October

1: North Korea ships 300 barrels of Ebola-infected cow urine to Libya. Ari Fleischer calls the shipment "not great."

8: An area hospital comes under investigation following revelations that one of its surgeons left a patient on the operating table while he went to Foxwoods.

16: Red Sox GM Theo Epstein says that baseball needs to develop a "social conscience" and pledges to help with the rebuilding effort in Afghanistan by sending 14 tons of Legos.

20: More scandal at Buckingham Palace as reports circulate that Prince Philip gave one of the royal corgis a champagne enema while the queen videotaped the episode with a camera she pilfered from the home of Prince Charles’s transvestite lover, Binky, who says that the prince offered her 14 PCP-laced marijuana cigarettes to assassinate Princess Diana. A Palace spokesman calls the allegations "largely untrue."

23: Jennifer Lopez announces her engagement to Ellen DeGeneres.

25: Al Qaeda continues its trend toward "softer" targets, launching a rocket attack on Fitzy, an Airedale terrier belonging to Finnish dry cleaner Yaari Haanpaaa.

27: Major League Baseball officials admit they are at a loss to explain the technical glitch that led to this year’s all–New York Yankees World Series line-up. More controversy surrounds the one-sided game as Derek Jeter accuses Jason Giambi of causing him to break a nail.

28: In a press conference, United Airlines spokesman Jeremy Poddle insists the ailing carrier can still provide "adequate service," despite having replaced its fleet of aircraft with 400 used Geo Metros.

30: Al Gore scores a hit with his new book, The 7 Habits of Extremely Ineffective People.

November

5: President Bush is hospitalized after he chokes on the word "Uzbekistan."

9: North Korea leader Kim Jong-il threatens the US with imminent attack by biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons, saying, "I will not rest until American cities run with blood, until I can hear the screams of the Yankee oppressors as they gasp their last agonizing breath." Ari Fleischer calls the announcement "a bit much."

15: In response to a flu epidemic sweeping the region, Mitt Romney promises everyone in the state free salt lake city 2002 woolly hats.

20: Mayor Thomas Menino, responding to criticism that he hasn’t done enough to prepare for the 2004 Democratic Convention, pledges to spend the next two years blowing up balloons.

23: New England Patriots manager Bill Belichick, whose team is 0-11 in the AFL East, says he is "distraught" over Tom Brady’s decision to quit the Pats and become a Chippendales dancer.

27: Owisakasaka, often described as "the Japanese Eminem," is lambasted in the Japanese press for his "obscene and disrespectful" new single, "Sheesh," in which Owisakasaka raps, "Mother tells me do my homework/I cannot shirk the homework."

29: A plot to blow up the Statue of Liberty is foiled when an Al Qaeda sleeper cell in New York reportedly forgets to set its alarm clock.

December

2: Al Gore, Jane Swift, and Bernard Law attempt to raise their flagging public profiles by appearing in a controversial sketch on Saturday Night Live. In the skit, Law tears up a picture of the pope and says, "Screw him," to which Swift replies, "I’ll have my aides screw him," while Gore recommends the formation of a congressional committee on papal screwing.

7: Mitt Romney, addressing the Massachusetts budget crunch, announces plans to sell off the state’s prized collection of salt lake city 2002 pins.

11: Trent Lott, attending Strom Thurmond’s 101st-birthday celebration, praises the "bold leadership" of Vlad the Impaler.

16: For the second-straight year, the White House announces that footage from the so-called Barney Cam — a video camera attached to the Bush’s dog Barney — will be broadcast on the Web. Interest in the project flags, however, when viewers tire of seeing images of Dick Cheney’s crotch.

21: Time magazine names Bernard Law its Persona Non Grata of the Year.

25: Christmas Day celebrations are marred by the news that, the previous night, 45 people were trampled to death trying to buy Hans Blix Bend-i toys at a New Jersey Wal-Mart. "Those Blixes were hot," says store manager Larry Kluck. "Hot."

27: Osama bin Laden is killed when he chokes on a pretzel and blacks out, knocking over his Kalashnikov rifle in the process, which discharges a burst of automatic gunfire, shooting out Mullah Omar’s other eye and causing the now-completely-blind cleric to cry, "Americans!" This causes three of bin Laden’s bodyguards to come rushing in, one of whom accidentally steps on the prostrate terrorist leader’s testicles, causing him to scream out, "Holy shit!" — a crime punishable by death under shari’a.

30: Al Jazeera airs the bin Laden incident on Funniest Jihadi Videos, scoring its highest ratings ever.

Chris Wright can be reached at cwright[a]phx.com.