Washington, D.C., November 26, 2005 -- Republican proponents of the USA Patriot Act are proposing a new provision they say will provide a fiscal silver lining to the controversial surveillance measure, but some privacy advocates are up in arms about what they see as an intolerable intrusion on privacy and civil liberties.

Los Angeles, March 19, 2010 -- Andy Warhol's famous phrase, “In the future, everyone will be fat and slightly stupid,” correctly prognosticated two alarming social trends that have led to a sharp rise in the incidences of heart disease, diabetes, right-wing talk radio and other obesity-related maladies among the ever-larger American populace.

What the eccentric 1960s pop artist failed to predict, however, is another trend that now has sociological statisticians scratching their unkempt scalps: the remarkable rise in short-term celebrity status among citizens from all walks of life.

Seattle, February 27, 2007 -- Microsoft Corporation refused to comment today on the embarrassing revelation that the new Windows Vista "startup music", the musical vignette that is played to calm and distract users while waiting for the operating system to boot up, was created exclusively on Apple computer systems.

Windows Vista logo

The inflammatory tidbit was reportedly let slip during an off-the-record interview of a composer on the 20-member team that worked for 18 months to create the harmonic snippet.

Washington, D.C., March 12, 2006 -- The Bush administration has filed for Chapter 11 moral bankruptcy protection, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan announced today. The unusual move, Mr. McClellan explained, is in reaction to the growing spate of scandals that have brought presidential stock in both national and international markets to the brink of collapse.

The filing will protect the Bush administration from moral creditors while a court-appointed ethical overseer evaluates the administration's moral debt.