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Reinventing the $5
By John Breneman
Stop the presses!! There must be some kind of mistake. The
new five-spots are coming out soon, but who's that fool on
the bill and what has he done with Abe Lincoln?!?
Relax, I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for all of
this. No reason to be alarmed. Abe is perfectly safe. In fact,
he's looking sharper than ever. He's still got that wise presidential
twinkle in his eye, he parts his hair just the same as always,
and his familiar right ear is even bigger than before.
It's just that the boys down at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing
wanted our 16th president to look his absolute best for the big
May 24 debut of the redesigned $5, so they sent the fancy new Lincoln
portrait engraving out for a real thorough polishing job.
Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers needed someone
to stand in and do some of the promotional work that, quite frankly,
someone as important and dignified as Mr. Lincoln should not be
bothered with.
I mean, someone has got to tell the public about all the state-of-the-art
security features on the new 5s and 10s -- the watermarks,
the delicate microprinting, the realistic gangland graffiti
spraypainted on the Lincoln Memorial.
And since I had done such a good job helping out with the
introduction of the new $20 back in August of '98, my pals
down in D.C. shipped me an exquisitely etched invitation to
pitch in again. Naturally, I was eager to oblige.
First, I feel it is imperative to debunk certain rumors about
the new $5. Abe Lincoln will NOT be wearing Bolle wraparound
sunglasses (thank God) and, despite the overwhelming preference
of several focus groups, he will NOT be sporting his trademark
stovepipe hat. Our U.S. currency is simply not tall enough
to accommodate Lincoln's prodigious and distinctive headgear.
See $5, next page
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 Capitalist
piggy banks
By John Breneman
NEW YORK - Technology stocks continued their
decline today as Wall Street reeled from an unprecedented
surge of investment in companies that manufacture and distribute
piggy banks.
Leading analysts interpret this as a sign that investors
have finally figured out that the stock market is a gigantic sham
and therefore are opting to horde their money in colorful pig-shaped
receptacles made of plastic and ceramics.
"People now realize that most high-finance executives
are greedy swine and that the market can no longer be counted upon
to 'bring home the bacon,'" said Bubba Pennington of John Hamcock
Financial Services. "They'd rather slip their hard-earned money
into piggy banks than slop it into the corporate feeding trough."
Brown-chip stocks and pork futures also rose sharply,
with brisk trading of Piggly Wiggly, MicroSty and Tenderloin Technologies.
But shares of AOL Time Warthog continued to plummet
amid frenzied activity on the trading floor, where Wall Street brokers
wallowed in discarded slips of paper while squealing like scared
little capitalist piglets.
7-26-02
Back to PAGE ONE
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Arthur Andersen
hires consultant Pamela Anderson
Arthur Andersen has hired a high-profile
consultant to salvage the embattled accounting giant, recently
convicted of obstructing a federal inquiry into the Enron
collapse.
Pamela Anderson plans to reinvent the
firm with a sexy new identity cooking the books for the porn
industry.
"Us Andersons have to stick together,
even though they spell their name with an 'e'," said
Ms. Anderson, dressed in a double-breasted Armani suit tailored
to reveal what executives in the so-called Big Five accounting
firms refer to as "The Big Two."
The Senate Banking Committee is analyzing
this new development to determine whether the deal falls under
its regulatory authority.
"We're looking very closely at her
assets," committee chairman Senator Paul S. Sarbanes
said of Ms. Anderson, who was once investigated by the S.E.C.
(Sexual Entertainment Commission) for shredding documents
related to a federal probe of bikini laundering on the set
of "Baywatch."
 Arthur
Andersen also plans to specialize in bookkeeping for television
sitcoms featuring blonde women with enormous "assets,"
according to new company spokesperson Loni Anderson.
John Breneman 6-21-02
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Partying with
Dennis Kozlowski
As jurors viewed a videotape of the $2
million birthday bash he threw for his wife, corporate party
animal Dennis Kozlowski inhaled a plate of jumbo shrimp cocktail,
laughed, belched, farted, then wiped his pig-like face with
a $3,000 Gucci handkerchief.
 Prosecutors
say the lavish toga party symbolizes the gluttonous corporate
excess perpetrated by the former Tyco CEO and former finance
chief Mark Swartz, accused of looting the company of $600
million.
The charges -- larceny, conspiracy, securities
fraud and multiple counts of being a flaming asshole -- did
not appear to faze Kozlowski, accompanied in court by his
attorneys and an unidentified man-servant who fed him peeled
grapes and Dom Perignon.
The tape showed scantily clad gladiators
and gladiatrixes frolicking about the pool and a replica of
Michelangelo's David pissing cold vodka. The birthday Bacchanalia
also featured a performance by Jimmy Buffett, who sang 'Lobster
Thermidor in Paradise.'
Kozlowski is seen on the video telling
his guests, "It's going to be a fun week -- sailing,
fornicating, drinking vodka from a statue's genitalia, wiping
our asses with other people's money -- all the things we are
best known for.'
Much later a drunken Kozlowski, stripped
to his $15,000 Armani gold lamé underpants, is seen
chanting 'Toga! Toga!! TOGA!!!' and smashing a bottle of 1902
Chateau Lafite Rothschild over his head.
Upon seeing himself on screen, Kozlowski
convulsed with laughter and coughed up a chunk of his foot-long
beluga caviar sub.
John Breneman 10-31-03
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