as today all NP-complete problems retain the prerequisite of a virgin sacrifice, leading to an underground death industry in many graduate computer science curriculums. Today, professors often solve this trickly dilemma by simply just using the four years to teach students 10% of Java.

Meanwhile, back at the DEIGC, a penguin waddles nearby and cuddles one of the scientists. They are too choked to speak. It is Monday morning and the weary mathematicians stand outside in the dreary British climate presenting their studies with infinite sorrow.

Sara Lee recalls bread donation

Sara Lee recalled over a ton of white and whole-wheat bread this Friday after finding that much of the bread had gone to the hobos.

“It was never our intention to feed the hobos,” a Sara Lee representative commented. “Most of that bread was to go to country clubs and restaurants with gold napkins. We apologize, and we hope it never happens again.”

Sara Lee, founded by Elizabeth Grant in 1218, has taken an anti-hobo stance ever since a hobo attacked Mrs. Grant with begging of money. After Mrs. Grant complied reluctantly, she later found out she could not deduct her donation from her estate and general abundance taxes without a receipt, which the hobo would not give no matter how many times Mrs. Grant maced him.

Sara Lee will replace all the recalled bread with “Metal Pieces Loaf”, a new flavor that comes from the dirty pennies and nickels rich people accumulate and throw away, much to the dismay of Alan Greenspan, who as we all know loves money.

Says one hobo, “Blaaaah.”

Bridge collapse deemed a successful terrorist plot

On Friday, the underground terrorist organization Subway Liberation Army Whimsy came forth to take responsibility for the Minneapolis bridge collapse that killed several pairs of people and injured over three. SLAW representative Michael Rails gave this passionate press release. “Free at last, free at last, subways free at last! From the tyranny of earth and decay we shall rise over the land and conquer the philistine roads once and for all!” he said, resolutely pounding his fists and feet on his podium, which promptly broke. SLAW representative Michael Rails later gave another press conference in which SLAW took full responsibility of the podium terrorist attack, for which they sheepishly apologized stating they have nothing against the Organized Podiums Against Zionists or its splinter organization, the White House Press Corporation.

The state of California too issued a press release denouncing SLAW and its heavy-handed efforts attacking light rail. Minneapolis, long a haven of closet SLAW supporters, responded with unchecked fury, seceding from the state of California to form the state of Minnesota named after the Native American Duke of Hills and Minister of Geology in the prestigious God-Jesus theocracy until Abraham Lincoln and his legion of Low Riders sank the Minnesota ship in the Bay of Pigs and captured God’s largest submarine ship, the GG Virgin Mary, at Sea of David next to what else but Camp David. Railroad representative David Heinemer Hansson refused to comment despite the ongoing alliance between railroads and bridges in their crusade against subway terrorism. Hansson would only shake his iron spikes angrily as if plagued by internal rust demons.

Trapped Utah miners find Narnia

After eight hours without food or water, trapped Utah miners from the Mormon Construction Company began to wander aimlessly about the coal corridors that underlined much of the Southwest America. As they began to feed on the flickering, fluorescent light bulbs, I interviewed them. Says one, “We found a patch of light coming from one corridor. When we went to investigate, we saw a glowing Victorian drawer. Inside was Narnia.” Soon after the miners visited Narnia, they exited through the Victorian drawer inside Granny Antique who lives on West 94th street down by the docks in Massachusetts. “Oh, people are always coming and going,” said Granny Antique. Then she chuckled and gave me cookies smeared with coal. I declined, and she stuffed me into a non-Narnia drawer.

Doctors say Granny Antique is blind, violent, and delusional. Close inspection of the Victorian drawer reveals that it is actually a porpoise. Closer still inspection would reveal that it is not a porpoise but a dolphin-king. When scientists investigate this problem, they are ultimately confronted with the chicken-and-egg problem: Did Computer Science Lewis draw his imagination from the portal that lays beneath the Utah desert or did someone construct this portal from one of the timeless, propagandas that Lewis meticulously wrote with nothing but a Bible and his blood? The dolphin-king may be the key to this entire riddle, but he brays and laughs at all attempts to interview him. And so I must unsheathe my cute-creature harpoon.

Phillippines compete with Israel and Palestine for most violent place on Earth

After Iraq and Darfur dropped out last week for want of living people to represent them in the International Violentmypics, the Phillippines and the Israeli-Palestines now eye the Gold Cup for the most violent place on Earth after Disney World. Though the Phillippines challenged the I-P team early on for their use of pair countries, The Hague! Court announced that this was indeed fair because they had a lot of weapons and the judges did not. Said one I-P team captain demurely, “I think we’re going to win this thing. I think we’re going to win this thing. I think we’re going to win this thing.” I decided to stop interviewing the I-P team after that, backing slowly away from Coach Dangerous.

The Violentmypics—started in 1999 after the frequent American invasions into Latin American Countries bred an entire generation of cynics and pessimists—champions violence, conflict, and genocide throughout the world. It is widely believed that their museum is much more gloomy and depressing than the American National Holocaust Museum although explorers and scientists have yet to discover that mysterious edifice-complex, undoubtedly hidden somewhere violent or perhaps ironically quiet. Nobody knows, today, where exactly the Violentmypics Museum resides and few want to know. In any case, the Darfur team has consistently won for the past millennia, with Silver Cup being the epicenter of competition and eggnogging but this year’s unexpected forfeit left a power vacuum especially with the simultaneous forfeit by the Iraqis and the Swiss Mafia.

“Sometimes we fear there eventually will not be enough people left alive to play this sacred tradition,” says one Violentmypic official, taking a break from shooting his disgruntled coworkers. “That is why we have diversified our products into not only an international game but a line of video games and plushy toys.” The Super Violentmypic Galaxy game hit into snags, however, this year after its excessive violence left the video game ratings board, NAMBLA, in epileptic seizures. Its fate remains undetermined as do the plushie toys that were recalled after they wiped out the small countries of Guam and Atlantis in 2004-5 and then caused 9/11 in 2006. Today, the Violentmypics remains a threatened relic of the past, unable to promote its once-edgy and now-lame message of violent in today’s hyperviolent world.

Mahdi Army soldiers’ manlinesses are in doubt tonight

In light of their allegiance to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the Mahdi Army have been thrown into an existential crisis of virility and general manliness. “We’re, like, being controlled by a nerd sitting up on his high throne while we risk our necks,” proclaims anti-al-Sadrist Josh Fighter, who hands me a brightly colored pamphlet calling for democracy among the Mahdi Army so that they may impose a Shi’ite theocracy upon others. “We have been long oppressed!” the pamphlet exclaims. “It is time we brought democracy upon ourselves! No fights without representation! No anger without recognition!”

In his room, al-Sadr paces nervously as he attempts to resolve this crisis. “The pen is mightier than the sword,” he mutters to himself every now as if to reassure his demons away. Still, al-Sadr sweats profusely, and now his desk is bathed in the brackish water like a Red Sea, pre-Moses who in the 18th century severely disrupted the aquatic ecosystem by parting it. “I always thought my army liked me, you know,” al-Sadr says. “Where did this resentment come from? Why doesn’t anybody talk to me rationally like an adult? Can’t we just discuss this?” al-Sadr has attempted to enroll in a sword-fighting class in case any of his guerrilla army is a feudal knight. He tells me he wishes he could write a computer program or a thesis to magic away this anger.

Mean while, Josh Fighter prepares to wage a long and unfathomable war to bring democracy to the Mahdi Army hoping that one day, he too can spread something nobody wants to a region nobody understands.