Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has issued an order completely banning the Internet. The South American dictator issued the edict after discovering several embarrassing photos of himself on a user’s Facebook page while surfing porn last week. Chavez would not reveal the nature of the offending images other than to state that he had “completely forgotten” about the boozy birthday party thrown for him last year featuring the two cheerleaders and the donkey.

“This Internet thing constitutes an illegal act, and I want it to just go away,” exclaimed an agitated Chavez in a telephone interview with actor Sean Penn. “It assails our sovereignty, it corrupts our way of life and could even lead to a coup d’etat. That is unacceptable, and it makes me mad!”

Chavez also characterized Twitter as a “tool of terror,” claiming that any communication service that sends 140-character messages could only be “an instrument of espionage and destruction.”

In response to criticism over his attempt at censorship, Chavez cited several unflattering discussion threads on Fark that, in his words, “could be a prelude to assassination.”

“I am personally pulling the plug first thing tomorrow morning…mark my words,” added the defiant Chavez. “Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be certain.”

1950s CIA bread experiment fuels French freakout. A mysterious “poisoning” of French villagers nearly 60 years ago has now been solved after a journalist recently uncovered evidence proving that the CIA had spiked loaves of bread with LSD in a twisted Cold War mind-control experiment. In 1951, many residents of the tiny village of Pont-Saint-Espirit suffered hallucinations after eating the baguettes, leading investigators to believe the bread had been contaminated with some hallucinogenic fungus. Officials in France are now relieved to learn it was merely due to yet another routine CIA experiment. Said one resident who was stricken with the tainted bread: “It’s nice to know that snakes really didn’t try to eat my brains that day!”

TSA worker tries to sabotage terror database. Douglas James Duchak, 46, a now-former Transportation Security Administration worker in Colorado, was charged with attempting to hack into a government network to plant computer viruses. Investigators are trying to determine which is more shocking: that a TSA drone had the audacity to commit such an act, or that he had the intelligence to do so in the first place.

Pope’s brother gets slap-happy with choir boys. Georg Ratzinger, brother of Joseph Ratzinger (aka Pope Benedict XVI), led a German boys choir in Munich back in the 1980s, frequently dispensing a good bitch-slappin’ to any kid who got out of line. The Pope’s brother justified his actions at the time, but says that at age 86 he no longer doles out whup-ass on children, preferring instead to quietly crap his Depends  and yell “get off my lawn!” whenever he sees misbehaving youth.

This week’s edition of NFTS was compiled by Tina, who unflinchingly carries out her writing duties here at Alligators In The Sewer, despite the littered mess of empty beer bottles, unemptied trash bins, broken heating system, hostile work environment and proliferation of cockroaches.

Prince Ike Ubandi would like to set the record straight: he is very much alive and is most definitely not giving away 125 million dollars on the Internet. The 31-year-old Ubandi, the great-great-great grandson of Ajaka Ubandi, a prominent 19th Century sultan and mine-owner, has no plans to part with any of his holdings, estimated to be worth over 900 million.

Nevertheless, billions of emails sent around the world over the past decade have named Ubandi as a benefactor in what is known as the “Nigerian 419″ scam. The 419 hoax is a clever phishing expedition where rogue spammers try to lure gullible recipients into sending a “small fee” - typically a couple thousand dollars - in order to claim the multi-million dollar estate of a deceased Nigerian, a prize that does not exist.

“I do not understand this 419 thing,” said the frustrated Ubandi in a phone interview from his loft in Nairobi. “Why are these people using my good name to steal money from stupid Americans? Why can’t they just do normal things like pickpocketing tourists or looting stores? Leave me out of this - I am getting a bad reputation.”

Indeed, as the scam has become so pervasive the prince can no longer send emails or text messages. No one responds to them.

“It is a shame…I cannot even use the Internet anymore,” complained the prince. “I had to close out my email account and my Twitter page. No one writes back to me. They don’t trust me - they all think I am a crook. The Internet is a lonely place for me.”

