Kiribati, Nauru fight over East Pole

Mirroring events 90 degrees further north and 100 degrees down the temperature scale, Nauru and Kiribati have gone to war over the East Pole. So far, over 100,000 virtual soldiers have died, as the war is being fought on X-box until the lilliputian governments can find enough spears to arm real warriors.

Nauru, with a 90 percent unemployment rate and the remaining ten percent employed by the government (of Australia), is considered to be superior fodder for a belligerent fascist state. The island suffered a serious setback, however, when their one operating diesel generator went down, deleting 10,000 orcs, 937 elves, 316 dwarves, and 19 dragons.

The East Pole, previously unknown to mapmakers, is located at 0 degrees north, 180 degrees east. Due to an oddity in map design, the West Pole, at 0 degrees north, 180 degrees west is right on top of it. Amelia Earhardt got lost trying to find it (it had fallen over and was not well marked). The Nauru slogan for the pole is "where east meets west", while the competing Kiribati tagline runs "where west meets east".

Both islands expect it to be a major tourist attraction. The Kiribati Tourism Minister explained while mixing drinks at the island bar: "The East Pole is much warmer and easier to get to than the other poles. Also, you don't have to worry about getting eaten by a polar bear, since we've hunted them all to extinction at our pole." (though he spoke Gilbertese, we have an associate named Gilbert who was able to translate, giving us this exclusive interview) Kiribati has floated the idea of installing a tetherball court around the pole. It is rumored that Santa Claus has his summer home there.

Nauru has taken a serious interest in the tourist dollars the pole might generate, as their national industries of money laundering and tax evasion have proved unlucrative in the wake of accounting reforms. The island, which is made out of phosphate rock, used to sell itself to chicken ranchers (other than Arby's, which does not use phosphates), but was forced to stop when the UN threatened to revoke their status as a country if they got any smaller.

"We're tired of all these pipsqueak islands calling themselves 'countries' taking up seats in our general assembly," UN General Kofi Annan warned, before Bush fired him.

The primary industry in Kiribati is moving the international date line around. By continually switching the dateline from east to west, the Kiribati token scientist believed he could stop time and prevent aging, which might attract retirees and supermodels. Unfortunately, the state computer was hooked to the internet, and Windows continued advancing their time, foiling the scheme. As Microsoft pointed out: "if time stopped, everything would happen all at once, and Windows isn't good at multi-tasking." Moving the dateline did put the islands in the first time zone to see 2000. Millions flocked to the atolls to be the first to see the end of the world - some were disappointed. A few returned in 2001 to see the end of the millennium as well.

The event reminded some people of the ongoing war between Canada and Denmark, which has also dominated headlines in the A22 section of the New York Times, which no one reads. Canada and Denmark have both lay claim to the North Pole, and have taken turns tearing each others' flags down in a sophisticated show of adult diplomacy. Stepping into the fray, Dick Cheney recently warned Canadian Lutheran Minister Steven Harper: "Steve, Denmark is 1/100 th of your size. If you embarrass us by losing this war, we're going to kick you out of NAFTA. In fact, we are going to kick you out of North America, and you'll have to join Europe and the other sissies." Canada responded by launching their entire nuclear arsenal at the tiny peninsula, and Denmark retaliated with the same. The effect of the strikes, however, will not be determined until nuclear proliferation spreads that far north.