The Onion: News Before It Happens, Part 5

In April of 2002, The Onion published this article:

Mideast Peace Process Derailed, Burned To Ground, Shoveled Over With Dirt

Only 12 years and 3 secretary of states later, the lamestream media caught on:

Kerry: It’s ‘Reality-Check Time’ For Peace Process

The Onion is America's finest news source for being #1 in news. Previous four examples:

Part 4: Iraq
Part 3: The Economy
Part 2: Also Iraq
Part 1: Bush II, U2, The Brewers

Some of the links to the "real" news are dead, as it turns out. None of The Onion's links have died, which just means they are better at that too.

The Onion: News Before It Happens, Part 4

Longtime fans of memphisevans.com know I am a huge fan of The Onion satirical newspaper. They have, once again, published a story BEFORE it actually happened. Here they are:

The Onion, November 30, 2011:
54 Iraquis Die In Not Our Problem Anymore

Yahoo! News, December 22, 2011
Wave of bombings across Iraqi capital kills 60

By the way, neither I nor The Onion are making light of this tragic event. My readers can tell that, right? You get satire, right? The real point being that tragic things are still going on and it is sad, even if we ignore it. I ask because my teacher friend Kaptain Karl has realized that some 90% of high school students do not understand or even recognize satire. It makes me wonder if that statistic is any different in the adult population.

To see previous examples of the remarkable predictive power of The Onion, you can search for other blog entries here with "the onion" tag if you know how to do that. Sometimes I can find that, sometimes I can't. I don't know how to capitalize "the onion" tag.

The Onion: News Before it Happens, Part 3

I've documented at least three instances of The Onion having the news slightly before the rest of the media. Here is another one.

The Onion article, August 4:
Drunken Ben Bernanke Tells Everyone At Neighborhood Bar How Screwed U.S. Economy Really Is

Yahoo! Finance, August 9:
The Fed’s Disappointing No Exit Announcement

They definitely deserve to win a Pulitzer. Here are the other times they've had the story before anyone else:

Part 1
Part 2

The Onion: News Before It Happens, part 2

About two years ago I spotlighted the ability of The Onion, America's Finest Source for being Number One in News, to publish stories that at the time seem fictional, but later come true. (Old post).

It has happened again. Here are the links:

August 18: The Onion

Almost two weeks later, August 31: Yahoo! News Story

Seriously, The Onion IS the best newspaper to read if you really want to understand what is happening in the world.

The Onion: News Before It Happens

I remember when the current doofus-in-charge was put in to the white house. The Onion ran a story saying Bush would all but ruin the United States. This was not a terribly remarkable feat of prognostication, but I find it notable in light of its perhaps less obvious yet equally predictive fake companions.

And as I'm re-reading it I realize that the way they got the details right is kind of remarkable.

Later The Onion created a fake story about how the rest of U2 was embarassed by Bono. About six months later a real story came out about how U2 had almost broken up because of Bono's extra-curricular activities. You can look that up yourself if you want or just believe me and read on.

They did it again recently and this time I'm here with both links. Onion story (July 24, 2008) Yahoo! News Story (August 4, 2008 - link dead) Truly, The Onion is America's Finest News Source.