Wired News: Laughs Key to Terror Survival Kit
If satire posed a risk to national security, online spoofs of a new government duck-and-cover website might have the United States on extreme threat level red.

The government site Ready.gov is intended to help prepare civilians for the terrorist blowback that may come when the United States invades Iraq. The site, developed in February by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the Homeland Security Department, is filled with illustrated guides for surviving the seemingly unsurvivable.

But political satirists on the Web are doing the most thorough send-ups of the government site. High school student Adam Hallett is replacing captions for Ready.gov's hokey illustrations with some of his own at The U.S. Department of Laughs. http://www.titaniumcounter.com/temp/emergency

"A 1-inch-thick piece of plywood should be sufficient protection against radiation," reads an alternative caption to one illustration depicting a barrier against a radioactive source. Hallett claims to have received 150,000 hits at his site since he launched it this week.

Online parodists say they're prompted by the weakness of the government's counsel to a frightened country.

"I was totally amazed that (Ready.gov) was supposed to make us feel better," said Ryan Gialames, a recent graduate of the California University of Pennsylvania who hosts TerrorReady.net. Gialames is shooting for something more Swiftian than the Michael Jackson jokes he's seen at other sites. In a section of TerrorReady titled "What to do with Duct Tape and Plastic Sheets," Gialames advises using the materials to roll up dead relatives and to store their bodies in the basement "until authorities can pick them up."

Gialames' site has had 82,000 hits since he launched it on Feb. 22. He credits weblogs and a mention at the AdBusters site for getting the word out.
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