Minneapolis, MN – On Tuesday, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak announced plans for the city-wide expansion of an innovative and wildly successful method for identifying and branding Minneapolis’ most notorious and elusive urban douchebags.

Implemented by Rybak and Minneapolis city council members in June 2009 amidst widely voiced criticism, the Douchebag Indentification System (DIS) was the first program in the nation to use strategically placed bicycle kiosks to attract, tag and track previously unidentified douchebags.

Over 300 of the oddly shaped, brightly colored bicycles, referred to as “Spazzers,” were strategically placed throughout downtown Minneapolis and made available for a nominal fee to anyone willing to risk being seen riding one. Offending douchebags were then tracked by DIS enforcement officers, apprehended, tagged, and released back into the general public.

Two years after the first Spazzer was rented by visiting tourist Candace Lowry, Minneapolis believes it has finally found a cost-effective method for keeping its ever-increasing population of douchebags in check.

“For the past ten years, the city of Minneapolis has ranked in the top three in the nation in number of unreported douchebags per capita,” said Rybak at Tuesday’s press conference. “Hell, between the hipsters in NE Minneapolis and the Jersey Shore wannabees in Uptown, it was only a matter of time before we led the nation. There was simply no way we could allow this trend of douchery to continue without seeing a significant impact on our city’s tourism industry.”

Recently released program statistics indicate that the DIS has identified 23,194 unique douchebags since the program’s inception, with offenders ranging from Level 1 douchebags (saying “fudge” instead of “fuck,” riding in single-file line with others, wearing goofy-ass smile while riding) to Level 6 (bike helmet, dress pants tucked into socks, Birkenstocks, neon vest). Of that number, nearly 70 percent were identified after January 1, 2011, indicating a recent rise in the program’s effectiveness following a less-than-stellar first year.

“I think what you saw in the early days of the program was suspect paranoia about the program by the majority of our douchebag population,” said DIS program-creator Larry Musselman. “You’d see some very obvious stooges approaching the bike kiosks, reading the instructions, and then cautiously backing away like a suspicious deer. Through patience and repeated exposure, however, we were eventually able to lure and capture some of the biggest douchebags ever seen in the contiguous United States.”

Until recently, media reports had suggested that the program’s proposed expansion would meet stiff resistance from the state’s most vociferous bicycling advocates. But while the vast majority of the bicycling community were opposed the DIS program upon its approval and implementation in the summer of 2009, many prominent bicycling figures have recently gone on record to express just how impressed they are by the program’s astounding results.

“I think it’s unfortunate that this program unfairly associates bicycling in any way to this group of supreme dinks,” said Lawrence Turnstall, president of Bicycles Are Really Fun (BARF). “But at the end of the day, if it helps authorities more easily identify and track the true douchebags in our community, I guess the end-result far outweighs any negative press real bicyclists receive.”

In related news, Minneapolis-based attorney David Axelrod, who has agreed to represent several of the identified douchebags on a pro bono basis, has filed a lawsuit against the City of Minneapolis seeking damages of 13.5 bazillion dollars. Among the various claims detailed in the suit is the assertion that city officials eventually plan to use the information obtained through the DIS as a way to selectively eradicate the entire douchebag population throughout the state.

“If you take the bikes out of the equation, this is exactly how it all started in Nazi Germany,” said Axelrod. “First, the government tells you they just want to find a way to easily identify a certain group of people. Next thing you know, they’re sending them all off to extermination camps. Even the lamest members of today’s society deserve better than what happened to the Jews.”

As of this report, city street crews were installing a new DIS kiosk in Axelrod’s driveway.