"Solitary Crow On Fence Post Portending Doom, Analysts Warn"

"At this point, all we can say for sure is that the sudden appearance of this grim avian prophet spells disaster for our nation's banks, its roads, its schools, its health care system, its energy resources--for our entire American way of life," Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters while examining video footage of the crow. "Would you just look at the way it's sitting there, with those glassy, black eyes and that creepy beak. Christ. Something bad is going to happen, I just know it."

"Those … those eyes," Whitman added.

-- The Onion, Aug. 5, 2009.