('Brown Weasel Woman','c. 1820','c. 1850','Glacier Park, MT, USA','19th-century Amerindian Warrior','<p>Even before she was dancing around on the silver screen belting out beautiful melodies with Mel Gibson and some random, questionably-historically-accurate cartoon raccoon, it\'s pretty safe to say that the Indian princess Pocahontas is the most famous Native American woman in history. Ok, fine. I can live with that. I won\'t talk shit about Pocahontas, and sure, she was great at the whole stopping a war by preventing her comrades from clubbing John Smith\'s brains in and then going off, getting captured and being shipped back to England to die of European diseases thing, but with all due respect to the Virginia Algonquin (and perhaps Sergeant Esparza of <em>Generation Kill</em> fame), I typically tend to prefer women who spent more time bathing in the blood of their slain enemies and less time spinning around in a forest getting in touch with the spirits of the wilderness. But that\'s just me. And probably you, considering that you\'ve chosen to read a website called Badass of the Week and not <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/adorablekittycat.jpg\">Adorable Kitty Cat</a> of the Week.</p>\r\n<p>So, long story short, for my money it doesn\'t get any better than Running Eagle &ndash; the Piegan Blackfoot Indian asskicking warrior-princess who routinely led war parties screaming into battle and once moked out two badass-as-fuck Crow warriors by riding full-throttle towards them on horseback with one rifle under each arm, guns blazing, until all that was left was a vapor trail of blood and an oil-slick of bullet-riddled human entrails where her dipshit enemies once dared to stand against her.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/runningeagle1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Kind of like this, only while traveling 30mph on a horse (bareback)<br />while dudes in scary-looking warpaint take potshots at you with Winchesters.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The story of history\'s only female war chief (that I know of) is one of the most famous tales of heroic awesomeness among the people of the Blackfoot Tribe. Unfortunately, as is the case with many badass historical war stories that spent the first couple decades of their existence being passed down orally from generation to generation (huh huh), by the time this warrior-chick\'s tales of legendary face-obliterating asskicking were finally written down there naturally ended up being some minor discrepancies and nit-picky bullshit. Basically, we have two written versions of her story &ndash; one written by a white dude who was adopted into the Blackfoot tribe and claimed to have known her personally, and another by a warrior brave from a rival tribe who claimed he knew a guy that used to ride with her once and was allegedly friends with her brother\'s sister\'s cousin\'s former college roommate. Naturally, neither of these versions are totally reliable, and neither of them really sync up in any appreciable way, so I\'ll do my best to re-tell this story by taking the most bitchin\' parts of both stories and fusing them together like a Lamborghini and a Ferrari being mashed into a solid brick by a junkyard car-crusher.</p>\r\n<p>Running Eagle was born with the name Brown Weasel Woman, which is a significantly less flattering and graceful-sounding name than the one by which we currently know her, but hey, we all gotta start somewhere I guess. She was the eldest child of a respected warrior, though, naturally, as a woman, she got stuck with all the bullshit housework chores like washing dishes, doing laundry, and skinning buffalo carcasses with a knife so they could be cooked up on the Foreman grill. As you can probably imagine, our heroine quickly decided that this was the most bullshit thing of all time, and one day she went out to Warrior Practice and told her Dad to hit her up with a bow and arrow so that she could show those douchebag wannabe warriors the true meaning of badass archery. Dad was like, \"OK dude whatevs LOL\", and then immediately shit a brick when he realized that this teenage girl was the most dead-eye crack shot since Liam Neeson stone-cold capping that weirdo pedophile dude at the end of <em>Taken</em>. Despite the non-stop protests of her mother telling her to get her ass back in the kitchen, Running Eagle kept punking out on the dishes to take target practice, and before long the warriors of the tribe had adopted her as one of their own. By the time she was fifteen, this chick was already going out on buffalo hunts with the tribe, taking down the dangerous creatures with stone-cold efficiency and easily proving herself as competent as any warrior in the Great Plains.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/runningeagle2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 500px;\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><span>Buffalo hunts were no walk in the park; riding down a herd of ultra-aggressive rampaging one-ton horned beasts while armed only with a wooden spear and a traditional short bow isn\'t exactly like picking up a three-pack of Hungry Mans in the fucking frozen food aisle of the grocery store or hammering the space bar while spinning in a circle in <em>The Oregon Trail</em>.</span></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>One day, while out on a buffalo hunt, the small band of Blackfoot hunters were suddenly ambushed by a huge force of rival Flathead Indians, who came out of nowhere and started raining bullets and arrows on Running Eagle\'s party like a bunch of fucking assholes. Badly outnumbered and surrounded by flying death, the Blackfoot hunters turned and ran for it, but as they were hauling ass out of there some jackass shot Running Eagle\'s father\'s horse out from under him, sending her dad face-first to the turf at high speeds in an accident that either did or did not kill him (the sources differ on this, which is interesting because it hardly seems like the sort of detail you fuck up when you re-tell a story). Either way, Running Eagle knew she couldn\'t just waltz back home while her dad was out there surrounded by scalp-collecting enemy warriors, so, amazingly, she pulled the e-brake, banged a 180-degree U-turn on her horse, and ran back into the middle of the charging enemy, guns and/or arrows blazing. Once she\'d driven the enemy back with a hail of projectile destruction she quickly dismounted, grabbed her father, chucked him on her horse, and then tore ass out of there with bullets and arrows and tomahawks whizzing past her head. Oh yeah, and she not only saved her dad, but she also remembered to unpack the fucking buffalo meat from his saddlebags and load it into hers so that she wouldn\'t come home empty-handed while the jackasses who capped her dad were off enjoying delicious buffalo jerky strips.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/runningeagle4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well if Dad didn\'t die by GSW to the back of the skull, he did die shortly after this event of some other cause, leaving young Running Eagle alone to tend to her sickly mother, as well as her two brothers and two sisters. But as we\'ve seen, this chick wasn\'t super-pumped about the whole housewifery thing, so she did something you don\'t usually see outside of the Northeastern states &ndash; since her display of balls-out awesomeness (probably not the right adjective, but you know what I\'m trying to say) had earned her warrior brave status among her tribe, Running Eagle decided fuck it, I\'m just going to take a \"wife\" to take care of my house for me while I\'m out doing badass shit. So she hired a local widow (a woman who had been physically abused her now-dead husband and had no real interest in remarrying) to run shit on the homefront so Running Eagle could spend her time worrying about manly shit like hand-sharpening obsidian daggers, cleaning her rifle, and spitting tobacco juice while grabbing her crotch. Running Eagle actually never ended up marrying a man &ndash; she was worried that taking a husband would strip her of warrior cred, and since she was so badass in battle and on hunts nobody really fucked with her about it.</p>\r\n<p>The closest anyone ever got was some random chieftain of the Blood Indians (which is a fucking rad name for a tribe, BTW), but when the two warmongering shit-stompers went on a raid together, Running Eagle captured 15 horses, killed three warriors with a knife, and came back with their scalps displayed prominently on her clothing, while Chief Blood only captured 10 horses and failed to kill a single enemy in battle. After seeing this miserable display of ball-sucking craptasm from a supposedly-hardcore war chief, Running Eagle basically just laughed in the dude\'s face and was all like, \"Whatever chump, you\'re way too much of a raging wussbag to handle this hot sauce.\" According to legend, the dude spontaneously died of excruciating lameness shortly thereafter.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/runningeagle3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Was Running Eagle a badass Native American War Lesbian? It\'s tough to say.<br />Either way, I picture her life going down kinda like <em>Xena: Warrior Princess</em> with tomahawks.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Carrying her dead father\'s rifle on the warpath in a Inigo Montoya-style homage to her fallen mentor, Running Eagle led the Blackfoot on dozens of war raids against notoriously-hardcore rival tribes like the Flathead and the Crow. One of her first real fights was against the Flatheads, who had snuck into Running Eagle\'s camp in the middle of the night and ganked a bunch of awesome horses. Running Eagle got revenge by leading a vengeance party to the edge of the enemy\'s base, sneaking in by herself, stealing 11 thoroughbred chargers, and then riding out singing awesome songs about how much she kicked ass. When the warriors of the tribe came riding hard after her, she twisted around on the horse, capped one dude with her rifle, then rode over to the guy\'s body, took his rifle, and started riding after the enemy dual-wielding rifles in a badass display of frontier asskicking. They ran for it, Running Eagle returned home victorious, and you know those four War Chief requirements that <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/medicinecrow.html\">Joe Medicine Crow</a> hit during World War II? This chick had just hit them all in the span of about fifteen minutes.</p>\r\n<p>After this, and about a dozen more episodes involving blasting through enemy bases and riding home with the scalps of enemy warriors hanging from her stolen warhorses, this badass chick was sent on a spirit quest, and was given a man\'s name &ndash; this is when she officially became Running Eagle (she was Brown Weasel Woman up to this point, but since I prefer Running Eagle that\'s what I\'ve been using), though as the only woman in the history of her tribe (and the only Native American woman I\'ve ever heard of) to achieve this honor, she was also known as Holy Woman, Sun Dances, Girl Chief, and Medicine Girl &ndash; although the Flathead just called her Crazy Woman, which is still actually pretty awesome. Needless to say, she\'d achieved true badass street cred with her peeps and enemies alike, which is admirable.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<table cellpadding=\"8\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/runningeagle5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></td>\r\n<td><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/runningeagle5a.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td colspan=\"2\" align=\"center\"><span>Badass Blackfoot Indian Warriors. Running Eagle would have led men like these into battle.</span></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Running Eagle died a few years before 1850. She had been leading a war party against the hated Flatheads, and had become embroiled in a huge melee in the middle of a Flathead camp. After her five bravest warriors went down in combat, she was clubbed in the back of the head while knife-fighting another guy, dying on the spot. A few days later her allies rode out and killed six Flatheads in her honor.</p>\r\n<p>The Blackfoot named a waterfall after her in Glacier Park, Montana, near the site where she saw her vision during her spirit quest. The waterfall was of course renamed by the white dudes who \"discovered\" it a few years later, but nowadays it\'s only known as Running Eagle Falls. It remains a sacred place to the people of the Blackfoot Tribe.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/runningeagle6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://fortbenton.blogspot.com/2011/04/saga-of-pitamakan-pikuni-blackfeet-joan.html\">Fort Benton</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.meyna.com/ppiegan.html\">Pitamakin</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.waterfallsmontana.com/waterfalls.aspx?id=12\">Waterfalls of Montana</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_Eagle\">Her Insultingly Uninformative Wikipedia Stub</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Ewers, John C. <em>Plains Indian History and Culture</em>. Univ. of Oklahoma, 1998.<br /><br /> Hungry Wolf, Beverly. <em>The Ways of My Grandmothers</em>. HarperCollins, 1982.<br /><br /> Roscoe, Will. <em>Living the Spirit</em>. Macmillan, 1988.<br /><br /> Schultz, James Willard. <em>Running Eagle, the Warrior Girl</em>. Houghton Mifflin, 1919. </span></p>','2011-11-25','15969172813','runningeagle1.jpg','runningeagle.jpg','Running Eagle','History\'s only female war chief.','\"I care not what people say of me so long as I do right. I shall never be any man\'s slave.\"'),('Viktor Nikolayevitch Leonov','1916','2003','Zaraisk, USSR','WWII Russian Marine','<p>Viktor Nikolayevitch Leonov was a grizzled, hardcore old Russian sailor so completely over-the-top boss hogg scary-as-shit that he once convinced a Japanese garrison to surrender simply by staring them down and threatening to tear them all limb from limb until every single member of the garrison died by his hands &ndash; and he somehow pulled it off it AFTER they\'d already captured him and were holding him at gunpoint (and were commanding a force that outnumbered Leonov\'s 3,500 to 140, though I suppose Leonov counts as a Force Multiplier of x30 so the odds were a little more even).</p>\r\n<p>Oh yeah, and he was also a pioneer in the art of modern amphibious warfare, a two-time Hero of the Soviet Union, and a man who was so badass that every time he thought about how much he hated Fascists he spontaneously grew the most awesome beard you can possibly imagine. His operations in the early days of WWII laid the foundation for one of the most hardcore special operations forces in the world, the Russian Spetsnaz, and in case you don\'t know what the Spetsnaz is, here is a picture that sums it all up pretty succinctly:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/leonov1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>That is a photo of a soldier training to kill the enemy by backflipping over barbed wire and throwing a hatchet at a target with deadly accuracy.</p>\r\n<p>In case your soul is colder, deader, and more miserable than a guy with clinical depression reading <em>Nineteen Eighty-Four</em> on the Ice Planet Hoth during Nuclear Winter and that picture didn\'t do anything for you, here are a few more pictures of Spetsnaz training, which, as far as I can tell, is basically just a bunch of big, gigantic, frighteningly-jacked Russian dudes beating the unholy shitburgers out of each other with pipes, chains, and dead cats, all of which may or may not currently be on fire.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/leonov1a.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/leonov1b.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>If those pictures don\'t freak you out, make you happy we didn\'t have to fight the Russians during the Cold War, and/or give you a kill-boner (or, for my female readers, a girl-boner), then I regetfully have to inform you that there is nothing on this website that will ever interest you. Please buy four copies of my book and then close your browser immediately.</p>\r\n<p>Viktor Leonov was born in Zaraisk, USSR in 1916. He enlisted in the Soviet Navy in 1937 as an enlisted man, but clawed his way up through the ranks, and by the time World War II really got going he had already been promoted from Private (Seaman?) to Lieutenant, and was attached to the 181st Special Recon Detachment of the Soviet Navy &ndash; a special unit designed specifically to carry out balls-to-the-wall commando raids aimed at tearing the Germans\' balls off in lightning-quick <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/mayne.html\">Paddy Mayne</a>-style night raids, crippling their war effort, and then peeling out of there on jetskis or rowboats or some shit before anybody could figure out what the fuck had just blitzed into their base, set everything on fire, and drove a railroad spike through your commanding officer\'s brain by stabbing it at him like an icepick.</p>\r\n<p>Throughout 1941, Lieutenant Leonov single-handedly commanded dozens of what-the-fuck insane raids on enemy bases along the Russian and Finnish coastlines, running chest-deep through the testicle-petrifying frigid temperatures of the Baltic Sea, blazing his submachine guns like a goddamned maniac, and wiping out all in his path in a tremendous frenzy of destruction that sort of resembled the first level of <em>Wolfenstein 3D</em>. Deploying by inflatable raft, torpedo boat, submarine, and parachute, this unstoppable motherfucker obliterated communications centers, ammunition depots, AA guns, and other strongpoints in the Arctic Circle, monitored enemy ship movements and captured/interrogated/dickpunched enemies along the Black Sea, and once coordinated with Norwegian commandos on a mission that wiped out a motor transport depot, killed 100 of the enemy, destroyed 25 trucks, and ignited untold quantities of fuel without suffering a single friendly casualty.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/leonov2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Leonov survived literally hundreds of ultra-dangerous missions and operations during four years of near-constant battle, but his most famous raid against the diabolical forces of European Fascism came in October of 1944. The Mad Russian\'s Naval Spetsnaz unit had been ordered to silence four massive 155mm coastal defense guns that had been kicking the shit out of anything the Russians tried to stick in Cape Krestovyi &ndash; certainly no easy task, considering that these motherfuckers were locked-and-loaded to blast the shit out of anything in the water that had the audacity not to fly a flag sporting a giant swastika, and they were supported by enough anti-aircraft weaponry that any paratrooper operation was going to be about as much fun as trying to deathmatch an Elder Dragon with a number two pencil.