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Shareholders and their lawyers are investigating whether the secret of Steve Jobs' liver transplant is a violation of financial laws, but that question is now drifting into unimagined territory.

"Sure, it seems Jobs' health is a factor in stock price, but where does personal liberty end and required disclosure begin?" asked privacy advocate I.M. Syfer. "Jobs is material, but so is the janitor, to some extent, but nobody's talking about sharing his charts."

The down stock market has meant thousands of unbillable legal hours, so now attorneys are grasping at novel avenues to squeeze value out of clients' holdings. The idea of disclosure of an exective's health even got a boost from Warren Buffett, who said he would be glad to reveal his health condition for shareholders' information. But others point out that not all value comes from the top.

"I'm more interested in the coders and the designers at Apple," said stock analyst Boyle R. Ruhm. "What if one of those guys' kids gets sick, or his mom gets senile, or he has a really aggravating pimple on his ass? That could seriously affect the product and shareholder value. I want to know about all their asses before I put down my money."

In a shocking revelation, the woman with whom South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is having an affair is apparently Che's granddaughter, Lydia Guevara, who gained notoriety of late after posing nude in an advertisement for PETA.

"I apologize to the people of my state, to the Republican Party, to my family and to my God," Sanford said in a press conference after his return from Buenos Aires, "but after I saw her in that bandolero, ay-ay-ay."

The Sanford saga unwound earlier this week after state workers began questioning the governor's whereabouts. At first, his wife said he was off doing some writing, then his staff said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, an excuse that now appears to be a euphemism.

"Yeah, and I used to go see the Canadian ballet, too," said Democratic consultant James Carville. "Looks like now we know what Sanford meant by rejecting stimulus in South Carolina, with all due respect to Mrs. Sanford."

In a related story, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took a leave from trying to dig his state out of its budget hole for a "few days in the Alps," his spokesman said.

After the hype of a Twitter-powered uprising in Iran proved too good to be true, the CIA's In-Q-Tel subdivision has hired Anonymous to provide actual revolutionary hacking to oppressed people's in closed societies.

"If the Iranian movement could really be like the bloggers claim, wouldn't that be a great thing?" said I.M. Shadee, a spokesperson for the mysterious, perhaps apocryphal underground techno-subversive group. "I can haz kabab and a side of ayatollah."

While notoriously slippery, quirky and unstable, Anonymous has the chops for the job, said CIA director Leon Panetta. Their task will be, he said, to provide to Iranians, Chinese, Burmese and Scientologists tools to circumvent firewalls, filters and jack-booted honeypots so they can liberate their insider information.

"The truth will set them free," Panetta said, "or, in this case, Wikipedia may have to suffice."

In support of its message that American health care needs only minor adjustments, the GOP today rolled out a Kansas couple as icons of the status quo.

"The last thing I want is Washington taking over my health care," said Larry Coker, an unemployed farmhand from Russell. "I like my health care just the way it is."

Larry and his wife, Doris, said they've had no trouble seeing a doctor as soon as they need one, which is the way it should be. They get exactly the care they need, any drugs they could want and are treated with the utmost care.

"Just the other day, Larry was complaining of a pain in his neck," Doris said. "So we took him in and boom, they had him poppin' pills like there was no tomorrow."

As Republicans follow a theme against radical health care reform, Larry and Doris fit the bill as poster children of how the system works. Supported by a phalanx of vested interests that want to continue the gravy train of private insurance and medicine, the couple is enjoying fame and notoriety.

"Ya see, Obama wants to change everything around, but we don't need that at all," Larry told a passel of reporters visiting the couple's trailer on the outskirts of town. "Let me show you how good we got it."

Feeling overshadowed by journalist arrests, nuclear flexing and fouled changes of power in Iran and North Korea, the government of Iraq today announced it had detained Dan Rather for "violating secret access" in the vicinity of its "nuclear-energy" facilities, officials said.

"We just want the world to know that we still mean business," said Fred "Dutch" Fenwick, a strategic communications consultant with Onze, now running public affairs for the Iraqis. "We're still part of the axis of evil, too, you know, and we know how to throw a curveball."

