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.

Paper Plate Awards

TMI, having been graciously invited by the event organizers, was represented by their best journalistic team. TMI arrived early to be sure to cover the entire events.

TMI arrived at the Norton Lounge Conference Center to find it closed, cold, and locked. But, after waiting for a short time the maintenance staff showed up. We rushed them with our camera's and microphones, but no amount of paparazzi like intimidation would get them to allow us into the quiet interior. The head janitor put it this way:

Get the hell out of my way or I'm calling the cops.

TMI, ever law abiding, complied immediately. None the less, we were able to hear the sounds of furniture being moved around, and the sound system being checked. TMI was finally greeted by Mr. Tomsett who let us into the press booth. We crammed all three of us into the booth made for a dozen, and promptly set up shop. The organizers had politely provided for a sound feed and we promptly plugged in, turned on the recorder, and high tailed it out to set up the red carpet procession.

TMI was surprised to discover that no red carpet was to be provided. When questioned about this Mr. Tomsett only retorted with:

This isn't the FNORD ya know

He then walked off to make sure that plenty of popcorn and beer were at the concession stand. We purchased a box of snow caps, costing $45.23 in USD, and then went back to the booth to check the recorder. Sure enough, some unsuspecting fools were talking in range of the microphone, but none of it was news worthy.

Finally the attendees began to arrive. The hired part time staff was greeting people at the door and taking their tickets. Some of the attendees balked at having to pass through a metal detector to enter, but with the war on terror one can never be to safe. Some of the more attractive women were profiled for full body cavity searches, but TMI cameras were not allowed to record the event. We did notice that none of them emerged from the room with a smile, while all the male security staff seemed very pleased with itself.

None the less the arrivals was a pageant of pomp and circumstance.

King Jeremy's casket was brought in, and propped open so his decomposing 6'5" corpse could be properly honored.

Mr. Sinclare entered the room also, but was so boring no one noticed. The online betting services have him heavily favored to win in this category, but even if he does no one will notice.

Angelia Jolie was radiant, of course, but that Brad Pitt tumor on her ass ruined the whole display. No amount of expensive clothing, makeup or jewelry could cover such a festering display of poor taste in moral character.

Bono arrived, and promptly started asking all the national leaders to forgive African debt. The King of Stormark proposed that Bono hold a series of African debt pay-off concerts. Bono persisted, and was finally escorted to his seat by security.

Ben Gray stepped in showing his perfectly pressed uniform, showing why he was the front runner to win the tidy desk award.

Finally the lights dimmed, the last few laggards took their seats as Mr. Thompson, the Master of Ceremonies, came onto the stage to thunderous applause. After what seemed an eternity the applause settled down and he approached the lecturn:

Good friends, on behalf of the Paper Plate Awards Organization, I welcome you to the this ceremony where we shall recognize and reward those micronationalists that have added to the misery of our calling. Each of the special categories has been picked with the intent to mock and humiliate someone, and so with that in mind we proceed straight to the nights first award. Here to present the award for Most Tidy Desk is Dr. Sprangle.

The night went on like this in a standard awards ceremony style resulting in a stack of paper plates being handed out to cheers and jeers alike.

As people filed out there were smiles all around as everyone seemed to have a good time, except Bono, and that's as it should be.