Despite Ubandi’s efforts to clear his good name, the scam continues to occur at a massive pace, with floods of emails pouring out of internet cafes across the nation, and no relief in sight.

Whiz-kid shock treatment. Good news: Washington man survives crashing his car into a utility pole. Bad news: he is electrocuted moments later when he decides to relieve himself in the ditch, not noticing the downed power line laying there. Fate sometimes has a second wind.

Former Rep. Mark Foley opens consignment shop. The disgraced Congressman, who resigned last year amid a lurid sex scandal, just opened the West Palm Beach store. The shop, which will primarily feature used furniture and household goods, will not carry books, as the temptation to bend over pages may be too much for him to resist.

Bring-your-kid-to-work day at JFK control tower a smashing success. Last Wednesday marked the third annual event at the air traffic control tower at New York’s busy JFK airport. Over a dozen children of ATC employees enjoyed hands-on experience with radar systems, navigation and communications equipment. One clever lad even required pilots of approaching airliners to solve riddles before being given clearance to land. Said one air traffic controller: “Kids need toys, and those precocious little ones sure bring a nice diversion to our stressful work environment!”

This week’s edition of NFTS was compiled by Norm, who is starting to get pissed off by his court-ordered anger-management therapy.

From those clever Japanese…a fun (and safe) way to give kitty a much-needed bath. In the past, you needed patience (and kevlar armor) to bathe your cat. Not any more. Just pop your furry friend into the machine, drop in a quarter, select “heavy wash” or “permanent press” and hit “start.” The cat even provides its own spin cycle. Bonsai! In minutes, your kitten is clean as a whistle. And plenty pissed. Watch out for the payback cat shit in those house slippers!

Md. lawmaker pushes for ban on first-cousin marriages. In an apparent effort to deepen that state’s gene pool, representative Henry Heller has drafted legislation that would add Maryland to the 24 other states that outlaw marriages between first cousins. In a statement to the press Heller said he wants to bring Maryland “into the enlightened world of other states such as West Virginia and Arkansas” that already have similar bans in place. (They have a sense of humor in Maryland.) Our question in all this: how many 12-toed mutants are running amok in those other 26 states?

La. woman swaps kids for cockatoo and $175 cash. The mother, 52-year-old Donna Louise Greenwell, of Ville Platte, Louisiana, decided that an exotic bird would be less noisy and much easier to clean up after than her two grade school children. Greenwell made the trade with a childless couple, stating “this is a good deal….it’s amazing what you can find on Craigslist” Both parties are quite pleased with their bargains and appear happy. The Internet…what can’t it do?

This week’s edition of NFTS was compiled by Phil, who managed to get his car stuck in a snowdrift last week while stalking a former girlfriend in Ohio. Luckily he has AAA and was able to get pulled out before authorities arrived.

A pool cleaner at Sea World park in Orlando, Florida, was knocked into the water yesterday and viciously attacked by a school of eleven bottle-nosed dolphins. Apparently, the worker was standing along the edge of the water, making dolphin sounds and singing the theme song to the 1960s television show Flipper, when the dominant male of the group suddenly leaped out of the water, knocking the man into the pool. The enraged cetaceans then attacked the man, holding him underwater until he drowned.

Officials at Sea World had no comment, except to state “never mock dolphins. It pisses them off.”

All autotune…all the time…ninety-eight-point-nine W-T-U-N!!! is the new synth-drenched station ID blaring out of car radios all around the Carolinas. The Spartanburg, SC station has become the first in the nation to adopt the novel format, exclusively playing songs embellished with autotune, the robotic vocal processing that is currently all the rage in pop and hip-hop music.

“We’ve tried every conceivable format, to no avail,” lamented Ric Bunsen, program director of the pioneering FM station. “Country, polka, lite rock, even death metal…nothing seemed to give us traction in the ratings around here. But we think autotune songs will be the silver bullet that’ll spike our audience share. It’s what everybody wants now and we’ll give it to ‘em.”