</p>\r\n<p>But Leonov wasn\'t about to be deterred. Instead of trying the frontal approach, he did something even more insane &ndash; he landed his troops several miles up the coast, somehow force-marched a team of about 100 commandos a half-dozen miles deep behind enemy lines without anybody noticing, and ambushed an 88mm flak cannon position that just so happened to be strategically positioned right near the 155mm guns. The Spetsnaz captured the 20-man artillery unit, had them call for reinforcements, and then when the reinforcements showed up Leonov lowered the guns and plowed them into a crater with heavy artillery. He then immediately attacked the 155s, capturing 60 men (including the commanding officer) without so much as firing a shot. This unbelievable asskicking helped the Soviets land in Finland, and earned Leonov his first Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union -- the highest award for military bravery the USSR had to offer.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/leonov5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 600px;\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><span>Leonov was also awesome because he didn\'t buy in to all that political bullshit. When his unit was assigned political commisars (propaganda officers whose sole job was to make sure the soldiers all remained good little Communists), Leonov rounded them all up and gave them two options &ndash; fight or quit. He had no use for them otherwise.</span></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>After the fall of Berlin, Viktor Leonov still wasn\'t done kicking the shit out of people, so he transferred to the Pacific front so he could unleash his badassitude on the Japanese. His most famous operation there was the aforementioned capture of the airfield &ndash; one of the most straight-up balla things I think I\'ve ever heard.</p>\r\n<p>Rather than leading this operation, Leonov was serving under a Captain, who had his 140-man team parachute into what was supposed to be a lightly-defended airfield. However, once the men hit the ground and started taking fire, they realized that this was no lightly defended bullshit, and that they were now staring at something on the order of 3,500 Japanese rifles aimed at their heads. Leonov\'s commander surrendered, and the ten Spetsnaz officers were taken into the Japanese HQ to meet with the garrison commander.</p>\r\n<p>The Russians immediately demanded his surrender.</p>\r\n<p>The Japanese dude was obviously like, \"what the fuck is wrong with you assholes,\" and right in the middle of the negotiation (and I think I am using the word \"negotiation\" pretty liberally here) Viktor Leonov suddenly out of nowhere got super pissed, slammed his fist down on the table, and shouted, \"We\'ve been fighting in the West throughout the war and we have enough experience to assess our situation. We will not allow ourselves to be taken hostage! You will die like rats when we break out of here!\" Then one of his men pulled out a grenade and threatened to frag the entire room.</p>\r\n<p>The Japanese surrendered.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/leonov3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The only time Russians look happy is when they are executing a bayonet charge,<br />and only then because it\'s super fucking unnerving.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Leonov received his second HSU in September 45, after leading his men on successful raids that captured no fewer than four Japanese ports along the Korean and Manchurian coastlines. During his daring operations against the Japanese, he lost a grand total of nine soldiers. Seven of them died parachuting into that airfield I just talked about.</p>\r\n<p>Leonov retired after the war, wrote a suitably-badass book about his experiences, and was held up by the government as a model of Russian Naval badassitude throughout the lifespan of the Soviet Union. Tragically, he fell out of favor after the collapse of the USSR, and when he died in 2003 his death was not even mentioned in the newspaper (perhaps even more horrifically, as of the time of this writing he doesn\'t even have a Wikipedia article). Nowadays I think there\'s a Gundam character named after him or something, so I guess that\'s a small consolation.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/leonov6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>He apparently only retired because there was no more room on his chest for any more medals.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showthread.php?11263-Viktor-Leonov-my-Hero\">WW2 in Color Forum</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://cwojournal.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/book-blood-on-the-shores-by-viktor-leonov/\">A Review of His Book</a>&nbsp; <span>(There seriously isn\'t much out there on this guy)</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Leonov, Viktor.&nbsp; <em>Blood on the Shores</em>.&nbsp; Ivy, 1994.<br /><br /> Sakaida, Henry.&nbsp; <em>Heroes of the Soviet Union 1941-45</em>.&nbsp; Osprey, 2004.<br /><br /> Takemae, Eiji and Robert Ricketts.&nbsp; <em>Allied Occupation of Japan</em>.&nbsp; Continuum, 2003.<br /><br /> Zabecki, David T.&nbsp; <em>World War II in Europe</em>.&nbsp; Taylor &amp; Francis, 1999. </span></p>','2011-12-02','80518673184','leonov.png','leonov2.jpg','Viktor Leonov','Spetsnaz Naval officer and two-time Hero of the Soviet Union.',''),('Honda Tadakatsu','March 17, 1548','December 3, 1610','Mikawa Province, Japan','16th-century Japanese Samurai','<p>Honda Tadakatsu was a face-obliterating samurai asskicker who spent over two decades racking up a hellaciously-obscene body count that makes even the most vicious <em>Modern Warfare 3</em> multiplayer server look like a couple of grade-school girls slapfighting over ownership of a <em>Twilight</em> DVD. A grizzled veteran of over one hundred battles &ndash; most of which put this dude in the middle of close-quarters hand-to-hand fighting against seriously cheesed off motherfuckers armed with razor-sharp swords &ndash; this guy never sustained a single physical wound to any part of his body. Not one. Not a fucking papercut, not a friendly-fire arrow to the back, not a goddamned blister on his index finger incurred while clubbing a dude so hard that the guy\'s head popped off and rolled into the corner pocket of the nearest pool table. Surviving a triple-digit number of medieval battles without so much as spraining an ankle was tough enough if you were one of those ninety-five pound nerdy longbowmen whose job was to park his ass in the back of the battlefield and run like a punk bitch at the first sign of trouble. For a front-line, balls-to-the-wall fighting general who was more at home charging down his foes on horseback than looking at confusing topographical maps, this is insane. But Honda Tadakatsu was a dude who was born for war, this dude wanted nothing better than to be face-stabbing douchebags while completely surrounded by assholes trying to kill him with spears. Yet he somehow managed to avoid injury to such a point where his contemporaries referred to him as \"The Warrior Who Surpasses Death Itself,\" and respected commanders from every corner of Japan regarded him one of the most badass samurai of all time. This, obviously, is no small feat.</p>\r\n<p>Honda Tadakatsu was born in Mikawa Province in1548. A member of the Honda Clan, a prestigious Japanese family known for their reliable, fuel-efficient hatchbacks and lawnmowers, as a young man Honda served as a page in the army of the mighty warlord Tokugawa Ieyasu &ndash; a dude who would one day become pretty fucking famous on account of the fact that he was going to unify Japan through warfare an conquest, reinstate the Shogunate, and install a political regime that would rule Japan peacefully for more than two and a half centuries. Serving this up-and-coming commander, Honda\'s insane ferocity would propel him through the ranks from Random Jobber, Second Class, all the way up to a place of honor as one of the Four Heavenly Kings of the Tokugawa Shogunate. That\'s a hell of a promotion if you ask me, but I guess it\'s what happens when you spend thirty years cleaving your way through feudal Japan leaving a three-foot-deep river of blood in your wake everywhere you go.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hondatadakatsu2a.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>He\'s also like the <em>Samurai Warriors</em> version of <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/lubu.html\">Lu Bu</a>.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now, before I get going on the blow-by-blow account of this dude\'s life, some mention needs to be made of Honda Tadakatsu\'s equipment, mostly because part of his badass epic legend is intertwined with the over-the-top shit he brought with him on his kill-frenzy expeditions to fuck up the lives of everyone in Japan. Honda was best known for his bad-as-shit samurai helmet, which, aside from generally looking totally fucking awesome, was adorned with gigantic stag\'s antlers that stuck up out the top of the helm and looked pretty much as badass as deer antlers can possibly look (which, evidently, is more badass than you might think). This of course served two purposes &ndash; first, it was like Feudal Japan\'s answer to a fucking Viking helmet, which kicks ass. Second, it made him visible from anywhere on the battlefield, so when you were fighting for your life in the thick of a crazy sword-swinging samurai mosh pit and you saw those horns bouncing through the melee towards you , you knew to run the fuck away at top speed because Honda Tadakatsu was coming to Buck your Ass Up (sorry, I couldn\'t resist). This audacious piece of uniform flair does, however, make the \"hundred battles without a scar to show for it\" thing even more noteworthy, because this guy wasn\'t exactly running incognito in that wacky Deer Antler helmet and you have to assume that pretty much any numbnuts trying to make a name for himself wanted to be the dude who finally beat Honda\'s Armor Class.</p>\r\n<p>But sure, carving your way through a horde of terrified peasant warriors by putting your head down, running top speed dead-ahead, and goring those assholes with deer antlers is fucking awesome, but it isn\'t really all that practical. Honda needed a melee weapon worthy of his reputation, so he carried a gigantic bladed polearm known as the Dragonfly Cutter... which, admittedly, doesn\'t sound all that exciting until you hear the story behind it. Apparently the legend goes that this guy was totally OCD about keeping his weapon sharp, and one time some dumbshit fucking dragonfly landed on the tip of the blade and immediately split in half. The idea of a cranky-as-fuck spear that disembowels insects out of sheer vengeance might be a little hard to believe, but you get the point &ndash; this was a weapon that cut through shit like a Chef Tony Ginsu knife Fruit Ninja-ing its way through a watermelon, and Honda Tadakatsu\'s weapon quickly became so damn famous that it is to this day known as one of the \"Three Great Spears\" of Japanese History.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hondatadakatsu1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Because, naturally, this is Japan we\'re talking about, here\'s a pic of Honda as a giant fucking robot.<br />Not surprisingly, I also found a pic of him as a <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hondatadakatsu-sexylady.jpg\">sexy lady</a>, in case that sort of thing is more your speed.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>After proving himself as a rank-and-file warrior capable of going dick-to-dick with anyone who fucked with him (I\'m not sure that analogy works, but you know what I\'m trying to say), Honda Tadakatsu became a trusted battlefield captain, serving under Tokugawa during the entirety of the Warring States period. At the Battle of Anegawa he is said to have led a force that held off over 10,000 of the Takeda Clan\'s much-feared horsemen, withstanding repeated attacks by ultra-heavy cavalry long enough for Tokugawa\'s army to regroup, and even going so far as to launch a balls-out counter-attack on the enemy that caught them completely off-guard and very nearly trapped their commander. Shortly after that, at the battle of Mikatagahara in 1572, Honda\'s corps once again fought bravely against more of the Takeda Clan\'s most face-crushingly insane warriors, fighting on even though he was outnumbered roughly three-to-one. When those pesky afore-mentioned Takeda horsemen broke the main force of the Tokugawa at Mikatagahara, Honda &ndash; already exhausted from a full day of fighting &ndash; personally volunteered to lead the rear guard defense that held the line and bought the Tokugawa forces time to withdraw to safety. After watching Honda freak the fuck out during the battle, the Takeda Clan leader (a mega-badass named Takeda Shingen) remarked that there were only two things greater than Tokugawa Ieyasu &ndash; Honda Tadakatsu, and Tokugawa\'s totally pimp helmet (which, to Takeda\'s great, was actually a pretty stylish piece of headgear).</p>\r\n<p>Honda Tadakatsu would soon exact his vengeance on the Takeda, however, whipping the fucking balls off them at the Battle of Nagashino a few months later. With most of his footsoldiers in heaping piles on the battlefield at Mikatagahara, Honda was appointed to command a unit of 3,000 footmen armed with new, ultramodern matchlock rifles, and from the safety of a chest-high barricade at the top of a hill Honda and his men mowed down their enemies with gunfire as they charged up a hill on horseback like dipshits, plowing through them in a scene that probably resembled something like a Feudal Japanese version of the Nazi Zombie mode in <em>Call of Duty</em>. Incidentally, Honda Tadakatsu is also credited with being the first Japanese battlefield commander to fight with riflemen in two ranks &ndash; he had the gunner in the front shoot while the guy in the back reloaded, and then they\'d switch, allowing the firing line to keep up a steady stream of fire that cut through armored samurai like a buzzsaw through a Thanksgiving turkey (though it should be mentioned however that Nobunaga is actually the guy who developed that strategy and told Honda to use it). Honda\'s 3,000 gunslingers repelled every Takeda charge, massacring their force and killing eight generals in the process.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hondatadakatsu3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Even his mortal enemy, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, referred to him as \"The Greatest Samurai in the East.\"<br />The usually-dour Nobunaga called Honda \"The Samurai of Samurai.\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>While this was a pretty righteous demolition of superior enemy forces, it wasn\'t really Honda\'s style to hang back like a \"spawn campxing fag lol\" when he could get up-close-and-personal with his badass Dragonfly Cleaver, and Honda Tadakatsu\'s most badass moment of gigantic brass ballsitude actually came during the Komaki Campaign of 1584. Tokugawa had heard about a large <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hideyoshi.html\">Toyotomi</a> army approaching nearby, so he took the bulk of his force and marched out to meet them, leaving Honda to defend Komaki Castle with only about 200 men. But of course no sooner did Tokugawa leave than Honda Tadakatsu looked out the castle window and saw the entire fucking Toyotomi army marching right up towards his front door.</p>\r\n<p>Now, for most of us, we\'d say \"fuck it\" and abandon the utterly indefensible position to the enemy (or at the very least, board it up and prepare to withstand a full-scale attack from the confines of our reinforced fortress). Not Honda Tadakatsu. This guy did something even more fucking nuts &ndash; he took all 200 of his soldiers, strapped on his armor, grabbed his Dragonfly-Splitting Spear, and <em>rode out of his fucking castle to face them man-to-man</em>. When he was on the other side of the river from Toyotomi\'s force &ndash; a fucking gigantic army that outnumbered him 50 or 60 to 1 &ndash; Honda boldly announced himself and challenged the entire enemy force to come out and meet him in battle.</p>\r\n<p>Toyotomi was so impressed by this act of bravery that he ordered that no man should harm Honda or his men. He immediately marched off, took the long way around Komaki Castle, and went off in search of Tokugawa.</p>\r\n<p>We\'ll call it a Flawless Moral Victory.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hondatadakatsu2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Honda Tadakatsu would fight through the rest of the Warring States period, and he remained one of Tokugawa\'s most trusted and reliable captains throughout his career. He fought at the Siege of Odawara, took part in the invasion of Korea, and commanded 500 men at the Battle of Sekigahara &ndash; the most famous battle in Japanese history, and the conflict that resulted in a crushing victory and the reunification of Japan by Tokugawa Ieyasu.</p>\r\n<p>For his incredibly loyalty, the strongest general and greatest warrior of the Warring States period was awarded a semi-ridiculous amount of land and titles by his grateful lord. But Honda wasn\'t a dude who was really cut out for peacetime. He tried to stay a faithful retainer to Tokugawa, but quickly became frustrated by bureaucracy and political bullshit, so Honda Tadakatsu retired from public life, had some kids, and lived a quiet life in a luxurious castle until he died of natural causes in 1610.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hondatadakatsu5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>He had to sit like this because it was the only way to<br />avoid crushing his gigantic balls between his legs.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.samurai-archives.com/tadakatsu.html\">Samurai Archives</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://sengoku-database.tripod.com/hondatadakatsu.htm\">Sengoku Database</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://ezinearticles.com/?History-of-Honda-Tadakatsu---Famous-Samurai-of-Japan&amp;id=3862269\">History of Honda Tadakatsu</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Tadakatsu\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Sansom, Sir George Bailey.&nbsp; <em>A History of Japan</em>.&nbsp; Stanford University Press, 1963. <br /><br /> Sato, Kanzan.&nbsp; The Japanese Sword.&nbsp; Kodansha International, 1983.<br /><br /> Turnbull, Stephen R.&nbsp; <em>Nagashino 1575</em>.&nbsp; Osprey, 2000.<br /><br /> Turnbull, Stephen R.&nbsp; <em>The Samurai</em>.&nbsp; Psychology Press, 1996. </span></p>','2011-12-09','15406983354','hondatadakatsu.jpg','hondatadakatsu2.jpg','Honda Tadakatsu','Veteran of 100 battles and Tokugawa\'s most hardcore samurai.','\"The Shogun\'s bureaucrats are like wineskins – they should both have ropes around their necks.