Sometimes, facts are stranger than fiction.

Yesterday, a New York City firefighter collided with a private bus as he tried to get to work during the transit strike. He remains in critical condition, reports Murdoch's Post.

His name is Matthew Long, and his father Michael currently heads the state's moribund conservative party. The CP, similar to the Right to Life Party, which has lost its statewide ballot line, will be struggling to garner enough votes in November to remain on ballots. Failing that hurdle would remove the CP's ability to deliver patronage, and put cherries and whipped cream on the upcoming electoral humiliation of the republican party.

But it gets even stranger. The bus with which Matthew Long had his life-threatening encounter was chartered by Bear Stearns, George Bush's tenth-largest total donor in 2004. The CEO of Bear Stearns, James Cayne, is a Bush pioneer.

The bus is owned, reports Newsday, by Allen AME Transportation. That company is affiliated with the church run by the Rev. Floyd Flake, a former Democratic Congressman. Rosa Parks, the civil rights heroine evoked by union leader Philip Toussaint, was a member of the African Methodist-Episcopalian church in which Flake is a minister.

How long until this bizarre set of coincidences turns up on the internets as a conspiracy theory? We wish Matthew Long a speedy recovery.