Washington, D.C., March 12, 2006 -- Vice President Dick Cheney, a leading advocate of the use of torture in the so-called "war on terror", successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of the technique this month by allowing himself to personally undergo a one-week program of "coerced interrogation", the compassionately conservative term for the practice. During the week, the Vice President proved the value of torture by unwillingly confessing to a wide range of infractions, some of them quite surprising.

Washington, D.C., January 9, 2007 -- Leading Republican senators who had formed a Suicide PAC prior to the 2006 midterm elections are now reconsidering their positions, beltway sources report. The unusual political action committee was designed to ensure members' reelections by codifying a formal "loss provision", under which PAC members vowed to commit suicide in the event of failure at the ballot box.

Outgoing Senator Rick Santorum, co-founder of DOH!

Beijing, March 19, 2010 -- A press release issued by the Chinese government today announced the countrywide implementation of a new high-tech tracking initiative designed to "increase security and prosperity for all citizens of the People's Republic of China." The plan, detailed by Zhou Bo Kai, chief executive of China's Ministry of Public Security, will involve the implantation of long-range, high-frequency RFID devices in every one of China's estimated 1.4 billion citizens over the next 18 months.

Mali, September 22, 2015 -- A local ostrich, Zzirrk Struthio II, has been charged with multiple ostricides following a grisly chance discovery in the two-toed, long-necked ratite's backyard. Mr. Struthio was taken into custody and is being held at the Municipal Pen on a bond of 100,000 grubs pending trial.

Two of Mr. Struthio's victims

"It was probably the most gruesome thing I've ever stumbled across," Krrbll Trrtt, a young ostrich who lives next door to Mr. Struthio with his parents, said.