In a continuing attempt to draw attention away from the fact that they produce absolutely nothing of value despite churning through billions of dollars and enslaving and destroying millions of human lives, various creepy, useless corporations, last week, bought up various other creepy, useless corporations.

"Since our company doesn't do anything except help keep people stupid," said CBS spokesman, Rebecca Kramer, "We don't, like, really care about buying companies that make products or anything. We just wanna buy up lots of over-hyped brand names, and then re-purpose them to help us sell brand new forms of mass stupidity."

Kramer used this general mission statement, in part, to explain how CBS's purchase, early this morning, of online service provider, America Online, was, in no way, about getting CBS into the online services business. In fact, CBS will immediately shut down all incoming phone lines, shit-can all modems, and tell AOL's 8-million subscribers to go, like, fuck themselves -- sort of what AOL was already doing, except for the part about the phone lines and the modems.

"AOL provides nothing," said Kramer, "So it's no loss to shut them down. But man, what a great soap opera concept! Pissed-off customers! Endless lawsuits! Constant tension! Screaming! Fighting! Lying! Whining! Mass Resignations! So what we're really buying is the AOL story, to use in a 5-day a week TV soap, as well as the set to shoot it on, and a huge staff of extras who already know exactly what to do to pretend like they're working at AOL."

Kramer said that no AOL employees would be laid off, and that no salaries would be cut, despite a drastic reduction in the work week. "Employees will only have to show up when we're actually taping a show," Kramer said, "But on shooting days, they'll have to be here at around 4 or 5 AM, and then, in between scenes, they'll be subject to interminably long periods of waiting. -- So what else is new for AOL?"

In other related merger and acquisition news:

On Thursday, the Searle Drug Company, maker of the popular heroin substitute, Smackaroni, purchased CNET, the smarmy purveyor of skin-crawlingly inane online-oriented TV shows, and shut down all its online operations, in order to reposition its well-known brand name as a new insomnia cure.

"The CNET brand has become synonymous with putting people to sleep," said a spokesman for Searle, "So we think it's a perfect fit with our new line of sleeping pills aimed specifically at gen-Xers, who are just, like, too wired or whatever from being, like, online all the time, or whatever, to get to sleep or something."

In a defensive move, on Friday, rival drug company, Pfizer Inc, maker of the popular speed substitute, Methamphetaroni, bought Wired Magazine and the Netly News for much the same reason.

On Wednesday, the Disney Company, popular purveyor of kiddie porn products such as the "Hey Ho Long Dong Silver Supreme Court Justice Doll," or whatever, will buy the Federal Bureau of Investigation, shut down its crime lab, fire all its agents, and just use the popular FBI brand name for a new animated cartoon series made up of tired old comedy-of-errors cliches, and just plain dumb cartoon violence.

And, last Tuesday, in a move that apparently kicked off the week's mergermania, Michael Jackson purchased the Catholic Church, a brand name which has become synonymous with many subtle and perverse shadings of child abuse. Jackson claimed he was buying the Church mainly to be able to use the gaudy costumes worn by Popes and Bishops for his upcoming "Milk the Kiddie Buck Porno Tour," starting in early May.

Jackson also stated that he would continue to encourage and financially support the Catholic Church in spreading the teachings of the Bible -- "especially the teachings about how sex between mega pop stars and 8-year-old boys is really a most profoundly holy thing."