As 1999 wound down, the Onion AV Club put together its greatest article of all time: Least Essential Albums of the '90s. This was, as the article explained,

an unscientific assortment of ill-conceived experiments, earnest failures, and ludicrous cash-ins, but it's not a list of the decade's worst albums. It would have been easy to let loose on the grotesque excesses of the biggest, fattest, easiest targets, but this is trickier.

After noting truly inessential albums in a variety of subcategories and genres, they named the single least essential recording of the entire decade: The Adventures Of MC Skat Kat and the Stray Mob, a compilation of tunes ostensibly sung by the animated cat from Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract" video. The AV Club wrote:

The Adventures Of MC Skat Kat stands as the least essential album ever recorded by a sassy animated cartoon feline, surpassing even Garfield's 1991 album Am I Cool Or What? The rapping cat, who made his debut alongside Paula Abdul on the cheesy 1989 single "Opposites Attract," got his own 50-minute album a full two years later, allowing impatient Skat Kat completists the opportunity to hear him rock the mic on such tracks as "I Ain't No Kitty," "No Dogs Allowed," and "New Kat Swing."

...So inessential, you almost have to hear it. One of the most bizarrely ill-conceived albums ever released by a major label, The Adventures Of MC Skat Kat & The Stray Mob is a product of clueless committee thinking and Milli Vanilli-style studio hackwork at its most cynical. Never has a mass-produced album been demanded by so few.

Every December since then (except in 2004, for some reason), the AV Club crew has similarly catalogued the year's "recordings with the flimsiest reasons to exist". I'm not a music geek, but I find these lists hilarious. Enjoy: 2006, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000.

From the Onion:

The high quality and enduring value of the new 2007 Honda Accord has inspired roots-rock veteran John Mellencamp to write a stirring hymn about the working-class nation of Japan.

"Oh, you noble land of the rising sun/Where discipline and duty are still number one," Mellencamp sings in the video for "Buddha On The Highway," in which he is seen playing his guitar on the hood of a bright orange Accord parked in a terraced rice paddy.

"There's a place in Nihon for me and you/I was born in Hokkaido and I'll die there, too."

Mellencamp has reportedly begun work on a follow-up song telling the story of Hideo and Mariko, two Okinawan kids doing the best they can, who lose their jobs when Honda closes down the local plant and moves operations to Marysville, OH.

Heh.

The Associated Press, Nov. 1, 2006

Iran to give incentives to attract tourists
Country reportedly will pay $20 to those who attract Americans, Europeans

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran will offer cash incentives to travel agencies to encourage Western tourists to visit the country, giving a premium for Americans, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

...“Iran’s tourism department will pay $20 per person to those who attract European or American tourists to the country,” the agency on Tuesday quoted Mohammed Sharif Malakzadeh, deputy head of the department, as saying.

The Onion, February 15, 2006

Hamas Calls For 'Giant Summit' With All Israelis

RAMALLAH, WEST BANK — After his militant Islamic party took the majority in Palestine's recent elections, Ismail Haniyeh called for a "giant summit with all living Israelis" Monday, rekindling international hopes for peace in the war-torn region.

Haniyeh characterized the one-day summit as "the final solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute," and invited every Jewish citizen of the world to attend.

You know, there used to be a time when if Iran wanted some hostages, it would go out and seize them the old-fashioned way.

I'm a big Wikipedia fan, but the Onion did a good job with this one:

Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence

I like this bit from the Onion's latest "American Voices" roundup, which looks at NBC's decision to cancel its White House drama The West Wing after seven critically-acclaimed seasons.

The Onion, January 14, 2004:

Typo Results In 10,000-Acre Wyoming Skate Park

A simple typographical error in a proposal to set aside a scenic Big Horn Mountain valley for public recreation has resulted in the construction of the 10,020-acre Henrietta Bedford Memorial Skate Park, Wyoming Department of Natural Resources officials announced Tuesday.

