Day: October 2, 2014

Ask the average person on the street to name the city that saw its walls shake with the birth of punk music and odds are they won’t answer “Detroit.” Ask them to name the band who first mashed the raw and the melodic together to create punk music before the term even existed, and they most assuredly won’t say “Death.” And we won’t even bother asking if anyone knew that the forefathers of punk were African American.

But thanks to the new revelatory and inspiring documentary A Band Called Death, the truth behind the band’s nearly simultaneous birth and death may yet find them their proper place in music history. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘A Band Called Death’

Look, world peaceniks. The U.S. would love to disarm our nuclear stockpile, but we can’t because — what’s that behind you?! An asteroid?!

According to one line item from the U.S. Government Authority Office’s Report to the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development on Actions Needed by
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to Clarify Dismantlement Performance Goal … Good god. We need to disarm the U.S. government’s keyboards.

Anyway, according to that report, those older nukes that were going to be dismantled as newer, presumably eco-friendlier weapons are phased in have been earmarked for use in planetary defense. The plan is to hopefully devise the means to launch them at incoming asteroids before we’re wiped out with one.

And that’s all fine and good, but what about our nukes, as in the ones that you, me and every other Joe Six-pack isn’t allowed to own? Asteroids, meteorites, comets — those can all seriously impact (ah-ha!) our property values. This isn’t Encino Man; we can’t turn every crater into a senior prom pool party.

Nope. If the government gets nukes to prevent holes in America, then the American people deserve nukes to prevents holes in their azalea gardens.

It’s bad enough that the animals have pushed us into a war that we didn’t necessarily want to join in, much less that they could win. But it happened, and as such, here we are. That said, invading our cars? What purpose does that solve?

First, a pair of normal, unsuspecting tourists rented a car to go sightseeing in Maine. No problem! Except when they opened the trunk, therein lied a python, presumably lying in wait to kill. Problem! Except Maine is not exactly a climate friendly to pythons, so the mighty serpentine warrior was easily subdued by police with a pillowcase. Problem (for the python)!

And then, a lazy coyote in decided to hitch a ride in a train conductor’s car. We know this is highly unusual because it took place in Wisconsin and as such, if the coyote was trying to smuggle people into the country, he was doing a bad job. The conductor let mercy shine upon the animal, nestled in the car’s front bumper, and drove the car all the way to his job, not letting the coyote be bothered despite it lowering the car’s fuel efficiency. Sadly, the coyote did not chip in for gas.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade–unless you’re in Germany, then make shandy.

That’s exactly what the city of Essen is doing in an attempt to make its alcoholic homeless more useful. Essen is putting its homeless to work by paying them in cash, as well as three beers, a meal and some cigarettes for cleaning up the city each day. Critics say it’s cruel to give an addict the thing he or she is addicted to as a form of payment, no matter what the substance, and that the program will make the city no better than a crack dealer.

To that, the city says, “Happy Oktoberfest!”