From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 1997 06:18:32 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Springer/Gates Merger
Message-ID: <199711052159.WAA18144@basement.replay.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



CANADIAN NUTLY NEWS:
[CNN, Bienfait, Saskatchewan] BAR OWNERS at the Coaldust Saloon, 
in violation of Canadian bartender/customer confidentiality laws, 
revealed details of a planned merger between Micro$oft and the
Jerry Springer Show.
Computer magnate Bill Gates has signed a secret deal with Jerry
Springer to host a variety of WebTV productions which will be
InterActive variations on the 'Terminal Man' theme.
Springer, upset over the news media outcry over his proposed move
toward bringing his Barnum & Baily act into the mainstream news
forum, plans to take his revenge by using Micro$oft's domination
in the lowest-common-denominator market to parlay his lack of
good taste and journalistic ethics into a full-scale assasult on
the elitest mainstream news media which continues to ignore the
real desires of the general public.

Philip R. Zimmerman, former head of PGP, Inc., announced his new
position as Publicity Representative for 'New Reality Productions'
by saying, "Daddy always told me, 'If you're going to sell out a
little, you might as well sell out a lot--and make the BIG bucks.'"
PRZ told gathered reporters that the increasing interest shown by
television viewers in shows such as 'The World's Scariest Police
Chases' threatened the growing popularity of the InterNet as the
medium of the future.

Zimmerman said, "The virtual reality of TV and the movies has always
been a harbringer of the virtual future. The success of Terminal Man
showed that the future was in snuff-flicks, and Police Chases was
the natural movement of that theme into the trend toward Real TV."
PRZ added, "The InterActive capabilities of the InterNet will allow
the Gates/Springer merger to give the viewers the ability to get
personally involved in the decisions as to who lives and who dies."

New technologies which enable law enforcement agencies to activate
kill-switches in fleeing automobiles have been abandoned in favor
of technologies which allow the home viewer to use joysticks to 
control the movement of the criminal's vehicle and those of their
police pursuers.
Zimmerman defended the use of the new technology by saying, "Sure,
snuff-flicks used to be illegal, but so did gambling and drinking.
'New Reality Productions' is just following the money."

The beta-testing of the new technology took place on the CypherPunks
mailing list, where list subscribers were given the opportunity to
actively participate in the second 'moderation experiment' on the
list by using their accumulated Moral Majority Reputation Credits 
to kill undesirable posts to the list.
Chief CypherPunks Spokesperson, Jodi Hoffman, said that putting 
control of the list in the hands of the lowest common denominator
had stemmed the "downward spiral" of the mailing list and that
the Christian CypherPunks mailing list was a definite improvement
over the original non-Christian-Jew infested CDR list.
"Once we got rid of the Christkillers and the Commies," Hoffman
proclaimed, "the list postings trickled down to two or three a
day, but if it saves the life of just one child..."