At the conclusion of a specially-convened 48-hour summit this weekend, the United Nations narrowly passed a resolution declaring an official end to the worldwide economic crisis.

The resolution states that if the complete and utter collapse of the world economy refuses to cease all its financial destruction programs and allow UN inspectors to verify the termination thereof, it runs the risk of bearing the full brunt of further resolutions.

Illinois' incoming junior senator Roland Burris' no holds barred brawl with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid drew over one hundred and eighty million viewers Wednesday, with political beatdown enthusiasts from every state in the nation tuning into the brutal five hour match.

Political observers were treated to the first such fight in over one hundred years thanks to an obscure Senate rule requiring disputed seats to be settled in the boxing ring.

Citing an "economic booby trap of elephantine proportions," President-elect Barack Obama urged Congress yesterday to pass yet another costly and ultimately ineffective "stimulus" bill as quickly as possible.

In response to the very utterance of the world's favorite bureaucrat, stock prices surged in yet another record-setting rally—an undeniably positive sign that experts say signals an end to the economic crisis for the seventeenth time in the past six months.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the walking-dead government-owned mortgage-finance companies, announced Tuesday that they will accelerate their anti-responsibility efforts with a new accountability elimination program designed to cut financial obligations for struggling debtors.

The mortgage giants will target loans in which borrowers have given up paying back their mortgages for three months or more and have debt obligations that exceed fifty percent of their monthly income.

In a panicked move Wednesday, the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point to one percent, guaranteeing the worst U.S. economic downturn in the postwar era, if not the worst of all time.

"Recent policy actions, including today's rate reduction, should help to amplify the downside risks to growth which remain," said the Federal Open Market Committee in yesterday's statement.

Researchers at MIT announced the shocking results of a groundbreaking study Monday, revealing that over 90% of the population of the internet are liars and hypocrites.

In the fourteen-month study, researchers canvassed hundreds of discussion forums, blogs, and social networking sites, tracking down participants and following up in-person on statements and claims made online.

Emboldened by the swift passage of his $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson went before Congress on Monday to introduce a series of sweeping new bills that, when passed, will effectively declare Paulson to be the ultimate ruler of the universe for all time.

"I didn't really think I could do it," said Paulson, referring to the rapid passage of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout...

As Hurricane Ike sweeps through southeast Texas leaving a trail of devastation in its wake, Ford Motor Co. has announced an exciting new vehicle promotion available exclusively to hurricane-affected areas.

"For many Texas families, the massive destruction of Hurricane Ike has wiped out everything: their homes, their pets, and—most importantly—their pickup trucks," says a new Ford TV ad already being broadcast across Texas Saturday. "Announcing the Ford Super Ike Disaster Recovery Sale."

Crestfallen investors sent stocks tumbling Thursday, pushing the Dow Jones Industrials down over 340 points after shareholders and depositors continued the sell-off that began late last year, devastating hopes for a late-year recovery.

The market was already nervous as it waited for the government to release its August fall fashions report on Friday. So news from the nation's financial centers that shareholders curtailed their buying last month due to a lower stock prices came as a heavy blow.

Devastation thrashed through Oklahoma Saturday morning in the form of a series of horrifying and rare August tornadoes. Bouncing down the streets and destroying houses like they were nothing at all, the tornadoes did approximately $8.5 million in damage.

Stringtown resident Josiah Harnekey shared his account of the tornado that swept through his neighborhood, destroying his house.

"I got all kids down to the cellar right quick, but then I realized that I didn't have my twine ball with me."

BEIJING – While fraudulent footprint fireworks and little lip-syncing Lin appeared to be the extent of China's Olympic deception, in reality these scandals are just the icing on an enormous Olympic fakery cake. According to well-placed sources in the Chinese government, the entirety of the Beijing Olympic Games is in fact completely staged.

Every single aspect of the 2008 Summer Games as viewed by the world on television and the Internet has been part of an elaborate farce, carried out through a combination of green-screen digital trickery and fully computer-generated graphics.

Even Beijing's famous "crow's nest" stadium exists only as an arrangement of bits inside a massive graphic-manipulation supercomputer.

In a sudden fit of rage Friday, moviegoers across the country threw down their ten dollar popcorn, spat out their eight dollar sodas, and announced the commencement of a full-scale war against theaters.

"We have had enough," read the statement. "From now on, we only buy tickets, nothing else. Also, we're not going to watch the pre-movie ads anymore."

The spontaneous army of six-million film watchers issued the statement just as box offices around the country were preparing for another blockbuster weekend thanks to such mega-hits as The Dark Knight, Step Brothers, and Kung Fu Panda.

Instead of greeting patrons anxious to buy junk food with three thousand percent markups, theater employees were barely able to escape with their lives as legions of angry fans stormed past the concession stands and into auditoriums without buying a single thing.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced today that effective immediately they will cease all banking operations nationwide.

"The simple truth of the matter is that we just couldn't deal with this many banks failing all at once," said FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair. The government agency provided so-called deposit "insurance" for bank deposits up to $100,000.

Created in 1933 during the Great Depression, the FDIC was intended to be a government-issued security blanket that would restore confidence in the banking system among the American people. Unfortunately, the agency was never granted enough power or funding to handle more than one or two minor bank failures per year.

"We never really expected this degree of crisis," explained Bair. "I mean, who could have possibly predicted...

In a press conference from Jerusalem on Monday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced the stunning findings of a team of Iran's best genealogists: Ahmadinejad is a sixteenth Jewish.

A stunned silence fell upon the roughly 200 members of the press, most of whom expected the revelation to be followed by an explosive tirade against Israel. Instead, Ahmadinejad calmly explained that he now realizes that his previous "annihilate Israel" platform may have been unnecessarily harsh, and that he intends to fully embrace his newly-discovered Jewish heritage.

"In the past, when I said that 'anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury,' I was speaking from an outsider's misunderstanding of what it means to be Jewish," said Ahmadinejad as he donned a traditional kippah. "It turns out that the Zionist regime really isn't that bad after all."

After months of silence, a video released from al-Qaeda on Monday announced that the struggling organization will close 150 terror cells worldwide, including in Seattle.

The unnamed spokesman in the grainy video cited skyrocketing insurance costs as the primary reason for closing the Seattle cell. "Health, dental, vision, life, automobile, home... it adds up fast," said the figure.

Most of the local terror cell jobs will be outsourced to Iraq and Pakistan. The move has upset local dedicated al-Qaeda operatives.

"I left my job at Microsoft because I believed in this organization's three values: Death to America, establish caliphate, and taking care of the martyrs with full vision and dental," said Shoreline al-Qaeda member Ahmed Moqed...

The town of Donnybrook, North Dakota was a complete and utter bore today as absolutely nothing happened for the ten-thousandth consecutive day.

There were no crimes, no good deeds, no business deals, no mushy reunions, and no rampaging chimps escaped from the local zoo (there is no zoo) flinging poo on the citizenry.

The last time anything happened in Donnybrook was February 10th, 1981...

As the strike of over 13,000 truckers in South Korea stretched into its fifth day today, grim ramifications are beginning to take shape.

Over seventy-five percent of South Korea's forty-nine million citizens spend more than 18 hours a day playing online games such as Starcraft, FIFA Soccer, and KartRider, but due to the transit strike fun and games have given way to a brutal fight for survival. Online gamers in dimly-lit apartments and internet cafés are running critically low on important staples such as Cheetos and Mountain Dew.