MACAO– Social Tsar T. Argyle Funston-Nakamoto announced today that a key goal of the social resources Surge, a meet­ing with screen star­let Scar­lett Johans­son by Valen­tines Day 2008, has been “per­ma­nently postponed.”

Tsar Funston-Nakamoto acknowl­edged that news reports of Miss Johansson’s immi­nent engage­ment to “some guy” may have “played a role” in the change of course, but he refused to elaborate.

Address­ing human­i­tar­ian fanciers, jour­nal­ists, and inter­na­tional dig­ni­taries at Three Broth­ers Golden Lotus Hap­pi­ness Flower Palace Casino, Tsar Funston-Nakamoto also announced a new goal for the Surge as it con­tin­ues unabated into 2008. “I project Sir E. D. W. Lynch will buy a latte for under-appreciated ambi-racial screen siren Shan­nyn Sos­so­man by Sir E. D. W.‘s birth­day, May 3rd, 2008.” He went on to list some notable details about the actress, includ­ing that fact that she is of “Dutch, Fil­ipino, French, Ger­man, Hawai­ian, and Irish descent,” and also that she “once wres­tled an escaped lion to the ground in Prague.”

DUBAI– Today Social Resources Tsar T. Argyle Funston-Nakamoto responded to rumors in the inter­na­tional news media that the E. D. W. Lynch Pre­ferred Rhom­bus™ mem­ber pro­gram is being audited by out­side con­sul­tancy Watkins & Fox.

“The Office of E. D. W. Lynch has indeed con­tracted Watkins & Fox to review var­i­ous aspects of the social resources surge. But let me be totally clear: under no cir­cum­stances do we ever make our Pre­ferred Rhom­bus™ mem­ber infor­ma­tion avail­able to any out­side par­ties,” said T. Argyle dur­ing the press con­fer­ence at the Most Benign and Esteemed Sultan’s Plea­sure Palace Hotel Six Star Resort on Palm Tree Islands in Dubai. “It would fur­ther­more be irre­spon­si­ble to imply that there’s any­thing wrong with the Pre­ferred Rhom­bus™ sys­tem or any Pre­ferred Rhom­bus™ mem­bers. We’re extremely proud of the high cal­iber of our mem­bers and we will vig­or­ously defend any wildly inac­cu­rate accu­sa­tion or spec­u­la­tion regard­ing their char­ac­ter or their alle­giance to E. D. W. Lynch and the val­ues he represents.”

This state­ment comes amidst reports in the Euro­pean tabloid press, attrib­uted to “inside sources,” that E. D. W.’s vaunted mem­ber appre­ci­a­tion pro­gram has dropped its qual­ity stan­dards in order to “make the num­bers” laid out by the social resources surge.

“Those so called insider reports are ridicu­lous,” insists T. Argyle. “Our eval­u­a­tion process and our inter­nal review sys­tem is con­stantly evolv­ing to meet our needs.” Asked to elab­o­rate, the Social Resources Tsar replied, “If you’re ask­ing me to reveal our meth­ods or inter­nal pro­ce­dures, well, I’m just not going to do that. There is absolutely an ‘E. D. W. Lynch Dif­fer­ence,’ and I would love right now to explain our process to you, but that infor­ma­tion is a trade secret.”

T. Argyle closed by say­ing, “I’m deeply pleased with the ongo­ing progress of the social resources surge. Every­one at E. D. W. Lynch is focused on the surge and we sim­ply have no fur­ther time to dis­cuss these base­less rumors.“

E. D. W. Lynch is proud to announce a bold new era in our world-renowned mem­ber appre­ci­a­tion pro­gram, Pre­ferred Rhom­bus. We’ve heard lots of mem­ber feed­back along the lines of “I get jeal­ous if some­one even looks at my mem­ber ben­e­fits, but could you make them, I dunno, ‘pop’ a bit more?”

The answer, after sev­eral months of eth­i­cally ambigu­ous user test­ing, is yes! We’ve stream­lined, under­lined, accen­tu­ated, and oth­er­wise pizazzed your mem­ber ben­e­fits to a bold new level. We expect some of you will expe­ri­ence jelly-knees, silly-hands, and other symp­toms of ben­e­fits shock. Don’t worry, those symp­toms will pass. In no time at all, you’ll be bask­ing in our unbe­liev­ably bold new ben­e­fits, won­der­ing how you even got up in the morn­ing with­out them.