“We have many documented cases of individuals altering articles against site policy,” said Elle Ellis, an investigative reporter for The Register.  “Some are harmless, like saying Beethoven was Billy Joel’s piano teacher and secretly fathered Louis XVIII of France.  But others are obviously untrue.”

Ellis says the most disturbing case of abuse was when senior contributor Stanislaw Van Der Meer  edited his own write-up to suggest he was the nephew of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and that he ran a charity to provide vaccinations to children in Africa.  A link on the Wikipedia article lead to a PayPal donation page, where visitors were encouraged to “Save the Kids From Poleo [sic]“.

However, using archaic techniques Ellis referred to as “telephoning people”, the Register was able to determine that Van Der Meer is actually a graduate student at the University of Amsterdam, and acts as the Treasurer of an off-campus group known as the “Weedmasters”. When reached for comment, the president of Weedmasters told PTTBT: “Duuuuuuuuuude… your voice is so tiny, it’s like I could squish it under my thumb!”

The Wikipedia Cabal refused an interview for this story, saying only that they “adhere to the strictest levels of professionalism  in the maintenance of Wikipedia, despite allegations to the contrary.”  They also threw doubt on Ms Ellis’ claims by referring us to her write-up, which outlines her history of pedophilia, armed robbery and wire fraud convictions.  Ms Ellis declined to explain the paragraph about her involvement in a sex-change doomsday cult in Guatemala in the 1990s, leading many to believe she is persecuting the Cabal for no reason.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales refused comment on this story, citing “another IRS tip-off I just don’t need”.

“Jeff declined to comment about what may have caused him to be fired,” said Rick Mowton of gossip site Valleywag.com, “I think what’s most telling is that he has declined to comment seven times about the exact same subject.  We, at least, are going to keep asking and see how long he can keep it up.”

Industry watchers say the lack of news on the subject clearly sheds light on the corrupt business practices at play, which they suspect (but cannot confirm) is largely to blame for nearly all 10-point game reviews from major publications, except when the games reviewed are actually good.  Sometimes.

PTTBT will continue to cover this story, and bring you immediate word when Gerstmann provides another quote that says very little.

“While we really enjoyed Stardust this summer, it does not excuse Mr Gaiman from his sorted past as one of the world’s worst polluting artists,” said Rainbow Damacy, spokeswoman for Greenpeace at an overly-large rally in San Francisco.  “If you look at this chart, you will see that he regularly employs highly toxic chemicals like determol tatamane, bi-chloric substrata and even butanic ratatolic dioximine.  And that’s just before breakfast.”

Critics argue that the list, which also includes such names as  James Blunt, Dorothy Parker and Michael Bay, has no basis in reality, and is merely a publicity stunt to garner headlines for the once-powerful activist group.

“I mean honestly, I don’t think Michael Bay can be considered an artist,” said Jeff Rubin of analyst firm Rubin & Dooby.  “And Dorothy Parker’s not even alive anymore.  I think they’re just trying to make a press release with as many famous people as they can think up.  If it were real, why aren’t Oasis on there?  They cause brain cancer after only two songs.”

Greenpeace denied the accusation, telling PTTBT in an email that “the science behind the list is irrefutable”, and is based on a stringent process of research and verification.

“First, we write an email that starts off ‘DEAR SCUMBAG POLLUTER’,” said a source inside Greenpeace who declined to be named, “And we demand they turn over all records of deadly chemicals they use in their day-to-day life.  And like, if they don’t reply within two days, we make up a list of all the things they might be using… cause, y’know, if they’re not telling us, it must be bad, right?  And then we put out a press release and see what they admit to.  Some of those lists can get really scary, man.  Especially if the veggie burgers in the conference room are stale.”

Environmental experts question the validity of the science behind the study, suggesting that perhaps “bi-dingolust triphate tetraoxi-dillidootyphol” is not a real chemical at all.  But a Greenpeace spokesman strongly disagreed, saying: “Have you read Anansi Boys?  I think it’s pretty obvious there was some kind of chemical influence there.  And I want to know what it was.  For… uh… science.”

“We have mounting evidence that suggests that Mr Morris asked a cable installer to remove his dog’s kidney last summer,” said ADA Benjamin Islo at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. “The Comcast employee is cooperating with police and has surrendered his cable stripper, staple gun and twelve ethernet cords for forensic testing.”

While prosecutors declined to comment on the specifics of the case, a source inside the LAPD told PTTBT multiple witnesses are prepared to testify that they heard Morris complaining for weeks that “his dog was sick, and he didn’t know who to hire“, culminating in a shocking August afternoon that reportedly left a FedEx deliveryman and two maids into intensive psychotherapy, as the 68-year-old roamed the neighbourhood with a pair of hedge clippers, looking for someone to “do the deed”.

