News Flash

Global Crisis Precipitated by Picture of Homemade Bread:

A blogger has unwittingly caused a crisis of immense proportions by posting pictures of his mother's homemade bread on his blog.

Problems started when a certain P.B. N'Jamer happened upon the posting as he was perusing all blogs containing the hit-word "and." "A funny thing happened when I saw that picture," says N'Jamer -- "I suddenly became extremely -- ferociously --hungry!" N'Jamer continued to say "It was weird, because I'm like, totally not an obsessive personality at all!"

N'Jamer immediately signed in to his online weight-watchers support group to see if he could get any help. The only other person in the chatroom was a UN official who agreed to correspond with us on condition of anonymity. N'Jamer related the incident in a flood of emoticons to his new-found friend (whom we will call The Patriot), who asked for a link to the blog out of curiosity. The Patriot (who was in the middle of drafting a notice of impending belligerence to North Korea should they continue in their belligerence) was so struck with the symmetry and symbolism of the bread that his missive suddenly became irrevocably encrusted in breaded metaphors and panache.

The Patriot traveled to the nearest healthfood store to buy some 19-grain bread, and munched happily as he pounded out the last syllables of notice on his iPhone.

" ... and from these burning sanctions (which we can deliver in less time than it takes to bake a loaf of fine european artisan bread) your economy will suddenly shrink like fluff of white bread in the hand of a powerful european artisan baker. From this bad batch there would be no rising. Sincerely, ____________. P.S. Check this out."

When Hyung Hoo Pah (The Minister of Defense) in North Korea received this notice, he immediately rearranged the entire defense budget. Hoo Pah declined to comment when we attempted to contact him for the details, but it is now clear from satellite images that 97.6% of North Korea's nuclear budget has been rerouted to the making of artisan breads.

"This reflects a dangerous shift in the mentality of them North Koreans" warns defense secretary Ram Punckle of the United States. "We think this could be the ushering in of an era of bread war" says Punckle. Massive rearrangements in defense strategy appear to be happening on an international level. "It's called a tumble-loaf effect" says senior analyst Bertrand ('Bump') ThCurve of International Bread Management (IBM) Inc. "We saw it happen in 124 B.C. when Mithridates II succeeds Artabanus as king of Parthia... I mean, this stuff is happening all the time!"

It is a crisis of almost unconceivable magnitude, but for the man it started with, things have been looking up. P.B. N'Jamer's wife reports that he has been talking a blue streak about "some eastern oriental concept of perfection ... something Shangri --- Shangri --- Shangri-loaf I think. Anyways, I've never seen him so blissfully happy!"

-- Reported by Hohn E. Jelliott -- Harpswell, ME.