OT: US CEO's head for the border...

REMAINING U.S. CEOs MAKE A BREAK FOR IT --
Band of Roving Chief Executives Spotted Miles from Mexican
Border San Antonio, Texas (UPI)--

Unwilling to wait for their eventual indictments,
the 10,000 remaining CEOs of public U.S. companies
made a break for it yesterday, heading for the
Mexican border, plundering towns and villages along
the way, and writing the entire rampage off as a
marketing expense. "They came into my home, made me
pay for my own TV, then double-booked the revenues,"
said Rachel Sanchez of Las Cruces, just north of El
Paso. "Right in front of my daughters." Calling
themselves the CEOnistas, the chief executives were
first spotted last night along the Rio Grande River
near Quemado, where they bought each of the town's
320 residents by borrowing against pension fund
gains. By late this morning, the CEOnistas had
arbitrarily inflated Quemado's population to 960,
and declared a 200 percent profit for the fiscal
second quarter. This morning, the outlaws bought the
city of Waco, transferred its underperforming areas
to a private partnership, and sent a bill to
California for $4.5 billion. Law enforcement
officials and disgruntled shareholders riding posse
were noticeably frustrated. "First of all, they're
very hard to find because they always stand behind
their numbers, and the numbers keep shifting," said
posse spokesman Dean Levitt. "And every time we yell
'Stop in the name of the shareholders!', they refer
us to investor relations. I've been on the phone all
damn morning." "YOU'LL NEVER AUDIT ME ALIVE!" The
pursuers said they have had some success, however,
by preying on a common executive weakness. "Last
night we caught about 24 of them by disguising one
of our female officers as a CNBC anchor," said U.S.
Border Patrol spokesperson Janet Lewis. "It was like
moths to a flame." Also, teams of agents have been
using high-powered listening devices to scan the
plains for telltale sounds of the CEOnistas. "Most
of the time we just hear leaves rustling or cattle
flicking their tails," said Lewis, "but occasionally
we'll pick up someone saying, 'I was totally out of
the loop on that.'" Among former and current CEOs
apprehended with this method were Computer
Associates' Sanjay Kumar, Adelphia's John Rigas,
Enron's Ken Lay, Joseph Nacchio of Qwest, Joseph
Berardino of Arthur Andersen, and every Global
Crossing CEO since 1997. ImClone Systems' Sam Waksal
and Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco were not allowed to
join the CEOnistas as they have already been
indicted. So far, about 50 chief executives have
been captured, including Martha Stewart, who was
detained south of El Paso where she had cut through
a barbed-wire fence at the Zaragosa border crossing
off Highway 375. "She would have gotten away, but
she was stopping motorists to ask for marzipan and
food coloring so she could make edible snowman place
settings, using the cut pieces of wire for the
arms," said Border Patrol officer Jennette Cushing.
"We put her in cell No. 7, because the morning sun
really adds texture to the stucco walls." While some
stragglers are believed to have successfully crossed
into Mexico, Cushing said the bulk of the CEOnistas
have holed themselves up at the Alamo. "No, not the
fort, the car rental place at the airport," she
said. "They're rotating all the tires on the
minivans and accounting for each change as a sales
event."

(I couldn't resist!)
Regards!
~m