Rather was on assignment in Iraq and, says Fenwick, started snooping around some sensitive areas and "asking questions." Iraq's security troops hauled in the now-discredited former host of 60 Minutes and is holding him in an undisclosed location. The U.S. State Department referred questions to Rather's present employer, HDNet, which has not made any statement about seeking his release.

"Frankly, this is a chance for people to actually hear about HDNet," an unnamed spokesperson said. "We were going to hire Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for PR, but no sane person believes what he says."

With soft-drink battles always hot and an also-ran once-cult brand looking to break a new market, 7-Up today announced a novel marketing push in North Korea, what the beverage maker is calling the Un-Country.

"We think we can get huge traction in Asia by playing off the accession of Kim Jong Un as leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," said a 7-Up spokesman. "And if the people of the Hermit Kingdom can't rev up enough demand for our lemony-limey freshness, we'll leverage the campaign in other directions."

The spokesman of the company that once marketed itself as the UnCola said this new push is another way for 7-Up to differentiate itself in this competitive era. While many drink makers are now trying to portray themselves as "healthy" by using real sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup, none has injected itself in a totalitarian dictatorship.

"This breaks new ground in the marketplace," the spokesman said. "And it lets us explore so many unusual opportunities."

Other campaigns will include attaching the brand to the GOP as UnParty, George W Bush as the UnDecider, Silvio Berlusconi as the UnDuce, Willow Palin as the UnMommy, Adam Lambert as the UnIdol, the UN as the Un-United Nations, and to the French Bread Association as Un-Wonder.

In a startling discovery in Afghanistan, US soldiers found a box of documents that appear to Osama bin Laden's autobiography in which he praises the American right for its techniques.

"Everything I learned about jihad came from watching Republicans talk about the Contract With America," the book reads. "The GOP's ability to take people's fear, weakness and powerlessness and channel it into a political movement was a thing of beauty."

Bin Laden writes that Al Qaeda was a simple insurrection against the Soviet Union and would have remained so had he not seen how the American right could take nothing and use it to create a political machine. He said AQ really took off after he saw how to combine ideology, poverty and grievances with back-country ignorance to mobilize a population.

"When you look at it, the poor, southern whites that got Newt Gingrich over the top were actually voting against their own interests," bin Laden writes, "but they'd been whipped into a fervor and made drunk on the anger of their own desperation. It wasn't hard for me to duplicate that with the uneducated, information-starved, superstitious morons in this part of the world."

As Washington hots up for a debate on national health care, the rhetoric is getting heated as legislators seek to instill fear in voters of their opponents' proposals.

"Government is going to interject itself between you and your doctor," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), "and they're going to be telling your doctor what kind of health care they can give you."

Hatch was attacking a draft of a new health-care bill called the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP) bill. The fearsome claims echo those of the "Harry and Louise" ads of the early 1990s attempts to reform health care. Hatch went on:

"I mean, do people really want to have to call some agency and ask them if they're covered for a certain medical procedure? Do they really want somebody sitting at a desk, who might be rewarded for denying coverage, deciding how sick they are? I can tell you, if we proposed a system where some private entity would intercede and decide, based on profits or liability or statistics, how a doctor should treat them, those liberal socialists would be up in arms."

In an odd pairing, Dick Cheney and Osama bin Laden have scheduled a joint press availability this week, saying separately they can't derail President Obama's plans for the country, but perhaps together they can.

"First, I tried doing a speech on torture right after Obama's and it went nowhere," Cheney said in a conference call with party organizers. "Then Osama tried releasing a tape when Obama went to Cairo, and no one paid much attention to that. So this week, with the economy and health care on the front burner, we're going after him together."

While it would seem Cheney, the self-styled terrorist fighter, and bin Laden, the Islamist guerrilla, would seem to be opposites, the former vice president and the reclusive extremist champion say that, when it comes to stopping the Obama agenda, they are quite close.

