If you haven't seen the July 4th, 2009 issue of the New York Times yet, it's already online (seven months early). And the good news is everything is gonna turn out great!

We will safely pull all our troops out of Iraq, the Patriot Act will be repealed, the economy will get all fixed up, and national health insurance will be signed into law. All in just a few short months. Couldn't get better, right?

Wrong. Because it does get better. NYT Thomas Friedman will agree to stop writing columns in which he claims — against all evidence — to have expert knowledge…

The sudden outbreak of peace in Iraq has made me realize, among other things, one incontestable fact: I have no business holding a pen, at least with intent to write…

[T]o have been so completely and fundamentally wrong about so huge a disaster as what we have done to Iraq — and ourselves — is outrageous enough to prove that people like me have no business posing as wise men, and, more importantly, that The New York Times has no business continuing to provide me with a national platform.

In any case, I have made a decision: as of today, I will no longer write in this or any other newspaper… As of today, I’m putting down my pen, to take up a screwdriver. I am going to retrain as an engineer and spend the rest of my life working to build non-carbon-based energy technologies. And I'm going to spend a lot of time washing my hands.

The very special issue of NYT got a little bit of — okay, all of its — help from "anti-corporate activist-pranksters" The Yes Men and bunch of other activist groups.

The Yes Men's two most prominent members, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, discuss their NYT project below…