\"'),('Unknown','May 24, 15 BC','October 10, 19 AD','Rome','Ancient Roman Soldier','<p>Nowadays he\'s faded into obscurity amongst those lucky people who haven\'t wasted countless hours studying the most intimate and meangingless details of ancient history, but during the height of the Roman Empire the mighty head-cleaving war hero Germanicus was almost universally recognized by the citizens of that bloodthirsty city as the single most hardcore warrior the Empire had ever produced &ndash; a ferocious, merciless-yet-honorable classical age torture-implement of skull-hacking brutality whose name and legacy are so synonymous with wreaking Rome\'s vengeful destruction on the Germans that we don\'t even know this motherfucker\'s actual birth name &ndash; he\'s simply Germanicus, a Latin honorific term meaning essentially \"He who kicked ass in Germany and then came home with an epic list of Teutonic-sounding names\".</p>\r\n<p>The man known solely as Germanicus (he\'s kind of like the 1st century AD version of Clint Eastwood\'s Man With No Name, which of course is only bonus points to his badass cred) was born in the year 15 BC, into basically what at this point amounted to the Roman Royal Family. For starters, was directly related to two-thirds of the Second Triumvirate &ndash; his dad\'s stepfather was the Emperor <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/augustus.html\">Augustus</a> (who, by the time of Germanicus\' birth, was already pretty much being referred to as a living god) and his grandfather on his mom\'s side was Marc Antony, a war hero who banged Cleopatra and then stabbed himself to death shortly thereafter. If that\'s not enough, Germancius\' brother was the future Emperor Claudius, his sister was the wife of the Emperor Tiberius, and he ended up marrying Augustus\' granddaughter and knocking her up nine times in 14 years, which is kind of impressive considering that most of his life was spent knee-deep in dead enemies on the battlefield.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/germanicus1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As a young man, Germanicus was known for being obscenely intelligent, writing a bunch of crazy shit like poems about astronomy, and giving pump-up speeches so righteous that even guys like Cicero and Suetonius had brain-boners for him. He also had a stainless personal record, never once bringing dishonor on his family through a personal indiscretion, and he was such a fucking ultimate paragon of virtue that Augustus actually thought long and hard about making this guy the next Roman Emperor (though at his wife\'s insisting, Augustus ended up passing the purple mantle on to Germanicus\' uncle <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tiberius.html\">Tiberius</a>). Germanicus\' and general awesomeness in all aspects of his life got him elected to the badass-sounding office of Quaestor in 7 AD, then Praetor, then finally Consul, making him one of the two most powerful non-Emperor men in Rome.</p>\r\n<p>But politics wasn\'t this guy\'s bag &ndash; Germanicus was a born-and-bred killer, and this limb-severing engine of Germanicidal destruction was never more comfortable than at the head of a horde of Roman Legions wreaking the Emperor\'s havoc upon the barbarian tribes of Europe. In 6 AD, Augustus dispatched the 20 year-old Germanicus to lead an army to quell the Pannonian Revolt &ndash; a particularly nasty showdown in which those pesky Balkan tribes got a little uppity and started butchering Roman officials with axes and clubs, so Germanicus had to go down there and lay the smackdown by ramming his gladius up everyone\'s collective shitholes and then used their impaled corpses as cocktail umbrellas at a fancy dinner party celebrating his full-court domination of the enemy.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/germanicus2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Things were going great for our boy Germanicus re: killing everyone in the Balkans, until one fateful day in 9 AD in which a gigantic fucking horde of pissed-off German warriors ambushed and epically beat the living fuckass out of three full legions of Roman troops deep in Germany\'s Teutoberg Forest. The handful of Roman survivors who crawled back to Rome on a river of blood told bone-chilling stories of insane slaughter &ndash; over 20,000 Romans brutally butchered on the battlefield, ambushed by an endless sea of German warriors armed with gigantic fucking axes and hellacious beards. Those Legionnaries unlucky enough to be taken alive were thrown down and hacked apart on stone altars as offerings to the pagan gods or thrown in spike pits. Even worse than this, it turned out that three of the Legionary Eagles (the ultimate symbol of the Legion\'s power) had fallen into German hands. It was one of the most humiliating and crushing defeats Imperial Rome would ever suffer.</p>\r\n<p>Germanicus wasn\'t in a position to fight back at this point, but he also wasn\'t about to let that shit stand. When news came down, he quietly seethed in manly rage.</p>\r\n<p>In 14 AD, the Emperor Augustus finally went to that Big Roman Orgy in the Sky, leaving the throne to the deliciously-evil and diabolical Tiberius. Germanicus getting jobbed on the succession seriously pissed off the soldiers fighting in Germany, who all loved and respected the mighty war hero, and when word came down about this bullshit with Tiberius nearly every legion in the frontier immediately rebelled and tried to convince Germanicus to lead them, march on Rome, and declare the throne for himself (like a boss). When Germanicus heard about this he hauled ass out there as fast as he could, called the men together, and collectively pimp-slapped them all in their faces for their disloyalty. This faithful, devoted Roman commander reminded the assembled soldiers that they\'d just recently had the holy living shitfuck kicked out of them by a horde of unruly, undisciplined German warriors, and that the legions\' collective failure to seek any sort of bloody revenge had utterly disgraced the name of the Roman army and the Roman people as a whole. Germanicus informed them that these chumps weren\'t in any position to be making demands of the Emperor &ndash; especially when there was unfinished business to attend to &ndash; and no, Germanicus wasn\'t going to lead these motherfuckers to march on Rome. He was going to lead them to vengeance.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/germanicus3.bmp\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Germanicus then assembled the men, got them into fighting shape, had his centurions kick the shit out of the soldiers who had incited the rebellion, and then marched eight fucking badass Roman Legions into the uncharted wilderness of Germany on a three-year vengeance campaign aimed at three things &ndash; First, to find the site of the massacred and bury the bodies of the fallen Romans. Second, to recover the captured Eagles, and Third, to kill as many of the enemy as was humanly possible, until all that remained of the tribes of Germany were a gigantic lake of blood stretching from Gaul to Scythia.</p>\r\n<p>The army\'s first moves took Germanicus into the lands of the Marsi tribe. He routed them on the battlefield, chased them back to their cities, then burned down their cities and massacred every man, woman, and child he could find. Then he attacked the Chatti, and did pretty much the same thing, burning every settlement in the entire region and then laughing his ass off while overlooking the charred remains. After that he marched his forces against the Cherusci &ndash; the people of <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/arminius.html\">Arminius</a>, the mastermind behind the massacre at the Teutoberg Forest. After a fierce battle, Germanicus drove Arminius from the field, captured his homeland, and took Arminius\' wife as a prisoner. When the troops asked if he was going to have her brutally executed and/or do other sorts of terrible things to her, Germanicus responded like a badass. He said to treat her and her people with honor because, \"They are women that must be respected, for they will be citizens of Rome soon.\"</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/germanicus4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Shortly after driving off Arminius and taking down a half dozen Germanic tribes with using only his own unquenchable blood-rage and a gigantic set of siege artillery, Germanicus finally came up on the ruined battlefield of the Teutoberg Forest, which had, for the most part, been left exactly as it looked in 9 AD. The first thing Germanicus noticed when he got there though, was a little special present the Germans had left for him &ndash; 20,000 human skulls nailed to the tree trunks throughout the forest.</p>\r\n<p>This is fucked. And also kind of awesome.</p>\r\n<p>Germanicus took down the skulls, collected the bones of the dead (which were strewn about for a couple miles), performed the last rites on the bodies, and buried the Romans with full military honors.</p>\r\n<p>Then he got pissed.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/germanicus5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Germanicus marched to the Rhine, built a fleet out of logs he chopped down with his dick, sailed them down and across the North Sea, and braved a terrible storm that he only managed to survive by cutting down his men\'s clothes and using them as sails after every oar, mast, and sail in the fleet had been destroyed (this is the downside of trying to build large things with your penis). The storm and destruction was so terrible that the Germans thought the Romans had been completely obliterated, so naturally when the assembled German warbands saw eight Roman legions marching out of the fog on the coast they figured Germanicus was some kind of immortal demon who could not be killed by conventional weapons. They may have been right.</p>\r\n<p>Arminius rode out to battle the Romans once again, and this time Germanicus led his battle-hardened, pissed-as-hell troops (some of whom had been veterans of the slaughter at the Teutoberg Forest) into battle, crushing the Germans in a huge onslaught of Roman face-smashing that was so ferocious the enemy allegedly went so far as to climb trees to escape the onslaught (Germanicus naturally ordered his arches to either shoot the men down or fell the tree with axes). The Germans regrouped for a last stand, but charging uphill under a hail of ballistae spears, arrows, and slings, the Romans smashed the enemy earthworks, broke through, and routed them. Once the smoke cleared on the blood-soaked battlefield, Germanicus built a giant pile of weapons taken off of dead Germans and dedicated it to Mars, the God of War. He had conquered every tribe from the Rhine to the Elbe, and this would be the deepest Rome would ever penetrate into German lands. Arminius\' power was shattered, and Germanicus returned home to a triumphal parade, carrying two of the three Legionary Eagles that had been stole by the Germans. It would be the last Triumph ever awarded to a man who was not the current sitting Emperor of Rome.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/germanicus6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>If everybody didn\'t love Germanicus before this, they were all willing to have his babies afterwards. Statues and monuments were built declaring his military victories. Hero Cults were set up to worship him as a living god. A huge section of the Coliseum was named after him. It was when the Praetorian Guard offered to depose Tiberius and install Germanicus as emperor that Tiberius really started to worry, so the aging Emperor went out and had Germanicus poisoned (probably). The hero of Rome died in 19 AD, at the age of 34. When news of his death reached Rome the entire city shut down for three days. He was added to the Salian hymn, an epic song detailing the greatest heroes of Rome, and the three Roman Emperors who succeeded Tiberius would all take the cognomen Germanicus as a way of capitalizing on this guy\'s immense fame.</p>\r\n<p>But despite getting jobbed to death by a cowardly Emperor Palpatine-style double-cross, it was Germanicus Fucking Julius Caesar who would have the last laugh &ndash; when he went down he made damn sure the rest of the fucking Empire literally went down in flames around him. For starters, it would be Germanicus\' son who would succeed Tiberius as Emperor of Rome. That kid\'s name was Caligula. After Caligula was assassinated for being totally fucking insane and bankrupting Rome so he could finance orgies and other ridiculous things, his successor (Claudius) married Germanicus\' daughter Julia Agrippina, an insanely tough woman I talk about in my book BADASS who spent most of her tenure pretty much ruling Rome as an Empress and surviving dozens of assassination attempts. After that, the grandson of Germanicus assumed the throne. That guy\'s name was Nero, and I think we pretty much all know how that story ends.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/germanicus8.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.livius.org/ga-gh/germanicus/germanicus.html\">Livius.org</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.nndb.com/people/449/000096161/\">NNDB</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.roman-emperors.org/germanicus.htm\">Roman-Emperors.net</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanicus\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Suetonius.&nbsp; <em>The Lives of the Twelve Caesars</em>.&nbsp; Trans. Thomson, Alexander, and Forrester, Thomas.&nbsp; G. Bell and Sons, 1911.<br /><br /> Tacitus.&nbsp; <em>The Annals of Imperial Rome</em>.&nbsp; Trans. Grant, Michael.&nbsp; Penguin, 1956. </span></p>','2011-12-16','62702223484','germanicus1.jpg','germanicus.jpg','Germanicus','The Roman Empire\'s most celebrated warrior.','\"Germanicus, who had torn off his helmet, ordered his men to kill and kill. No prisoners were wanted. Only the total destruction of the tribe would end the war. Finally, late in the day, he withdrew one brigade from the battle to make camp. Apart from the cavalry, whose battle was indecisive, the rest sated themselves with enemy blood until nightfall.\"\r\n\r\n- Tacitus, Annals'),('Victor Von Doom','Unknown','N/A','Latveria','Fictional Latverian Supervillain','<p>The article on Doctor Doom is hosted at Boomtron.net:</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.boomtron.com/2011/10/doctor-doom-badass-of-the-week/\">http://www.boomtron.com/2011/10/doctor-doom-badass-of-the-week/</a></p>','2011-10-14','732674729362','drdoom1.jpg','drdoom.jpg','Doctor Doom','The iron-fisted ruler of Latveria.',''),('Dakota Meyer','June 26, 1988','n/a','Columbia, KY, USA','21st-century American Marine','<p>Last September, Corporal Dakota Meyer became the first United States Marine since Vietnam to receive the Medal of Honor and live to tell the tale. And while this one-man wrecking crew of Taliban annihilation may consider his own mission a failure because during six hours of non-stop combat he <em>only</em> managed to almost single-handedly rescue 36 of the 40 men trapped in a life-or-death firefight with a vastly superior, heavily-armed enemy force, I think pretty much every average Joe out there would have a damn hard time thinking about him as anything other than a stone-cold badass.</p>\r\n<p>It all started on the evening of September 8, 2009, when a dozen American Marines and two full platoons of Afghan Army troops were making their way up a narrow valley towards the formerly-Taliban-controlled village of Ganjgal. The Marines and Afghanis were preparing to attend a pre-arranged meeting with the village elders about how the Taliban really isn\'t all that great in the first place, when all of a sudden every light in the village simultaneously went out, and the whole \"hey guys let\'s talk things out here\" diplomacy operation was immediately replaced by muzzle flashes of AK-47s, RPK heavy machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenades flying in from every direction in a coordinated ambush. In the amount of time it took the Marines to radio in the words \"oh fuck\" the 54 Americans and Afghanis were being pasted from three sides by a heavily-entrenched force of at least 150 Taliban warriors equipped with the most badass shit the Soviet Union had to offer in the early 80s.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dakotameyer1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Corporal Dakota Meyer was assigned to Marine Embedded Training Team 2-8, which, based on the name alone, we can assume to mean that this guy\'s day job had a hell of a lot more to do with lecturing recruits about keeping their rifles clean and a lot less to do with having pissed-off-as-fuck assholes shooting assault rifle ammunition into your face. For this mission he\'d been stationed at a rally point near the entrance of the valley, a few miles away from the raging clusterfuck in the city, but when this guy started hearing frantic radio calls about ambushes, casualties, and all the other horrible shit that was going down he couldn\'t just sit back there with his hands in his pockets while his brothers were out there battling ferociously for their lives. So Meyer and his buddy, Staff Sergeant Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, did what any Marine in their situation would do &ndash; they immediately ran to the commanding officer and requested permission to ride out there and help. Their request was denied, as were subsequent USMC requests for artillery and infantry support from nearby Army units.</p>\r\n<p>But true badasses, almost by definition, refuse to take no for an answer, even when disregarding the negative response could possibly result in court-martial and/or a violent, painful death. First, in a very <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/gordonandshughart\">Gordon and Shughart</a>-style maneuver, Meyer and Rodriguez-Chavez repeated their request four more times. They were rejected every time. Finally, they said fuck it. Unable to sit back and listen his friends being shot to death on the radio while he sat around screwing with bullshit bureaucracy nonsense, Meyer simply grabbed his rifle and told his buddy, \"we\'re going in.\" Rodriguez-Chavez didn\'t need much convincing &ndash; before Meyer even finished his sentence the Staff Sergeant was already behind the wheel warming the engine up.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dakotameyer2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now Corporal Dakota Meyer\'s Primary MOS was Scout Sniper his official responsibility around this time involved training Marine Corps snipers in proper use of their optics. He wasn\'t a heavy weapons specialist, a turret gunner, or one of the Corps\' designated \"one-man ultimate killing machines\", but that didn\'t stop this ferocious juggernaut of Taliban-smiting awesomeness from disobeying a direct order, hopping in the turret of the sort-of-stolen Humvee and launching straight-on into the teeth of an overwhelming enemy ambush at sixty miles an hour. I guess if this guy could cap an enemy soldier at 800 yards with a sniper rifle, he figured he could damn sure lay down an accurate-as-fuck barrage of .50-caliber ammunition into a fortified horde of enemy infantry &ndash; so that\'s exactly what he did.