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<p>The Onion America’s Finest News Source</p>

<p>Halliburton Gets Contract To Pry Gold Fillings From New Orleans Corpses’ Teeth
September 14, 2005 | Issue 41•37</p>

<p>HOUSTON—On Tuesday, Halliburton received a $110 million no-bid government contract to pry the gold fillings from the mouths of deceased disaster victims in the New Orleans-Gulf Coast area. “We are proud to serve the government in this time of crisis by recovering valuable resources from the wreckage of this deadly storm,” said David J. Lesar, Halliburton’s president. “The gold we recover from the human rubble of Katrina can be used to make fighter-jet electronics, supercomputer chips, inflation-proof A-grade investments, and luxury yachting watches.”</p>

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<p>although I generally enjoy jokes at Halliburton’s expense, I can’t find it within to enjoy this joke. Not funny. Maybe too close to the truth.</p>

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<p>…not funny…</p>

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<p>I usually really like The Onion, but that’s way over the top beyond bad taste. And no, not because it’s “maybe too close to the truth.” Truly gross and offensive.</p>

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<p>The Onion may have just jumped the shark. Very poor taste.</p>

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<p>Ditto—NOT FUNNY!</p>

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<p>I don’t think the Onion piece was intended to be funny. It’s angry hyperbole, in the vein of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” Swift wasn’t trying to get his readers to laugh at the notion of eating Irish babies. He was trying to shock them into sharing his sense of outrage that the Irish people were suffering exploitation to the point of starvation.</p>

<p>The Onion writer is castigating the Bush administration for both its shameless cronyism, and its apparent indifference to the plight of poor people who were reduced to destitution in the aftermath of a disaster. I thought the piece was hamfisted, but effective.</p>

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<p>That’s how I read it too, Greybeard. That’s how satire works, Swift beng a perfect example.</p>

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<p>Effective satire works because of the kernel of truth at its core. This sort of dreck says more about its author than it does about its intended target.</p>