WTUN’s playlist features songs by the likes of T-Pain, Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne and Cher - artists whose heavy use of the pitch-correction effects have distinguished their careers. WTUN management predicts the station will rocket to number one with listeners aged 12 to 24.

So far, area listeners appear to be receptive (pun intended). “I really like the whiny, nasally sound of the singers,” exclaimed a middle school-aged girl at a local mall. Her friend chimed in: “The distortion is, like, cool. I listen to it all day - it gives my mom headaches!”

But competition on the airwaves is fierce in the town of 40,000 and many are skeptical of WTUN’s hoped-for success.

“It’s the flavor-of-the-month,” claimed another local broadcaster. “I don’t see it going anywhere…the music is quite irritating. Last year they tried ’80s drum-machine hits and the year before it was punk country.”

But WTUN staff is confident in its musical direction.

“I guess we’ll have to wait until the next ratings sweep,” added the hopeful Bunsen. “But we think this is gonna be big! In a few months you’ll be hearing this in the majors, mark my words!”

A cute little device that’s sure to prompt the TSA to start banning wallets on airlines, it’s penny-launcher the size of a credit card, capable of hurling a stack of coins across the room, one by one. Norm already ordered one from Cardnetics, which he will put to good use flinging pennies at some of the slackers here at AITS who like to take naps at their desks. Let the fun begin.

Peggy Fleming run over by Biden’s Motorcade at Olympics. Only a few days into the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and already another tragedy occurs. Figure skater and 1968 gold medalist Peggy Fleming suffered compound fractures in both legs when she was accidentally run over by a motorcade carrying the Vice President. Details are sketchy, but witnesses say Fleming was seen trying to skate slaloms between the slow-moving vehicles as a daredevil stunt while the cars were traveling along an icy road just outside of Whistler, B.C. The stunt was being filmed for an upcoming Jackass movie, expected to be released this summer. Apparently Fleming lost her balance and fell beneath the V.P.’s Lincoln Town Car, pinning her legs beneath the wheels. Fleming was taken to a nearby hospital. No word yet on her condition.

Angry teabagger flies plane into IRS building. An anti-tax blogger wrote a six-page diatribe, then took things to the next level by flying his private plane into an Internal Revenue Service building in Texas, killing himself and injuring several people on the ground. Andrew Joe Stack, 53, apparently wanted to become a martyr and hoped his just reward in paradise would be 72 Sarah Palins.

Airline passenger starts fistfight with Mitt Romney. The altercation began as the Air Canada flight, bound from Vancouver to Los Angeles, was about to take off. The former Massachusetts governor was listening to his iPod when the passenger seated in front of him leaned over the back of his seat and began punching him for no apparent reason. Romney then punched the assailant in the jaw several times, knocking him unconscious. The plane returned to the gate where agents removed the man on a stretcher. The flight resumed a little behind schedule, with elated fellow passengers cheering Romney and buying him several drinks (non-alcoholic, of course).

This week’s edition of NFTS was compiled by Norm, who rarely gets hauled off airliners anymore, ever since his doctors bumped up the dosage of his meds.

Amy Bishop, untenured campus rampager. Emo Phillips, unfunny ’80s comedian.

Medical tests like the common colonoscopy may soon go the way of the dinosaur. Thanks to an ingenious invention by a Burnsville, Minnesota man, doctors will soon have a new weapon in their arsenal against gastrointestinal diseases like cancer, acid-reflux and ulcers.

Derick Hollington, a 71-year-old retired welder and sometimes-tinkerer, has created in his garage what may become a genuine breakthrough with a patent-pending invention officially dubbed “Apparatus and Method for Minimally-Invasive Investigation and Analysis of a Human Gastrointestinal System Using a Rope.”

Or as Hollington likes to call it: rectal floss.

