(Editor’s Note: originally posted November 2008). When Atlanta native Jim Herman went to deposit his $227 pay check on Friday, he thought his weekend would be just like any other – “Two buckets of chicken, a few cases of Bud, and a little something for whatever bill was most overdue.” Ten minutes later, and much to his surprise, Jim became the new owner of the 2nd largest bank in America.

“Yeah, I’m still not quite sure I understand what happened” a shaken, somewhat jubilant, and very hungry Jim reported yesterday. “I’d heard a bunch of stories on some sort of liquidity and capitalization problem in the ol’ banking system, but didn’t really think it affected me – I know at least 27 different state capitals, and really don’t want to drink anything at the bank anyway. Frankly, I just wanted my chicken, some beer, and some electricity to warm up that chicken and cool down that beer. But when I pulled out my check, all of the sudden everyone was going bat-shit crazy. Some portly dude came out and told me my $227 now represented all the money in the bank, and said I could have the damn thing if I wanted it. I’d always wanted to own my own business again – ever since the incident with the squirrel kind of knee capped the small engine repair thing – and I was a pretty good adder back in the day, so I figured why not? Let’s give this banking thing a shot.”

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With Washington abuzz over George Bush’s declaration that he will write a book about the 12 toughest decisions he made while in the White House, chTONGUEeek correspondents were shocked to hear that George Bush can write have learned that no fewer than five of them involved what to have for lunch. As someone who is so inside, he is almost outside, recently explained:

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As Barack Obama prepares to deliver his weekly address to the nation via YouTube, chTONGUEeek has learned that his new media consultants are encouraging  a potentially controversial new tactic in order to increase and unify his audience – pantless dancing. As our political correspondent explains:

It was widely reported last week that Barack Obama captivated a record audience of viewers with his message of choosing hope over fear, and unity of purpose over conflict and discord. However, the challenges he faces trying to connect through YouTube are real, they are serious, and they are many. Not only is he staring down an immediate threat from Evolution of Dance 2 – which has been viewed only 120,000 less times – but the “No Pants Subway Ride 2009” is absolutely dominating his inauguration address. In turn, Obama’s new media consultants are saying there is only one option to ensure his message of unity really comes through – Barack is clearly going to have to do some ‘pantless dancing updates’ to pull this nation together.

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Washington was abuzz today over George Bush declaring himself “orally fixated” on Barack Obama outside his Texas ranch yesterday. In the words of the soon-to-be-ex-president:

You guys know me, I’m the Decider. I’ve never been much of a talkonator – which is what led so many people to misunderestimate me. But I still made good judgments in the past, I have made good judgments in the future, and I stand by all the misstatements that I made. However, even I have to admit that when President Select Barack Obama speaks, something special seems to be happenating. I may not agree with much of what he speaks onto paper, but there’s just something about the way he says it out loud – I become capitulated. Heck, I might as well just admit it: I’m orally fixated on Barack Obama.

As the startled observers looked on in disbelief, Bush went on to explain that his “oral fixation wasn’t so much about the depths Barack can reach, but more about sheer girth of the matter that he covers”, before his speech was quickly brought to a halt when security tackled him.

The NY Times has recently reported that In Hard Times, Russia Tries to Reclaim Industries. ‘Hard’ is thus being added to the already known list of times the Kremlin is trying to reclaim industries, which currently includes ‘easy’, ‘difficult’, ‘soft’, ‘challenging’, ‘flaccid’, ‘early afternoonish’, ‘over morning tea’, ‘sunny’, ‘rainy’, ‘recessionary’, ‘expansionary’, ‘yesterday’, ‘tomorrow’, ‘optimistic’, ‘pessimistic’, ‘night’, and ‘14:34 to 17:12’. On a more positive note for Oligarchs, triangulating this information reveals that there will be no attempts to reclaim industries from 11:02 – 11:15 next Wednesday, while the Kremlin holds a brief coffee & cake gathering in slightly overcast weather to celebrate their successful reclamations in both past and future troubled, jubilant times.

Our secret correspondent has learned that embattled Prime Minister Steven Harper’s request for a “timeout” was accepted by the Governor General because of his provocative “fingers crossed behind my back” argument. As Harper explained to her while wearing his favorite blue sweater, “in regards to this whole confidence thing, the video will clearly show that everything I did and didn’t say about things like the ‘economy’ happened while my hand was placed firmly behind my back. I can assure you that, at the time, my fingers were indeed crossed. Furthermore, at no time did I say ‘black ball beats them all, stampsies no erasies’, thus there is no reason not to have confidence in what I really didn’t mean, and every reason to give us a ‘do over’.” According to our sources, this argument overcame Dion’s original “liar, liar, pants and fire” position, in addition to his last-ditch effort at a “we’re rubber and you’re glue” rebuttal.

In a move eerily similar to the coup currently taking place in the Republic of Congo Canada, The Pittsburgh Penguins are leading a coalition with the Dallas Stars and Philadelphia Flyers to be declared the 2008 Stanley Cup Champions. As spokesman Dan Deluth explains:

Sure, it seemed cut-and-dry in June when the Detroit Red Wings defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins to become the Stanley Cup champions. However, looking back we noticed that this wasn’t really fair. After all, if you combine the playoff wins for the Penguins, and conference finalist runner-ups Stars and Flyers, you can clearly see they had a lot more than the Red Wings. In turn, we are asking Governor General, er, I mean NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to retroactively decide that a coalition of the Penguins, Stars, and Flyers be declared the 2008 Stanley Cup champions.

While there has been a struggle over who should lead this coalition, the teams eventually settled on Penguin Sidney Crosby remaining captain, even though his sub-par performance early in the series was an oft-cited reason for the loss. In exchange for their support, the Philadelphia Flyers (who narrowly missed representing the Eastern Conference themselves) will get access to the Cup on holidays and weekends, while the Dallas Stars team will receive official “league within a league” status and gets to play for their own “Stars Cup” next season, to be paid for by all the other teams.