</p>\r\n<p>Braving a hail of gunfire and RPGs reminiscent of the Army\'s Sunday drive through downtown Mogadishu in 1993, Meyer and Rodriguez-Chavez blasted through the enemy, smashing through the ambush in a frenzy of heavy weapons fire, screeching tires, and judicious use of the steel bumper. When they found a group of pinned-down Afghani troops, Rodriguez-Chaves pulled out an awesome handbrake turn to place the armored Humvee between the ambush and the Afghanis, then provided covering fire from the drivers\' seat while Meyer jumped out of the turret, ran over to the first Afghan platoon, grabbed the wounded men, muscled them into the truck, and hopped back in the turret. The two Marines then hauled ass out of there with both the wounded and the healthy Afghan troops. Battling through some of the most hellaciously intense fighting any of those Marines had ever seen (and Meyer had spent a tour of duty in Fallujah), the convoy somehow escaped the valley in one piece.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dakotameyer3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"I didn\'t think I was going to die. I knew I was.\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>But Dakota Meyer and Juan Rodriguez-Chavez were just getting warmed up. With their vehicle covered in pockmarks and bristling with shrapnel, these two hardcore Marines unloaded the wounded, made sure they were in a position to get medical attention to the wounded, and then got right back in the car and went back for their second of FIVE trips into the middle of the killzone.</p>\r\n<p>The second time these guys Bo and Luke Duke\'d it into the canyon, it was safe to say that this insane two-man rescue operation was now the primary target for pretty much every single member of the 150-man Taliban ambush Company. With his head, chest, and arms completely exposed out the top of the Humvee turret, 22 year-old former high school linebacker Dakota Meyer continued spraying out covering fire with the .50 cal, while Rodriguez-Chavez swerved past explosions, RPG contrails, and other shit reminiscent of the destruction of the <em>Pillar of Autumn</em>, hauling ass towards the second group of pinned-down Afghani soldiers. Once those guys were evacuated in a manner similar to the first group, the Marines then headed back a third time, this time driving straight into the enemy-occupied village, plowing through the rubble and the wreckage on the road and hauling sack through the streets while dudes fired AK-47s out the windows at them. Fueled by an unstoppable need to save his friends, Meyer desperately fought off daring Taliban warriors who, by this point, were going so far as to run right the fuck up to the truck in an effort to throw hand grenades into the Humvee\'s windows.</p>\r\n<p>On this trip into town, Meyer and Rodriguez-Chavez found a group of American Marines. Meyer once again hopped out of the turret, drawing the enemy fire to himself, blasting away with his M4, and occasionally swapping rifles with wounded men when his weapon jammed or overheated. Firing with one arm, helping wounded men with the other, he loaded the wounded into the truck, and once again Staff Sergeant Juan Rodriguez-Chavez managed to get them out of there intact.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dakotameyer4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>By their fifth trip into the now-insanely-raging warzone, Meyer had a huge piece of white-hot shrapnel painfully embedded in his arm, and his scorch-marked Humvee was basically being held together by duct tape and bullets, but they somehow managed to enter the village yet again, this time rolling in with a convoy consisting largely of the troops they\'d rescued on their previous journeys into this veritable Hell on Earth, laying down curtains of fire in every direction. This time, however, the discovery was a little less heartening &ndash; when they came upon the last group of men trapped in the city they found the bodies of the four American Marines who had died together while fighting a fierce last stand against impossible odds.</p>\r\n<p>But Marines don\'t leave their own behind. Surrounded by fortified buildings packed full of snipers, sandbags, RPGs, and machine gunners, Meyer personally got out of the smoking vehicle yet again, loading the dead into the Humvee one by one while the enemy took potshots at him like a duck in a carnival shooting gallery, and once again burning rubber out of there. When the smoke finally cleared and the battle-rage subsided after six hours of nonstop fighting, Dakota Meyer and Juan Rodriguez-Chavez had saved the lives of 36 men and brought home the bodies of 4 fallen brothers.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dakotameyer5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"A lot of people call me a hero, and it kills me.<br />I feel like the furthest thing from that because I let those guys down.<br />Anything that comes out of it, it&rsquo;s not for me. It&rsquo;s for those guys because they are the true heroes.\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Meyer finished his tour of duty, returned home to Columbia, Kentucky, and was working at a construction comp any when he received a call from the President\'s aide informing him that he was going to receive the Medal of Honor for his actions.</p>\r\n<p>Meyer told the aide that he was on the clock, and would have to call back on his lunch break. When he finally did, he made two requests &ndash; first, he wanted to drink a beer with the President in the Rose Garden, which, I have to admit, is probably one of the awesomest Medal of Honor-related requests I\'ve ever heard. Second, he wasn\'t going to accept the award for himself, but on behalf of the men who had died in the fighting on that fateful evening.</p>\r\n<p>The Prez complied on both.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dakotameyer6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 500px;\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><span>\"Dakota, I know that you\'ve grappled with the grief of that day; that you\'ve said your efforts were somehow a \"failure\" because your teammates didn\'t come home. But as your Commander-in-Chief, and on behalf of everyone here today and all Americans, I want you to know it\'s quite the opposite. You did your duty, above and beyond, and you kept the faith with the highest traditions of the Marine Corps that you love.\"</span></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2010/11/marine-dakota-meyer-medal-of-honor-113010/\">Marine Corps Times</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/09/dakota-meyer-marine-medal-of-honor-recipient-says-hes-no-hero/\">ABC News</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.marines.mil/community/pages/MedalofHonorSgtDakotaMeyer-Citation.aspx\">Medal of Honor Citation</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/16/us/dakota-meyer-marine-is-awarded-medal-of-honor.html\">NY Times</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://gizmodo.com/5841107/how-sgt-dakota-meyer-rescued-36-soldiers-under-heavy-fire\">Transcript of MoH Ceremony Speech</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Meyer\">Wikipedia</a></p>','2012-01-06','535195528147','dakotameyer.jpg','dakotameyer5-small.jpg','Dakota Meyer','The first Marine since Vietnam to receive the Medal of Honor and live to tell the tale.',''),('Bruce Wayne','N/A','N/A','Gotham City','Fictional American Vigilante','<p>This article is hosted at Boomtron.com:</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.boomtron.com/2011/07/badass-of-the-week-batman/\">http://www.boomtron.com/2011/07/badass-of-the-week-batman/</a></p>','2011-07-22','96605373772','batman-jla.jpg','batman-jla2.jpg','Batman','Gotham City\'s most badass face-punching crime fighter.',''),('Wade Wilson','N/A','N/A','Canada','Fictional Canadian Mercenary','<p>This article is hosted at boomtron.com:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.boomtron.com/2011/03/deadpool-badass-of-the-week/\">http://www.boomtron.com/2011/03/deadpool-badass-of-the-week/</a></p>','2011-03-04','722849711654','94flair_deadpool.jpg','110773-56670-deadpool_super.gif','Deadpool','The Merc with a Mouth.','“Destiny doesn’t care that I’ve made sacrifices to get here. That I’ve said my prayers and brushed after meals.\r\nDestiny wants a garbage man… and I’m always it. Bang bang.  I’m Deadpool. You’re Dead.\"'),('Doris Miller','October 12, 1919','November 24, 1943','Waco, TX, USA','WWII American Sailor','<p>Mess Attendant First Class Doris \"Dorie\" Miller was born in Waco, Texas, in 1919, the son of a couple hard-working sharecroppers who had traveled the land working cotton fields. A man who would grow to be one of the more unlikely heroes on one of America\'s darkest days, Miller spent every day of his youth on the edge of poverty, just struggling to survive and make ends meet. By the time he was a young man, his family had settled down, working as subsistence farmers, and as soon as he was old enough to push a plow he went to work busting his ass in the fields to make sure his family had enough food to eat. When he wasn\'t out providing food for his family, he went to school, trampled DBs as the star fullback on his high school team (no small feat in a place like Texas that, as far as I can tell, has <em>always</em> taken their high school football a little bit seriously), and worked nights as a cook at a local restaurant to help make some extra money during the Great Depression. So he was pretty busy. And he didn\'t have a problem busting his ass like a madman to make sure that shit got done.</p>\r\n<p>In 1939, the 19 year-old Miller enlisted in the Navy, presumably because this was going to be a little bit of a break from his non-stop life of frying delicious bacon and stiff-arming linebackers so hard that their skulls imploded. After completing Basic, he was assigned as a Mess Attendant Third Class on the awesomely-named <em>USS Pyro</em>, where he essentially served as a mix between a line cook, a waiter, and housekeeping staff. Sure, this wasn\'t exactly the most glamorous gig in the Fleet, but in the 1930s it was one of the few Navy jobs available to Black sailors, and Miller was damn sure he wanted to serve his country and make some extra money to help provide for his family back home. It didn\'t hurt the situation when he was transferred to the battleship <em>USS West Virginia</em> and sent out to enjoy the sunny beaches of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, filled with warm weather, hot babes, and picturesque palm trees. He dug living out on the island paradise, and when he wasn\'t chilling on the beach he was getting some of his aggression out by face-punching the fucking bejeezus out of other men on his ship on his way to becoming the heavyweight boxing champion of the <em>West Virginia</em> -- a warship of about 2,000 sailors and U.S. Marines. I can only imagine that grilling up a burger is a lot more awesome when the dude you\'re cooking it for is sporting a nasty black eye because you\'d just spent all morning pummeling him ruthlessly about the face and torso with your gigantic fists.</p>\r\n<p>But the temporary stay in paradise wouldn\'t last long.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dorismiller1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>At 8am on the morning of 7 December 1941, Mess Attendant Doris Miller was collecting laundry from the bunks when he heard a deafening roar overhead. Two hundred Japanese torpedo planes, fighters, and bombers of every conceivable flavor were bearing down on Hawaii on an insane sneak-attack bombing run that was soon to knock out the bulk of American battleship power in the course of a couple hours, and Miller suddenly found himself in the middle of the biggest military shitstorm to hit U.S. soil since the Civil War.</p>\r\n<p>Well Dorie Miller was a guy who spent his entire life giving the death-stare to adversity, and he wasn\'t about to let a trivial bullshit thing like the entire goddamned Japanese Naval Air Force stop him from being completely mecha-extreme to the max. His first instinct was one that had been drilled into him through months of training &ndash; get to your battlestation. Miller\'s station was an anti-aircraft battery located on one of the middle decks of the ship, but no sooner did he get there than he realized that a Japanese torpedo had already blown it the fuck up, and now there was a huge hunk of twisted metal where there used to be a giant gun. Not one to be discouraged by this, he rushed up to the deck to see if there was anything he could do to help out.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dorismiller4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span> <em>USS West Virginia</em> burns during the attack.&nbsp; This isn\'t the sort of thing you want to see when you walk outside your ship.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>At this point, the situation on the <em>West Virginia</em> was a grade-A five-alarm clusterfuck. Planes and bombers were shrieking overhead, unleashing their payloads, and Battleship Row was now little more than a goddamned shooting gallery for Japanese aircraft. Once again, Miller sacked up and did what he had to do. The biggest, strongest, toughest man aboard the ship, he immediately started running across the deck, grabbing wounded men and carrying them to safety on the quarterdeck, where the injured sailors and Marines were partially shielded from the machine guns of strafing Zeroes. After pulling a few men to safety, Miller saw that the ships commander &ndash; Captain Bennion &ndash; had been mortally wounded by a piece of shrapnel. Bennion was still conscious, trying to direct and command his men, and Miller knew he had to get his C.O. off the bridge and to a place where he would be safe. So Doris Miller sprinted across the deck, blitzing through smoke, water, and flaming oil while bullets zinged around him, grabbed the Captain, and carried him to safety as well.</p>\r\n<p>Now, this in and of itself is some seriously epic heroism, but it\'s just the beginning of Doris Miller\'s badass cred. After saving the lives of his comrades by pulling them to safety, the heavyweight boxing champion of the <em>USS West Virginia</em> noticed the some of the deck guns were going unmanned, so he rushed over to a giant .50-caliber anti-aircraft machine gun, strapped himself in, and immediately went to work putting a giant curtain of bullets between <em>West Virginia</em> and the Japanese Naval Air Force.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dorismiller2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Despite not having any training on how to operate the .50-cal (Miller had plenty of experience working hunting rifles back in Texas, so he figured it out pretty quickly), now the fucking ship\'s cook was manning a deck gun, blasting Zeroes out of the sky with a stream of tracer fire from the heavy MG. With planes strafing overhead, bombs going off, and ships getting trashed around him, Miller held his ground for fifteen minutes straight, blasting away from his exposed position. During the battle two armor-piercing bombs blasted the deck of the <em>West Virginia</em> and five 18-inch torpedoes hit the port side, but this guy couldn\'t be stopped by anything short of his ammunition supply &ndash; he only backed down after he ran out of bullets and his half-dead commanding officer ordered him to abandon ship.</p>\r\n<p>The specific details of Dorie Miller\'s efficiency with the .50 cal aren\'t well-documented &ndash; his kill count ranges from \"at least one\" to \"several\" depending on who you ask &ndash; but you can\'t deny the fact that the men of Pearl Harbor (and the citizens who would hear the story later) were inspired by the bravery of this incredible badass who had dropped his chef\'s hat, saved the lives of a half-dozen Americans, and then blew the shit out of the enemies that were fucking with his battleship. Basically, he was Steven Segal from <em>Under Siege</em>.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dorismiller6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"You\'re not a cook.\"<br /><br />\"Yeah, well... I also cook.\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Doris Miller survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, as did 1,500 of his fellow crewmen aboard <em>West Virginia</em>. When tales of his heroism reached the people of the U.S., they saw it as one of just <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/edwinhill.html\">a few bright spots</a> amid one of the darkest days in American history. Yeah, the Japanese sucker-punched us in the balls, but at least we made them pay for it.</p>\r\n<p>Miller personally received the Navy Cross &ndash; one of the Navy\'s highest awards for bravery &ndash; from Admiral Chester Nimitz, the commander of the American Pacific Fleet. Miller was one of the first black men to receive the Cross, and, as it happens, one of the first Americans of any ethnicity to win the Navy Cross for actions in World War II. Cities named Boys\' Clubs after him, he had a parade in Waco, he spoke at a commencement ceremony or two, and the public started a write-in campaign to get him admitted to the Naval Academy. Despite the accolades, Miller stayed humble. He was just doing his job. He continued working in the Mess, eventually getting promoted to Ship\'s Cook First Class. He went back to the front, serving on the cruiser <em>Indianapolis</em>, and then later on the <em>Liscome Bay</em>, and spent the next two years tenaciously taking the fight to the Japanese. He was killed in action on 24 November 1943 when his ship was hit by a torpedo while supporting landing operations of the Pacific Island of Tarawa. Nowadays there are a bunch of parks and schools named after him, and in 1973 the Navy honored him as just the third black man to have an American warship named after him &ndash; the frigate <em>USS Doris Miller</em>. He\'s also appeared on a postage stamp, and Cuba Gooding Jr. played him in a movie back when people still liked Cuba Gooding Jr.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dorismiller3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Receiving the Navy Cross form Admiral Nimitz</span>.</p>\r\n<p><br /> <span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Miller\" target=\"blank\">Wikipedia</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.pearlharbor.org/dorie-miller.asp\" target=\"blank\">PearlHarbor.org</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq57-4.htm\" target=\"blank\">Naval History &amp; Heritage</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.answers.com/topic/doris-miller\" target=\"blank\">Answers.