Morris’ attorneys were on the attack late Tuesday, defending their client against the “baseless accusations”.

“The truth of the matter is, my client didn’t know who to hire,” said Gabriel Mitz of the firm Mitz, Gilo and Moosepaw, “He wouldn’t be able to recognize a good animal-operating-individual if he saw one. Any insipid fool with a good bullshit story could have gotten past him… and tragically, in this case, one did.”

When asked why Morris did not simply visit a reputable vet to perform the surgery, Mitz replied: “Well sure, in retrospect that makes more sense. But he was in the thick of something new and unpredictable, and short of suing his local pet hospital, he did the best he could. Incidentally, he’s also suing his local pet hospital. College students are killing animals, I tell you.”

Morris’ dog has been placed with a foster family, and is expected to make a full recovery, although doctors expect his bittorrent speeds may be irreparably capped.

“What, I’m not good enough for you anymore?” read an entry posted early this morning. “And after all those nights wasted listening to you whining on about ‘Why don’t people like me? Why do they hate me?’ Bah! Next time you ask for anything, I’m gonna go all 28 Days Later on your ass! Rotten little pissant.”

The attack comes after public reports that, in a BBC One program to air December 2, Blair said he feared talking about his faith publicly would result in the British public thinking he was a “nutter”.

“The ironic thing is, most people thought he was a nutter anyway,” said Sir Alistair Grimwald of Oxford’s School of Political Science. “If he’d come out and said it had something to do with God, I think we all would have slept better at night. We’ve had religious quacks in Britain for centuries, and we’ve had great practice shipping them off to America.”

Still, Blair insists that it was crucial for him to keep his affair with God secret while in office, claiming the public was by and large too stupid to understand that personal values and public policy need not intersect. In the BBC interview he said he feared the blithering ignorant masses would think he would “commune with the man upstairs [God] and then come back and say ‘Right, I’ve been told the answer and that’s it’.”

“In reality, the Prime Minister chose to commune with the man in Washington, and then come back and say ‘Right, I’ve been told the answer and that’s it’,” said Pattison Lewis, former assistant to Blair. “God did not factor into it one bit. Not directly anyway.”

For His part, God acknowledges that Blair very seldom took his advice to heart.

“It’s true, Tony never really listened to me,” read a second blog entry later Sunday morning. “I mean, I did warn him not to get into that Iraq mess, so maybe it’s best he didn’t throw my name about, else I’d look like a nutter too.”

“Josh Lexington has betrayed our trust, and the trust of our reader(s),” said Editor-in-Chief Richard Malcolm in a prepared statement Tuesday morning.  “I sincerely apologize for his actions, and pledge to you that if it were legally possible, I would have his fingers removed from his hands and surgically implanted onto his forehead.”

The scandal surrounds a post Lexington made Monday night, entitled “The Long Tail of Sexy“.  According to emails intercepted by PTTBT, it appears that the post was written at the behest of a service called WhoreWholePosts, which pays bloggers to promote services as if they really care.  In the “Sexy” post, it was not clear who the “client” was, but sources suggest Wired magazine’s Chris Anderson may be trying to instigate a Christmas rush for his book, which itself has fallen into the Long Tail of brainfarts.

“We have an aura of authority about us,” said Malcolm explained, when asked about the move.  “People expect that when they read an article on our site, nobody profits from it but me.  If the writers were actually paid for their work, you’d have to wonder if what they were rambling on about was true.”

For his part, Lexington was not taking the termination lightly.  He filed a lawsuit in Omaha Superior Court, claiming unlawful termination and asked for $1.6M in unpaid salary over the past 90 days.  Other employees of PTTBT suggest he might also want to “pick up his anti-psychotic meds, because they seem to be wearing off.  Dumbass.”

A replacement for Lexington is expected to be named in the next 48 hours, who Malcolm expects will easily exceed the ability and style of his predecessor: “We just need to find a big enough pool of blind, retarded chimpanzees to choose from, and we’re golden.”

This has been a test of the Emergency Lack-of-Ron-Paul-Stories-on-Digg System. In the event of a real lack of Digg stories involving Ron Paul, fire and brimstone would shower from the sky, the seas would turn to Drano, and your firstborns would sprout bat wings and devour small kittens.

Please bookmark this page for use when the Giuliani campaign buys the Republican nomination. It will help keep you warm at night.

