Alexandria, Virginia, February 12, 2008 -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain burned a witch yesterday outside his campaign headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, in a gesture some political analysts believe was intended to dispel accusations by rivals that the political veteran may possess dangerously moderate tendencies.

The witch, a suburban mother of two who was found not only to have been a subscriber to The Nation magazine but who also enjoyed listening to Melissa Etheridge, was unavailable for comment following her reduction to a lump of liberal carbon by Mr. McCain.

Basel, April 18, 2019 -- Five years after Brown Thursday and the total collapse of the New New Genomiconomy, legions of unemployable genomicists have found hope in a new venture: mapping the ego of thin-again, fat-again American talk show diva Oprah Winfrey.

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".

London, August 29, 2009 -- Ice cream trucks, the ubiquitous roaming purveyors of frozen dessert products that infest suburban neighbourhoods around the world, announcing their arrival using strident, uniformly irritating off-pitch melodies, have been found in a recent study to be a leading international cause of insanity.