"The last thing we need is Obama reforming the U.S. economy away from oil," bin Laden said, referring to the administration's renewable energy plans. "Without oil, there's no reason for the U.S. to be in the Middle East, and without that, my funding will dry up in a heartbeat."

In a stunning revelation of citizen journalism, an amateur reporter in Chicago has published a report showing that oil companies are manipulating prices in a scam reminiscent of the 2000 California electricity crisis.

"Intercepted phone conversations show global oil price increases are being actively manipulated by those who stand to profit from them," writes Carson Weillor in his blog My Neighborhood is the World. "Parading as bleeding hearts, company execs are peppering the media with reports of war in Nigeria, instability in Iran and Algeria, the disintegration of order in Mexico and the ravings of Hugo Chavez, all with an eye toward rationalizing spikes in oil prices."

Weillor said the news came to him when his VOIP phone got crossed with a long-distance corporate wifi connection and he found himself able to listen while oil company big whigs talked about plans with names such as "Fat Boy", "Death Star", "Black Widow", "Red Congo", and "Get Shorty." He later put the conversations together with news reports he saw that had an effect on oil prices.

"Every oil story says, 'Prices rose today because … ' but the 'because' is something these guys made up," Weillor said. "Isn't it ironic that there are problems in oil markets just when summer driving season starts?"

After watching Pat Robertson on television talking about how Jesus would feel about big government, Jesus' dad said he'd heard enough and stepped into the discussion to issue his own statement from on high.

God himself took time to interrupt today's Neil Cavuto broadcast on Fox News and said he's tired of people speculating on what his son would do with "what would Jesus do" bumper stickers, so He needed to set the record straight.

"Jesus is a good boy," God said, "but he's just a boy and doesn't always know what he's saying. Or did, anyhow."

Regardless, God went on, Jesus is not opposed to big government or any kind of government.

"I taught him it's the inside government that matters," God said. "That internal jihad of striving to do good, not just well. The other stuff is mostly talk, especially in the U.S."

But really, God said, whatever parent-child problems He and Jesus might have -- "Don't get me started about his younger sister, Nancy … " -- the real issue is all of the children, namely humankind.

Following the California Supreme Court's upholding of a ban on gay marriage, advocates of same-sex couplings are taking a new tack and promoting a ban on unhappy marriages.

"We all know people who should not get married, but they do, and that leads to divorce and custody battles and broken families, all of which damage society and the institution of marriage," said the effort's spokesperson, Elizabeth Taylor. "You see two people and you just know they're oil and water. This law will make it illegal for them to marry, for the sake of the institution."

Taylor cited examples like Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston, Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton, Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, Pamela Anderson and Rick Salomon, and Dennis Rodman and anyone from this planet.

"I mean, really, nothing undercuts the institution like seeing these pampered prima donas running off getting married, over and over, and not taking it seriously," Taylor said. "God created marriage as a contract signifying the man's complete ownership of the woman, and these people need to respect that."

In an effort to raise its flagging profile, the Republican Party has gone retail and will attempt to trade on its reputation to promote itself and its products.

"You've never seen anything like this party because it will change your life," said the GOP's newly hired pitchman, Billy Mays. "It slices, it dices, it makes julienne fries of your opponents' ideas, and if you act now, you can get one of these exciting bonus offers."

Mays goes on, in a new commercial, to promote products based on the reputations of Bush administration veterans. For instance, one of the bonus products a voter gets for tallying with the GOP is Angler brand fishing dynamite.

"Some people say it's not sporting to drop C4 into the water," Mays whines into the camera, "but our good buddy, speaking from an undisclosed location, says it works. 'Kill 'em all and let God sort out which ones are the keepers' is the motto of your favorite fisherman."

With Chrysler starting to see light at the end of its bankruptcy tunnel, and General Motors contemplating the same, the Congressional Budget Office today released a report suggesting the US proceed with a fast-track reorganization.

"It's long been said that what's good for GM is good for America, and at this juncture, we agree," said a CBO spokesman. "We think we can sell off some weaker assets, get China to take a haircut and emerge a leaner, stronger fiscal nation."