Wired, January 2004:

A Skate Park Rises in the East

When Chinese officials conceived of New Jiangwan City - a "planned metropolis" on the outskirts of Shanghai - the centerpiece of downtown was supposed to be a general recreation area. Instead, clothing company SMP persuaded the government to build a 130,000-square-foot, $26 million temple to a sport many Chinese have never heard of: skateboarding.

Very nice, but it's still not China's biggest skateboarding feature.

The Onion, May 25, 2005:

In an effort to raise the individual American's awareness of and interest in advertising, the National Advertising Board launched a $32-million "Advertising: Get The Message!" campaign in major markets across the country Monday.

"From lifesaving drugs to new diet beverages, advertising keeps you informed about the products and services you want to buy," a spokeswoman said in a 30-second spot titled "Keep An Eye Out For Ads." "But advertising can't work for you if you don't pay attention!"

Business Week, September 5, 2005

Throughout August, 133 Japanese TV stations are airing commercials to promote the importance of…commercials. Japanese advertisers, like those in the U.S., worry about growing use of digital video recorders, now in 15% of Japan’s homes. By letting users skip ads, DVRs have knocked $489 million off the value of commercials to advertisers, says the Nomura Research Institute. To win back advertisers, the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan named Aug. 28 TV CM (commercial) Day.

Actually, the pro-commercial commercials are still being aired. And you can see the hyperactive, flash-based website for the "Enjoy CM" campaign here.

CM Day's bizzare monkey mascot is named Komaasaru-kun; saru means "monkey", and komaasaru sounds like "commercial" in Japanese. If you can tolerate his antics, the site actually has some rather neat content (all in Japanese, though), including a history of Japanese TV commercials dating back to 1953.

Reuters, Wednesday, September 14, 2005:

Gillette to Launch Five-Blade 'Fusion' Razor

Gillette Co. on Wednesday unveiled its newest shaving system, a five-bladed razor called Fusion with a trimmer on the back of the cartridge aimed at the 50 percent of men who have mustaches and beards.

Fusion is Gillette's latest product geared at maintaining the company's leading share of the world's razor and blade market.

It has one more blade than the Quattro sold by rival Schick, a unit of Energizer Holdings Inc.

The Onion, February 18, 2004:

F*** Everything, We're Doing Five Blades
By James M. Kilts
CEO and President, The Gillette Company

The Gillette Mach3 was the razor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Mach3Turbo. That's three blades and an aloe strip. For moisture. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened — the bastards went to four blades.

...Moisture or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, f*** it. We're going to five blades.

FOLLOW-UP:
James Taranto also noticed the irony (scroll down). For the record, I used his title, "Life Imitates the Onion", which he has used in the past for other similar incidents. But I spotted this particular one on my own, before seeing it mentioned on his Best of the Web roundup.

ANOTHER FOLLOW-UP:
SomethingAwful.com shows where all this is headed. I think that picture is based on an old MAD TV skit featuring the "Spischack Mach 13 Razor Blade" that shaved off not only your beard, but also big chunks of your face. Ironically, (via BoingBoing and Wired), MAD Magazine also predicted an excessively-multi-bladed razor back in 1979. And this song predicts even more extreme results of the razor arms race.

In a boon to bloggers everywhere, the Onion has stopped requiring a paid subscription to view stories more than one month old.

This means those stories can now be permalinked on blogs without fear that they'll become inaccessible to most people after a few weeks. And Onion site visits and page views will no doubt increase as a result. I'm guessing the gains in ad rates from higher readership will more than compensate for the loss of subscription revenue.

Old New York Times stories, by comparison, are text-only and cost a whopping $3.95 per article.

FOLLOW-UP:
Dave Winer says that blogs can link to free versions of archived NYT articles via the site's RSS feeds. Here's a handy link generator.

Found via LGF, is this Reuters story for real?

