"Microsoft To Buy Philadelphia Mint" joke

Microsoft Corporation today announced plans to buy the
Philadelphia Mint from the United States government. Final
details of the transaction were hammered out in an all night
bargaining session which included President Bill Clinton
representing the US, and four unnamed chorus girls. An obviously
fatigued and smiling
Clinton emerged from the meeting and stated that he saw no
chance that there would be opposition from anyone within the
government. In an effort to appease regulators, Microsoft
gave a copy of Windows NT and a box of paper clips to Novell.
Microsoft said it intends to print money in direct competition
with the US Government. Microsoft chairman, Bill Gates, declared,
"The Government has no vision and we intend to eventually take
over all operations." The official announcement was made by
Microsoft spokesman, Brad Silverberg, who showed reporters an
alpha version of the currency Microsoft will release next year.
The currency, called simply "Money" (patent pending) bears a
striking resemblance to US currency . When questioned about this,
Silverberg stated that the US Government had obviously copied the
design. Silverberg alleged that this was constantly happening to
Microsoft, citing Apple's theft of the Windows look and feel, and
Stac's pilfering of on-the-fly disk compression as only two
examples.
Gates said the acquisition was made in order to move closer to
his grand vision of "Money always at my fingertips." Gates
further stated that the move to 32 bit operating systems would
make it difficult "for the lemms, uh, I mean, users to continue
throwing money at Microsoft in ever increasing amounts." "This
(acquisition) will make it unnecessary for our customers to
continue to struggle with the challenge of actually buying and
installing software," continued Gates.
Response within the industry and government was immediate. All
major ISV's appeared at the press conference and announced
support for Money. Steve Gibson called the acquisition "the most
earth shattering event in the history of the world, without
question." Brian Livingston said this was the most exciting news
"since cousin Pee Wee got his own television show." Ed Bott
declared that PC Computing would dedicate its next twelve issues
to the new Money and said we would "all be using it soon." Jim
Seymour stated that "the miraculous Money is now the standard for
currency in the United States." Hillary Clinton was not
available for comment.