The CBO report hints at selling Alaska back to the Russians, hawking Hawaii to either Japan or China, giving Texas to Mexico and possibly returning parts of the lower Gulf states to France. The report describes these areas as "underperforming assets" with little to offer for the 21st century.

"We've got enough sand in the Southwest to make all the chips and solar cells we could ever want, enough wind in the upper Midwest to light up the world, and enough intelligence elsewhere to make it all work," the spokesperson said. "We're not sure about the value of Florida, but we might keep it just because our parents' live there."

Politics played no role in the CBO's advice, the spokesperson said, though "it is a nice little side benefit to send some of these idiots packing."

Republican political operatives were leaping for joy, proclaiming a national shift this week with the results of American Idol and Dancing with the Stars.

"This proves our message still resonates with the real America," said U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn.(Max). "Americans voted for a doofy boy from Arkansas and a plump, awkward, androgynous teenager because that's what's great about this country."

Critics had long expected that Razorback Kris Allen would lose to the more flamboyant Adam Lambert on Idol, while all season long actor Gilles Marini was the runaway favorite but lost to Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson. Bachmann said she spoke for the party in rejoicing over what some say was a subconscious political choice by viewer-voters, who tilted both contests.

"Who doesn't love Shawn's electric smile" Bachmann said. "Especially as opposed to voting for a Frenchman.

"And salt-of-the-earth Kris was bound to beat that fag."

But already, controversy was brewing after reports that votes were skewed in favor of Fox favorite Allen. Network owner Rupert Murdoch said there was no reason to suspect the outcome just because Diebold tallied the results from its new tax-free Bentonville offices. And ABC spokesmen said there was no truth to the rumor that Karl Rove had joined the network's board of directors Monday morning.

While the U.S. Senate balks against the idea of Guantanamo prisoners being brought to America's shores, their refusal to grant President Obama money to close the Cuban prison has encountered backlash from Fidel Castro.

"I was all about opening up to the West, sharing our cigars and oil, returning nationalized property and the whole deal," Castro said. "But not if you're gonna stick me with these revolutionaries. Those guys are dangerous. If you don't want them, what makes you think I do?"

Fidel had earlier quashed notions Cuba was leaning toward the U.S., but now says he'd given the OK to his ruling brother, Raul, as long as Obama closed Gitmo. He said he was preparing a nice tour of Finca Vigia for Michelle, had planned a beach trip for Sasha and Malia to Isla de la Juventud, and was naming a new rum-and-tea cocktail the Cubama Libre.

"But now the deal is off," said Castro spokesman Hyman Roth III. "We don't mind if they cut down Chavez because it's not about business, but this prison thing is affecting our bottom line."

Back in the U.S., Sen. John Ensign. R-Nev., said he doesn't understand why there's such a fuss over detentions in Cuba. He said thinks so highly of the prison that he was planning an investment in the Guantanamo facility with former Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist.

Republicans today lashed out at President Obama and accused him of using chemical enhancements to improve his performance.

"He's juicing, for sure," said House minority leader John Boehner of Ohio. "Nobody could be doing the kind of mental gymnastics he's been doing without some enhancement."

Boehner said he and his colleagues got suspicious early on when Obama was tackling multiple tasks at once, from economic stimulus to an ambitious new-economy budget to children's health care and many other issues. Early criticisms that the president was doing too much too soon fell flat, which was a red flag for the red states.

But the GOP felt Obama had gone too far after last week, when his non-release of Pentagon photos, reinstatement of detainee tribunals and the controversy over Nancy Pelosi's knowledge of torture all failed to knock the president off course.

"That week should have had him on the ropes," Boehner said. "But he comes out on Sunday with hecklers during his speech at Notre Dame … and wins the message! That's just too much."

Director Ron Howard and author Dan Brown are the subjects of a lawsuit filed today in federal court by the Illuminati, the supposed secret society at the root of the crime in the pair's latest film, Angels and Demons.

