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.

Berkeley, California, February 19, 2009 -- The widely accepted theory regarding the creation of the universe via a single, momentous explosion, the "Big Bang", has been effectively turned on its head. Scientists report new evidence has come to light of a second, more dramatic explosion, that is theorized to have occurred a few nanoseconds after the first one.

Guatemala City, Guatemala, December 2, 2005 -- Fans and viewers of the popular CBS reality television show Survivor Guatemala: The Maya Empire were dealt a disappointing blow with the admission by the US Defense Department that it had inadvertently vaporized the entire remaining cast in a nuclear weapons testing blunder yesterday.

A spokesman for CBS said the incident was "regrettable", but added that the network plans to continue the series with a resurrected cast of surviving former Survivors under the name Survivor Guatemala: The Day After.

Mission, Texas, June 19, 2011 -- The Mexican border fence approved by President Bush in October, 2006 is now complete, but accolades for the project are few and far between.

Portion of Mexican border fence

The Secure Fence Act, which was touted by Republicans as a major border security initiative in the weeks leading up to the 2006 mid-term elections, is now viewed by many as a fiasco of the first order.