Agreed, for the most part. Generally there's no need to read the stories in the Onion. All you need is the headline and you could practically write the story yourself from that. But still, some of those headlines are pretty damn funny at times. I consider the fact that you don't need to read the article more of a time-saving feature than a weakness. It's also for this reason that I often enjoy the story-less sidebar items as much as anything in it. As long as the Infographic and 'What Do You Think' stay fairly consistently funny, I will forgive the Onion much if for no other reason than nostalgia.

However, the very sad, very obvious, very not funny knock-offs just need to be stopped.

I agree with you both. But the true humor for me comes in when you look at the dateline on an old article like this and satire becomes reality.

"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"

The Onion might have an off week every once in a while ( like maybe every 33rd week ), but nothing beats it now or in the past. Not National Lampoon, not Spy, not any current magazine or web site. Sure, the formula is predictable, but I don't consider that a weakness any more than the familiar skits from SCTV or Python could be considered examples of creatively treading water. Their edge is intact- I've got a stack going back five years, and one of those issues is interchangeable with the one from last week.

So, I don't know that you're right. It sounds like a case of apathy stemming from familiarity, not apathy connected to a drop in the Onion's quality.

You know, I don't really care whether The Onion "still has it" or not. The problem is all the hacks who think they can do an Onion-style story as well as The Onion can.

Frankly, though, I don't hold SCTV or Monty Python up as untouchable, either. They both had off days, and so does The Onion. Being able to predict the story based on the headline is not good craftsmanship, it's lazy. Don't defend it.

But you wrote a post complaining about the Onion no longer having it- you began by complaining about their imitators, but then it became a dissection of the Onion's perceived decline. The Onion hasn't "jumped the shark" yet; how lucky we are to have something that good and that free piled up in doorways across our fair metropolis. That's not a gift horse that I'm prepared to look in the mouth just yet.

Regarding SCTV and Python, well, c'mon, since when has "untouchable" become the only grade worth earning? Good comedy takes risks, which raises the chances of dropping a lead balloon much greater. Even a show like Curb Your Enthusiasm that will literally freeze you in your tracks with its fearless approach to satire isn't untouchable. I'll accept quite a bit less than untouchable from something that comes to me via free tv or that I pick up off a stack in Reckless records before I feel the need to parade its head on a stick through the village square...

Andrew my friend, right on. I wrote an article a while back about how the Onion isn't funny any more. They do occasionally have brilliant articles, and when they're relying on the more abstract, this-is-inherently-funny stuff, it's really good. but their social satire has just become mean and snide. Their need to make fun of the work-a-day folks is just plain mean and (my favorite word)--elitest.

"Let's take the every day things that lower-middle-class people do and paint it as news, to show how little these people are." Well, sorry The Onion, we can't all be brilliant Satire Newspaper Writers.

And, just like Saturday Night Live (still one of my favorite shows), they are getting too comfortable catering to the Campus Radical/50cent liberal crowd. Nobody hates a conservative more than me, but just because Noam Chomsky said it, doesn't make it true.