"It's fine when people spin conspiracy theories, but not when major corporations, filmmakers and publishing houses make money off our franchise," said a man who calls himself Instruction Head and purports to be the spokesperson for the modern-day Illuminati. "We are bringers of light for all, not bringers of green to The Man."

Head says he and other Illuminati have been keeping quiet lo these many years because the chatter actually enhanced the group's value and credibility. But having the group used in the movie was too much, so they had to take action.

Instead of seeking a flat cash amount, thought, the lawsuit asks for points, meaning a percentage of the film's gross sales. The suit also delineates demands for residuals from sales for other media, including DVDs, cable broadcasts and even versions of the film for handheld devices.

"Our goal is to create a long-term revenue stream so we can perpetuate the sub rosa reputation of the organization and insert it into conspiracies for many years to come," Head said. "I mean, hey, we're Illuminati. We have to be there for wackos of generations yet unspawned."

Republican party operatives say they are primed and ready to block President Obama's nomination to the US Supreme Court, whoever that may be.

"We've done our homework and have a plan," said the party's national chariman, Michael Steele."Whoever Obama nominates, we're ready."

Steele spoke after the New York Times published a story of the party's plans even before Obama has named a successor to the very retiring Justice David Souter. Arguments against top potential nominees outline standard conservative points of overactive justices, but the plan appears to be well ahead of the president.

"It doesn't matter who he nominates, we're going after them on the grounds that they're too liberal and wrong for America," Steele said, while outlining how the party wants to use the nomination process to refill its coffers. "We need this fight, so we're gonna have it, no matter who he picks. Even if he nominates Rush Limbaugh, we're going to go after his drug abuse, media elitism and appeals to working people."

Obama, for his part, said he's enjoying having the GOP do his work for him. After reviewing their notes, he said he now sees a better path to a painless nomination.

Rush Limbaugh has issued a plea for help after being subject to an unforgiving comedic attack during the White House Correspondents' Dinner last weekend.

"She was just so vicious, it's clear she doesn't know what it's like to be an object of ridicule," said Limbaugh of black lesbian woman comedian Wanda Sykes, who mocked Limbaugh's past drug problems and his criticism of President Barack Obama. "Some people attain a position of power, however they do it, and then they abuse their authority, stomping on the little people who are just trying to make a difference in the world."

Sykes lashed out at Limbaugh's statement that the radio host wanted the Obama administration to fail, claiming the Limbaugh comments amounted to incitement on a par with the words of Osama bin Laden. Limbaugh said he was misquoted.

Coming to Limbaugh's defense was former Bush White House advisor Karl Rove, who said Sykes went over the line.

With the economy still struggling and the publishing industry feeling it worse, Playboy announced cost cuts and changes for a magazine that defined its genre for 50 years.

"We're feeling the pinch," said founder and creative director Hugh Hefner og the iconic men's literature slick. "We can't cut wardrobe, but we're gonna have to get with the times."

Hefner said the magazine may make some bean-counter changes, like combining issues and streamlining processes, but will also address some of its larger costs, like fees for writers and for models.

In the August issue, Playboy will publish an original piece of fiction, fee-free, written by George W. Bush, entitled "How I won the world." At the same time, the issue will feature a centerfold of Barbara Bush and a special section, The Women of Kabul.

"We drew attention in the beginning by going where no one thought we could," Hefner said, "so we thought we'd try it again by exploring multicultural attitudes toward sex appeal."

The revised Playboy will also feature user-generated content, such as photos of readers acting out their Playmate fantasies. While such a plan could risk highly objectionable fare, Hefner says nothing can embarrass the American public after Abu Ghraib.

Florida law enforcement officials are ecstatic at their new power to pull over drivers on suspicion of not wearing seat belts, and are now angling for more similar "public safety" measures.

"This will make our state safer," said Gov. Charlie Crist as he signed the new seatbelt measure, "but not as safe as what we've got coming."