I just got to thinking one day last summer while I was cleaning my lawnmower’s carburetor with a pipe-cleaner…hey! why not do the same thing with people and run a big hunk of good, stiff baling twine or rope through ‘em to flush things out?,” said Hollington, sipping a cold Grain Belt at his kitchen table. “Ya just tie a fishing sinker to the end of some hefty string, feed it down the patient’s throat, through the stomach, around the intestines, and out the…um…back end. Then grab the end and pull it all the way through. Doctors can look at what’s on the twine and see what’s going on inside. Just make sure you don’t go the other way, he he!”

Hollington’s creative spark has created significant buzz within the local medical community.

“For a guy who never went to medical school, this is brilliant,” exclaimed Burton Lapinski, a fellow at the proctology department of the University of Minnesota Medical School. “It grabs everything within the digestive tract, dislodges it and pulls it right out, like a core sample from a drilling rig. It makes diagnosis a snap.”

The inventor is confident that after some clinical testing the FDA will approve his rectal floss system for human treatment.

“I already tried it on my dog, just to make sure it works,” added Hollingson. “He won’t come near me now, just hides under the bed…poor thing. The wife wants nothing to do with it either, but maybe I can scare up a volunteer or two from the neighborhood. Just a little more testing, and it should be good to go.”

Hollingson is now trying to market his new rectal floss invention. Interested investors are encouraged to contact his agent at (952) 564-7797 for more information.

Have a happy V-Day, from all your fiends at Alligators In The Sewer!

Wisconsin man pranks his mother by dressing up as robber; hilarity does not ensue. A 21-year-old Milwaukee man thought it would be great fun to don a ski mask and wait for his mother to return home. The gag went awry in a big way when the pistol-packin’ mama pulled out her trusty .357 magnum and shot the “robber” in the groin. The prankster is now recovering in a local hospital. Details are sketchy but what we do know is that the mom shoots real bullets and the son now shoots blanks.

Mall cops in Wisconsin now packing tasers. Yep, more gun goodness from The Land of Cheese and Corn. Private security personnel in malls and other places are now allowed to carry the high-voltage guns and use them on non-compliant shoppers and other malfeasors as they see fit. The specter of high-school-educated knuckleheads with minimal training, a radio, too much testosterone and a 50,000 volt weapon have local plaintiff lawyers licking their chops. We might see some new millionaires soon.

Edwards sex tape a big hit at N.C. courthouse. Last Friday a Superior Court judge in North Carolina ordered that Andrew Young, John Edwards’ former aide, hand over the steamy sex video which features Edwards and his mistress doing some rather…ahem…uncompromising acts. A few days after the court took custody of the tape, three of the judge’s law clerks were discovered in a courthouse anteroom, drinking beer and watching the video. A bailiff became suspicious when he heard raucous laughter and cheers coming from the locked room. No word yet on whether any charges or sanctions will be leveled against the three men.

This week’s edition of NFTS was compiled by Gordy, who is broke most of the time and now rides to and from work each day by hitching rides on the backs of garbage trucks. You would not believe the smell when he walks in the door…

Bon Bon Land. It’s a theme park in Denmark. And its unique theme: scatological references. Yep, a little haven dedicated to bodily functions - dogs farting, birds crapping, various sculptures of anthropomorphic farm animals pissing in pots and vomiting. You get the picture. Oh, and lots of cool rides, too. This amusement park (for whatever amusement they think we would get from it) was obviously conceived by some chemically-dependent individuals. If Beavis and Butthead lived in Europe, this is where they would hang out.

We checked out their website. Bon Bon Land’s slogan: “There is damn funny in Bon Bon Land.” OK, so perhaps the marketing hype loses some meaning in the translation. But we’re convinced. This is the place to go in 2010.

Norm is thinking we really ought to charter a tour over there this summer. We expect this to be even better than the fun-filled trip we had last spring to the Sledgehammer Bomb Festival in Mexico. If the dollar can hold out against the euro and if we should be so lucky as to find a cheap flight to Copenhagen, we might just pull it off. Who needs Disney World or Six Flags when you can do this? Anyone up for the trip?

