Area Man Sends Newsletter

The Onion goes to Washington

There have been many times that The Onion's parody headlines have hit the mark like nothing else. On social media: Local Idiot To Post Comment On Internet. On the drug war: Drugs Win Drug War. On animals: Kitten Thinks of Nothing but Murder All Day. On the mental acuity of certain voters: Area Man Passionate Defender of What He Imagines Constitution to Be. On redactions: CIA Realizes It's Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years. And probably its most republished headline on America's school shootings: ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens. Now, America's Finest News Source (not counting newsletters) is taking its act to the Supreme Court. "A man who was arrested over a Facebook parody aimed at his local police department is trying to take his case to the Supreme Court. He has sought help from an unlikely source, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief on Monday." (Luckily, it contains no ami-cuss words). NYT (Gift Article): Area Man Is Arrested for Parody. The Onion Files a Supreme Court Brief. Real news headlines have been imitating The Onion for years, so it's only fair that The Onion makes it into some real headlines. Of course, it's The Onion, so the brief is more entertaining than most. "The Onion cannot stand idly by in the face of a ruling that threatens to disembowel a form of rhetoric that has existed for millennia, that is particularly potent in the realm of political debate, and that, purely incidentally, forms the basis of The Onion’s writers’ paychecks." This is an interesting and pretty important case. Seriously. Almost as important as this sports news. Christ Returns to NBA.

2. Mug Shots

"Scientists have found that regularly drinking coffee or tea can provide a variety of health benefits. But how do coffee and tea compare in a head-to-head matchup?" WaPo (Gift Article) pits two addictions head-to-head to see which beverage will claim the world title for healthiest drink? The Coffee vs Tea Smackdown. (Winner takes on cocaine.)

3. Bookkeeping Up With the Kardashians

"The Securities and Exchange Commission has increasingly been turning a skeptical eye toward the sketchier corners of the cryptocurrency world, cracking down on bad actors and shady schemes. Usually, the figures involved are unknown to the public—but not this time." For touting Crypto without making it clear it was a paid endorsement, the SEC fined Kim Kardashian $1.26 million. The SEC is has stricter rules for Kim Kardashian than members of Congress.

4. Stamped Passports

"The team will travel 9,000 miles from the UK to reopen the bay for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic. They will spend five months without running water or a flushing toilet." And no, this is not a punishment. They applied. Four women to run post office and count penguins in Antarctica. (I was hoping Louis DeJoy would be the one to get this transfer.)

5. Extra, Extra

Un Cool: Speaking of megalomaniacs and nuclear threats, there's this: "North Korea on Tuesday conducted its longest-ever weapons test, a nuclear-capable ballistic missile that flew over Japan and could reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam and beyond, forcing the Japanese government to issue evacuation alerts and halt trains."

+ No Truss, No Fuss: "Britain's new prime minister may have already worn out her welcome. Liz Truss' government on Monday announced that it is dropping a plan to end the country's top income tax rate after the value of the British pound plunged following the unveiling of the proposal just 10 days earlier." Has Liz Truss already failed?

+ Elon Wheels: Elon Musk chimed in with some takes on the Ukraine situation that were so bad that even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded. In fairness, some people liked Elon's thinking. For example, the Kremlin. Elon is a guy who’s always sure he’s right even on topics he knows nothing about. The only thing worse than him sharing his nonsensical opinions about Ukraine would be if he owned the platform where he does it. And, as of today, that's becoming a much more likely possibility.

+ Shock and Straw: As we know from There Will Be Blood, it's a bummer when someone drinks your milkshake. It's worse when they drink your water. California wells run dry as drought depletes groundwater. "The bigger straw is going to suck the water from right beneath the little straw. Municipal wells like this one are being put at risk and are going dry because of the groundwater overdraft problems from agriculture. There are families who don’t have access to running water right now because they have dry domestic wells."

+ You Go, Girls! "Schoolgirls in Iran have been waving their headscarves in the air and chanting against clerical authorities, in an unprecedented show of support for the protests engulfing the country."

+ Walker Finds Open Hole: Herschel Walker has threatened to file a defamation lawsuit after a publication accused him of paying for a girlfriend's abortion. (Defamation? It's probably the most laudable thing that's come out about Walker since he launched his campaign.) Had enough of this terrible election effort? So has Walker's son. Herschel Walker’s campaign in turmoil as adult son accuses him of violence, lying.

+ Entangled Up in Boo: We have our winners of the Nobel Prize for physics and I get what they've done just about as well as I got physics in high school. "Working independently, each of the three researchers forged new experiments demonstrating and investigating quantum entanglement, the curious phenomenon in which two or more particles exist in a so-called entangled state. In this bizarre situation, an action taken on one of the particles can instantaneously ripple through the entire entangled assemblage, determining the other particles’ behavior, even if they are far apart." For those who need a little more explanation, this article from The Conversation might help. (Editor's note: It won't.) Nobel prize: physicists share prize for insights into the spooky world of quantum mechanics.

6. Bottom of the News

Courtney Baker-Richardson has been ruled out of an upcoming English League game after injuring himself. How? According to his manager, "He did it playing on his Xbox. Dropped his leg on the sofa and tweaked it."

+ While the 49ers won the Monday Night Football game vs the Rams, it was Rams player who made the best tackle. Of a fan.

+ "In many ways, it's a model election. The campaign runs for only one week, and all the candidates are well-grounded and devoid of hypocrisy." It's that time of year: Alaska's Fat Bear Week.