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I thought maybe they finally settled this debate.

I couldn't figure out until I RTFA if this was actually a joke or for real.. The Onion called it first: Proposed (Classified) Bill Will Defend Against Flesh-eating (Classified)

Perhaps it was this bill? http://www.theonion.com/video/proposed-classified-bill-will-defend-against-flesh,14175/

I can't help but think of The Onion's parody about people outsourcing their own jobs to India

"He's only saying that because, if *disaster* did *occur*, he’d have the hardest time running away." http://www.theonion.com/articles/stephen-hawking-warns-of-aliens,17343/

It does not cover bankruptcy at all, even indirectly.

Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 4. Which doesn't specify that all bankruptcies are to be in Federal court, just that the Congress may specify uniform treatment.

ob Onion

I've taken to going to apple stores and queuing up the Friend Bar on all the macs near the genius bar. The average user wouldn't even notice a jailbroken iphone when they come in. I take pleasure in getting an average joe asking about the friend bar to apple employees.

http://www.theonion.com/video/in-the-know-is-the-government-spying-on-paranoid-s,14177/

http://www.theonion.com/articles/mars-rover-beginning-to-hate-mars,2072/

George Steinbrenner tried that, with disastrous results.

Nonsense. As widely reported in the press and talk radio, it was a national nightmare!

That guy beat them to it: http://www.theonion.com/articles/ceos-success-credited-to-unbelievable-handshake,1809/

If these school board members want to revel in their ignorance, then that's fine, but to try to force that ignorance on their children is nothing short of child abuse. The Texas and Louisiana school board members should read these articles and try to grasp that every educated person in the world thinks they are morons... http://www.theonion.com/articles/evangelical-scientists-refute-gravity-with-new-int,1778/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/sumerians-look-on-in-confusion-as-god-creates-worl,2879/

If these school board members want to revel in their ignorance, then that's fine, but to try to force that ignorance on their children is nothing short of child abuse. The Texas and Louisiana school board members should read these articles and try to grasp that every educated person in the world thinks they are morons... http://www.theonion.com/articles/evangelical-scientists-refute-gravity-with-new-int,1778/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/sumerians-look-on-in-confusion-as-god-creates-worl,2879/

Sadly, floors have yet to be invented. Sounds like a good idea, though.

For a second I thought the Slashdot headline was an Onion-esque headline, reporting the blindingly obvious and mundane as if it were news.

Because it's happened before -- it's how the whole Harry Potter moral panic got started. True story.

The original article: http://www.theonion.com/articles/harry-potter-books-spark-rise-in-satanism-among-ch,2413/http://www.theonion.com/articles/harry-potter-books-spark-rise-in-satanism-among-ch,2413/

And the snopes article: http://www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/potter.asp

March 2001 is barely "Bush-era" and it's about Starbucks declaring Martial Law, not the government. A better Bush-era article in a similar vein was their one about the Department of Homeland Security mysteriously issuing every man woman and child a lifejacket, with no explanation, and assurances that they surely won't need it and everything is fine. Link

I don't know, they've been right before.. I'm not taking any chances - I'm going to start stockpiling *classified* and move to *classified* where I can fight off any *classified* flesh-eating *classified*.

My favorite was always the 2000 article Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over... almost everything in the article came true.

After all, in 2001, they had Bush's inaugural address as "Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is Over"...

...That you can find here.

is here.

I think we ignore The Onion as a serious news source at our peril, especially now that mainstream media has all but abandoned serious reporting themselves. Imagine what could have been avoided if people had listened in 2001. It's like their reporters had used a fricking time machine!

...remember what they said about Gillette in February 2004? And then what happened in September, 2005?

(Now let's watch as The Onion replaces the writings of Nostradamus as the road map to an apocalyptic future.)

Supreme Court Upholds Freedom Of Speech In Obscenity-Filled Ruling

This story reminded me of the excellent Onion piece on Bush Jr.'s work in fermilab.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/bush-finds-error-in-fermilab-calculations,1463/

Obviously you haven't been listening to the blue whales themselves

Underfunded Scientists Force Lipstick-Covered Rat With Cancer To Run Through Maze

So you like other people not being anonymous, but you want yourself to still be anonymous? That kind of reminds me of this.

I personally think internet anonymity is a good thing. It forces people to attack each other's arguments rather than resorting to ad hominems, and ensures an even playing field, since newbies' arguments are heard on the same level as those of our celebrities (at least in theory).

Really? I must say I have found the exact opposite is nearly universially true on the internet, the more anonymous people are the more of a douche bag they feel free to be, ad hominem attacks seem to escalate the more anonymous people feel themselves to be. The few places on the internet where I participate in a non anonymous fashion are the only places I have seen where cordial well thought out discussions and arguments occur.

