Washington, D.C., February 12, 2008 -- An unusually somber and introspective President George W. Bush, presenting the details of his $3.1 trillion fiscal year 2009 budget proposal for members of the American Plutocrats Union, a conservative group, lamented that the budget proposal represents his “last chance to shaft the poor.”

He urged the assembled audience to do “everything in their powers” to convince their elected representatives that the budget proposal represented an historic opportunity that may not return for a decade or more.

Washington, D.C., January 7, 2006 -- Legendary lobbyist and indicted political connections broker Jack Abramoff has been "renditioned" by an undisclosed agency of the United States government and is currently being held in an unknown location for "interrogation, I suppose, or whatever else we can think of do with him until some of the heat is off, or the 2006 midterm elections, whichever comes first", according to an agent of the CIA who requested anonymity.

Washington, D.C., June 19, 2006 -- Citing an improving security situation in key Iraqi provinces, U.S. military commanders say they have begun the long-promised task of reducing the American troop presence in Iraq, beginning with a reduction to about 163,000 from the current 138,000 scheduled over the next six months.

Paris, February 11, 2008 -- Jerome Kerviel, the so-called "rogue trader" whose actions resulted in a staggering $7.2 billion loss last month for French bank Societe Generale, simply got his millions and his billions confused, according to a French police officer who asked not to be identified.