#2
I suppose the irony is supposed to be that a mannequin (something meant to be looked at) appears to be looking at a person. Definitely a bit of a stretch. #6
A van marked “Mr. Fix It” has a broken window. It’s pretty [word from Richard Nixon’s vocabulary] self explanatory. #9
The catch copy for cigarettes mentions “inhal[ing] to your heart’s content.” Cigarettes are now known to cause disease of the (literal, not metaphorical) heart. Think about it as if it were a line said by a character in a story. It would actually be a perfect example of dramatic irony if the heroine said this at one point in the story and she died of tobacco-related heart disease at the end of the story. #10
An environmental activist group has cardboard cutouts acting as proverbial “tree-huggers.” Cardboard is made of trees, so supposedly these very tree-huggers are the result of the “murder” (as some activist groups might put it) of the brethren of the trees they’re currently embracing. Other commentators have pointed out that cardboard isn’t necessarily that environmentally unfriendly, but the idea is still somewhat ironic: the medium is (notionally, if not actually) directly contrary to the message. And, to LearnedHand, for good measure: #7
A sign is meant to tell you where you are. It appears as though, contrary to this purpose, there is sign simply stating that one is lost, the exact opposite of what one would expect. I’m sure in reality it is either a strange place name somewhere or the sign is in a foreign language, but the appearance, at least, is still ironic.

Okay, I get the idea that some of the changes — mostly just the more “hourglass” figure, really — could potentially contribute to body image issues in some girls. But looking at that last pic with all the characters together, it’s quite apparent that all the changes are just there to match the same art style. It is, you know, a complete shift in medium. And the Brave girl does have a somewhat more attainable figure, compared to the others, even in the new design. And if you think about it, in context that does in itself send a good message, even with the changes. Really, if one is going piss and moan about anything, it should be the “princess” art style in general, not this design in particular. As someone who’s yet to see the film in question (yes, I hear it’s good), count me as one among those who don’t really see what all the fuss is about. Oh, and even redesigned she still only looks like a dolled-up sixteen, you pervs! Quit complaining she’s now “sexy”; it’s squicking me out!

I don’t think this is a very smart move on the think tank’s part. The two journalists worked for a biased, racist, and stupid news station with direct ties to a murderous organization, but they were journalists nonetheless. Newseum is including them in what seems like it is more or less supposed to be a comprehensive list of all journalists who died on the job. Despite likely being scumbags, the two in question meet those criteria. It does not seem as though they were being singled out for any special honoring; they were just two names on a list. Now, thanks to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, they will probably receive more attention than they ever did while they were alive. This whole thing is very counterproductive.

I think you’re partially right, but I also think you’re kind of wrong. It’s true that the correlation between the reading level and the intelligence of prose is imperfect, as my other comment and the writings of the likes of, say, Luce Irigaray prove. However, genuinely more complicated ideas will, on average, require more challenging vocabulary and syntax. Your own comment, by the way, has a Flesch-Kincaid grade of 12.1, making it more difficult than the average comment on any of the sites in the list above. I would think that very few commentators on the web (myself excepted) ever attempt to ape the style of continental philosophers. And keep in mind that a “smart” level of commenting listed above still only rates at a high school sophomore level. It doesn’t seem, by and large, that unnecessary jargon is responsible for the scores in this case.

Indubitably, I would feel myself to be remiss were I not to grace this illustrious, erudite, and occasionally ostentatiously bathetic forum with a self-constructed witticism, designed with much ingenuity, to obtain in it as stratospheric a score on the time-honored Flesh-Kincaid scale as is both prudent and conducive to the elicitation of mirth on behalf of any of those unfortunates who might perchance to peruse it.

That’s St. Basil’s Cathedral, which is next to the Kremlin, not the Kremlin itself.

By definition, sushi is any dish containing vinegar-seasoned rice, and it looks like the ice cream one, and maybe a couple of the other ones (who knows what’s in the burrito one’s rice), has that, so they would, in fact, be real sushi.

I think the Ke$ha vs. Beatles factoid is either wrong, or at least misleading. I had trouble finding truly comparable figures, but it seems “I Want to Hold Your Hand” sold 5 million copies in the United States alone during its first run (in a population of only about 190 million vs. over 300 million when “Tik Tok” came out), while “Tik Tok” seems to have sold about 13 million copies in 2010 worldwide, which probably means the Beatles track sold more, especially accounting for population change. I’m sure the dollar amount for the Ke$ha track is bigger, but that would be due to inflation. Not that “I Want to Hold Your Hand” is one the Beatles’ more cerebral tracks, though.

“But we do have to worry about a future 1914—of course in an updated, twenty-first-century form—something that we cannot predict in advance, just as no one in 1914 conceived of even the possibility of the horrors and the course of history of the twentieth century.” —International Relations—The Path Not Taken: Using International Law to Promote World Peace and Security by Thomas J. Schoenbaum

“Deport Piers Morgan: Enemy of the Constitution” Yeah, that makes total sense. Legally sanctioning people for advocating stuff through speech is totally in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution.