Mystery Reporter Released from Jail!

Yes, following a short stint in the county lockup for being unpolitically correct, the Mystery Reporter is yet again on the loose!

I see I have missed a lot, and nothing at all.

Taking a quick look over the past few days, this is what I see:

Morovia rises from the dead like a zombie, and promises to return to the grave in a months time. Will anyone notice?

Hanover embarks on some fools adventure on Second Life. What the hell is wrong with these people?

The Grand Duchy of Abiwyn springs to life. Kids playing D&D decide to be a nation. I almost immigrated to get my 50 silver pieces a month!

Rest assured, the mystery reporter is now on the prowl for those juicy tidbits that escape the lessor journalists.

Torture in the Name of Public Relations

TMI has uncovered the shocking truth behind a cover up attempt by the late King Jeremy. Only TMI can bring you hard hitting stories like this!

The ghastly truth of one mans mad obsession with his public image, and the hapless artist caught in his clutches.

Few people are aware that His Majesty King Jeremy, while living, was disabled with the loss of his right hand and normally wore an advanced prosthetic hand. This was a closely guarded secret that, until now, has been kept hushed up. That is, until the story of torture was made public by the Royal artist who suffered while painting his official portraits.

Today we all know the visual image of The Ghost of King Jeremy as this:

But this is not the original image! Few people comment on the empty sleeve, and with good reason. His Majesty was very sensitive about his missing hand, and even more so about his prosthetic. When the official portrait was made the famous painter Scott Alexander insisted on having the hand properly portrayed in the picture. Then, when the painting was completed, His Majesty's ghost was very disappointed at the rendition of the prosthetic hand and asked that it be removed. Scott Alexander refused. He was placed on the palace dungeon and tortured until he relented.

They subjected me to fingernails on a chalkboard. They forced me to drink American beer. Finally, they made me listen to Vogon poetry! I thought the torment would never end.

-Scott Alexander

But, unbeknownst to the King, Mr. Alexander did NOT simply retouch the canvas. He totally repainted it from memory on a new canvas, and hid the original. Now, for the first time ever, the original painting can be shown. With the death of King Jeremy the threat of more Vogon poetry is no longer real and Mr. Alexander has released exclusively to TMI the rights to show the original painting.

The appalling level that one man would go to to hide his disability from the world is incredible, but you can see it for yourself above. TMI hopes that the remaining world leaders learn from the tragic suffering of Scott Alexander at the hands of a mad man and never again stoop to such lows.

His Majesty To Censor Press

His Majesty King Thomas Carroll of Gosling has called for the immediate censorship of all press sources he personally deems as "offensive". This initiative was put forth on the forums of the MNN a few days ago and, despite calls for sanity from all sides, he has pushed forward with his plan to silence anyone he doesn't like. His Majesty first proposed the idea, and then defended it in a series of speeched delivered to the MNN participants. But what few know is that the speech he actually delivered is slightly different from the speech he originally wrote!

TMI has obtained this exclusive copy of the speech His Majesty originally intended give. It was left on his personal desk in his office and our mystery reporter was able to take it unobserved. Rather than reproduce the whole speech here, which is laboriously boring to read, we present the salient paragraph that outlines his true intentions.

Speech as delivered:

well, the purpose isnt to try and shut down the offending organisation, but more to warn them that people have found whast they have publicised offending. we wont have powers to shut them down, thats silly! but we will be there so that people can pass on their concerns to us.

Speech as intended (**'s added to show where his speech writers softened his message):

well, the purpose is ** to try and shut down the offending organisation, *** **** to warn them that people have found whast they have publicised offending. we **** have powers to shut them down, ***** *****! *** we will be there so that people can pass on their concerns to us.

TMI does not see how it could be any clearer. The King thinks he has the right and power to squelch any opposition. Of course, TMI cannot allow such arrogance to continue unheralded. The world must unite to tell this King, in the words of the Minister from Lovely "Piss off".

Censorship has reared its ugly head many times before, and it cannot be tolerated. Those who are afraid of criticism are unworthy of leadership positions. Being on the pedestal means being able to take all forms of review from fawning to loathing with a stoic attitude that is above the battle. Like the King of Gotzborg, you can anything about that man and he is just as likely to ignore you as to invite you to a palace ball (hint hint).

Mystery Reporter

Kingdom of Lovely Rails Against Its Own People!

TMI is shocked to have to report that the Minister of Foreign Relations for the Kingdom of Lovely has classified a broad majority of people, apparently including Lovelies, as "silly".