So you like other people not being anonymous, but you want yourself to still be anonymous? That kind of reminds me of this.

I personally think internet anonymity is a good thing. It forces people to attack each other's arguments rather than resorting to ad hominems, and ensures an even playing field, since newbies' arguments are heard on the same level as those of our celebrities (at least in theory).

Some people in Britain have worked out how to access websites hosted outside of the UK, so it's entirely possible, however unlikely, that they were inspired by an Onion article:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/christian-right-lobbies-to-overturn-second-law-of,281/

Ever since I heard Kid Rock starved to death, I've been really sympathetic to musicians. I promise not to ever download anything by this guy.

FTFA:
...and the reporters have filed their stories in Googled Docs instead of Microsoft Word.

I guess they meant they used free-as-in-beer software for that edition -- or whatever Googled Docs are. (Perhaps you get them when you type TheGoogle into a Word document?)

Perhaps "they" don't. After all, if Steve says it's not a problem, then it cannot be one. What are they going to believe: the evidence of their own eyes, or the Word of Steve?

You mean news like this?

The world's first Shape-Hole interface! Reminds me of this.

Obligatory

Link.

Was this performed by the famed South Africa Vuvuzela Philharmonic Orchestra?

Another... http://www.theonion.com/articles/south-african-vuvuzela-philharmonic-angered-by-soc,17625/

You have to be very careful with glitter tornadoes. They leave particulate matter in the air which, when inhaled, can lead to a debilitating disease: pneumosparklyosis.

It's planned.

He could have gotten a whole lot more...

Don't forget Zombie Ronald Reagan

Hey look, you're famous: Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television

Of course, you probably don't have any friends. Its not hard to avoid people when you're not part of their target "friendship demographic" am I right?

By your logic gravity is also "only a theory".

Why yes, it is.

You are talking about a DEVICE. No one here has a problem with patents for THINGS, but we do have a problem with patents on IDEAS. Software patents are just that, patenting an idea, an algorithm. Math. Kind of like when Microsoft patented zeros and ones.

On that same subject, I thought this was hilarious:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/study-most-selfabuse-goes-unreported,1086/

the shit out of people generation in music ... it was an era. its not like it used to be now.

the onion had a good piece about this :

http://www.theonion.com/articles/marilyn-manson-now-going-doortodoor-trying-to-shoc,459/

....

When you buy a book, you're buying the physical media -- the paper and cover/spine/jacket/glue/stitching, and also the ink covering the page -- for what that's worth. You're also buying the consumption of the words. You're not buying the words or the right to reproduce them. The same holds true with digital media. You're buying the right to consume the information contained within a particular ordering of bits, but you're not buying the information itself or the right to make even one filecopy of that information which you sell or give to someone else. (Yes, backups are fair use, no matter what anyone says.) I'm sorry, but you're just not.

....

There is no such thing as a license to consume, and you can not be penalized for unauthorized consumption. Copyright is a protection against making copies of protected works, whether they be print or media. No one can be arrested or fined for borrowing a copy of a CD or a book. Listening, reading, or watching is not a crime. If I go down to the town square and start reading the most secret Scientology manuals to the public, the listeners can't be prosecuted. If my buddy copies his CD library and gives me copies, I doubt that I would even be liable, since I would not be the one who performed the act of copying the content. A license to consume would be getting too close for comfort to this scenario.

"To buy" a book versus "to license" it, I don't think you understand the concept. Granted, it was much easier to understand when books were hardcopy only. Back then, it was well understood that you couldn't just go to the local copy shop and have them make 10, 100, 1,000 copies which you then sold, or even gave away. .... Now, that being said, if I purchase "1984" and wake up one morning and find it missing, then discover the publisher I bought it from repossessed it, I'm going to be ticked off. If they've refunded my purchase price in full, I'll be quite a bit less ticked off.

The difference is, if a publisher breaks into my house to "repossessed" a book, I get to level a host of criminal charges including theft. If I posses a physical copy of bock, the copyright holder has no right to revoke my license. I own that copy and it is my property. Publishers and organizations like the RIAA and MPAA are trying to erode our property rights for copies, a case in point is the campaign against second-hand game, music, and movie stores.

The complication is that modern digital technology requires copying content in order to do anything interesting with it. In order to install copy protected software, you have to make a copy of the software onto your hard drive in violation of copyright law. If you want to rip your CD's to have your music on an iPod, you have to violate copyright law. Copyright holders have been trying to deal with this thorny problem for the past couple decades; at first by copy protection schemes, but more recently by complicated licensing schemes that decriminalize common, necessary steps that people have to do in order for the technology to work. But then, they don't want to give everything away, and thus licensing restrictions and DRM are borne. The problem, of course, is people. They tend not to like trickily worded agreements that make purchases feel less like property.