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".

Washington, D.C., November 5, 2008 -- In a dramatic development that has come as a surprise to pundits and the public alike, a youthful technician with Diebold, Inc. has emerged as the unlikely winner of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. The president-elect, 19 year old Billy Pustule of Green, Ohio, reached via SMS at the garage apartment by his mother's house in which he currently resides, said he was "real psyched about being the president" and "had big plans for the inauguration party".

Sioux City, Iowa, October 12, 2030 -- The recently-formed Midwest Commission on Giant Hamster Flu (MCGHF) reported yesterday that an additional 39 men and women have succumbed in the past month to the latest outbreak of Giant Hamster Flu, or GHF. This brings the total GHF-linked death toll to over 400 for the first three quarters of the year, a 49 percent increase over 2029.

Officials of the MCGHF are now characterizing the outbreak as a serious pandemic with the potential for widespread contagion, although no cases of GHF spreading from human to human have yet been reported.

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.