Irony
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*'''Irony''' is that the [[Liberal|evil gummint-control of everything]] [[welfare state|socialist countries]] have the highest standards of living and political freedoms available on the planet.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdi#See_also Here's a list from the socialist Wikipedia.]</ref> They also place highly on [http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings The Ease of Doing Business Index], with socialist [[New Zealand]] even topping the US. | *'''Irony''' is that the [[Liberal|evil gummint-control of everything]] [[welfare state|socialist countries]] have the highest standards of living and political freedoms available on the planet.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdi#See_also Here's a list from the socialist Wikipedia.]</ref> They also place highly on [http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings The Ease of Doing Business Index], with socialist [[New Zealand]] even topping the US. | ||
| − | *'''Irony''' is the fact that the [[George W Bush|Bush]] administration | + | *'''Irony''' is the fact that the [[George W Bush|Bush]] administration [[USA Patriot Act|patriotically]] took away our rights in the name of defending our rights. |
*'''Irony''' is that [[Jesse Helms]] died on the 4th of July. | *'''Irony''' is that [[Jesse Helms]] died on the 4th of July. | ||
Revision as of 20:50, 12 December 2011
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Irony can refer to the outcome of an action or event being the exact opposite of what was hoped for, or a disparity (often hilarious) between intended meaning and the actual meaning that comes across. It's best shouted out loud in an odd voice when you encounter something ironic. I.e., "Oh! the EyE-rOn-EeEeE!!!!" - do not attempt to actually write this on a forum post, use the irony meter instead.
Excessive examples
- Irony is the fact that Paul Wolfowitz gave his a girlfriend a pay raise during an anti-corruption drive by the World Bank.
- Irony is when a military that costs six times more than its Chinese counterpart took ten years to kill just one frail, kidney-failing terrorist.[1]
- Irony is the fact that the drummer of ZZ Top, Frank Beard, is the only beardless member of the band.
- Irony is that the evil gummint-control of everything socialist countries have the highest standards of living and political freedoms available on the planet.[2] They also place highly on The Ease of Doing Business Index, with socialist New Zealand even topping the US.
- Irony is the fact that the Bush administration patriotically took away our rights in the name of defending our rights.
- Irony is that Jesse Helms died on the 4th of July.
- Irony is not when it rains on your wedding day or finding 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife. Both of those are examples of bad luck.
- Irony is also not the fate of Mr. Play-It-Safe who waited his whole damn life to take that flight only to have it crash, killing everybody on board. That is both bad luck and a bummer. However, if Mr. Play-It-Safe got to the airport, then chickened out and decided to drive to his destination, only to have that flight he'd waited his whole damn life to take crash on top of his car and kill him, that would be ironic. And a bummer.
- Irony could be, however, writing a song called "Ironic" that doesn't actually include anything that's ironic... Maybe God herself had a point.
- Irony is being freed from a lift[3], going to church to give thanks to God for your rescue, and getting crushed to death by a stone altar while you pray.[4]
- Irony is a conservative group that calls itself "Americans for Prosperity" cheering when Chicago is eliminated from contention for the 2016 Summer Olympics.[5]
- Irony is Lynne Cheney, who is
- A: the right wing author of a 1981 lesbian Western, and;
- B: married to a man named Dick.
- Irony is Sarah Palin bashing the "socialized" Canadian health care system -- including her implication that they had "death panels" -- only to reveal that as a young child her parents relied almost exclusively on the doctors of Canuckistan.[6]
- Irony is that Alan Keyes is the name of . . .
- a batshit-crazy, right wing, African American
ranterlecturer and wannabe politico who is so homophobic that he disowned his own lesbian daughter when she came out of the closet. - a 1980 TV movie character played by gay actor Dick Sargent.
- a batshit-crazy, right wing, African American
- Irony is writing this article in an effort to elicit sympathy for your five-year struggle to keep your husband from divorcing you, only to portray yourself as an obsessive, batshit-crazy nutcase who could test the patience of a saint.
- Irony is . . .
- A: the fact that Washington National Airport -- which is rated as having one of the most dangerous approaches in the world[7] -- was renamed for Ronald Reagan, the president who busted the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) in 1981;
- B: Reagan National Airport was where, on 23 March 2011 -- just a few months shy of the 30th anniversary of the PATCO mass firing -- two passenger jets were forced to land after midnight without ground control because the lone air traffic controller on duty was sound asleep at his post.[8] And;
- C: regulators were shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that there was only one controller on duty to oversee what may be the world's most high-security air corridor[9] because, after all, isn't that one of the safety regulations that PATCO fought . . . . oh, yeah. Never mind.
- Irony is when the listeners of a well-known, corpulent, Oxycontin-popping blowhard buy into the right-wing meme that Michelle Obama is fat and that her advocacy for better nutrition is bad for your health because . . . well, because the corpulent, Oxycontin-popping blowhard sez so.
- Irony is when evangelical American Protestants oppose gay marriage as a means to defend marriage, yet seem to be oblivious to the fact that English-speaking Protestantism was founded by a certain man who wanted to divorce his by-then-infertile wife and marry a much younger woman, whom he later had killed so he could (eventually) marry four more women.
- Irony is when conservatives and libertarians love Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead (the story of an anti-social architect who goes to extremes to keep from compromising his artistic integrity) while also loving Wal-Mart (the retailing equivalent of a rampaging rogue elephant which forces recording artists and moviemakers to compromise their artistic integrity by "trimming" objectionable words and scenes from their CDs and videos before Wal-Mart will agree to sell them). And yes, Wal-Mart does have that much power.
- Irony is when a motorcycle club goes on a protest ride against the law requiring them to wear helmets only to have one of the riders fall off his bike and die from an injury that would not have killed him if he were wearing a helmet.[10]
See also
- Irony meter - can you break it?
Footnotes
- ↑ To be fair, though, during about seven of those years, the military's top commander wasn't that concerned with looking for him
- ↑ Here's a list from the socialist Wikipedia.
- ↑ For our American visitors, a lift is what you call an elevator
- ↑ Croatian Times: "Missing Link" "Link" was the man's last name. (Yes, it's a vile pun. But, at least it's not our vile pun.)
- ↑ Huffington Post: "Conservatives Revel In Obama's Olympic Bid Failure".
- ↑ Stein, Sam. "Palin Crossed Border For Canadian Health Care", Huffington Post website, posted and accessed 8 March 2010.
- ↑ "The Most Dangerous Runways of the World", TravelViVi.com website, posted 1 September 2009.
- ↑ "Air controller slept as planes landed in Washington", Reuters.com, posted 24 March 2011.
- ↑ Levin, Alan. "Lapse at air tower leads to 'outrage'", USA Today website, posted 24 March 2011.
- ↑ "Motorcyclist Dies On Ride Protesting Helmet Law In New York", Huffington Post, posted 3 July 2011.