New York, December 31, 2014 -- A major study recently completed by the Human Quirk Index, a multinational think-tank dedicated to tracking aberrant human behavior, has determined that many, if not most, New Year's resolutions are never fully followed. The study may have profound implications on the widely observed cultural phenomenon which leading HQI scientists, based on the results of the study, have dismissed as "kind of pointless, really".

Pensacola, FL, April 22, 2007 -- Following a series of potentially flawed elections in which the integrity of voting machines was called into question, the Elections Board of Florida has made the decision to scrap the traditional voting process altogether and put in its place a new system, based on the Applause-o-Meter, with which they feel the voting public may be more comfortable.

Kermit Porter, spokesman for the Florida State Elections Commission, elaborates:

Washington, D.C., December 9, 2005 -- A Halliburton executive mistakenly left a $1.7 billion no-bid military procurement contract as a tip in a Washington, D.C. restaurant yesterday, a spokesman for the restaurant, B. Smith's at 50 Massachusetts Ave. NE, said yesterday.

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.