In a possible special session, lawmakers are considering allowing police to pull over drivers they suspect of eating, drinking, talking on a cell phone or rolling a marijuana cigarette. Further, law enforcement wants the ability to detain drivers they suspect of having ribs on their breath, keeping a comb in their hair or living in poor neighborhoods.

"Distracted drivers are dangerous," Crist said. "So the better our police can keep people focused, the safer our streets."

But civil rights activists say these new laws are thinly veiled racism, particularly those that allow police to stop drivers whose pants sag, whose grandmothers are under 30, or whose vehicles cost more than their homes.

"You don't see them pulling over people who smell like mayonnaise, do ya," said Lefty Soft, the head of the American Civil Limpness Institute. "It's so transparent, like the whole 'we're not bailing out rich people' line from DC."

Seizing an opportunity, representatives from several General Motors brands have issued a statement disowning the failing automaker before they can be dumped.

"I'm outraged they'd even consider letting me go," said Chief Pontiac at a Detroit press conference. "I thought the Aztek was the ultimate indignity, but this goes too far."

Pontiac was joined by a list of signatories to a scathing letter of condemnation. Other names on the letter included David Dunbar Buick, Antoine Laumet de la Mothe Sieur de Cadillac, Louis Chevrolet, Ransom E. Olds and Adam Opel, all of whom appeared with Pontiac and vociferously denounced GM's years of mismanagement.

"I'm with the others and can't wait to be out from under the GM stink," read an email from Saturnus, the namesake of the Saturn brand that GM is trying to unload for cash. "I always thought we were better than Detroit and I hope someone smart and capable can take us over. Like Peugot."

Rounding out the criticism was further disdain from Monica Lewinsky, spokesperson for Hummer.

Staring at supposedly unavoidable budget cuts that will curb spending on long-standing programs, Florida legislators have decided to simply rename those programs to avoid the embarrassment of rhetoric.

Chief on the list is the state's environmental lands program, heretofore called Florida Forever, but now to be known as Florida For A While. Likewise, the state's college-tuition program, Bright Futures, will henceforth be known as Not Too Dark Futures.

"We're just recognizing the realities of our situation," said House Speaker Larry Cretul. "There's nothing we can do about this, so we wanted to be honest in how we named these programs."

Critics say there are solutions to the funding problems, from removing tax exemptions on legal services or sports-stadium skyboxes to approving a revenue-sharing pact for Indian gambling, particularly since gambling interests are offering money immediately and a lack of a pact would mean the state will get nothing. But Cretul and other Republicans continue to insist there is no other way to fund the state's budget other than to increase fees the party can say are not taxes.

The Legislature also decided to rename state-run Citizens Insurance to Looming Statewide Liability.

On the heels of the kerfuffle over Arlen Specter's switch to the Democratic Party but pronouncement he will not always vote with Democrats, Connecticut In-Demo-Blican Sen. Joe Lieberman announced Monday that people should not expect him to vote in "lockstep" with other independents.

"Just because I list myself as an Independent doesn't mean I'm independent," Lieberman said at a press conference. "There are times when I have no idea how I'm going to vote, and then disagree with myself after I do."

Lieberman, the junior senator from Connecticut, was a long-time member of the Democratic caucus and ran for vice president in 2000 on the party's ticket with Al Gore. Despite winning that election, yet being denied the office by a supposed independent US Supreme Court, Lieberman in 2006 quit the Democrats after losing his senate primary, then spoke at the 2008 Republican national convention and endorsed John McCain in his race against eventual winner Barack Obama.

Lieberman said he was making an announcement of his independence from independence in order to differentiate himself from Specter's recent switch to the Democrats. Lieberman said Specter's apparently calculated political move was that of a "chameleon piker."

Seeking to redefine and reinvent a party in decline, Republican leaders today announced they've hired hitmaker Phil Spector to coordinate a national outreach campaign.

"We just lost one Specter, so we thought we'd pick up another," said GOP national chairman Michael Steele. "Based on his track record, we think Phil can help us reach the audience we crave."

