The! Biggest! News! of! the! Day! - Not Drilling Deal, Merck Earnings, Harry Potter or Death Bonds

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

• The merger between GlobalSantaFe (GSF) and Transocean (RIG)...GSF shareholders will receive $22.46 in cash and 0.4757 share of the new entity and RIG shareholders will receive $33.03 in cash and 0.6996 of a share...
• An upbeat earnings report from Merck (MRK)..."profit rose to $1.68 billion or 77 cents a share, from $1.5 billion" and "Merck raised its forecast for the year to a range of $3 to $3.10 a share"...
• Price cuts from Wal-Mart Stores (WMT)...
• A new publishing record for sales of the final Harry Potter book...
• A look into death bonds, otherwise known as "life settlement-backed security", "that offer people the chance to sell their policies to investors, who keep paying the premiums until the sellers die and then collect the payout"...
• A flaw in Apple's (APPL) iPhone that allows hackers "to take control of the device"..
• Expectations for oil company profits...
• The collapse of internet telephone company SunRocket...
• A look into Corning's (GLW) push to make optical fiber bend corners...

While those are all stories worth watching, I think it is obviously clear that the biggest story is this - Man spreads fire on flaming hay wagon...according to the article "A panicky man left a blazing trail behind him as he dashed around the countryside looking for a hose to put out his burning hay wagon"...

It is said that malfunctioning brakes set the hay on fire and the man "just floor-boarded it to get to an open area" for about five miles as "Falling hay started numerous fires along the route"...a witness "saw 30-foot flames coming out of the hay as he was going down the road"...

Wow - not many people can claim they set fires along a five mile path as they drove a flaming hay truck...of course, not many people would want to claim that...well, maybe a few would...I know one guy in particular...a friend who likes to borrow tools but you don't let him because you know he is just going to break something...or someone...