Ottawa, January 24, 2006 -- Canadian voters, weepy and bleary-eyed from a national epidemic of seasonal affective disorder (SAD), voted the previously dark horse Conservatives, led by Stephen Harper, into Parliament yesterday. Voter turnout was a healthy 11.8%, with over 88% of voters reportedly staying home with "apathy, runny noses, or, in most cases, both".

Map of Canada

Albuquerque, January 10, 2011 -- Scientists at the respected Gray Matter Thinkorium in Albuquerque, New Mexico announced today the first successful test of a dramatic new method for generating clean, renewable energy using excess power from the human brain.

The technique, dubbed Neural Oscillatory Telegenesis (NOT), employs, in the words of chief researcher Alonzo Pinq, "cognitive dissonance, the source of a nearly constant supply of powerful, unused human brainwave activity" to generate virtually limitless quantities of emissions-free electricity.

Washington, D.C., January 4, 2006 -- Britney Spears will be the new Bush nominee for Supreme Court Justice, replacing Harriet Miers, whose nomination was recently withdrawn in the face of overwhelming bipartisan public sniggering. Close observers of the Miers fracas have pointed out that Bush's withdrawal of Miers' nomination was actually little more than a technicality, given that the Senate, in a rare moment of bipartisanship, had already voted 93-7 against confirmation last November.

Washington, D.C., April 9, 2008 -- Employees of the NSA (National Security Agency) won the coveted Federal Stock Traders Challenge for the 2008 season yesterday, marking the fourth straight win for the secretive communications surveillance agency.

NSA headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland: Approximate location of NSA Headquarters, Fort George G. Meade, Maryland