Looks like April Fools but aren't

Wikipedia's "In The News" for April 1st looks like it's nothing but April Fools pranks, but in fact all the stories are true -- despite Faux News' usual quality reporting:

Every item on the home page of the user-generated site Wikipedia is fake. The featured article is about the "Museum of Bad Art" in Boston. The headlines include such stories as NASA monitoring diamonds falling from the sky and the Irish prime minister streaking in public — both of which barely stretch real recent news events.

In fact every one of those is a legitimate, real news story. The April's Fools prank was to fool people into thinking the stories were pranks:

• Ireland's Taoiseach [President], Brian Cowen... is seen publicly naked in Dublin, following months of economic uncertainty.


• NASA reports a shower of diamonds from the sky.


• German scientists unearth a row of suckers belonging to an ancient order.


• A revolutionary new online tanning service receives one million hits within two months of being established.


• Henry Allingham of the United Kingdom credits cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women for his seemingly impossible longevity.


• A newspaper discovers that pay-per-view porn is amongst a number of unusual things being purchased by British MPs on their claimed expenses.


• The merging of Hartford and New Orleans is found to have severe environmental consequences.

For those who don't know their US geography, Hartford, Connecticut is about 1424 miles away from New Orleans, Louisiana.

The real stories:

The nekkid Taoiseach: an artist snuck naked portraits of Brian Cowen into two of Ireland's most prestigious art galleries.

The NASA shower of diamonds: a meteor that exploded over the Sudan included nano-diamonds in the fragments remaining.

Row of suckers: the discoveries of three ancient extinct octopus species.

Online tanning service: a viral PR campaign to alert people of the dangerous of tanning salons.

Cigarettes 'n' whisky: Britain's oldest man, and the oldest surviving World War One veteran, really did credit his longevity on cigarettes, whiskey, wild women... and a good sense of humour.

Politician claiming pr0n expenses: Come on now, are you really surprised?

And the merger of Hartford and New Orleans actually refers to the collision of two ships.

Wikipedia's "On this day" for 1st of April are amusing too. Go check them out here.