Overall, this book is a breezy read, perfect for distracted moments while working tech support, or listening to your CEO explain downsizing to the troops. There is a strong narrative flow to the collection of stories, but each one stands on its own, so you don’t need to worry about reading the book out-of-sequence, like I did. In fact, I found that if you roll some D&D dice to help you choose your next chapter, it gives the book a very interactive feel.

And therein lies the biggest problem with “The Happiest Days of Our Lives“: Wheaton’s style is conversational, like an effortless monologue, and those familiar with his blog will see moments where, online, he would have hyperlinked a word or phrase. I found myself trying to poke those words with my finger to get more context, but to no avail. (side note: do not read the book while eating KFC)

The first story I read was “Let Go – A Requiem for Felix the Bear“, which is a gut-wrenching story about a stray cat Wheaton found one day, grew to love, and had to watch die from kidney disease. Having had many pets pass away over the years, snatches of the text were so familiar I felt compelled to down two glasses of scotch to preemptively drown out the sorrow I was about to feel. This story alone was worth the price of admission, for the pure cathartic effect it had. To accompany someone else on what is normally an agonizing personal journey is humbling… and yet…

If this was one of the happiest days of his life, what were the bad ones like?

Luckily, the other chapters were much more up-beat and optimistic. One recurring theme was the fact that Wheaton loves his step kids, and tells them so very often. I have never before felt like such an emotional recluse as I did at the end of this book. I have started saying “I love you” to strangers on the street, just to make up for lost time. I love you, readers. I love you so much.

The most confusing element of the book was the final chapter, “Lying in Odessa“, about a Hollywood underground poker game. Although the story was vivid and the characters well-drawn, I don’t play poker, so I fear a key part of the story was lost on me. If anyone out there knows: did he actually win the deed to Universal Studios, or am I misreading?

All in all, “The Happiest Days of Our Lives” is an excellent book and required reading for geeks the world over. And more than that, it should help to illustrate to non-geeks that those of us who have Star Wars figurines on our bookcases are not just freaks of nature, destined to die alone in the misery of a dimly-lit hell. Some of us write books, too.

You can buy “The Happiest Days of Our Lives” from Monolith Press by clicking here.

However, the move is not simply kindness on Disney’s part: last month, a 37-year-old woman from Kentucky burst out of the car she was riding and fell on the tracks because she was “too large to stay inside”, according to a Disneyland spokesman. The woman herself was not harmed, but a group of Japanese tourists (who didn’t realize Tokyo Disneyland is actually more fun) were thrown into the attraction after their car collided with the Kentuckian, with 75-year-old Kazei Takamori being impaled on a Dutch windmill. Shortly thereafter, the ride was closed.

Initially, there were calls to ban Japanese citizens from Disneyland, but eventually cooler heads prevailed and plans were put into motion to make each individual car four times as wide and able to hold the weight of two-and-a-half elephants. Guard rails will also be installed along the route to prevent any more accidents, and Canadian donut company Tim Horton’s has been commissioned to provide a TimBit dispenser in the middle of each car, to entice occupants to stay put.

It is not clear what impact the closure will have on Disneyland’s revenue projections, but the American Psychiatric Association expects it will cut suicide rates by at least half in 2008.

Intrepid PTTBT reader AJ Cole writes in with this mind-blowing question:

“I read on Robert Scoble’s blog that PodTech is firing Fake Steve Jobs. I thought that FSJ worked for Forbes. How can the Scobelizer fire someone at a company he’s not associated with?”

Well, AJ, the answer is a bit convoluted, but I think I can piece it together for you.

Firstly, I can confirm that PodTech has fired Fake Steve Jobs, so you will no longer be able to catch his daily podcast “PodTards” on their network (go ahead, check the site, it’s already removed!). FSJ is apparently preparing to sue for the $2.95 in unpaid advertising revenue (but it’s hard to say if PodTech can even afford it).

The real questionis whether Forbes will be pressured by parent company PodTech to follow suit and fire FSJ. Shares of Forbes were down $5.21 on rumours the troubled zine might lose their star (peripheral) contributor, and also dragged down PodTech’s stock from its 52-week high of $0.31 to almost $0.04. Forbes shareholders, who were never very happy at last summer’s hostile takeover by the podcasting “giant”, may balk at this request, despite the ongoing threat by Scoble to shave the heads of any dissenters so they look as silly as Kevin Rose in the photo above.

What is certain is that after PodTech announces its collapse next Tuesday, insiders tell me Robert Scoble and FSJ will team up with tech billionaire Mark Cuban for a traveling interpretive skating revue called “Tards on Ice”, which has been described as “blisteringly funny, and sometimes on purpose”.

Got questions? Send them in and we’ll see what we can dig up. Please note that PTTBT reserves the right to edit, trim or otherwise improve submitted questions.