Day: December 21, 2011

Take it from Snee: An executioner’s Christmas wishlist

One of the perks to the holiday season is spending time with your family watching 24 hours of A Christmas Story, with an occasional switch-over to It’s a Wonderful Life. This is a time-honored tradition that predates even television, going back all the way back to public executions. But, even that may not last much longer: the European Union has tightened restrictions on selling lethal injection drugs to nations that still perform capital punishment (leading to an obvious question: what does a nation that doesn’t execute prisoners use lethal injection juices for?)

I could spend time answering that parenthetical, but who cares what a bunch of Europeans do with sodium thiopental or pentobarbital? The United States is in a real pickle here. If we don’t figure out a way to humanely execute our citizens, then we might have to actually consider the ramifications of a government that kills its citizens.

Fortunately, I’ve done some research and believe I may have found some alternatives so that we can get back to killing people without hangings or beheadings. Continue reading Take it from Snee: An executioner’s Christmas wishlist

Rock beats scissors, dual lightsabers beats taser

A man from Hillsboro, Oregon has been arrested and charged with assault after allegedly attacking customers at a Toys ‘R Us store with … drum roll please … wait for it … two plastic lightsabers.

The man, armed with two lightsabers and his abnormally high mitochondrial count, started swinging the toy weapons at customers in the store last week. You can just see the transition from Jedi to Sith.

When the police were called, the 33 year-old moved out to the car park. When cops confronted him there, he began attacking them with the lightsabers, and when one officer shot a taser at him he “knocked one of the wires away”. Such skill and finesse.

It was all for naught, though. Police eventually got the better of Master Porkins, who now faces “allegations of disorderly conduct, theft, assault, resisting arrest and interfering with a police officer”.

Uh-oh! Our frankincense is tingling!

We’ve got bad news for you Christmas traditionalists out there. (You know, those of you that drink wassail as three ships go sailing by for 12 days.) If you were planning on going the nostalgic route and giving Jesus his original baby presents, then you’re out of luck with frankincense. By the end of the last century, it appears that fire, disease and cattle farming depleted Boswellia trees, which is where frankincense — a resin — comes from.

Of course … you could always embrace the commercialized Christmas and give the Big Guy gold, myrrh and a box of General Mills’ Frankenberry.

Animals break-ins

It should be no secret that squirrels are the most disgusting things on the planet. They live outside, they climb trees and they also sometimes find a place to live in your attic.

Then there are the times when they break into your home and frighten your baby. Squirrels have been terrorizing a building in Queens, New York, with multiple break-ins in recent weeks. The most recent was in a baby’s room, where it clung to the drapes and urinated on them, before making a quick getaway.

Check your Christmas trees thoroughly, folks.