November
12 The Yes Men: War is over, if you want it

Looks good, doesn't it? Unfortunately, it's a well-designed and utterly phony spoof, one that was handed out in New York this morning at subway stations around the city. Writes Sewell Chan:

The paper is dated July 4, 2009, and imagines a liberal utopia of national health care, a rebuilt economy, progressive taxation, a national oil fund to study climate change, and other goals of progressive politics.

The hoax was accompanied by a Web site that mimics the look of The Times’s real Web site. A page of the spoof site contained links to dozens of progressive organizations, which were also listed in the print edition.

(A headline in the fake business section declares: “Public Relations Industry Forecasts a Series of Massive Layoffs.” Uh, sure.)

Later on Wednesday morning, the Yes Men issued a statement claiming credit for the prank. The statement said, in part:

In an elaborate operation six months in the planning, 1.2 million papers were printed at six different presses and driven to prearranged pickup locations, where thousands of volunteers stood ready to pass them out on the street.

The Yes Men were also the subject of a 2003 documentary directed by Chris Smith, Sarah Price and Dan Ollman. [NYT]