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.waco-texas.com/doris-miller-background.asp\" target=\"blank\">Doris Miller Memorial</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/a_people_at_war/war_in_the_pacific/doris_miller.html\" target=\"blank\">National Archives</a></p>','2011-02-11','798445613860','dorismiller.jpg','dorismiller1.jpg','Doris Miller','The ship\'s cook who manned the .50 cal during Pearl Harbor.',''),('Thanos','Unknown','N/A','Eternal Colony, Titan, Saturn','Fictional Alien Supervillain','<p>This article is hosted at boomtron.com:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.boomtron.com/2010/07/thanos-badass-of-the-week/\">http://www.boomtron.com/2010/07/thanos-badass-of-the-week/</a></p>','2010-07-23','83806249790','thanos.jpg','thanos1.jpg','Thanos','Possessor of the Infinity Gauntlet and grand ruler of existence.','“You address omnipotence. Tread carefully.”'),('Timur','April 8, 1336','February 18, 1405','Shahrisabz, Uzbekistan','Medieval Uzbek General','<p>Timur the Lame, so called because he walked with a limp since half of his body was paralyzed, was the warlord king of a nomadic tribe based in what is now present-day Uzbekistan, and was a total hardass. His name was later Westernized to Tamerlane when people finally came to the realization that even though he was gimpy there was nothing about him that was remotely lame.</p>\r\n<p>Tamerlane (1336-1405) led his tribal army all around Central Asia, kicking the asses of anyone he met and pillaging or plundering any towns he came across. Though he thought of himself as the descendent of Chingis Khan destined to conquer an Empire greater than that of Alexander, he didn\'t have a whole lot of interest in governing such a huge area. So instead, he would just invade a country, kill anyone who crossed him and take all their shit back to his capital with him. It was kind of like the predecessor to running a \"smash-and-grab\" at the 7-11. Basically, he just ran around getting shit to make his palace kick ass and his capital city a center of culture. When he conquered the Ottoman Empire, he thought that the Byzantine gates to the capital city were so cool that he ripped them out of the wall and had them installed in his own capital. Not only that, but he also captured the Ottoman Sultan and his wives, kept the Sultan in a cage in his parlor and had his wives get naked and serve everyone food and drinks. So when his friends would come over he\'d be like, \"dude, check out these kickass gates, my badass pinball machine and a cage containing the Ottoman Sultan.\". One time, he led his army into India, kicked the asses of the Indian army and captured the capital of Delhi for no reason at all. He occupied the town for like four days and then left with all the cool shit he could carry, just because he\'s hard like that.</p>\r\n<p>Tamerlane, while reputedly intellectual and scholarly, was also ruthlessly bloodthirsty. He was notorious for creating gigantic pyramids of human skulls outside of towns he had sacked, so that even if everyone in the town was slaughtered people would still know that he was awesome. His strategy was to be so ridiculously over-the-top that nobody in their right minds would cross him. It only took the slaughter of a couple of towns before anyone that heard he was coming near instantly surrendered their town and all their worldly possessions to him. He was a total bastard, a brilliant military tactician, and someone who could kick your ass using only one-half of his body. During his lifetime he conquered all of Central Asia, Turkey, India and parts of Mongolia, but died on his way to a full-scale invasion of Ming China, whose asses he could have totally kicked.</p>\r\n<p><br /> <img style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/timur15.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>','2004-12-03','998398928448','timur16.jpg','timur16 - Copy.jpg','Tamerlane','The successor of Genghis Khan, this guy conquered half of Asia, pillaged India, and brought the Ottoman Sultan back to his palace in chains.',''),('Robert de La Rochefoucauld','September 16, 1923','May 8, 2012','Paris, France','20th-century French Spy','<p>I had a pretty hardcore, flesh-ripping historical badass lined up to run on the site this week. I really did. It was a man who would have been perfect not only for the Fourth of July week, but also one who would tie in nicely with Canada Day as well, thanks to his innate ability to kick human asses across two of the three countries in North America. A tough-as-shit asskicker who relentlessly obliterated all who stood before him in a frenzy of blood-soaked musketballs and left behind a wake of shattered dreams and horribly-mutilated corpses, and who did it all while charging straight-on into battle wearing his full dress military uniform.</p>\r\n<p>Then, around Monday I started getting suggestions of people open-mouth begging me to write about the very-recently-deceased French WWII espionage expert Count Robert de La Rochefoucauld. And I kept getting them. And kept getting them. And ok, sure, when folks with letters instead of numbers in their Twitter Followers column start asking me to write shit I take notice, but when I finally read this guy\'s obit I understood why there was absolutely no way in good conscience I could leave him off the website for even one more week, even if it means posting a French dude during the week of American Independence Day and Canadian Interdependence Day (or whatever they celebrate with Canada Day).</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/rochefoucauld1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Count Robert Jean-Marie de La Rochefoucauld was born in Paris on September 16, 1923. One of ten kids born into an over-the-top silver-spoon aristocratic family that traced their noble lineage of brain-cleaving knighthood back to the days of Charlemagne and Charles Martel and included guys like Francois de La Rochefoucald (an old drinking buddy of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, which is about as much of a 4th of July tie-in as you\'re gonna get this week), Robert grew up with a life of privilege, studying at posh froo-froo schools across Switzerland and Austria, rubbing elbows with the aristocracy, and once getting his check pinched by German Chancellor Adolph Hitler (this was back in 1938 when everybody still thought Der Fuhrer was just some really intense politician and not the physical manifestation of every evil thing humanity has ever done).</p>\r\n<p>Rochefoucauld thought Hitler actually kind of ok right up until the time the German blitzkrieg bulldozed the scrotums of every fighting man in France at the same time and conquered the entire country in about fifteen minutes with nothing more than a handful of neverending fury and enough Ju-87 Stuka dive-bombers and Panzer Mk. IVs to turn the Maginot Line into a flaming pile of twisted rubble and dead French dudes. Rochefoucauld\'s father was imprisoned, a couple of his uncles and aunts were executed, and Robert and his surviving family members escaped into hiding. Rochefoucauld tried organizing a resistance against the German occupation, but when he was marked for arrest/death/other horribleness by the Gestapo in 1942 he knew enough to get the hell out of Paris before some jackbooted dipshit started tap-dancing on his brains. He took on a fake name, renounced his aristocratic title, threw on some ordinary-person clothes, hoofed it into the French countryside, linked up with a couple of downed Royal Air Force pilots, and crossed the Pyrenees mountain range on foot while Nazi stormtrooper patrols swept the countryside looking for him and his RAF buddies.</p>\r\n<p>As soon as Rochefoucauld and his two fugitive friends made it across the Pyrenees they were promptly arrested by the spent two months rotting in Fascist Spain\'s infamous Miranda de Ebro prison camp, a place that had been notorious during the recently-concluded Spanish Civil War for its brutal conditions and the ill-temperedness of its guards.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/rochefoucauld2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>This is actually Fort du Ha, a different Nazi base this guy was also imprisoned inside.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well after a couple months in Franco\'s penal system, the RAF boys got a visit from a member of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) &ndash; a hardcore department of badass James Bond motherfuckers who basically were in charge of every bitchin\' spy, espionage, counter-intelligence, and sabotage operation the Allies attempted during World War II. This guy had come to spring the RAF pilots from the clink, but when he heard about the psycho French Count who\'d kept them safe while they fled through the countryside the SOE dude bailed out Rochefoucauld, took him back to London, and told him to get his shit together and prepare to go back into France on a mission of kicking fucking ass.</p>\r\n<p>As a good Frenchman, Rochefoucauld first got in touch with Charles De Gaulle &ndash; the hardcore warrior in command of the Free French forces in exile &ndash; and asked him if it was cool to work with the Brits on this. De Gaulle told him, \"Even allied with the devil, it\'s for France. Let\'s go.\" Then they high-fived and Rochefoucauld got down to business.</p>\r\n<p>Count Robert was assigned to the espionage section of SOE (awesomely-known as \"The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare\") and was subsequently ordered by <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/winstonchurchill.html\">Winston Churchill</a> to \"set Europe ablaze\". He was trained in airborne operations, skydiving, sabotage, safecracking, small arms, and judo chopping badassitude, personally receiving knife-fighting training from <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/fairbairn.html\">Fairbairn</a> himself. After a few months of perfecting his James T. Kirk-style knife-hand to the throat, Rochefoucauld was strapped to a parachute, loaded into a transport plane, and sent off to parachute into his homeland and kill every Nazi motherfucker he could find there.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/rochefoucauld3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Robert de La Rochefoucauld dropped into France in 1943, linked up with the local Resistance, killed a bunch of Nazis, and blew up a railroad line and an industrial power substation with some high-grade explosives. His mission complete, Rochefoucauld was heading to the extraction point, but was idiotically sold out by some local dipshit and captured by the fucking SS. He was tossed in prison, interrogated hard by the Gestapo, and subsequently sentenced to death as a spy.</p>\r\n<p>Fuck that. As the truck was driving to the site where they were going to unceremoniously cap him in the head, Rochefoucauld jumped out the back of the moving transport and ran for it with his hands still bound in front of him, somehow managing to get into the safety of the trees despite the notable problem that two pissed-off Nazis with full-auto submachine guns were spraying bullets at him as he ran. Rochefoucauld evaded the enemy patrols, doubled back into the city, ran to the local headquarters of the Gestapo (you know, the Fascist secret police force who had just sentenced him to death), stole a Nazi limousine while the driver was taking his smoke break, led the Germans on a high-speed chase through the streets of the city, crashed through an SS roadblock, ditched the car, evaded the enemy on foot through the city, and finally linked up with the local Resistance office. From there he got on a passenger train, hid in the cabinet beneath the sink in the bathroom for twelve hours, made it back to Paris, met up with some family members he\'d thought had been executed, and laid low for a while to recover. Once he was back on his feet and ready to kick ass, Rochefoucauld got to Calais, took a fishing boat into the middle of the Channel, boarded a British submarine, spent three days on patrol, survived a depth charge attack from a German destroyer, arrived safely in London, hooked up with a couple hot British babes, and prepared to grab a few fresh magazines and do it all over again a few weeks later.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/rochefoucauld4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>I\'ll just borrow this...</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Rochefoucauld\'s next mission took place in May 1944, just one month before the D-Day landings. His task was simple &ndash; single-handedly blow up the biggest weapons and ammunition manufacturing factory in France. It was heavily-fortified, air-tight security, and patrolled by a ridiculous number of gun-toting German guards. No problem.</p>\r\n<p>Robert de La Rochefoucauld\'s plan was ridiculously simple and ingenious &ndash; he dressed as an employee, single-handedly smuggled 90 pounds of military grade explosives into the factory by concealing it inside hollowed-out loaves of bread, set it up strategically around the structural supports of the building without being detected by security, set the timers in the middle of the night, climbed a wall, and rode off in slow motion on his fixie bicycle while the Germans\' primary artillery shell manufacturing plant erupted in a massive earth-shattering detonation that rocked the countryside and could allegedly be heard from ten miles away. Rochefoucauld didn\'t look back at the explosion, and instead just rode to the Resistance safe house and got trashed on weapons-grade Bordeaux wine.</p>\r\n<p>The next day Rochefoucauld, hungover as shit, ended up getting captured at a German checkpoint while riding his bike to the extraction point. He was tossed into a medieval fortress known as Fort du Ha (pictured above), locked in a dungeon, and left to rot while the Gestapo decided on what would be he best way to slowly torture him to death as painfully as possible.</p>\r\n<p>No problem. Count Robert faked an epileptic fit, spazzing out like crazy, and when the Nazi guard came in to check on him Rochefoucauld sprung up, clubbed that asshole in the dome with a broken-off chair leg, snapped his neck while he was dazed on the ground, put on the dude\'s uniform, and <em>Castle Wolfenstein</em>-ed it out of there B.J. Blaskeiwicz-style, walking into the main office, capping both dudes in there, then walking straight out the front door like he fucking owned the place. By the time the Nazis figured out how the fuck this one French aristocrat had managed to single-handedly escape from a goddamned medieval prison castle, Robert de La Rochefoucauld was already making his way out of the city disguised in a nun\'s habit.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/rochefoucauld5.png\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Anyone else remember this shit?</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>With D-Day imminent, Rochefoucald didn\'t extract back to London &ndash; he stayed in France to help the Resistance kick ass and overthrow their German overlords New Caprica-style. He carried out dozens of sabotage and espionage missions throughout the Normandy campaign (including a mission in April 45 when he blew up a coastal defense position by himself, taking out a couple guards in the process), as the Allies relentlessly pushed the Germans back to Berlin. During one mission, he was captured by the SS, dragged out to a field to be executed by firing squad, but right when the Nazis were getting ready to pull the trigger Rochefoucald\'s Resistance buddies opened up on them with heavy machine guns, buying Robert time to get the fuck out of there.</p>\r\n<p>Rochefoucald had to quit adventuring after taking some mine shrapnel to the knee near the end of the war, but he still made the trip to Berlin after V-E Day and got kissed straight-on the mouth by Russian mega-badass Georgy Zhukov, making him one of the only people in history to have his face touched affectionately by the overall military commanders of Nazi Germany, Free France, and the Soviet Union.</p>\r\n<p>After the war Rochefoucald was made a Captain in the French Army, received a colorful assortment of medals for heroism, led some commando raids against the Viet Minh during the Indochina War, parachuted into the Sinai during the Suez Campaign, ran a banana company in Venezuela, lived in Cameroon, published his memoirs, and was the mayor of some town I\'ve never heard of before. He died on May 8, 2012, at the age of 88, one of the great unsung badasses of World War II.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/rochefoucauld6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> <a href=\"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9365640/Count-Robert-de-La-Rochefoucauld.html\">Telegraph Obit</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/count-robert-de-la-rochefoucauld-veteran-of-the-soe-7870110.html\">Independent Obit</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.watoday.com.au/national/obituaries/rollicking-tale-of-french-blueblood-agent-20120706-21mms.html\">Western Australia Today Obit</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_de_La_Rochefoucauld\">Wikipedia</a> </span></p>','2012-07-06','390735217925','rochefoucauld.jpg','rochefoucauld1-small.jpg','Count Rochefoucauld','WWII French espionage expert who once stole a limo from the Gestapo.','\"Don’t try to lock him up. He escapes, you know.\" '),('Eric Arthur Blair','June 23, 1903','January 21, 1950','Motihari, Bihar, India','20th-century British Entertainer','<p>This article is hosted at Powells.com:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.powells.com/blog/guests/badass-authors-george-orwell-by-ben-thompson/\">http://www.powells.com/blog/guests/badass-authors-george-orwell-by-ben-thompson/</a></p>','2009-11-06','6045777940','blog_thompson_orwell1.jpg','blog_thompson_orwell1 - Copy.jpg','George Orwell','The man who wrote 1984 once got shot through the neck by a sniper while fighting Fascists in Spain.','\"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever.\"'),('Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn','December 11, 1918','August 3, 2008','Kislovodsk, USSR','20th-century Russian Entertainer','<p>This article is hosted at Powells.com:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.powells.com/blog/guests/badass-authors-alexander-solzhenitsyn-by-ben-thompson/\">http://www.powells.com/blog/guests/badass-authors-alexander-solzhenitsyn-by-ben-thompson/</a></p>','2009-11-05','19696441256','blog_thompson_solzhenitsynportrait.jpg','blog_thompson_solzhenitsynportrait - Copy.jpg','Alexander Solzhenitsyn','Russian dissident writer and WWII vet who survived the brutal Gulag system and lived to tell the tale.','\"One word of truth will outweigh the whole world\"'),('Sir Richard Francis Burton','March 19, 1821','October 20, 1890','Torquay, England','19th-century British Adventurer','<p>This article is hosted at Powells.com:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.powells.com/blog/guests/badass-authors-sir-richard-francis-burton-by-ben-thompson/\">http://www.powells.com/blog/guests/badass-authors-sir-richard-francis-burton-by-ben-thompson/</a></p>','2009-11-04','21052562032','blog_thompson_burton.jpg','blog_thompson_burton - Copy.jpg','Richard Francis Burton','The manliest writer of all time.','\"Do what thy manhood bids thee do\r\nfrom none but self expect applause;\r\nHe noblest lives and noblest dies\r\nwho makes and keeps his self-made laws.