NRA: Put Venomous Snakes In Every School

LaPierre embraces a King Cobra as he outlines his plan to surround children with deadly serpents.

WASHINGTON- National Rifle Association Vice President Wayne LaPierre announced at a Friday morning press conference that the organization would begin pushing for venomous snakes in every school in America in the wake of a series of mass shootings.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a Philippine Cobra roaming the halls of an elementary school unchecked,” LaPierre said.

5 B-Grade Historical Movies We Can Only Hope Will Be Made

Say "Apartheid" again. SAY "APARTHEID" AGAIN!

5. “A Long Walk to Freedom,” starring Samuel L. Jackson as Nelson Mandela
While Nelson Mandela’s story is known quite well throughout the United States, there are parts of his life that are still shrouded in mystery. This cinematic biography sheds light upon the complete legend of Mandela, from his dabbling in the Jedi arts as a youth (the guy had a lot of fucking midichlorians) to his acting roles in Quentin Tarantino films. During his 27-year prison sentence, he became notorious for being a mediator and peacekeeper; in one memorable instance, he interrupted some good old-fashioned prison shower rape by viciously fending off the perpetrator, asking “Does he look like your bitch?!” The film also delves deep into Mandela’s political activity after his release from prison. In arguably the most poignant scene of the movie, Mandela – in his first speech to the public after his release from prison – proclaims: “I’m tired of this mothafuckin’ Apartheid in my mothafuckin’ country.” Supposedly, Samuel L. Jackson repeatedly tried to add gratuitously violent fight scenes into the film, but was forced to settle for an allotment of twelve “mothafuckas” to add anywhere in the script.

Louis XVI feels the internal repercussions of drinking so much "tiger blood."

4. “Liberty, Fraternity, and Raunchiness,” starring Charlie Sheen as Louis XVI and Sarah Silverman as Marie Antoinette
Adequately described as a combination of Les Miserables, A Tale of Two Cities, and American Pie, this film is the only one to have ever gotten Ebert and Roeper’s worst rating, “Two thumbs up my ass.” As the working class of Paris begins to revolt against the monarchy, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette respond as any concerned leaders would: by making dick jokes. In fact, as indicated in one of the opening scenes, the phrase “Let them eat cake” was actually a reference to a secondary meaning of cake in the aristocracy, which was “Louis XVI’s wrinkled scrotum.” So Marie Antoinette suggested the poor masses address their severe hunger by eating Louis XVI’s wrinkled scrotum. Most critics agree that the most heinous scene of the movie is either the one where Louis XVI uses the guillotine to circumcise his nephew or the one where Louis XVI does lines of coke off of a rotting peasant carcass. Rumor has it that the director of the movie, Judd Apatow, has already started filming a sequel, featuring Jim Gaffigan as Maximilien Robespierre and Rosie O’Donnell as Napoleon Bonaparte.

I came, I saw, I failed to convince anyone that I'm a credible actor

3. “The Roman Empire: Abridged,” starring Keanu Reeves as Julius Caesar
Predictably failing to accurately portray the manifest heinousness of Caesar, Reeves captivates audiences who happen to be blind and deaf. He effectively delivers his lines with the voice inflection of a 14-year-old skateboarding protégée after taking LSD, and that is quite evident in lines like “Whoa – the Rubicon!” and “It’s, like, the Gallic Wars.” Of course, Caesar’s political strategy doesn’t go over especially well with Brutus (played by Vin Diesel), who had just finished snowboarding down the Matterhorn. In an especially uninspired scene, Brutus knifes Caesar, as the latter famously whispers, “Et tu, bald man who looks like a serial rapist?” The Augustan Era is only very quickly reviewed, with a few memorable lines from the famous emperor Augustus, who – in a rather questionable casting choice – was played by Mike Tyson. After the reign of Augustus, the movie quickly becomes depressing, as we see the rule of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero, all of whom are played by Nicolas Cage.

