Category Archives: Onion/Not-Onion

Real or The Onion?  “Blind creature that buries head in sand named after Donald Trump“

Real or The Onion?  Soldier Has Suspicion Murder Charge Due To His Admission On Live TV  You be the judge.  Answer below.

Actual photo of Air Force $1,280 coffee cup.
(Credit: Tech. Sgt. James Hodgman, Air Force)

Move over, $10,000 toilet seat covers–you’ve got company.

An Air Force official admitted the branch’s multiple purchases of coffee cups that break easily and cost $1,280 each “is simply irresponsible,” vowing to pursue ways to fix the mugs instead of continually buying new ones.

USA Today — not The Onion.

My feed had the headline “VA official proudly displays KKK Grand Wizard portrait in his D.C. office” and quoted the official as saying about the portrait that, ‘I thought it was very nice’. Uh-huh. No one is that dumb, right?

I mean, I can sort of believe that a person might not know that Nathan Bedford Forrest was the founder of the Klan until someone pointed that out, but even so, how dumb do you have to be to hang a lighted portrait of a Confederate General in your federal government office? When nine out of 14 of your senior staff are Black? And then refuse to take it down when they point out the problem? Not credible.

And am I really supposed to believe that the VA has an “Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization”? Surely that belongs in the SBA, not the VA, right?

Well, shows you what I know. The article was from Boingboing, not the Onion. The Washington Post confirms the story and adds more damning details. And the VA does have an  “Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization”.  And someone with a decent supervisory civil service (not a Trump political appointee) job is really that dumb.

New App Lets You ‘Sue Anyone By Pressing a Button’ was the headline. I thought it was the Onion, but it’s apparently real.

Do Not Pay, a free service that launched in the iOS App store today, uses IBM Watson-powered artificial intelligence to help people win up to $25,000 in small claims court. It’s the latest project from 21-year-old Stanford senior Joshua Browder, whose service previously allowed people to fight parking tickets or sue Equifax; now, the app has streamlined the process. It’s the “first ever service to sue anyone (in all 3,000 counties in 50 states) by pressing a button.”

Can’t test it though, as it’s only available for the iPhone, not Android.