Palestinians abandoned a quest to build the world's longest sandwich on Wednesday after health officials told them their 750-meter construction risked rotting in the West Bank summer sun.

..."We were planning to add the mortadella and stuffing at the last minute to rule out any possibility of rotting," chef Ahmed Nazzal told Reuters. "There must be a conspiracy against us by other competitors."

Honestly, this reads like something out of the Onion. Palestinians get together for a harmless bit of fun, but when their plans go awry, they immediately start to see sinister conspiracies at work.

The only thing that could have made it better would be if the chef had specifically blamed the Jews.

FOLLOW-UP:
Looks like it's real. Apostropher found it on Reuters' own site.

ANOTHER FOLLOW-UP:
However, in the comments on this post, Steve Den Beste wonders why Palestinians were planning to eat mortadella, which is made from pork.

The Onion, August 20, 2003:

I Have an iPod — In My MIND

I'm sure you've seen a lot of tech-savvy people smugly showing off that new hunk of entertainment hardware, the iPod personal stereo. Well, I might not have the scratch to get one, but frankly, I don't want the white-corded wonder. I have my very own iPod — in my mind.

I hear those little things carry up to a month's worth of music. Well, so does my mind. I can call up any song I've ever heard, any time I want. And I never have to load software or charge batteries. There are no firewire cords or docks to mess with. I just put my hands behind my head, lean back, and select a tune from the extensive music-library folder inside my brain.

The New York Times, July 12, 2005:

Neuron Network Goes Awry, and Brain Becomes an IPod

Seven years ago Reginald King was lying in a hospital bed recovering from bypass surgery when he first heard the music.

It began with a pop tune, and others followed. Mr. King heard everything from cabaret songs to Christmas carols. "I asked the nurses if they could hear the music, and they said no," said Mr. King, a retired sales manager in Cardiff, Wales.

"I got so frustrated," he said. "They didn't know what I was talking about and said it must be something wrong with my head. And it's been like that ever since."

I'm of the opinion that the humor quotient of The Onion has been in a tailspin for the past few years, but this is just brilliant:

Suicide Bomber Killed En Route By Car Bomb

BAGHDAD — Terrorist cells in Baghdad are in mourning for suicide bomber Ahmed al-Khalaf, 19, who was killed by a car bomb Monday, 200 yards from an Iraqi police station, his intended target.

Sources within the insurgency said al-Khalaf was "on his way to becoming a glorious martyr" when he was struck down by the car-bomb explosion. Twenty-three other civilians were also killed.

"What kind of God allows the death of people who are on their way to kill innocent people?" insurgent leader Abdulwahid al-Tomizie said. "On the one hand, I am elated that the car-bomb explosion was successful, but the loss of the suicide bomber is a tragedy, as is the survival of all the innocent people he might have killed."

Read the whole thing.

February 2nd, The Onion:

Nation's Leading Alarmists Excited About Bird Flu

WASHINGTON, DC—The avian influenza virus, a mutant flu strain that has claimed the lives of 31 people in Eastern Asia since it was first observed passing from birds to humans in 1997, has the nation's foremost alarmists extremely agitated.

"Right now, the bird flu is just a blip in the newspapers, but if the avian influenza virus undergoes antigenic shift with a human influenza virus, the resulting subtype could be highly contagious and highly lethal in humans," Matthew Wexler, the president of the National Alarmist Council and one of the nation's leading fear mongers, said Monday. "My professional opinion, and more importantly, my personal belief, is that this is a cause for great national alarm."

February 24th, International Herald Tribune:

World bird-flu risk is 'gravest possible'

HONG KONG The risk that Asia's outbreak of avian influenza could turn into a deadly global pandemic has increased sharply in recent months, a top international health official warned on Wednesday.

"The world is now in the gravest possible danger of a pandemic," said the official, Dr. Shigeru Omi, Western Pacific director of the World Health Organization. "We need to consider urgent and decisive action in radical new ways."