This is some text! Artwork by Bunnyack “It was specifically designed for use by counterterrorism teams because it fires a very small but very high-velocity bullet that will penetrate body armor — what people call ballistic vests or bullet-proof vests. When FN first manufactured this gun, they recognized how dangerous it would be on a civilian market and they claimed they would never sell it to civilians, that it would only be for police and counterterrorism units. In fact, it’s become a very popular gun on the American civilian market and is exported to Mexico, where it’s called the mata […]

Punk friggin’ rock. Allentown represent!

  USA TODAY: Mass killers target Americans once every two weeks on average, in attacks that range from robberies to horrific public shooting sprees like the massacre Friday of 27 people in Newtown, Conn., a USA TODAY examination found. Using news accounts and FBI records from 2006 through 2010, the most recent years for which complete records were available, USA TODAY identified 156 murders that met the FBI definitions of mass killings, where four or more people were killed. All told, the attacks killed 774 people, including at least 161 young children. The review offers perhaps the most current, complete […]

  We talk to Sopranos creator David Chase about his new movie,Not Fade Away, a weedy coming-of-age dramedy about being young, horny and trying to be the Rolling Stones in the teenage wasteland of suburban New Jersey in the mid-’60s. Discussed: Kolhack: The Night Stalker, Orson Welles’ Touch Of Evil, the meaning of the end of Antonioni’s Blow-Up, Jagger/Richards, Chinatown, The Sex Pistols, Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers, Dylan’s wig and why he will have to answer for making Journey cool again when he meets his maker. Look for it Friday on a Phawker near you! RELATED: David Chase […]

  NEW YORKER: Does the Second Amendment prevent Congress from passing gun-control laws? The question, which is suddenly pressing, in light of the reaction to the school massacre in Newtown, is rooted in politics as much as law. For more than a hundred years, the answer was clear, even if the words of the amendment itself were not. The text of the amendment is divided into two clauses and is, as a whole, ungrammatical: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be […]

  FRESH AIR When Christoph Waltz auditioned for the role of SS officer Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, he read the passage assigned for the audition, then kept going until he had gone through the entire role as Tarantino himself filled in for the other parts. “It was partly hilarious, partly just fabulous, partly scary,” Waltz tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “And we arrived at the end and then we parted and I said to the casting director, ‘If this should have been it, it was definitely worth it,’ and, well, then they called me back.” […]

  BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILLY POST It is a sad testament to the depth of our national indifference that it took the massacre of 20 six year olds in their first grade classroom to finally trigger a united and sustained public outcry for an end to the madness. After 62 mass murders and counting since 1982, we have, it would appear, finally reached the tipping point. On this we can all agree: Never again. In fairness, this complacency was not entirely our own fault, it was, by and large, fostered and fomented by the National Rifle Association, which […]

  BETA BEAT: Anonymous announced its intention to “destroy” Westboro Baptist Church this weekend following news that the group would be picketing the funerals of children who died in Friday’s horrific school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Now, infamous 15-year-old hacker Cosmo the God of the Underground Nazi Hacktivist Group (UGNazi) appears to have joined the fray. The Twitter account of much-reviled Westboro spokesperson Shirley Phelps-Roper has been hacked, and Cosmo is claiming responsibility. Ms. Phelps-Roper is the daughter of Fred Phelps, who is the head of the WBC. Cosmo and the UG Nazi crew gained notoriety over the past year […]

RELATED: Known for such hits as “Real Emotional Girl”, singer-songwriter, composer, arranger and pianist Randy Newman is on his way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Newman, a 40-year veteran of the music business, talked to Fresh Air in 1998 and 2004 about his life and work. MORE

  …And seemingly oblivious to the real threat. BELFAST TELEGRAPH: The mother of Sandy Hook gunman Adam Lanza who slaughtered 20 US schoolchildren and seven adults was a gun-hoarding survivalist who was stockpiling weapons in preparation for an economic collapse, it has emerged. Nancy Lanza was shot four times in the head before her son Adam gunned down young pupils and teachers at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. Her sister-in-law Marsha Lanza told reporters at her Illinois home that her gun-obsessed relative was part of the ‘prepper’ movement that fears an economic collapse will lead to a breakdown […]

Photo by PETE TROSHAK Mary Lou Lord took the stage alone at Concerts@SixthStreet in Media on Saturday night looking like she just walked off the cover of her 1995 self-titled LP. Lord is known for covering Elliot Smith, being hated on by Courtney Love, and for being friends-with-benefits with Kurt Cobain, something she always denied. But most significantly, she is known for the 1998 album Got No Shadow which earned her a four star review in Rolling Stone and a cult following. She didn’t release a follow-up until 2004 and then vanished, partially because she was affected by spasmodic dysphonia […]