Thursday, October 24, 2002

AMAZON.COM ADMITS IT SOLD NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Offered Free Shipping to North Korea

Under pressure from U.S. diplomats, Internet retailing giant Amazon.com admitted today that it sold nuclear missiles and other weapons of mass destruction in an effort to prop up its sagging bottom line.

While it had been widely known that Amazon had branched out into such non-book items as automobiles and patio furniture in recent years, the revelation that it was selling nuclear weapons still came as something of a shock.

The United States made the discovery about Amazon's foray into international weapons dealing almost by accident, sources say.

A U.S. diplomat attempting to buy "Dance Upon The Air," a book by best-selling author Nora Roberts, noticed under the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" section the ominous phrase "Fissionable Nuclear Material."

Clicking on that link, the official soon found an entire section of the Amazon site devoted to weapons of mass destruction, including a "Favorites" list authored by Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein.

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, admitted late this afternoon that Amazon had indeed been selling weapons of mass destruction to various rogue states in order to offset losses from disappointing sales of the new Rod Stewart CD.

Mr. Bezos acknowledged that his company had even offered free shipping in order to induce North Korea to buy a nuclear weapons system from Amazon, and a "two for one" discount if they added a biological weapons plant to their order, but he promised that such practices would be discontinued.

"From now on, if rogue states want to buy weapons of mass destruction, they're going to have to go on eBay," Mr. Bezos said.