Cera, shortly after mispronouncing "clitoris"

2. “A History of Impotence,” starring Michael Cera as several historical figures
This cinematic masterpiece takes us back to the beginning of time, telling the story of the development of the human race through various case studies of sexual ineptitude, with every impotent character portrayed by semi-adolescent boyman Michael Cera. The film opens with a depiction of the Cro-Magnon man first exhibiting a distinct lack of sexual prowess, resulting in a series of unsettlingly detailed cave drawings. The movie proceeds to travel through history, beginning with impotent men such as Nebbuchadnezzar (turns out his obscenely lengthy name was merely overcompensation for his obscenely short dingalong) and Emperor Constantine, lovingly referred to by his subjects as “The 3-Minute Wonder.” Moving on to the Renaissance, we gain some insight into Leonardo da Vinci’s personal life; his famous “Mona Lisa” aimed to portray the woman in the most hideous way possible, as revenge for her publicizing his lifelong problem of chronic premature ejaculation. After exposing a few more renowned impotent historical figures in early modern and modern history (think Lewis AND Clark), the movie ends with an earthshaking reveal about Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s honeymoon.

Sadly, Joseph Kony's fashionable sweater was made by - you guessed it - children.

1. “The Axis of Evil,” starring Jackie Chan as Kim Jong-Il and Ryan Gosling as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Based on the best-selling novel by Nicholas Sparks, this film depicts the backstory behind the romantic relationship between these two world leaders. The star-crossed dictators first met in the most fateful of ways: rolling on ecstasy at a Skrillex concert. After an ephemeral but sticky affirmation of their love for each other and authoritarian rule, they make a pact to build an “Axis of Evil.” Kim Jong-Il establishes his rule in North Korea through a masterful implementation of his ancient martial arts skills, while Ahmedinejad seduces dozens of Iranian politicians (all of whom are women, of course, because there are definitely no homosexuals in Iran, and lots of women hold political office) in order to work his way up to the presidency. After separately attaining their positions of power, they embark on an astonishingly homoerotic adventure to find a third party to complete their political threesome, encountering prominent figures like Vladimir Putin (played by Tom Felton), Hugo Chavez (played by Antonio Banderas), and Joseph Kony (played by Bill Cosby).

4 Nuisances Of Being Home

They say there’s no place like home. While it has been quite fantastic to spend some time relaxing at home with my family now that finals are over, there are certain aspects of being home that I had forgotten how much I don’t like. Indeed, sadly, home doesn’t consist solely of gourmet food and a nice bed. So without further ado, I present – in all my glorious bitching – four things that have bothered me since I’ve come home.

Nothing says "Christmas" like a shouting match with your father over light placement

4. Putting Up Christmas Lights
There’s just nothing like a Christmas tradition. Every December, my parents hand me a string of sorry-ass fucking Christmas lights and a ladder (which, incidentally, is about as stable as the Zambian government) and give me one objective: Make the 25-foot leafless tree in front of our house look slightly more festive and slightly less flaccid. It’s especially fun when, after an hour spent climbing around the tree like a paraplegic chimpanzee, I finish decorating the tree to discover that approximately a quarter of the lights actually function. Ultimately, though, it’s worth the Christmas cheer. Every time I look at that pathetic tree and the lights which appear to have been put up by a blind lemur, I am filled with an overwhelming sense of holiday spirit. And by holiday spirit, I mean uncontrollable rage.

3. Losing To My Parents in Scrabble
I don’t know about you guys, but I love shit-talking (Side note: Being from Denver, Tim “The Jesus” Tebow has regaled me with a whole anthology of shit-talking materials). Therefore, when my parents suggest a casual post-dinner Scrabble game, I immediately acquire the attitude of a theoretical lovechild of Terrell Owens and Pau Gasol. This shit-talking strategy pays off richly, seeing as I often demolish my parents and subsequently run naked victory laps around the dining room table. And this isn’t me bragging about my Scrabble skills; the case is rather that my parents don’t give two shits about whether or not their placement of “twat” (I truly wish I were lying about my dad playing that in Scrabble) opens up availability to the Triple Word space. Tonight, however, my shit-talking strategy failed me, as I fell short by one point against my mom. Ugh. Now I just feel like a douche.

2. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
I never thought it would be possible to make such a trainwreck out of a movie starring Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, and Samuel L. Jackson, but damn it all if it hasn’t been done. I mean, seriously, what a steaming cinematic shitstack. The kid who starred as Anakin Skywalker (out of principle, I’m not looking up the little fucker’s name) is more obnoxious than the Nyan Cat on methamphetamines. And Jar Jar Binks? I don’t know whose idea it was to combine the voice of an illiterate Louisiana swamp-person with the visual representation of a banana peel with birth defects, but that idea single-handedly ruined my childhood. Honestly, the only thing they could have done to make this movie any worse would be casting Nick Cage as Senator Palpatine. Yeah, just imagine it.

"To the nights you wish you could forget."

1. Vodka Commercials
Maybe this is something I’m just noticing now because I spend 8 hours a day watching TV (luhhhh vacation), but vodka commercials are absolutely preposterous. The one that I find most personally absurd is a Grey Goose commercial, featuring the tagline: “To the nights you’ll never forget.” I don’t know what sort of idiots are running the marketing department over at Grey Goose, but they clearly lack a fundamental understanding of alcohol. Granted, the tagline “To the nights you’ll blackout and then discover five weeks later that you vomited gratuitously” isn’t quite as catchy, but it is certainly more accurate. It just seems that somewhere in the attempt to craft a convincing image-based appeal, the morons over at Grey Goose forgot some of the drawbacks of downing vodka. If I were Grey Goose, I’d try something more along the lines of “To the poke wars you drunkenly initiated with the entirety of your high school government class” or “To the texts you receive from your mom the next morning saying ‘You might want to take that video off of Facebook.’”

Badasses in History: Hannibal Barca

One of my least favorite things about real life is that it totally doesn’t work like video games. Unlike Call of Duty or Halo—where I can beat the shit out of like a billion elites by just going all kamizake and then respawning—in real life it fucking sucks to be outnumbered. What it comes down to, in the real world, would be some guy in armor (Master Chief) getting beat to death by like 30 really pissed-off midgets (Grunts).

That’s the mathy explanation anyway. Today’s historical badass, however, not only shat all over my “normal” difficulty setting, cranking it all the way up to “Deicide”, but he did so against other people, not some dumbass AI.

His name was Hannibal Barca.

No. Not that Hannibal. The other one. The real one. The one that isn’t fucking Anthony Hopkins (who was, incidentally, totally as awesome as Hannibal Lector).

Anyway, this Hannibal was like Samuel L. Jackson if Samuel L. Jackson could go back in time and utterly bring the Roman Empire to its knees.

This Hannibal did something no other person in history was even remotely capable of. It’s like if Kobe played basketball against a team made up of genetically half-bred squirrel dolphins… the other side just doesn’t stand a chance.

To understand why Hannibal was such a BAMF, we have to go back to the third century BC to the civilization of Carthage.

His beard is rumored to be the inspiration for Morty's

Hannibal was born in 247 BC, son of Carthaginian leader Hamilcar Barca. Incidentally, “Barca” means “thunderbolt.” So yeah, Hannibal Thunderbolt. His motherfucking last name was THUNDERBOLT.

Sorry, I get carried away sometimes.

As I was saying, Carthage at the time was kind of like modern-day Detroit in that both had totally gotten fucked over and no one really gave a shit. To fix this, Hannibal’s dad, Hamilcar—being awesome (but not as awesome as Hannibal)—decided he’d get back at Rome for defeating Carthage in the First Punic War. Needless to say, they got owned by Rome’s far superior numbers and equipment, kind of like how in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King the good guys are FUCKED until the ghost army comes… except Hamilcar didn’t have a ghost army.

Or Gandalf. Gandalf would have totally helped.

Still, I feel like I’m forgetting something.

Oh, right, 8-year-old Hannibal went with his dad’s army.

Before you ask, this wasn’t his father’s order or anything; little Hannibal fucking asked to go. TO WAR. TO KILL PEOPLE.

Needless to say, no 8-year-old has ever been so ball-crushingly awesome.

Hamilcar, either the world’s best or worst father—I don’t think they make mugs for that—agreed to let Hannibal come if he did one tiny thing: swear an undying oath of vengeance to burn Rome to ashes and slaughter every Roman he could.