\"'),('Anna Komnene','December 1, 1083','1153','Constantinople, Byzantine Empire','Medieval Greek Entertainer','<p>This article is hosted at Powells.com:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.powells.com/blog/guests/badass-authors-anna-comnena-by-ben-thompson/\">http://www.powells.com/blog/guests/badass-authors-anna-comnena-by-ben-thompson/</a></p>','2009-11-03','13724722335','blog_thompson_comnena.jpg','blog_thompson_comnena - Copy.jpg','Anna Comnena','One of the best and most complete sources of historical documentation during the Byzantine Era came from a woman who wasn\'t supposed to even know how to read.','\"Time in its irresistible and ceaseless flow carries along on its flood all created things and drowns them in the depths of obscurity… But the tale of history forms a very strong bulwark against the stream of time, and checks in some measure its irresistible flow, so that, of all things done in it, as many as history has taken over it secures and binds together, and does not allow them to slip away into the abyss of oblivion.\"'),('Aeschylus','c. 525 BC','c. 426 BC','Elusina, Greece','Ancient Greek Entertainer','<p>This article is hosted at Powells.com:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.powells.com/blog/guests/badass-authors-aeschylus-by-ben-thompson/\">http://www.powells.com/blog/guests/badass-authors-aeschylus-by-ben-thompson/</a></p>','2009-11-02','57661813169','blog_thompson_aeschylus5.jpg','blog_thompson_aeschylus5 - Copy.jpg','Aeschylus','Greek warrior and one of the most famous playwrights of ancient history.','\"Forward, sons of the Greeks,\r\n\r\nLiberate the fatherland,\r\n\r\nLiberate your children, your women,\r\n\r\nThe altars of the gods of your fathers\r\n\r\nAnd the graves of your forebearers:\r\n\r\nNow is the fight for everything.\"'),('Australia','N/A','N/A','Australia','Prehistoric Australian Monster','<p>There is a dark and foreboding place where few men dare tread, and where those who do tread speak with indecipherable accents.&nbsp; A place that will rape your Christian soul and be left unquenched, sitting there silently... taunting your soul\'s now-swollen asshole with its maddening silence - where is your God now?!&nbsp; There\'s no way that such a hellish, fiendish nexus of putrid rot and agony could exist!&nbsp; Well, it does, and that place is none other than the continent of Australia.</p>\r\n<p>But Australia, some say?&nbsp; Not the home of Kangaroos and Crocodile Dundee!&nbsp; Not the merry, magical land of Fosters beer fountains, Koalas, and effeminate metrosexual fashion that would make Brad Pitt blush.</p>\r\n<p>Thou foul.&nbsp; Thou art deceived by wicked, impure forces!&nbsp; Thou art seduced by dark conjurers whose words are as laced with poison as your beloved Koala\'s eucalyptus leaves.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-australia1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /> The creation of the Outback.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Australia is a terrible place that leaves none but the strongest (or the gayest, for some peculiar reason) alive.&nbsp; Why else would the British have designated the entire continent as a PRISON COLONY for the worst scum of the earth Britain had to offer?&nbsp; Now granted, the British are prudes, and their idea of a rapscallion (or whatever the fuck those pussy-ass redcoats call it) probably just meant somebody who didn\'t butter his crumpet right, or whose grammar didn\'t sexually arouse the Queen enough.&nbsp; But still - the fact that this land was designated as a death trap so that foppish aristocrats could go back to their polo games in peace says something about the assumed lethality of this place.</p>\r\n<p>And that lethality is more than just an assumption.&nbsp; Out of the intelligently-designed cruelty of some cock-sucking asshole of a God, or just dumb luck, Australia has the largest concentration of venomous, aggressive, and black-hearted creatures on Earth.&nbsp; The Box Jellyfish, the most ruthless, terrifying, and pants-shittingly evil killer of men (some people die as soon as 4 minutes after being stung) - lives off the shore.&nbsp; The Sydney Funnel Web Spider, whose bite can cause PERMANENT open sores if it doesn\'t just kill you outright, and whose temperment - unlike most cowardly spiders - actually compels them to actively pursue you and repeatedly bite you - calls Australia its home.&nbsp; The Australian Death Adder... well, shit, why do you think they named it that?&nbsp; The Saltwater Crocodile, none other than the LARGEST REPTILE ON EARTH, guess where he dwells?&nbsp; If you\'re bold enough about water to still take baths, I doubt that smug look of non-terror on your face would remain if you knew that the horror that is the Blue-Ringed Octopus frequents all coasts around the continent;&nbsp; the LD-50 of its venom (as in, the amount of the substance that will kill 50% of the test subjects) is so high that a single dose is enough to kill 20 fucking grown men.&nbsp; The Australian Jumper Ant - responsible for over 90% of Australia\'s emergency anaphylactic shock cases - is so sadistic and predatory that it actually has been known to wait on tree branches to ambush people below!</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-australia2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /> \"I seeeee you...\"</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Even the plants are fucked up in Australia. Known only as \"The Stinging Tree,\" this spawn of Satan looks deceptively innocuous.&nbsp; It\'s a mild-mannered-looking thing that\'s merely covered with tiny hairs.&nbsp; But the slightest touch of those hairs has been known to instantly kill rodents within a day, paralyze dingos and dogs, and cause excruciating pain (and yes, even death) to humans.&nbsp; I mean fuck, seeding the land with enormous reptilian carnivores and holocaustic insects is bad enough.&nbsp; But disguising certain agony and death as a little tree is truly a hallmark trait of sociopathic genius.</p>\r\n<p>Then there\'s the Platypus.&nbsp; He deserves his own paragraph because of how much of a deceiver he is.&nbsp; He lulls you into complacency because his neurotoxic spurs don\'t directly kill humans most of the time.&nbsp; Don\'t be fooled;&nbsp; you\'d beg for death.&nbsp; All human victims of Platypus stings suffer immediate hyperalgesia (clinical hypersensitivity to any sensation of pain) for weeks or even months after the sting!&nbsp; That\'s Australia\'s way of saying \"don\'t fuck with me, asshole, or I\'ll send a Salt Water Crocodile to fuck you up and shove Box Jellyfish up your urethra while force-feeding your wife eucalyptus leaves.&nbsp; That\'ll teach you not to use the word \"crikey\" in a pejorative context.&nbsp; Fuck-ass.\"</p>\r\n<p>Australia is a psychotic, cold-blooded murderer that would swallow you whole if you so much as left the front door of your house (and this is assuming that your Sydney Funnel Web barricades are in working order).&nbsp; Whoever thought up the concept of Australia was inflicted with the madness of Nietzsche and the megalomania of Qin Shi Huangdi.&nbsp; And you know what?&nbsp; Genocidal, rampaging hellholes bent on exterminating all life on Earth are truly badass.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-australia3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /> \"I swallowed your God.\"</p>','2006-08-11','943881018973','badass-australia_new.jpg','badass-australia2 - Copy.jpg','Australia','The most badass continent on Earth, this place has fucking trees that can kill you.','\"Come a little closer.\"'),('Apis Cerana','N/A','N/A','Southeast Asia','Prehistoric Chinese Monster','<p>Look at that picture.&nbsp; Who the fuck would mess with that?</p>\r\n<p>Behold the <em>Vespa Velutina</em>.&nbsp; This fucker can obliterate an entire colony of European honey bees then eat its larvae and rape its queen.&nbsp; It leaves a pile of severed honey bee parts at the entrance and shits on them for giggles.&nbsp; One might say upon initial inspection that this is a badass.&nbsp; And one would be right.</p>\r\n<p>According to <a href=\"http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050924/fob5.asp\" target=\"blank\">this article</a>, resident expert bee-man-ologist Thomas Seeley of Cornell refers to these hugeass attacker wasps as \"gigantic\".&nbsp; Of all social insects, the species has the largest workers, with wingspans that can stretch 5 centimeters.&nbsp; The wasps build large versions of the papery nests of hornets found in North America, and they specialize in breaking into other social-insect nests and carrying off larvae as food for young wasps.</p>\r\n<p>\"I\'ve seen a single wasp overwhelm a colony of 6,000 bees\" says Seeley.&nbsp; The invader wasp stands at the nest\'s entrance as one guard bee after another comes out to defend its home.&nbsp; \"The wasp cuts the guard into pieces ... and waits for the next one,\" says Seeley.&nbsp; When all the defenders are dead, \"the wasps strip-mine out the larvae,\" he reports.</p>\r\n<p>But lo and behold, there is one mightier than this big fucking wasp.<br /> And it is this guy.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-wasp2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /> I smoke dust and shoot cops.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Meet <em>Apis Cerana</em>, known as the Asian Honeybee.&nbsp; He\'s a baller.&nbsp; When that huge ass wasp comes around he lays low, until the wasp come in his house, then he and his brethren mob him like stink on rice.&nbsp; They perform a technique called \"heat balling\", just to prove they\'re hardcore.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-wasp3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /> Fuck you.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>They attack, and using their powerful flight muscles vibrate like that thing you found in your mom\'s underwear drawer, creating heat.&nbsp; They cook the wasp, who can only tolerate up to 43 degrees Celsius, at 45 degrees Celsius.&nbsp; And they ain\'t afraid of death, because if it were only 5 degrees hotter, it would cook them as well.</p>\r\n<p>So when he is thoroughly cooked like a maui pig, he is dropped and then desecrated and they take his stinger and hang it on the cone as a warning to any other fucker wasps who come around looking for a rumble.</p>\r\n<p>Even better, all the bees are chicks, so that wasp got its ass kicked by girls.</p>','2006-08-04','187728219134','badass-wasp_new.jpg','badass-wasp_new - Copy.jpg','The Asiatic Honey Bee','Psychotic little bees that kill gigantic evil wasps with no problem.',''),('Segata Sanshiro','Unknown','N/A','Japan','Fictional Japanese Athlete','<p>One of the most rewarding aspects of running this site is when random people email me information about badass motherfuckers I\'ve never heard of before.&nbsp; One such badass is <a href=\"http://evilboris.sonic-cult.net/346/\" target=\"blank\">Segata Sanshiro</a>, a Judo master who dedicated his life to honing his body and mind through the disciplines of martial arts and x-treme ballz-out video gaming.</p>\r\n<p>Now the Sega Saturn never made much of a splash here in the States, but it found quite a following in Japan, a fact that is largely attributed to the Segata Sanshiro advertising campaign which ran from 1997 through 1998.&nbsp; From what I\'ve read, his name apparently sounds like \"Sega Saturn Shiro!\", where \"shiro\" in Japanese is the imperative form of the verb \"to play\".&nbsp; But who cares.&nbsp; The point is that this guy lived in the mountains of Japan training eight hours a day on an oversized Sega Saturn, coming down to civilization every so often to beat the holy living crap out of people who weren\'t playing SEGA video games.&nbsp; He was an unstoppable enforcer of video game justice.</p>\r\n<p>But before you go accusing me of \"selling out to the man\" and asking me what can possibly be badassed about an out-dated corporate mascot, you must first <a href=\"http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=7185164641830774561&amp;q=segata+sanshiro\" target=\"blank\">watch the Segata Sanshiro compilation video. </a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=7185164641830774561&amp;q=segata+sanshiro\" target=\"blank\"> Do it now.</a></p>\r\n<p>If you can watch that video and tell me it\'s not awesome, I\'ll tell you you\'re a liar.&nbsp; In addition to the clip of him flipping a guy for real and then the dude exploding into a giant mushroom cloud, a quick <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/results?search=segata+sanshiro&amp;search_type=search_videos&amp;search=Search\" target=\"blank\">YouTube Search</a> for him turns up commercials of him <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnpoB_n3yRk&amp;search=segata%20sanshiro\" target=\"blank\">training in the mountains</a>, stopping a nuclear warhead with his bare hands, <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jUzIxnbkpI&amp;search=segata%20sanshiro\" target=\"blank\">coaching the Japanese</a> national soccer team, <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0F9AeyASLg&amp;search=segata%20sanshiro\" target=\"blank\">beating the shit out of some kids</a> who stupidly go off to play baseball instead of Sega, and breaking into a disco for the sole purpose of <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obLniZJF1H0&amp;search=segata%20sanshiro\" target=\"blank\">flipping out like a ninja for no reason at all</a>.&nbsp; He fights zombies, gets busy with hot Asian babes and kicks a baseball 400+ feet through the air.&nbsp; He\'s awesome.</p>\r\n<p>He also has an insane theme song, which gives him numerous badass points merely on principle alone.&nbsp; Somebody over at <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segata_Sanshiro\" target=\"blank\">Sanshiro\'s Wikipedia entry</a> translated the lyrics as such:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p>The solitary man who devoted his soul to the way of games<br /> Today, he comes again<br /> He will punish those who do not play seriously<br /> Their battered bodies will never forget!</p>\r\n<p>[chorus] Segata Sanshiro, Segata Sanshiro! Sega Saturn... shiro!</p>\r\n<p>They play tennis, sing karaoke, flirt around in clubs...<br /> Are there not more serious tasks to be done?<br /> Those who do not play maturely<br /> He questions them deep inside their hearts</p>\r\n<p>Segata Sanshiro, Segata Sanshiro! Sega Saturn... shiro!</p>\r\n<p>(voice of Segata)<br /> Youngsters... is there something in your life you are completely devoted to?&nbsp; Something you sink into so deep you put your life on the line?&nbsp; You must play Sega Saturn!&nbsp; Play... until your fingers break!&nbsp; Until your fingers break!</p>\r\n<p>Even if they chase after sex, that petty pleasure<br /> Their soul will remain hollow<br /> Those who do not immerse themselves to the extreme in gaming<br /> Will find their bodies beaten harshly!</p>\r\n<p>Segata Sanshiro, Segata Sanshiro! Sega Saturn... shiro!</p>\r\n<p>The white clouds floating on the great blue sky<br /> And the boiling red bloodshed in fierce gaming<br /> Those who give up halfway through<br /> Their battered bodies will never forget!</p>\r\n<p>Segata Sanshiro, Segata Sanshiro! Sega Saturn... shiro!<br /> Segata Sanshiro, Segata Sanshiro! Sega Saturn... shiro!</p>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Only true badasses have theme songs detailing how badly they could kick your ass.&nbsp; He questions you deep inside your heart!&nbsp; You will find your body beaten harshly!</p>','2006-07-28','983921519419','badass-segata_new.jpg','badass-segata_new - Copy.jpg','Segata Sanshiro','The ultimate martial arts / video game master.','');
INSERT INTO `weekly` VALUES ('Zinedine Yazid Zidane','June 23, 1972','N/A','Marseille, France','21st-century French Athlete','<p>Ladies and Gentlemen:&nbsp; Before Sunday, July 9th, I knew nothing about Zinedine Zidane.&nbsp; I watched the final game of the World Cup with a crowd of internationals in New York, and during the match I gathered from the conversation that Zidane was one of the greatest players of the last quarter century and the captain of the French team.&nbsp; I was mildly impressed when he scored France\'s first goal.</p>\r\n<p>Fast forward to the second overtime (or whatever it is called in soccer).&nbsp; It was a tie game, and unless there was a goal, would head to a shootout.&nbsp; At this point, Materazzi, an Italian drama star of the flopping, diving variety, gave Zidane a \"Purple Nurple\", called his mama a whore and proclaimed that his sister\'s vagina tastes like butter cream.</p>\r\n<p>With 10 minutes left in the biggest soccer game in the freaking world, most normal, non-badasses would ignore such affronts.&nbsp; A true badass however, seeks immediate retribution.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/zidane-big.gif\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Zidane calculatingly looked around, made sure that none of the referees were watching, calmly approached Materazzi as though to continue their erudite conversation, and then laid down the best headbutt to the solar plexus that I have ever seen.&nbsp; Everyone in the crowd let out a groan of sympathy as Materazzi fell to the pitch.&nbsp; Zidane turned and walked away as though Materazzi had simply slipped.</p>\r\n<p>Unfortunately, the cameras had captured this amazing display of badassery, and it must have been replayed on a jumbotron.&nbsp; (A conflicting report suggests that it was witnessed by a line judge who was not in position to call a penalty).&nbsp; Zidane was handed a red card.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/zidane-redcard.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Zidane has pushed his reputation from \"excellent futbol player\" to Soccer badass, and joined the likes of famous ballgrabber Vinnie Jones.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/zidane-vinniejones.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-family: helvetica;\">Zinedine Zidane Q &amp; A</span></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000;\"><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong></span> What kind of man risks ejection from such an important game merely to punish some schmuck for minor crimes?</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000;\"><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong></span> A man who never takes crap.&nbsp; A man with confidence that the rest of his team could win the ensuing shootout without him.&nbsp; A man who believes vengeance should be swift and brutal.&nbsp; A man with more temper than brains.&nbsp; A very special kind of badass.</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/zidane-special.gif\" alt=\"\" /></center>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000;\"><strong>Q:&nbsp;</strong></span> Don\'t you think the headbutt was so much classier than just hauling off and slugging the guy?</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000;\"><strong>A:&nbsp;</strong></span> Yes.&nbsp; Especially when you consider that an all-world soccer player can probably headbutt the holy living bejeezus out of someone.