News of the Oxymoronic

Daily Best of the Web   —   Posted on April 25, 2014

The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

ikea-meatballsNews of the Oxymoronic 
“IKEA to Roll Out Vegetarian Meatballs”–headline, Huffington Post, April 23

Bottom Stories of the Day

  • “Debris That Washed Ashore in Australia Not From Missing Jet”–headline, New York Post, April 23
  • “Eric Holder Sides With Justice Sotomayor on Supreme Court’s Michigan Decision”–headline, WSJ.com, April 23

Global Warming, or Too Much to Drink?
The Washington Examiner’s Byron York reports that MSNBC host Chris Hayes has published “a lengthy new call for action against global warming” titled “The New Abolitionism”:

Comparing anti-fossil fuels activism to abolitionism gave Hayes some pause. “Before anyone misunderstands my point, let me be clear and state the obvious: there is absolutely no conceivable moral comparison between the enslavement of Africans and African-Americans and the burning of carbon to power our devices,” Hayes writes. “Humans are humans; molecules are molecules. The comparison I’m making is a comparison between the political economy of slavery and the political economy of fossil fuel.”

Hmm, we’re pretty sure the analogy he was looking for was not abolition but prohibition.

Why Do Bad Things Always Happen to Him?
“President Obama arrived [in Tokyo] on Wednesday evening to begin a four-country tour of Asia, after first stopping in Washington State to survey the devastation left there by last month’s deadly mudslide. It was a fitting start, given that everywhere on this trip, he will witness the lingering fallout of disasters, natural and human-made. . . . White House officials, who have come with a busy agenda of economic and security issues, worry that the leaders–particularly President Park Geun-hye of South Korea, for whom the ferry tragedy is still unfolding–will be preoccupied when they meet with Mr. Obama. ‘The South Korea visit could really be overshadowed by the ferry,’ said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.”–Mark Landler, New York Times, April 24

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”