In just a few weeks, Jay Leno will be retaking his throne on the set of The Tonight Show, ousting the short-lived host, Conan O’Brien. The new Tonight Show will be retracted to only 30 minutes.

But in a move certain to either baffle or amuse television viewers, NBC will be continuing the prime-time Jay Leno variety show by substituting a look-alike personality. As the real Jay Leno (left) resumes his late night (albeit abbreviated) slot later this month, the network has decided to keep the earlier show on the air by using an impostor who bears an uncanny resemblance to the big-chinned funny guy.

“Under Leno’s contract, we couldn’t get him to pull both shows…it just wasn’t feasible,” said a programming executive at NBC. “We wanted to salvage what we could from the old show, so we did a casting call and found this guy who’s an absolute dead-ringer for Leno. And just as funny, I might add! And did I mention this clown…err…clone…works for scale? What do we have to lose? We think we can pull this one off - at least through the next sweeps.”

The impersonator who will be filling Leno’s prime-time shoes, Ronald Arrington (right), an insurance broker and father of three from Huntington Beach, CA, is ecstatic over being selected for the role of stunt-double. “I’m truly amazed…I’m gonna be proud to carry the Leno name,” said Arrington in an interview by phone yesterday. “It’ll be fun!”

While not available for comment, the real Jay Leno did release a brief communique to the press, stating that “he has complete faith in Arrington to live up to the Leno brand, and wishes him well.”

No word yet if Kevin Eubanks and the Tonight Show Band will pull double duty on both shows, though contract negotiations are still ongoing with the musicians.

It’s probably not what Google had in mind when it debuted its first TV spot during the Superb Owl…

It’s been lurking inside the machine for years - since 1993, to be exact. Crawling about, slowly eating its way through cables and insulation, wreaking havoc on the computer and software that the machine processes. And last week, engineers at Microsoft finally discovered it by accident when they noticed a loud vibrating sound emanating from inside one of the powerful computers used to compile software code for Microsoft’s operating systems in development.

“We thought it was just a cooling fan going on the fritz,” said Napoor Rajkumar, a product test engineer. “But we opened up the CPU and found this hideous insect staring right at us and making this buzzing sound…it was the size of my thumb! And it looked really scary with those big bug-eyes! Eeewww!”

The bug, a 17-year cicada, morphed from larval to pupal stage, and finally to an adult insect. It is believed that the insect larva had nibbled through various connector cables and circuit board components over time, causing minute electronic disturbances which in turn, created glitches in Microsoft’s popular operating systems products, from MS-DOS up to their latest, Windows 7.

The compiler, a special program installed on the computer, is a tool used to process raw code into a usable computer program, a critical stage of software development. It is believed the computer somehow became contaminated with cicada eggs back in the early 1990s, which started the drawn-out problems. The machine, purchased in 1992 from a computer manufacturer in Sioux City, Iowa, likely became contaminated with the bugs while being stored in a warehouse facility near farm fields before it was shipped to Microsoft. Cicadas are a common pest in rural areas of the Midwest.

The troubleshooting success has now been a boon to the giant software maker, which has long been plagued with problems in its Windows operating systems. Those problems are now believed to be completely fixed.

“Ha! We now have the culprit of nearly two decades of software bugs…literally!,” exclaimed a senior software engineer at Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington, headquarters. “A quick downloadable patch and voila! Windows - all versions - will become flawless! This will be the last patch, ever! We’re now good to go!”

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer was ecstatic over the news. “Now we can lay these quality problems to rest, once and for all,” exclaimed the MS chief, not one to mince words. “I don’t want to hear anyone bitching from this point forward. If our stuff doesn’t work, it’s all on you!”

News of the fix helped buoy Microsoft’s shares up by $1.32 at the end of trading Friday on NASDAQ, closing at $29.56.