</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/zidane-flying.gif\" alt=\"\" /></center>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>Addendum:&nbsp; French playmaker Zinedine Zidane has received the Adidas Golden Ball Award after being voted best player of the tournament by the accredited journalists present at the Final of the 2006 FIFA World Cup on 9 July.&nbsp; And probably also for having the biggest balls of any footballer in the tournament.</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/zidane-mario.gif\" alt=\"\" /></center>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>Links: <br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1i_l0OeeMc\" target=\"blank\">Video Clip of the Headbutt</a> <br /><br /> <a href=\"http://gifdump.com/\" target=\"blank\">Gifdump.com, where all these Zidane GIFs came from</a>&nbsp; (Not Safe for Work) <br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/1,,2006310771,00.html\" target=\"blank\">A British Lip-Reader Explains What Happened</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/zidane-deathstar.gif\" alt=\"\" /></center>','2006-07-14','605254719993','zidane-yelling_new.jpg','zidane-yelling_new - Copy.jpg','Zinedine Zidane','This guy\'s sense of revenge was so well-developed that he got tossed from the most important game of his life for headbutting his enemy out of spite.',''),('Leonard W. Briscoe','October 20, 1935','December 28, 2004','New York, NY, USA','Fictional American Lawman','<p>One of the things that makes Detective Lennie Briscoe the single most badassed cop on TV is how simply <em>believable</em> he is as a hard-nosed tough-as-shit NYPD homicide detective.&nbsp; He doesn\'t run around like a wayward idiot sprinter chasing criminals down escalators, jumping off rooftops or firing unquantifiable amounts of ammunition into unsuspecting jaywalkers like some sort of bad action movie reject - he\'s just a straight-forward, cynical hardass cop who makes his living by tracking leads, interrogating suspects and relying on the sort of perceptive and accurate hunches that can only come from decades of experience on the force.&nbsp; He\'s everything you would expect from the precinct\'s top homicide investigator;&nbsp; he\'s jaded as hell from years on the street and a one-time drinking problem, and he constantly cracks jokes about a veritable harem of angry ex-wives.&nbsp; His withering sarcasm and permanent grimace make him a force to be reckoned with ALL THE TIME.&nbsp; When he\'s being nice he\'s also a little intimidating, even when you stop to realize he was once on the receiving end of a mighty pronunciation by way of Patrick Swayze:&nbsp; \"Nobody puts Baby in the corner!\"</p>\r\n<p>You can\'t catch Briscoe off-guard or get under his skin - he\'s seen everything in his years on the streets and has a smug smartass retort for anything you could throw at him.&nbsp; He\'s jaded, bitter and doesn\'t have time to play games or put up with peoples\' bullshit.&nbsp; When he\'s out on the street he uses by-the-book police work supplemented with his own wisdom and guile to outsmart the cleverest of criminals, and when he\'s questioning suspects back at the precinct he knows how to get the information he wants and make the arrest, whether it\'s by roughing up some punk bitches or playing the \"good cop\" role.&nbsp; His dry humor often lightens up the most serious of homicide investigations, and his no-bullshit attitude commands respect from cops and criminals alike.</p>\r\n<p>I know I wouldn\'t fuck with him.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Links:</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4963753/\" target=\"blank\">Lennie From \'Law &amp; Order\' Says Farewell</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://home.earthlink.net/%7Egakholt/lennie/briscoe1.html\" target=\"blank\">The Lennie Briscoe One-Liners Page</a></p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://www.brandonbird.com/lno_color.html\" target=\"blank\">Law &amp; Order: A Coloring Book Adventure</a></p>','2006-07-07','491442320235','badass-briscoe_new.jpg','badass-briscoe_new - Copy.jpg','Lennie Briscoe','This man has probably solved more homicides than the entire real-life NYPD combined.','You know, all we got is a lot of hunches and an accident-prone dead guy. '),('Perseus','N/A','N/A','Argos, Greece','Mythological Greek Adventurer','<p>Once upon a time there was a place called Greece.&nbsp; Maybe you\'ve heard of it.&nbsp; One of the many kingdoms located in Greece was known as Argos, and it\'s King was a total dickcheese.&nbsp; He and his wife had a daughter, but everyone knows that back in ancient times if you were the King and you couldn\'t father any babies with penises, then you were a miserable failure and were not successful in the task of being a real man.&nbsp; Such was the case with King Acrisius of Argos.&nbsp; So he visited the esteemed Oracle of Delphi and asked her what the deal was.&nbsp; The Oracle was like, \"listen up King Idiot, not only are you not going to have a son, but your daughter is going to have a kid and he\'s going to grow up and kill you.&nbsp; So choke on that, you bitch!\"&nbsp; Then the Oracle headbutted the King until he was unconscious.</p>\r\n<p>The King woke up a few hours later face-down in a ditch and was like, \"oh snap I better make sure my slut daughter doesn\'t have any damn kids!\", which is pretty much how most fathers are these days.&nbsp; However, the King took it to the Xtreme and had is daughter locked up in a tower Rapunzel-style.&nbsp; Well if you know anything about ancient myth or history, you know that the Oracle at Delphi is <em>never</em> wrong, and nothing you can do will override the prophecy.&nbsp; This was no exception.</p>\r\n<p>Since Zeus was a Ron Jeremy-esque man-whore back in the day, he decided he was going to try and get \"in there\" with the King\'s daughter.&nbsp; He took the form of a shower of gold and impregnated the princess.&nbsp; Personally this sounds like bullshit to me because everyone knows you can\'t get pregnant from a golden shower, but whatever.&nbsp; However it happened, she popped out a boy and named him Perseus.</p>\r\n<p>Since it\'s never a good idea to have the son of a God whacked, the jackass King decides it\'s far more humane to lock his daughter and infant grandson in a giant pine box and chuck it into the Aegean Sea.&nbsp; The box floats around for a while, until one day it\'s picked up by a fisherman who just so happens to be the brother of the King of the island of Seriphos.&nbsp; He takes the Princess and her son in and they all chill out at his pad and eat some sea bass or trout or mackerel or something.</p>\r\n<p>Eventually King Polydectes of Seriphos meets the Princess and decides he\'s going to try to do her.&nbsp; However, Perseus is like, \"Hey, King Poly-dick-cheese, lay off my mom your I\'ll bust you in the motherfucking mouth, OK?\"&nbsp; Polydectes quickly decides he needs to get Perseus up off his bozack if he ever wants to score with the princess, so he gives Perseus a freaking ridiculous quest from which he will never return - he orders him to go get the head of the hideous Gorgon monster Medusa, a foul creature who\'s gaze turns any living creature to stone, and bring it back to Seriphos.</p>\r\n<p>Perseus is like \"whatever, chump\" and heads out to get the head of the Medusa.&nbsp; Unfortunately, after a couple days wandering around in the wilderness like The Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin he realizes that he has no fucking clue how to find the Medusa, let alone kill it.&nbsp; He gets super pissed and crushes a soda can on his forehead.&nbsp; Athena, the most badass of all the Greek gods, then decides to swoop in and help out Perseus because she\'s just good like that.&nbsp; She tells him that he needs to seek out the Gorgon\'s sisters - a group of three old hags with only one eye and one tooth between them, which they just pass around like those weird dancing muppets in <em>Labyrinth</em>.&nbsp; She also hooks him up with heir reflective mirrored shield, a pimp-ass adamantium sickle with a skull-and-crossbones embossed on it and a pair of \"Air Hermes\"-brand winged shoes.</p>\r\n<p>Perseus meets up with the three one-eyed bitches and is like, \"gimme some cool shit and how the fuck do I get to the Gorgon\'s Lair\", but the hags of course just tell him to go hump a donkey.&nbsp; Perseus gets fed up with their crap, steals their eye, and threatens to eat it if they don\'t tell him where this Medusa chick is hiding.&nbsp; They agree, and before he leaves they give him a Helm of Invisibility +4 and two handfuls of homemade curly fries because he\'s so awesome.</p>\r\n<p>Finally Perseus arrives at the Medusa\'s lair, which is completely surrounded by a forest of stone men and animals that have all been petrified by the Gorgon\'s gaze.&nbsp; He pushes on, using the mirror on his shield to avoid looking directly at anything that could make him hard, until he reaches the inner sanctum of the Gorgons.&nbsp; He finds Medusa and her two Gorgon sisters all asleep, and so he nobly sneaks in and kills the Medusa before she can wake up.&nbsp; When she dies, a fucking crazy-ass winged Pegasus horse flies out of her body cavity, which of course wakes up all of her friends.&nbsp; Perseus barely has time to yell \"shiiiiiiiiit!\" before popping on his helmet, becoming invisible Frodo-style, and running away like a little bitch.&nbsp; To his credit, the other two Gorgons are impervious to conventional weapons, so sometimes it\'s true what they say about cowardice being the better part of valor when you have absolutely no fucking chance of killing your enemies.</p>\r\n<p>Perseus chucks the Medusa\'s head into his gym bag and starts flying home on his new Pegasus.&nbsp; He\'s not flying long though before he sees something that most commuters don\'t see on a day-to-day basis:&nbsp; a hot naked babe chained to a rock.&nbsp; Being the selfless hero that he is, Perseus decides to scope out the situation.&nbsp; He swoops down, exclaiming, \"O virgin, undeserving of those chains, but rather of such as bind fond lovers together, tell me, I beseech you, your name, and the name of your country, and why you are thus bound.\", which is essentially \"hero talk\" for \"what the hell is going on here?\"</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-andromeda.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />\"Help me Obi-Wan, you\'re my only hope.\"</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Apparently the Greek Queen Cassiopeia pissed off Poseidon by talking about how much hotter she is than Poseidon\'s kids (and you know how parents can be).&nbsp; So in an effort of appease the mighty water god, they chained the Princess Andromeda to a rock so she could be eaten by a sea monster, because apparently that sort of thing really gets Poseidon off.&nbsp; Well Perseus wasn\'t going to have any of that.&nbsp; No true badass can sit around while a damsel is in distress, so Perseus flips out and attacks the sea monster by jumping on it\'s back and stabbing the shit out of it while it thrashes around in the water trying to knock him off.&nbsp; But Perseus is kick-ass, and eventually the repeated stab wounds are enough to fell the beast.&nbsp; Perseus frees Andromeda and since she thinks he has a totally sweet ride and some bitchin\' shoes they decide to get married.</p>\r\n<p>But shit is never that easy for a guy like Perseus.&nbsp; While he and his new wife are getting down with the phat beats at their wedding her ex-boyfriend Phineus shows up with some of his drunk asshole friends and try and start some shit.&nbsp; Andromeda tries to tell Phineus that it\'s over between them and that he needs to move on with his life but instead he decides to whip out his sword and start hacking up wedding guests.&nbsp; Before he gets the chance though, Perseus whips out the Medusa\'s head and turns Phineus and his crew to stone.&nbsp; A hush falls over the crowd when they see what Perseus has done.&nbsp; He looks around, breaks the tension with an insanely witty penis joke insinuating that Phineus no longer has to worry about erectile dysfunction and the party goes on until like 4 in the morning.&nbsp; Opa!</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-phineus.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />\"Is that a severed head?&nbsp; What the hell are you doing with a... OH SNAP!!\"</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Eventually Perseus and Andromeda come back to Seriphos to show King Polydectes what\'s up.&nbsp; They arrive to find out that the King is still hitting on Perseus\' mom all the time despite the fact that she\'s \"just not that into him\", so Perseus goes off to kick the King\'s ass.&nbsp; He walks into the throne room, pulls out the head of the Medusa, holds it up to the King and triumphantly says, \"hey I found that thing you asked me to get for you.\"&nbsp; Polydectes turns to stone immediately, and then Perseus lets out a belch so powerful that it shatters the stone King into a million pieces.</p>\r\n<p>Perseus and Andromeda would go on to rule the Kingdom of Mycenae for many years, and would be much loved by their people.&nbsp; No longer having any reason to carry a severed head around in his backpack, Perseus gave it to Athena, who bolted it to her Aegis.</p>\r\n<p>Perseus is a badass because he didn\'t fuck around when it came to having a balls-out adventure.&nbsp; He slew monsters, saved damsels, beat up his wife\'s ex-boyfriend and fought the dude who was hitting on his mom.&nbsp; He outwitted the witches, he out-muscled the sea monster and he out-romanced his wife\'s prime suitor.&nbsp; He was the total package; and unstoppable warrior who got the girl and defended everyone\'s honor.&nbsp; Truly a badass.</p>\r\n<p>Links:<br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/entries/perseus.html\" target=\"blank\">Encyclopedia of Greek Myth</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.loggia.com/myth/andromeda.html\" target=\"blank\">Mythography of Perseus and Andromeda</a> <br /><br /></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-andromeda1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />Perseus is so badass that chicks\' clothes just fly right off when they see him.</p>','2006-06-30','106660220452','badass-perseus_new.jpg','badass-perseus_new - Copy.jpg','Perseus','The mythological uber-hero who slew the Medusa, rode Pegasus, and saved the hot naked babe from a sea monster.',''),('Toby Wong','Unknown','N/A','Honolulu, HI, USA','Fictional American Mercenary','<p>For the last few months my friend John had been telling me to go out and get a movie called <a href=\"http://imdb.com/title/tt0116147/\" target=\"blank\"><em>Drive</em></a>, starring Mark Dacascos as an &uuml;ber-badassed cybernetically-enhanced killing machine named Toby Wong.&nbsp; He insisted that it would be right up my alley.&nbsp; Even when I protested that I hardly ever buy DVDs of movies I\'ve never seen or heard of, he simply responded by questioning my manhood and threatening me with bodily harm.&nbsp; After watching this film last night, let me tell you that the only regret is that I hadn\'t purchased it sooner.</p>\r\n<p>Toby Wong is a badass genetically-modified ex-assassin on the run from his former employers, who are led by a dude who is like a mix between Kid Rock, Stevie Ray Vaughan and a really angry Hank Williams Jr.&nbsp; Along the way Toby runs into an out-of-work musician and the two of them basically spend the next two hours driving around in their cherry-red 1973 Dodge Challenger getting shot at by rednecks, run over by dirtbike stunt-riders and kicked in the head by angry little Chinese people.&nbsp; That shit\'s all in a day\'s work for Toby though.</p>\r\n<p>Toby is like a weird cross between Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Derek Zoolander.&nbsp; He\'s an unstoppable killing machine who Kung Fu\'s the ever-loving shit out of anyone that looks at him funny.&nbsp; He spends a lot of time shooting people in the head with their own guns, cracking people in the face with broken broomhandles and chucking large handfuls of kitchenware at special forces soldiers with uncanny accuracy.&nbsp; He switches up fighting styles on the fly, gets the job done without being too flashy, and is able to <em>karaoke his ass off</em>, a talent that is often overlooked by many people training in the martial arts.</p>\r\n<p>His partner, Kadeem Hardison, spends a lot of time getting into car accidents and yelling \"oh shit, motherfucker\" at the top of his lungs.&nbsp; It\'s basically like Chris Tucker\'s role in <em>Rush Hour</em>, except that this movie came out first and a lot of his one-liners are better.&nbsp; Plus he hacks some dude\'s arm off at the elbow with a MOTHERFUCKING CHAINSAW, and then the disembodied arm flies through the air (squeezing the trigger of the machinegun it\'s holding) and shoots it\'s owner.&nbsp; Dude.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-tobywongkadim.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />\"No, fuck that.<br />Let\'s kick his ass and take his coat.\"</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Basically, Toby does all kinds of badass shit like hanging upside down from a ceiling fan firing bullets as the fan revolves and running away from explosions.&nbsp; He\'s not only a master of unarmed combat, but he\'s also perfectly comfortable stealing your shoes off your feet and beating the hell out of you with them or stabbing you fifty times with a sword.&nbsp; Any attempts to fight back against him really only serve to make Toby even more pissed, and he really doesn\'t have a problem killing your ass for no reason other than the fact that you got in his way.&nbsp; It\'s refreshing to see a kung fu hero who can not only kick the peoples\' faces into next week, but also doesn\'t have any problems putting a few bullets into the bad guys\' chests when he has to.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-tobywongbrittany.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />\"I was the ultimate badass bitch.\"</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>You know how much I dug this movie?&nbsp; I dug it so much that I\'m not even going to make any Dwayne Wayne comments.&nbsp; I swear that up until last night I had the pictures picked out and the jokes lined-up, but now I really just can\'t bring myself to do it.&nbsp; If nothing else, <em>this</em> should be the most telling evidence of how awesome this movie is, since you KNOW how difficult it\'s gotta be for me to pass up the perfect opportunity for a cheap Dwayne Wayne joke.</p>\r\n<p><em>Drive</em> has everything you would look for in a bad action movie;&nbsp; swearing, kung fu, machineguns, chainsaws, Brittany Murphy acting super-slutty, bullwhips, Chinese people, beer, sunglasses, rocket launchers, truck stops, cars, spaceships and a character named Walter the Einstein Frog (don\'t question it).&nbsp; It\'s really difficult to go wrong when you have this kind of formula, but the super-badassery of Toby Wong and his insano Kung Fu spinning-and-kicking powers make everything even that much more awesome.