The last line is, as the kids say, LOL funny. From The Croatian Times:

A crackpot crook held off police for an hour before they realised that dynamite and detonators strapped around his waist were really sausages. Oddball Sing He, 23, threatened to blow up a restaurant and its terrified customers in Benxi, northern China, unless they handed him the day’s takings. He kept police at bay for more than an hour until a specialist bomb unit arrived and realised the bangers were more porker than plastique. “When we saw what he had round his waist we couldn’t help laughing. Some of the sausages still had the wrappers on them,” said one bomb squad officer. “It must have been terrifying for the customers but those things would only have gone off if you’d kept them past their sell by date,” he added. He told police he’d planned the raid because he was depressed after breaking up with his girlfriend. “I needed some excitement in my life and to that extent it was a success” he explained.

 
Dangerous Minds pal Jesse Merlin writes:

“Have I told you how much I worship James Coco? Overt hostility disguised as comedy disguised as overt hostility. GENIUS. This clip is just unbelievable.  The way Coco takes on Bob Hope (one of the most beloved men in America) and Woody Allen is positively inspired.  And genuinely hostile.  Coco is one of the greatest comic geniuses among forgotten character actors and Broadway stars, known these days perhaps for “Man of La Mancha,” his gut-bustingly funny role in “Murder By Death” and his cameos on the Muppet Show and in “The Muppets Take Manhattan.”

 
The continuation of Coco’s appearance (listed as clip 5) shows up here at 7.45.

 
On December 22nd 1985 The Minutemen‘s D. Boon perished in a van accident in Arizona. I can count myself as one of their early fans, having picked up their first E.P. on the strength of it being on Black Flag’s SST label. I was thrilled to find a local band that clearly loved Gang of Four and The Pop Group, even Captain Beefheart ! I saw them as often as I could and via their infinite kindness found my teen noise punk band Debt of Nature frequently opening for them. They even gave me my first appearance on an actual vinyl record. Below is the wonderful video for “This Ain’t No Picnic” wherein the boys, rocking out at the Sepulveda Dam (!), are attacked via air by a young Ronald Reagan. Resourceful genius.

 
Remember back in April when conservative Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity told guest Charles Grodin, on camera and in front of millions of witnesses, that he’d submit to be waterboarded to raise money for U.S. troops and their families?

GRODIN: Would you consent to be waterboarded? We can waterboard you?
HANNITY: Sure.
GRODIN: Are you busy on Sunday?
HANNITY: I’ll do it for charity. I’ll let you do it. I’ll do it for the troops’ families.

Remember how Keith Olbermann then upped the ante on Hannity by offering him $1,000 per second that he was able to withstand the torture (which Hannity called “enhanced interrogation” sans even a trace of irony)?

Well, this morning we checked in at the Waterboard Hannity for Charity website to see that generous members of the public are willing to donate up to $10 million if Hannity is able to withstand 300 seconds of waterboarding enhanced interrogation. If he can last even a single minute, he’ll be able to give over $2 million to the families of U.S. troops.

Unlike many of you reading this, I’m not cynical about this—okay I’m lying through my teeth—I just want to see Hannity man up, do what he said he would do and raise more money in 60 seconds for a good cause than has probably ever been raised before in a single minute in history!

It’s almost Christmas. Sean, you can make a huge difference in the lives of these families. You said you would do it, so do it.

If not, why not?

 
Russian overlord Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has offered his apparently highly capable services to the National Judo Team:

The 57-year-old prime minister made the proposal at a special coaching session on Saturday aired on state television, adding to his carefully-crafted macho image.  Putin, who many observers believe is still paramount leader despite standing down as president last year, entered the hall of St Petersburg’s School of Sport Mastery dressed in a white judogi and black belt, to applause from the assembled squad.  After bowing, the former KGB spy went onto the mats, throwing squad members half his age and even tackling the chief trainer, Olympic Gold medallist Ezio Gamba.

And when he’s not tranquilizing tigers or riding semi-naked on a horse, Putin makes instructional videos.  To coincide with his 56th birthday, the ex-, soon to be next, President of Russia’s “Let’s Learn Judo” came out last year.

 
Black Belt Putin Offers To Join Russian Judo Team

 
At about the halfway point of The Glenn Beck Christmas Special (and, yes, I found myself unable to not wade through the second half, too), it occurred to me that the Beckster isn’t pulling a

GOOD magazine reports on the decade in environmental advances. Having spent the latter half of the decade in the green trenches, I’m not quite sure what to make of this. I worry that this decade, while it was clearly the “Tipping Point” on the environment, was largely a decade of greenwash and back-slapping. The results of the Copenhagen conference are a case in point. Time to get it together, instead of running business as usual with a green Smilex smiley face painted on.

This decade will be remembered, first and foremost, as the time we finally came around to understanding climate change?

Lou Engle, the GOP’s new it-kid spiritual leader, is banging on the gays and how they are possessed by “demons.” Predictably, this has been received positively. (By demons, do they mean the unholy trinity “Bed, Bath and Beyond”?)

As the Rachel Maddow Show has recently showcased, on December 16th the Family Research Council sponsored a “Prayercast” event, attended by GOP luminaries including Senators Jim DeMint and Sam Brownback, and House Representatives Michelle Bachmann and Randy Forbes. But FRC head Tony Perkins did not lead the prayer event. That honor fell to Lou Engle, Founder of TheCall. Besides leading the capstone stadium rally for pro-Proposition 8, antigay marriage organizers last November 1, 2008 at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium, Lou Engle could also be found, at a special ceremony at a Virginia Beach megachurch last summer, anointing and blessing GOP presidential hopefuls Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich.

