Is this the perfect definition of irony?

[husmusen]

While browsing I came across this:

 

Police chief robbed driving to work

 

THE reputation of Papua New Guinea's capital as one of the world's most crime-ridden cities has been given an unwanted boost with news that Port Moresby's police chief was assaulted and robbed within sight of a major police station.

 

Assistant Commissioner Tony Wagambie was held up and assaulted on Wednesday by six armed men who stole his vehicle, a mobile phone and a small amount of cash, a police spokesman said today.

Mr Wagambie was in uniform just 400m from Port Moresby's Gordons Police Station, where Australian police assigned to help battle lawlessness in the former Australian colony are based.

 

The incident also came just days after Mr Wagambie denied newspaper reports that there had been an upsurge in armed robberies in Port Moresby since the detachment of 145 Australian police arrived in January as part of a $US600 million ($782m) five-year aid program to fight crime and corruption in PNG.

 

Now I'm sure it wasn't very funny for him, or for that poor city,

but given that he didn't get hurt(pride excepted) I can't help but find it

a little humerous.

 

Cheers

[Sayonara]

How embarrassing

[quick silver]

yikes. poor guy. right near a police station? oh man that must really bite.

try this one: this was told to me. i don't know where david got it.....

 

a bunch of people on a plane,

dancing to a song,

that was made popular by a band,

that died in a plane crash.

 

i thought it was funny, and since the topic is irony

[klanger]

LOL Quick Silver

 

That came from the film Con-Air, about a bunch of criminals that had taken over the plane that was transporting them elsewhere. The song was Sweet Home Alabama. Which brings me to another song that was full of irony, cant remember the title but some of the lines

 

a no smoking sign on your cigerette break

 

an old man turned 98 won the lottery and died the next day

 

a death row pardon two minutes too late

 

meeting the man of your dreams.... and then meeting his beautiful wife

 

Anyway I seem to have gone off the beaten track somewhat so shall shut up now

[Phi for All]

A Denver policeman once told me that the areas immediately around a police station are kind of a blind-spot. The policemen there are usually en route to other areas or are taking care of business inside the station. They also make the assumption that criminals avoid the area near the police stations due to the supposedly quicker response time.

[Flareon]

I think the fact that irony is so recognizable yet so hard to define, is ironic.

[swansont]

LOL Quick Silver

 

That came from the film Con-Air' date=' about a bunch of criminals that had taken over the plane that was transporting them elsewhere. The song was Sweet Home Alabama. Which brings me to another song that was full of irony, cant remember the title but some of the lines

 

a no smoking sign on your cigerette break

 

an old man turned 98 won the lottery and died the next day

 

a death row pardon two minutes too late

 

meeting the man of your dreams.... and then meeting his beautiful wife

 

Anyway I seem to have gone off the beaten track somewhat so shall shut up now [/quote']

 

"Isn't It Ironic" by Alanis Morissette

 

Not everyone thinks that those were examples of irony.

[Dak]

the thing that i cant work out about that song, is wether its A/quite artistically intellegent, or B/ stupid.

 

i mean, none of the actuall things mentioned in the song are ironic.

 

eg: "its like raaa-iii-aaaaaaain, on your wedding day, oh isn't it ironic?"

 

no. its not ironic. annoying, yes; ironic, no.

 

as far as i can tell, the entire song doesnt contain one reference to any genuinely ironic event.

 

which, for a song entitled 'isnt it ironic' is, itself -- well, quite ironic.

 

so, mebbe it was intended that way, in a kinda cool artistic "this is a song about irony which, ironically, doesnt actually contain any irony", or mebbe its just cak.

 

it also creates a kinda paradox: is the song ironic? no. then the fact that its entitled 'isnt it ironic' makes the entire song ironic. so, is it ironic? yes. but then, if it is actually ironic, that means the title is apt and not ironic (thus removing the only irony in the song), so.. is it ironic? no (etc)

[husmusen]

it also creates a kinda paradox: is the song ironic? no. then the fact that its entitled 'isnt it ironic' makes the entire song ironic. so, is it ironic? yes. but then, if it is actually ironic, that means the title is apt and not ironic (thus removing the only irony in the song), so.. is it ironic? no (etc)

 

That reminds me of those little paradoxes that people use to "prove" that

it's impossible to go back in time.

 

Congrats, I think you just "proved" that linear time doesn't exist .

 

Cheers.

[husmusen]

Just saw this,

 

yikes. poor guy. right near a police station? oh man that must really bite.

 

No quick silver, right near his police station just after he'd been

explaining how there was no crime problem.

 

Cheers.

[klanger]

I dont usually use the word Ironic anyway, if things go pear shaped just as you think you are plain sailing I generally refer to it as "sods law", quite who sod was I have no idea, I guess its probably just an old term used when things dont go quite according to plan, just like "that put a spanner in the works" I spose. Dont take things for granted I spose.

[Dak]

im doing this from my memory, so a few details might be wrong, but:

 

a scientist working for nasa, name of mr(dr?) murphy, set up an experiment with crash dummies to test the stresses that pilots (possibly astronauts) would experience during a crash, or excelloration or something. it was an expensive experiment that was of the one-shot variety, du to the fact that the experiment would be distroyed as it was run. he checked all the expensive bits of equipment to make sure they were ok, then ran the experiment. a post-experiment analysis then revealed that the reason that he'd have to go to his bosses to explain why he needed another $x (where x is a very large number) to repeat the experiment was because a 50c eletrical resistor failed, and he hadnt checked it because its low-techness meant it failed only very rarely.

 

he then formulated his law, which stated that 'if something can go wrong, then it will', as a way of teaching himself and others to always check everything to make sure its working. the law found its way into mainstream usage, whereupon i would assume it was changed to sods law simply because sod is more offensive than murphy, and whoever it was who 'invented' this law that just made our car break down on the way to the important interview is obiously a k*** and deserves to have a rude pronoun associated with him

 

i think

 

::EDIT:: or is sods law slightly different from murphys law?