…………

Family issues a couple thousand years ago really make you think about the shit you complain about today.

Anyway, Hannibal, being the badass he was even at age eight, responded, “I swear so soon as age will permit…I will use fire and steel to arrest the destiny of Rome.” I think he also added, “time to PWN some fucking NOOBS!”

Battles in those days were a lot like off-campus parties: nowhere to move, and no idea who's assaulting you

Regardless of little Hannibal’s presence, things didn’t go well, which is surprising since I would have thought an 8-year-old on a battlefield would have been a highly effective throwing weapon: you throw the kid and then hit the enemy in the face or something… maybe Lunchables are involved. Whatever.

Basically, the big thing was that Hamilcar died in battle after conquering much of what is Spain and its surrounding nations today. Hannibal, after getting down on his knees amidst thunder, lightning and rain, and screaming NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! to the heavens, decided that he would keep his promise and pull an American History X-style curbstomp on Rome.

So for the next twenty years Hannibal engaged in what can only be assumed to be history’s longest training montage, fighting off lions, killing soldiers, and generally fucking shit up. Then, in 221 BC, his brother Hasdrubal was assassinated, and as Hasdrubal was Carthage’s main general, this meant Hannibal suddenly had a rather powerful new job title.

Because of the assassination’s success, the Roman’s acted a bit like everyone did at the end of the every Disney movie ever. They chilled out and celebrated even though there were dozens of unanswered questions and unsolved problems.

Hannibal, not being a complete idiot, took advantage of this in every way possible by gathering an army and repeating his brother’s plan.

That takes mad balls.

And, funnily enough, the Romans were still taken by surprise. Seriously Rome? Too many pot brownies probably.

Putting the Dos Equis man to shame

Anyway, in the spring of 218 BC, Hannibal marched with his army to Gaul (now France and other countries) on the way to the Swiss Alps.

Which he proposed to cross. With about 50,000 men. And also 37 war elephants. Dude, how badass are war elephants? Like, at least as badass as 300.

This was totally not going to be easy. I mean, the Swiss Alps are 15,000 foot high mountains, and Hannibal had thousands of soldiers AND FUCKING ELEPHANTS to feed. It was probably the equivalent of trying to ride a skidoo in the middle of the Arizona desert. Under normal circumstances, it just shouldn’t be possible, like Dane Cook saying something funny.

But Hannibal did it. He lost about 25,000 of his men, and all but two of the elephants, but he fucking did it. From there, he went on to win every single battle he fought with Rome for the next decade—being outnumbered virtually every time, with no way to easily get continued supplies—including the Battle of Cannae, which to this day is still studied by military historians who sit and read about it and say, “How the fuck did he pull this off?” With about 15,000 men, Hannibal defeated a Roman army of 50,000-70,000. That’s easily a ratio of 4:1. Among the dead were about 80 Roman senators (25-30% of the entire Roman government).

Fuck yeah, Hannibal Barca.

Hey Rome, remember that one time I almost single-handedly brought your empire to its knees?

Sadly, however, the years kept weakening Hannibal’s army—but not Hannibal, the dude beat up Wolverines for his morning exercise. This eventually forced Hannibal to make a retreat with his remaining forces back to Carthage. He did manage to sack several cities during the retreat—kind of like a last second money shot at Rome—but on the whole he had won every battle but lost the war.

Eventually, Hannibal would go into voluntary exile from Carthage when Rome threatened it again while Hannibal was without troops, but even then he worked as a mercenary general, winning almost every battle he fought. In one victory, a naval one incidentally, his weapon of choice was a barrel of poisonous snakes, which he would toss onto enemy ships.

This caused Rome so many problems, even when Hannibal was just a mercenary, that they demanded his allies surrender him or be annihilated. His “allies” being whiny douchebags, they agreed.

But, Hannibal was too badass to let himself be killed by Romans, so he took poison and wrote a final “fuck-you” letter to the Romans to be found next to his body.

It said:

Let us relieve the Romans from the anxiety they have so long experienced, since they think it tries their patience too much to wait for an old man’s death.

Even beyond the grave, the dude managed to flip-off Rome.

Righteous.

–Josh Kopel