Day: May 24, 2010

The McBournie Minute: Monster-sized bad news

If history is any indicator, mankind is always bound to discover new things, and it the History Channel is any indicator, there are aliens and monsters that we keep searching for but nature/ The Government/ reality keep getting in the way.

Well, monsters are real on occasion. That is, if you define monsters as some scary-ass animals we didn’t know about before. This week has been particularly bad in that sense. First off, we had what seems to be the semi-annual “Look What I Found in the Rainforest” new species story. Among the finds: the Dracula minnow.

That’s right. A minnow that is also a vampire loosely-based on Vlad the Impaler. Also, it would be a good name for a metal band. Continue reading The McBournie Minute: Monster-sized bad news

Washington: ‘I cannot pay a fine’

When it comes to U.S. history, George Washington comes off as a pretty OK guy:

  • When life gave him a cherry tree, he made firewood.
  • At his first opportunity, he chose to attack the French rather than accept their immediate surrender.
  • He managed to outright not lose to the British.
  • He kept our new nation afloat for its first eight years, then left office voluntarily.
  • He stole New York City property from the public library.

That’s right: Washington checked out a copy of The Law of Nations by Emer de Vattel on October 5, 1789 and never intended to return it. In fact, it was kept a guarded secret by–we presume–the Freemasons until The New York Daily News blew the lid off of this conspiracy.

After 221 years, $300,000 and a backlog of unknown length on the waiting list, Washington’s pet historians have finally coughed up a replacement copy for the library, presumably because Washington doodled boobs and penises in the margins of the original.

Hope you’ve got comfortable shoes

You might want to rethink what you bring along with the next time you’re flying out of Australia. Anything kinkier than [use your imagination, we’re only PG13] may break new laws in the country.

It would seem that tourists are now required to declare whether they’re bringing pornography into the country. If officials think your hidden inhibitions aren’t Australia-friendly, you might be looking at jail time. Ruh-roh.

And to no one’s surprise, the Australian Sex Party is outraged by this move. Which is actually understandable, when you factor in that the lack of a formal definition of pornography regarding this change means that all decisions will be literally subjective and almost never objective. Of course, that’s not to say that the intentions aren’t in the right place: the changes were essentially brought about to combat child pornography (it’s better to think about the children rather than think about the children).

Of course, we all know that old adage about the best of intentions-they just don’t apply to people that like to dress up like giraffes.

The joyriding state

You may not know this, but in Maryland, stealing and crashing a plane is only a $40 fine.

A homeless man hopped in a single-engine plane and started it up, because, according to his lawyers, he was cold. We aren’t really sure if he made it off the ground, but he did crash the plane, causing $12,000 worth of damage.

Insurance covered all of the damage, except for the deductible, which was $40. A judge said the homeless man should pay.