The Spector choice is odd because he was just convicted of murder, but Steele said he was undaunted by that detail, noting that appeals will likely last well beyond the next two election cycles. He said Spector's flair for popular appeal outweighed any criminal baggage he might be carrying.

As the Florida Legislature nears allowing Christian license plates, other religious and belief groups are readying their demands as well.

"I want a jihad plate," said Muhammad Fakir, spokesperson for the Muslim Organization for Men. "I want my automobile registration to express my ongoing struggle to be a better person, even in the face of those idiots in Tallahassee."

Proponents of the Christian plates are outraged at Fakir's aims.

"We want to show our faith in God, not some fanatical radicals that upset the established political order by introducing a small cult that mushroomed into a fabulously wealthy and ultimately destabilizing set of pseudo-religious groups," said state Sen. Rhonda Storms.

But along with Fakir, others now want tags espousing their belief in Zoroastrianism, Druidism, Animism and Minimalism.

"I want a very small license plate," said Tony Maluk, the leader of a minimalist group. "And I want to put it on my tricycle."

Atheist groups are suing to prevent the Christian plates on the grounds they represent state support of a particular religion. Agnostics counter they'd like a plate that says "I don't believe," while Nihilists want one that says "I don't care."

With newspapers and other traditional media in a steady decline, leaders of those organizations have now gone beyond asking Web sites to share wealth and are now seeking prosecution of their "pirating" of news.

"We were sailing along on our big, rich ships and all of a sudden these armed geeks board us and steal our treasure," said Earnest W. Bygon, chief managing supervisory publishing editor of the Dead-tree Institute of News Organizations. "That's our news. We made it up. No one can make money off it but us, so these ruffians need to pay or face the full penalty of the law."

Legal experts say the old-line media likely have no case, and new-media analysts say this latest cry is the final wheeze of a flaccid business model. Much as the music industry has tried to sue its way out of recognizing progress, experts say old media are clutching at any straw to stave off change.

"These guys like being media literally, toll-takers on the old information highway," said Vietnamese white-hat hacker/blogger Phoc Yu Tu. "But now that people have found all these new routes to information and can get what they want when they want it, not what and when pasty-faced middle-aged white men decide, the old guard is up in arms. But the new model isn't piracy, it's a paradigm shift, yet all the old media wants is a pair of dimes."

Recently released documents from Saddam Hussein's residences reveal the dictator believed he was acting on legal advice during his ruthless reign over Iraq, sentiments echoed by heads of other harsh regimes around the world.

"I have been concerned about the propriety of using chemical weapons on fellow Iraqis, but our internal Office of Legal Counsel assures me such practice is well within the pale of law," Hussein wrote in a memo to his senior staff. "We don't like to appear cruel, but if enhanced techniques can help our nation survive a so-called ticking time bomb, then that is the difficult decision we must make."

Hussein's comments were mirrored by Kim Jong-il in speeches he has made to North Korean leadership committees. Kim said his "independent legal staff" said negating international treaties on nuclear weapons systems and missile technology are essential to protecting his people from external threats and therefore legally justified. Similar statements come from Iran's religious leaders.

In the face of climate-change denials and claims that capping emissions is a tax on the public, Mother Nature said she's fed up and will no longer care for humans who don't understand her.

"These right-wing bozos talk about subsidies but they don't realize I've been subsidizing them and the whole human race," Nature said. "Well, let's see how they do when they have to account for all their own actions."

Early on Earth Day, clouds began appearing over the homes and automobiles of oil company executives, clean-coal advocates and unabashedly pro-business politicians. As the day wore on, acid rain fell from those clouds, dissolving paint and roof shingles, destroying gardens and fouling the surrounding air. Some of the targets began showing signs of distress and difficulty breathing. When they asked neighbors or passersby for a drink, a glass of fresh water handed to them turned to steaming putrid sludge as the targets grasped it.

"This isn't fair!" shouted Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe as effects of man-made global warming were directed from around the world to his own home, which withered under the onslaught. "Those IPCC scientists must have built a big ray gun and pointed it just at me. And now I'm melting!"