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Who says dying newspapers don’t have a sense of humor?

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The Guardian, England’s most respected progressive publication, announced today that it would be the first newspaper in the world to publish exclusively on Twitter, the hugely popular new social networking service. In an announcement that was fortuitously timed to coincide with April Fool’s Day, the Guardian said that all of its future stories would be tailored to fit the format of Twitter’s brief text messages, known as ‘tweets,’ which are limited to 140 characters each. A spokesman for the paper said a mammoth project was underway to rewrite the newspaper’s entire archives, which date back to 1821, in the form of tweets.

The paper noted that stories already condensed to tweets include ‘OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl,com/b5x6e for more’ as well as ‘JFK assassin8d @Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?’

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Noting that brevity is of the essence, the Guardian’s Twitterized archive includes the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous 1963 ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, which now reads: ‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by,’ which the Guardian explained ‘eliminates the waffle and bluster of the original.’

Actually, the tweet condensation possibilities are endless. If anyone wants to take a crack at it, I’d love to read a ‘tweet’ synopsis of David Fincher’s nearly three-hour ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.’

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