Margaret Carlson imitates the Onion

The Wall Street Journal’s “Best of the Web” column by James Taranto has a regular feature called “Life imitates the Onion,” the Onion being a satirical publication. This morning as I was glancing through my local paper’s op-ed section I noted a column by Margaret Carlson that has to fit the definition. Trying to make fun of Republicans she noted that there is a lot of vocal opposition on the Right about the law that effectively bans 100 watt incandescent light bulbs. How did Congress do that? I’ll let Margaret Carlson explain:

Under the law … a 100-watt incandescent bulb would have to use only 72 watts of energy starting in 2012.

Carlson was serious, oblivious to the fact that a 100 watt bulb uses 100 watts of energy, by definition! If it uses less or more, it’s not a 100 watt bulb.

Which is no less insane that the Onion article that claimed that legislation had been introduced that changes the value of pi to 3 because the real value 3.1416 was too hard to use.