The! Biggest! News! of! the! Day! - Not McDonald's, Casinos or Solar Energy

Here are some of the contenders for today's biggest...news...of...the...day...

• The merger of IHOP Corp. (IHP) and Applebee's (APPB) as IHP offers $2.1 billion for APPB...
• Upbeat comments from McDonald's Corp. (MCD)...
• Earnings from Mattel (MAT)...
• A boom for casinos in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina...
• A look into solar energy as it said "But for all the enthusiasm about harvesting sunlight, some of the most ardent experts and investors say that moving this energy source from niche to mainstream...is unlikely without significant technological breakthroughs"...
• Word that Pershing Square Capital Management, "a hedge fund headed by activist investor William Ackman", has acquired a large holding in Target (TGT)...
• The need "to make IT jobs sexy again"...

While those are all stories worth watching, I think it is obviously clear that the biggest story is a reader choice:

• Pilot forgets to lower landing gear...
• NASA goofs on space shuttle banner...
• Paratroopers mistakenly land at prison...

The titles of the articles pretty much sum up the stories as "A pilot ran through the usual steps of getting ready to land his small plane, except for one little thing — he forgot to lower his landing gear"..."NASA moved space shuttle Endeavour a step closer to liftoff without an essential part: the 'u'."...and "A unit of 25 military paratroopers landed inside the perimeter of a state prison, but not to quell a riot or attempt some movie-script breakout. They just goofed."..I guess it was just a bad week for humanity?

My colleague Mark Fightmaster has already cast his vote for NASA's sign but I thought I would let you decided...