Hippies Accidentally Create World's Largest Mercedes Sign

Ithaca, NY (AP) - While attempting to create the world's largest peace sign, festival-goers in Ithaca, NY, created the world's largest Mercedes sign by mistake.

Can you imagine the smell?

5814 participants gathered to form the familiar symbol of pacifist activism, but - through either oversight or stupidity - only formed three of the four radii required to create a traditional peace sign. Since the missing radius was the lower center line, the symbol they formed was actually the trademark hood ornament of the Mercedes-Benz automobile - a quality German luxury car since 1926 - rather than the anti-war symbol created by a British nuclear disarmament protestor in 1958.

"Dude, this totally sucks!" observed participant Summer Sunshine Rainbow Rabinowitz. "We were, like, trying to tell Bush McChimpyhitler that his war totally blows, but somehow he managed to get his Haliburton oil buddies in here to screw us over with some sort of totally covert inside job. Just like 9/11!"

Other participants, such as Moonglow Moonbeam Johnson suspected less conspiratorial causes. "'Twas the weed, my man. The Acapulco Fire-Bud has a way of rendering one incapable of creating complex geometric figures. Heck, we're lucky we didn't end up with a swastika, or - even worse - the Windows logo."

Ithaca High School sophomore Trevor Dougherty, the organizer of the attempt, claimed they were still successful. "Maybe it's wasn't a peace sign, but Mercedes isn't all gas-guzzling & global warming. After all, the high priestess of high people, Janis Joplin, used it as an icon of war resistance in her song, 'Oh Lord, Won't You Run Over George Bush With a Mercedes Benz', which I once saw on YouTube or maybe somebody's MySpace page."

"Anyway," Dougherty concluded, "we all got super-mega-stoned, and that's what REALLY matters."