October 2
Five young Amish girls are shot dead in their schoolhouse by a rogue milk-truck driver gone berserk. Fortunately none of the girls was an ex-stripper who had posed nude in Playboy, so the media forgot about them, allowing the girls to be properly mourned before we all became sick of hearing about them.
October 3
Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) resigns and checks into rehab for alcoholism after admitting to sending sexually explicit e-mails to a 16-year-old former page from Louisiana; explained Foley, "Given that I'm a pedophile, in order to function normally in society, I need to get my alcoholism treated."
October 5
Part of the special archives in Frost Library needs to be closed because of mold infestation. College officials promise to solve the problem by "clearing out all of the old stuff."
October 6
President Bush declares that outerspace is vital to U.S. national security interests, explaining "we can't share space with our enemies. It's just not big enough."
October 6
The Bishop of Mexico spoke out against the limbus infantium policy, whereby infants who die before being baptized are said to be trapped in religious limbo. The policy wasn't very effective because indignant fetuses kept illegally crossing over into Heaven.
October 7
Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, famous for her outspoken criticism of the Kremlin, is found murdered outside her apartment. Putin declares that he will "do whatever it takes" to solve the killing, including, if necessary, allowing police to gather evidence at the crime scene.
October 9
Google announced that it will buy video-sharing site YouTube for $1.65 billion dollars. Google's shareholders were disappointed, though, when they found out they couldn't actually buy Justin Timberlake's "Dick in a Box."
October 9
North Korea claims to have tested its first nuclear weapon. Western leaders are terrified … until they realize that the rogue nation also claims to adequately feed its people.
October 9
Edmund Phelps, an Amherst College graduate, wins the Nobel Prize for Economics. The committee loved his liberal-artsy paper, "Money, Truth and Remembering."
October 10
Smith College students stage a "live-action" chess game in which students dress up as pieces. The role of the King is yet to be determined.
October 11
Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle loses control of a small plane and crashes into a Manhatten highrise, killing himself and a flight instructor. Al Qaeda claims credit for the attack, and promises "more high-wind-attacks against infidel-amateur-plane-enthusiasts."
October 13
South Korean Ban Ki-Moon is elected the eighth Secretary General of the United Nations. He unfurls an ambitious agenda, promising that by the end of his term "at least 20 percent of Americans will know who I am."
October 17
Residents of Sussex, England, stage a reenactment of the Battle of Hastings, the decisive battle in the successful French invasion of England 940 years ago. The victory was so overwhelming that the French told their military they didn't have to beat anyone for the next 1,000 years.
October 18
Operation Together Forward has not met expectations, and sectarian violence continues to mount, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell announced. Prime Minister Maliki promises to get tough on those killing U.S. troops, and maybe even fire them from his Cabinet.
October 19
Authorities charge a man for making hoax-terrorism threats against seven NFL stadiums. The man, an environmental scientist who claimed that global warming would cause the stadiums to be underwater in 50 years, is now safely behind bars.
October 24
The Saint Louis Cardinals win baseball's World Series by defeating the Detroit Tigers. The Cardinals promised to celebrate their World Championship by ignoring the fact that America lost the World Baseball Classic, and by calling themselves "World Champions."
October 25
Doctors in the United Kingdom perform the world's first full facial transplant, on a girl whose head had been caught in a thresher. The surgery was so long and expensive that doctors threw in a boob job and tummy tuck for free.
October 26
President Bush signs into law the "Secure Fence Act" which authorizes building a wall, hundreds of miles long, on the U.S.-Mexican border. The bill also forbids export of so-called "sensitive" technology to Mexico, including "ladders and shovels."