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Open the Google search page in Internet Explorer, type in "weapons of mass destruction" and hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, the one that takes you to the most-visited site containing the search phrase.
Dang. It's that stupid error message that pops up 20 times day: "The page cannot be displayed."
Look again.
One of the hottest pages on the Web is a sly splicing of Internet humor and political satire.
It looks just like the standard error page, but under the heading "These Weapons of Mass Destruction cannot be displayed," it advises:
Click the Regime change button, or try again later.
If you are George Bush and typed the country's name in the address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly. (IRAQ). . . .
If the Security Council has enabled it, the United States of America can examine your country and automatically discover Weapons of Mass Destruction. . . .
If you are an Old European Country trying to protect your interests, make sure your options are left wide open as long as possible. The page is the creation of Anthony Cox, 34. He is a pharmacist and teacher in Birmingham, England. In February, he says, he was reading a story online about U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq. "Then I went to another page," he says, and the error message came up. The notion of substituting the weapons message was "serendipitous."
Within 45 minutes, Cox had built the joke page. He sent it to friends on a mailing list, got good feedback and sent it to a newsgroup.
From there, he says, "It just sort of splurged out." The site has gotten about 2-million hits per day in recent weeks. Last week, Cox received about 260 e-mails about the page in three days. "Most of them say thanks, it made me laugh," he says.
"A lot of them are from America, from Democrats and Republicans. They thought it was funny."
Cox is gratified. "It's meant as a joke. It wasn't really a political thing." He says he did not oppose the war.
The success of the page was a matter of timing and "pure chance," he says. He's enjoying it while he can, "using up my 15 minutes of fame."
"They might find weapons next month."