Meet the Republican Party’s new spiritual guru, Lou Engle:

“My son Jesse, he’s nineteen years old. God has given him dreams, to go to San Francisco to launch a house of prayer, one block from the Castro District - where the homosexuals boast the dominion of darkness. He’s going there with weeping in his heart. With the dream that prayer is stronger than the dominion of that spirit.

...He said to me, “dad,” he said, “as long as I’m there I don’t think the Lord will judge San Francisco.” [boos, angry murmur from Engle’s audience]...

He’s nineteen years old. He’s starting to cast out homosexual spirits out of our new converts. It’s scary*. The whole thing’s scary. But fathers are to send their sons into the darkest places.”

(AlterNet: GOP’s New Prayer Guru Says Gays Possessed By Demons)

 
A new YouTube video purporting that the recent attack on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has Italian conspiracists all a twitter by advancing the theory that the attack was a set-up to gain sympathy for the politician. Oh really? From the Daily Mail:

TV footage of the politician showing him bleeding profusely from cuts to his lips and gums went around the world in a matter of seconds and were seen by millions.

However, today a video posted on You Tube suggesting the attack in Milan was faked had received almost 500,000 hits in just a matter of hours.

Called ‘Was the attack on Berlusconi a montage?’ the video lasts eight minutes and is on a par with other past conspiracy theories such as the attack on the Twin Towers being a CIA created plot.

The video’s author is unidentified but using footage and still photographs it raises questions regarding several key moments in the aftermath of last Sunday’s attack in Milan.

It asks why the blood on Berlusconi’s face appears to be ‘thick and already’ set and also asks why if as the hospital later said he had lost ‘half a litre of blood’ is his suit and shirt not drenched.

This makes no sense to me. The simplest explanation is usually the best one and it’s not at all difficult to imagine why someone would want to attack and harm Silvio Berlusconi, is it? What would he stand to gain by having someone violently attack him, on purpose? Popularity points is a terrible theory. He’s a millionaire in his 70s known to cavort with hookers! He does not care what the public thinks of him. Certainly not enough to have his teeth bashed out. What a terrible conspiracy theory! Yawn.

“(Spliced From Alan Dean Foster’s Brilliant Novel)” (NSFW)

(“Thanks,” Marty Beckerman!)

 
I’m so glad Richard hepped me to the fact that it’s Frank Zappa day. It’s impossible to overstate how much FZ meant to me as a teen. Here’s my contribution to the festivities in the form of his 1967 masterpiece “Brown Shoes Don’t Make It”. I think I learned to both loathe and champion my mundane suburban surroundings via songs like this and much of his other work. But this piece has it all : filthy rocking, experimental tape work with nods to his serial composition and doo-wop heroes and of course naughty satirical humor. Viva Zappa !

 
The city of Baltimore declared today Frank Zappa Day in honor of the iconoclastic rock musician and composer, who was born there 69 years ago on Dec. 21, 1940. Last week the city’s public art commission also announced that a bronze statue of Zappa would be erected outside of a public library sometime next year. When will Los Angeles, where Zappa raised his family and lived most of his adult life, follow suit? Maybe a nice statue somewhere in Laurel Canyon?

Also in Zappa news, today marks the release of a previously unheard concert from Philadelphia in 1976 on two CDs. The liner notes for “Philly ‘76,” taking a cue from its bicentennial date, reproduce the Declaration of Independence, but with a twist: Endeavoring to show how history repeats itself, the Founding Fathers’ claims against the King of England are highlighted, drawing parallels that probably would have made the independently minded composer smile.

www.zappa.com

In honor of David Tennant’s final Doctor Who episodes, here’s a repeat of Richard’s interview with the outgoing Time Lord and Doctor Who executive producer Russell T. Davies, shot at the Langham Hotel in Pasadena, CA in early August for Boing Boing Video. Read the original entry here. Dangerous Minds returns in the new year with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge

 
It will be a bittersweet holiday season this year for sci-fi fans around the globe. On one hand we’re getting two new “Doctor Who” specials (I don’t count “The Waters of Mars” because it aired in Britain a while back. Any Who fan worth their salt downloaded that one on BitTorrent five minutes after if aired on the BBC!). On the other hand, we’ll be seeing the last of David Tennant as the 10th Doctor, when the Scottish actor hands over the keys to his T.A.R.D.I.S (that’s what his time machine is called, the one that looks like an old British pay phone booth. Long story…) to incoming Time Lord, Matt Smith.

Over at the LA Times Hero Complex blog, Robert Lloyd has an interview with Tennant that includes the surprise announcement of a U.S. TV pilot for NBC titled “Rex Is Not Your Lawyer,” which costars Jane Curtain and Jeffrey Tambor. There’s also an exclusive extended trailer for next Saturday’s special, “The End of Time.” (On reading the final scripts for his character, the actor said: “I was nervous they would somehow disappoint, but of course they didn’t. I read them in my trailer and had a wee cry. They are so beautifully written. I was just delighted to be going out with such a bang.”)

This week (see above), you can view my own interview with David Tennant and Doctor Who (and Torchwood) executive producer/writer Russell T. Davies (now a Los Angeles resident). I met up with Tennant and Davies in Pasadena in early August when I interviewed them for Boing Boing. The duo had just come from the San Diego Comic Con where both experienced what can only be compared to a geek version of Beatlemania. During the interview Tennant discusses what it’s like to walk away from the part he wanted to play his entire life and the responsibilities of taking on such an iconic role.

 
Via What’s the Matter with Dino?