In a scathing review of what his own people think the Minister shows his utter contempt for the majority and his elitist attitude. His cutting remark was aimed at those who support the HTML technology over his personal favorite PDF, precisely because it is his favorite.

Of course, TMI could not leave well enough alone and tracked down the Lovely Minister to pester him with follow up questions with the intent of publishing compromising materials out of context, but it turned out subterfuge was not needed. When asked what he meant by "silly" he replied:

It's all in good fun.

Good fun indeed sir, at the expense of your population. This seemingly benign phrase points out just how deep the disdain for his fellow man goes. He is intent to have fun out our expense, and we could not agree with him more! TMI is in complete support of laughing at those of lessor fortune and skill. The world is a cruel place. Those of us on the top should look down our noses at those below us, that's why we have noses.

Still, TMI takes umbrage at the Minister attempting to horn in on the action TMI reserves for itself. We simply cannot allow just anyone a soap box to spew forth their opinions and theories. Those functions are reserved to us, the free press. All government officials are hereby given notice that failure to comply with the TMI demand that only TMI associated publications are allowed to call people names, even in jest, will find themselves on the receiving end of our scorn or applause, as we see fit.

What has to be the worst part of it, particularly for the Lovelies, is that the Minister is a seasons political operative and he had to know he was crossing lines you just don't cross, and yet he did it anyway.

Silly Minister.

Community Speaks Against PDFs

The MN Independent commissioned a poll of the interested people to determine if they prefer PDF or HTML (blog) format, and the results are in, PDFs are out.

The competition between the formats has been raging for years, and yet PDF seems to have carved out a durable niche. The simple truth seems to be that PDF fills a need that HTML does not. HTML is not a good media for documents that need to maintain their formatting no matter what viewing device is used. HTML, however, is far more flexible and allows the viewer, called a browser, to render a "best fit" version.

PDFs are also very useful for exporting information from programs that save data in a proprietary format that may not be present on the target machine.

All that having been said, the simple truth of user experience when related to MN commentary delivery is overwhelming. When asked about the competing technologies HM King Guy I had this to say:

PDFs suck ass. Only a moron would use them for an MN news service.

Of course, TMI does not agree. TMI thinks this statement is a bit too strong. We believe that people of exceptionally bad judgement, and with a total lack of user interface understanding would use PDF, not just morons.

In the end, the community has spoken and so TMI will continue to publish in the HTML (blog) format until such time as we feel like doing something different. (Those smoke signals are still looking interesting.)

MNN hosts racist propaganda!

TMI has discovered a gut wrenching post that has been allowed to sit like a festering sore oozing puss for years, and all without uproar!

http://mnn.mncentre.net/forum/index.php/topic,57.0.html

How this sort of trash can be allowed to sit uncensored on the most important news source in the sector simply escapes the rational mind. The authorities should, at long last, take action against this sort of hate-filled speech!

When asked to comment on this grievous situation Liam Sinclare only had this to say:

OMG! That is so far in the past. Why bring up stupid things like that? People like you make me sick.

This is exactly the same point the hate filled self-loathing racist author supports! Allowing that sort of opinion to be displayed is the same as endorsing it. And endorsing it means that others might agree with it. Before you know it you could have en entire community of the "Let bygones be bygones" crowed and racial tensions might subside. This cannot be tolerated! Diversity and tolerance demand that everyone be ultra sensitive to issue of race! Race is everything. Forget the content of your character. Your character cannot be judged when race is the central theme, and everyone knows it is. ESPECIALLY on the internet where the race of an author must be explicitly stated to even be known!

TMI deplores the MNN community to boycott Walmart until something is done about this situation.

MN Independent Named Gold Standard!

Nathan of Natopia names MN Independent the standard for all MN tabloids. When asks specifically about his literary habits he had this to say:

Of course I read other publications. The new MicroPrivate Eye is very good. But, the MN Independent has its own appeal. It is like watching a train wreck. You can't tear yourself away from it even as you desperately wish you could. Someday everyone will be reduced to a drooling moron waiting for the next installment of the TMI, but until then they have various ways to induce drooling.

TMI is very pleased to be the standard by which all other MN publications are judged. Of course, TMI is not surprised. With our crack staff on the job no story, real or imagined, goes unreported.

Still, there might be room for improvement. And therefore TMI has commissioned the blog-vs-pdf poll to see if TMI should consider a change in media.

In fact, we have thrown open the doors to all media being considered: email, letters, telegram, telephone, personal messenger and even smoke signals are all under review. You can use this community input request time to voice your preferences.

We want to reassure all our readers (both of them) that TMI will continue to publish the highest level of journalist investigations found in the entire sector no matter what media we use.