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.

Western Plastic, Wyoming, May 30, 2141 -- The United States Office of Patriotism-Enhancing Symbolism announced today that the nation, by executive order and congressional nod, has officially adopted the graceful and majestic bald beagle as its new national symbol, replacing the lamentably extinct bald eagle.

New Presidential Seal Featuring the Bald Beagle

Pyongyang, North Korea, November 5, 2006 -- A jubilant U.S. State Department announced today that the Halliburton subsidiary of Buhn & Dogale, a small ceramic figurine manufacturing firm located in the Cayman Islands, has been granted a coveted $3.2 billion no-bid contract to construct North Korea's first light-water nuclear reactor.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said key officials associated with the contract award, an important component of the recently signed North Korean Now You See Them Now You Don't Strategic Nuclear Arms Limitation Treaty, were "elated".

Washington, D.C., March 12, 2009 -- President Dick Cheney announced this morning a sweeping new Grand Canyon Oil Exploration Initiative during a speech in the White House Rose Garden. The plan calls for the full-scale industrial exploitation of Grand Canyon National Park, which is believed by President Cheney to contain "significant, or at least a few, oil reserves".

Following is the official White House transcript of the President's speech:

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