Detroit, August 19, 2009 -- Automotive giants Ford Motor Company (F) and General Motors (GM) galvanized American stock markets early this afternoon with nearly simultaneous hostile bids to acquire each other.

Ford was out first, issuing a bid to buy all outstanding shares of GM for $40 a share, a 30% premium on Friday's closing price. Mere seconds later, GM announced a bid to acquire Ford for $9 a share, a 35% premium. Shares in both industrial giants skyrocketed during the subsequent buying frenzy.

Washington, D.C., May 19, 2008 -- In a bi-partisan, largely symbolic gesture intended to draw attention to the faltering US economy and its impact on the vanishing middle class, Congress agreed today to no longer provide free booze at government-sponsored events. The BYOB agreement is expected to save American taxpayers up to $291 million annually.

Washington, D.C., April 12, 2006 -- A controversial law passed yesterday by the Republican-dominated U.S. House of Representatives will give gun manufacturers the right to sue both perpetrators and victims of shootings for "defamatory product misuse". This new measure follows on the heels of a new "blank slate" law passed in 2005 absolving gun manufacturers of any legal liability in the event that their products, no matter how small, powerful, or easily concealed, obtained or abused, are used in the perpetration of violent crimes.

Wichita, KS, January 16, 2047 -- In an exclusive interview with the award-winning Daily Mumbler of Wichita, Kansas, Former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke feelingly of his dream of "a return to the oil-based economy."

Interviewed at his home in suburban Wichita, the 106-year-old retired oil services company executive and former statesman discussed at length his feeling that the world had made "a wrong turn" in rejecting fossil fuels in favor of non-polluting, renewable energy resources. At times, his tone was wistful, at others vehement.