Is Nat’l Lampoons Punking the Media?

As I chuckle over today’s headlines, I can’t help but think that someone must be syncing this bizarro made-for-the-Onion events for a movie they are making that ridicules the decrepit state of media and its “breaking news” ethos.

1) ‘Mystery smell settles over Manhattan‘ — It stinks in Manhattan, like rotten eggs, and nobody can figure out why? Meanwhile, no need to hire Leslie Nielsen to drop the punchlines as our own civil servants were on the scene: “Mayor Michael Bloomberg said there was no indication the air was unsafe. ‘It may just be an unpleasant smell,’ he said.” Watch WCBS report on “that smell.”

2) ‘Bird deaths shut down downtown Austin‘ – 63 pigeons were found dead in downtown Austin leading to a shutdown of 10 blocks. Nobody has a clue as to how this occurred. For the movie crews (assuming they were on it), “Workers in yellow hazardous-materials suits tested for contaminants in a cordoned-off section near the state Capitol.”

3) ‘Miami package was harmless‘ — “The Port of Miami was hit by its second terrorism scare in two days Monday when a package that was to be loaded onto a cruise ship tested positive for plastic explosives. Authorities later determined it was just a box of sprinkler parts.” — Watch Miami breaking news cov’g.

4) Court drops charges against Saddam — The fact that the Kurds won’t be trying to put a dead man in prison is top news??? Am I missing something?