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-tobywongposter.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>','2006-06-23','242316920728','badass-tobywong_new.jpg','badass-tobywong_new - Copy.jpg','Toby Wong','Genetically-engineered super-soldier and hero of the vastly-underappreciated martial arts movie Drive.',''),('Usermaatre-setepenre','12th Century BC','1213 BC','Egypt','Ancient Egyptian General','<p>Ramesses II ascended to the throne at the young age of 20 and would go on to rule Egypt as it\'s most efficient and powerful Pharaoh for close to seventy years, by far the longest reign of any of the Egyptian God-Kings.&nbsp; He even outlived thirteen of his own heirs.&nbsp; He built more cities, temples and statues than any other Egyptian Pharaoh, ushered in a golden age of peace and prosperity, commissioned restoration projects on the Great Pyramids and kicked the asses of anyone who crossed his mighty empire.&nbsp; He also sired over one hundred children from his harem of countless wives, including the beautiful Nefertari, who such a mega-hot babe that the Egyptian priests deified her before she even died.</p>\r\n<p>First off Ramesses was a military badass.&nbsp; As a young heir to the throne, Ramesses was commissioned to kick the asses of a group of pirates that had been terrorizing the high seas.&nbsp; Ramesses put an end to that shit quickly by sailing out, kicking their asses and then conscripting the survivors into the Egyptian army.&nbsp; He led numerous campaigns against the Libyans to the West, the Nubians in the South and the Hittites in the West.&nbsp; Against the Hittites, he managed to conquer lands as far as Canaan, and succeeded in strategically winning a crucial battle at Kadesh in 1258 BCE.&nbsp; After the battle, he also negotiated the first peace treaty in human history, when he met up with the Hittite king and they decided it was in everyone\'s best interests for them to quit fucking with each other.&nbsp; He successfully defended his borders from numerous hostile raids by building a vast network of forts across the outskirts of the empire, many of which would be unconquered for centuries.</p>\r\n<p>On top of being a powerful military leader, what\'s probably even more badass is his ability to run a propaganda machine that would make <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/murdoch.html\" target=\"blank\">Rupert Murdoch</a> blush.&nbsp; He made every effort to prove to everyone that he was the biggest, most kickass motherfucker to ever live.&nbsp; Even if he lost a battle, he would still tell all of his subjects that he won the fight single-handedly and then have his artisans build a hugeass statue depicting Ramesses riding alone on a chariot firing arrows and bashing peoples\' skulls with a huge club.&nbsp; He would go to temples and statues built by Pharaohs who came before him, cross out their names and write his own over top of it.&nbsp; Then he\'d claim that it was HIS statue.&nbsp; When he built cities he named them after himself, such as Pi-Ramesses.&nbsp; The poem <em>Ozymandias</em> was written about a statue of Ramesses, of which the inscription read, \"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:&nbsp; Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!\"&nbsp; Now that\'s fucking kickass.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-ramesses1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />He didn\'t fuck around when it came<br />to building statues of himself.</center>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now back in the day, if your people didn\'t think you were a badass they would revolt against you, so it makes sense that he would need a <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/maddox.html\" target=\"blank\">Maddox</a>-sized ego and a Murdochian propaganda machine.&nbsp; But most of his works speak for themselves.&nbsp; The temple at Abu Simbel is unbelievable, and awesomely enough features like thirty different fifty-foot-tall statues of him.&nbsp; The Colossus of Ramesses, a fucking GIGANTOR statue of him, was one of the tallest statues ever built by the Egyptians.&nbsp; His temple, the Ramesseum (he originally wanted to call it the Ramesses-a-Rama), is also breathtaking.&nbsp; He was a builder, and he was kickass at it.</p>\r\n<p>And if the sculptures of him are any indication, he also was a pretty good-looking dude with an affinity for totally kickass hats:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-ramesses2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></center>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Ramesses II was the greatest ruler the Egyptian Empire ever saw.&nbsp; He built more structures than any other Egyptian king, demonstrated his power to anyone within his realm, and was a total badass.&nbsp; His rule was long and powerful and his name was passed on for generations, much like that of Caesar except there\'s no such thing as a Ramesses Salad (but there really should be).&nbsp; After him, TEN other rulers took the name Ramesses, trying to capitalize on his success and fame.&nbsp; Plus he was fucking MUMMIFIED and entombed in the Valley of the Kings, which is insanely awesome.&nbsp; Shit, after his death the Egyptian priests not only deified him, but they seriously went back and <em>re-wrote</em> their entire mythology to incorporate him as one of their foremost gods.&nbsp; Yet despite all of this, I think the most telling indication of the long-lasting legacy is this:&nbsp; Before the French completed translating the Rosetta Stone and deciphering hieroglyphics, the only Pharaoh\'s name known to Egyptologists was that of Ramesses.</p>\r\n<p><br /> Links:<br /><br /> <a href=\"http://touregypt.net/featurestories/ramesses2intro.htm\" target=\"blank\">Anatomy of a Pharaoh</a> <br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesses_II\" target=\"blank\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-ramesses3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />Ramesses gets ready to snipe some fools.</center>','2006-06-15','635038421321','badass-ramesses4_new.jpg','badass-ramesses4_new - Copy.jpg','Ramses II','The greatest and most powerful of Egypt\'s mighty Pharaohs.  ','\"Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!\"'),('Charun','N/A','N/A','Etruria, Italy','Mythological Etruscan God','<p>Charun was the Etruscan God of bashing idiots over the head with a hammer.&nbsp; Basically the myth goes that when you\'re getting ready to die this guy shows up and cracks you in the skull a couple dozen times with a gigantor mallet to finish you off.&nbsp; Once you\'re dead, his boss Vanth shows up and the two of them cart you off to the Underworld so you can spend the rest of your life either yukking it up with the virtuous souls (if you\'re lucky) or getting repeatedly beat over the head with Charun\'s mallet.&nbsp; Oh, I forgot to mention that Vanth is a hot topless winged goddess, so once you bite it you can at least think to yourself, \"yeah getting my shit bludgeoned to death with a huge fucking mallet really sucked donkey balls but hey at least now there are some titties.\"&nbsp; Then you think it\'s all good, but if you were a douchebag to everyone while you were alive then when you finally get to the Underworld the titties go away and Charun comes back to spend the next couple thousand years smashing your soul with his hammer and completely wrecking your already-dead ass.</p>\r\n<p>The guy is supposed to be like seven feet tall and cut like a lumberjack with eyes that burn fiery red, a bitchin\' goatee, canine fangs, a vulture-like nose and blue skin that\'s more leathery than a hard-living, past-her-prime Florida stripper.&nbsp; He has crazy hair that, depending on who you ask, may or may not have been made out of LIFE FREAKING SNAKES that can also BITE YOU IN THE FACE.&nbsp; His main homedog and wingman is Ares, the God of War, which is pretty badass company to keep.&nbsp; Back then they would just travel from war to war kicking asses and pounding heads like Tango &amp; Cash or Maverick &amp; Goose.&nbsp; Throw the half-naked Death Goddess Vanth in the mix and this was definitely one crew you didn\'t want to fuck with if you were some punk Etruscan chump.</p>\r\n<p>The Etruscans would also paint pictures of Charun in the tombs of the deceased, <em>just in case</em> you managed to wake up for some strange reason.&nbsp; That\'s hard as nails.&nbsp; It\'s like, \"yeah I kicked your ass once and I\'ll do it again motherfucker, so you better just stay dead.\"&nbsp; What\'s even better is that when THE POPE dies they tap him on the head three times with a tiny silver hammer, which is a ritual that was passed down for thousands of years dating back to Charun and the Etruscan times.&nbsp; So even the Pope recognizes the bitchin\'-ness of Big Blue.</p>\r\n<p>Not much is known about Charun, but I personally find it difficult to debate the badassitude of a Death Demon who\'s sole purpose for existence is to bust peoples\' heads with a giant two-handed warhammer.</p>\r\n<p>Links:<br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/charun.html\" target=\"blank\">Charun, the Demon of Death</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://mywebpages.comcast.net/scottandrewh/charun.html\" target=\"blank\">Charun</a><br /><br /> <br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-charun.gif\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><strong><span style=\"color: #006699;\">Charon:</span></strong>&nbsp; I Heart Smashing Faces!!</center>','2006-06-09','942894121667','badass-charun1_new.jpg','badass-charun1_new - Copy.jpg','Charun','The Etruscan God of beating people in the face with a hammer.',''),('The Vorpal Rabbit','N/A','10th Century AD','England','Fictional British Monster','<p>With these terrifying words, the fabled master wizard Tim the Enchanter warned King Arthur and his men of the dangers that were destined to lay before them in their continuing quest for the Holy Grail, and not the stupid crazy Holy Grail from that <em>Da Vinci Code</em> crap but the real actual cup Grail.</p>\r\n<p>Arthur and his men stifled their fears and strengthened their resolve and they journeyed with The Enchanter to the Cave of Caerbannorg, the unholy lair this allegedly pointy-toothed monster.&nbsp; As they neared the mouth of the uncharted cavern, they paused to examine their surroundings and take in their unfamiliar surroundings.&nbsp; The entrance to the cave was strewn about with the bones of soldiers and knights who had battled this creature and paid the ultimate price.&nbsp; As uncertaintly gripped their hearts, Arthur\'s brave men strained their eyes in an effort to catch a glimpse of the deadly fiend they would soon be engaged in a bloody battle against.</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-rabbitappears.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><br /></center>\r\n<p>The beast appeared.&nbsp; Unfazed by this creature\'s seemingly timid and unimpressive appearance, despite Tim\'s insistent warnings of, \"That\'s the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!&nbsp; He\'s got huge, sharp... er... He can leap about.&nbsp; Look at the bones!\", one of Arthur\'s brave knights confidently strode forward to meet this foul monster on the field of battle.</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-rabbitpouncing2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />Jesus Christ!<br /><br /></center>\r\n<p>The badassery of this \"vorpal bunny\" had been gravely underestimated.&nbsp; Now it could certainly no longer be denied, as the valiant Sir Bors was slain in nearly the blink of an eye.&nbsp; Arthur and his courageous knights charged forth from their vantage point and rushed the monster with swords drawn and shields at the ready.&nbsp; Their armor clanked as they waded into battle with this creature that had so efficiently and quickly felled their comrade in a single toothy <a href=\"http://www.amazingben.com/arf0104.html\" target=\"blank\">Sutherlundian</a> leap.&nbsp; The monster cooly turned to face the oncoming company of knights.&nbsp; It did not show a second of hesitation or a hint of fear as it leapt swiftly towards its next opponent.&nbsp; The battle was on.</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-rabbitpouncing1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><br /></center>\r\n<p>In a flash of white teeth and fur the monster darted about, felling knight after knight.&nbsp; Arthur\'s men, the ablest and most well-trained knights in all of England, fell beneath the insufferable onslaught of this monster.&nbsp; Heads became detached from bodies.&nbsp; Limbs were severed.&nbsp; Brave men were slain.</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-rabbitpouncing.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />Run away!&nbsp; Run away!<br /><br /></center>\r\n<p>Arthur and his knights bravely attempted to battle the beast, but it was too fleet to be stuck with a sword.&nbsp; Seeing the futility of their repeated attacks, Arthur ordered his men to fall back and yield the field to the bloodthirsty creature who had slain so many of his men.&nbsp; This was a badass opponent indeed.&nbsp; It was too fast to avoid, and too powerful to kill.&nbsp; No man could defeat this fiend in single combat.&nbsp; Drastic measures would be required to defeat this foul thing and continue the quest for the Grail.</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-holyhandgrenade.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><br /></center>\r\n<p>King Arthur ordered the holiest of weapons be brought forth, and from a distance the creature was destroyed by the godly power of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.&nbsp; For this creature, this fearless, relentless fiend, could not be bested in hand-to-hand combat by any man on Earth.&nbsp; It was far too badass to be destroyed by anything other than a weapon wrought by God Himself.</p>\r\n<p>Thus the killer rabbit was destroyed.&nbsp; He had been responsible for the deaths of countless warriors and adventurers, and will long be remembered as one of the most evil, most ruthless beasts to have ever walked the land.</p>','2006-06-02','439171121837','badass-killerrabit_new.jpg','badass-killerrabit_new - Copy.jpg','The Killer Rabbit','That\'s no ordinary bunny.','\"Follow.  But.  Follow only if ye be men of valour,\r\nfor the entrance to this cave is guarded by a creature so foul,\r\nso cruel that no man yet has fought with it and lived. \r\nBones of full fifty men lie strewn about its lair.  So, brave knights,\r\nif you do doubt your courage or your strength, come no further,\r\nfor death awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth.\" '),('Theodore Roosevelt','October 27, 1858','January 6, 1919','New York, NY, USA','19th-century American Politician','<p>A while ago I posted an update about <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/washington.html\" target=\"blank\">George Washington</a>, mentioning how he was one of the most badass Presidents in American history.&nbsp; Well contrary to popular belief being a great president isn\'t just all about cutting British people up with a Dragon Katana and assaulting random unsuspecting Frenchmen.&nbsp; <a href=\"http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trbio.html\" target=\"blank1\">Theodore Roosevelt</a> didn\'t do any of that and he was still one of the most face-smashing, rough-riding, badass dudes to grace the Oval Office with his awesomeness.&nbsp; Here\'s a bulletized, easily-digestible list of all the insane shit you probably didn\'t know about our 26th President.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>Teddy Roosevelt suffered from Athsma and severe nearsightedness, but still managed to kick more ass than a six-legged robotic ass-kicking machine with the \"kick asses\" dial set to eleven.&nbsp; He spoke French and German fluently, studied in Europe, wrote numerous literary works and got his degree on scholarship from Harvard University (which is a pretty good school, I guess). <br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>While he was at Harvard one of his professors got super pissed at him for being so awesome and yelled, \"See here Roosevelt, I am the one teaching this class!\"&nbsp; I\'m not sure what happened next, but my guess is that TR threw a chair out the window and punched his professor in the mouth. <br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>When he asked his girlfriend Alice Hathaway Lee to marry him, she said no.&nbsp; This didn\'t deter him and made him go out of his way to be even more kickass.&nbsp; The second time he asked her she agreed, because everybody knows that a badass like TR always gets the girl in the end.&nbsp; For their honeymoon, they went mountain climbing because they were even more Xtreme than Tony Hawk is when he\'s drunk at 3AM and decides he\'s going to try and ollie over a fifteen foot-tall statue of Jesus. <br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>TR knew how to pose for awesome pictures:\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 75%;\" cellpadding=\"8\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td align=\"center\" width=\"50%\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/teddyroosevelt-roughrider.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"20\" /></td>\r\n<td align=\"center\" width=\"50%\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/teddyroosevelt-mountain.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"20\" /></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n</li>\r\n<li>He was the youngest person to ever become a state representative for New York when he was elected at age 23.&nbsp; For reference, I spent the majority of my 23rd year drunk on a couch eating chips, playing Halo and watching <em>SeaLab 2021</em>. <br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>When his wife and mother died on the <em>same day</em> (Valentine\'s Day 1884), Teddy ditched everything and moved out West (Clint Eastwood-style) to try and kick ass like a cowboy. <br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>While he was out West, some douchebag named Mike Finnegan and his gang stole TR\'s boat.&nbsp; Instead of crying like a girl about it, Roosevelt pursued them for two weeks through the Dakota Badlands, kicked their asses, handed them over to the authorities and got his boat back. <br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>He returned to New York and was made commissioner of the NYPD.&nbsp; Instead of being a pussy and hiding in his office all day like the commish on <em>Batman</em>, TR went undercover as a beat cop and walked the streets of New York trying to catch policemen slacking off or taking bribes.&nbsp; If he busted them in the act, he fired them, punched them in the mouth and then stuffed them into a garbage can. <br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>President McKinley made Roosevelt the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897.&nbsp; When the Spanish sunk the USS Maine off the coast of Cuba while his boss was on vacation, TR sent Admiral Dewey to the Philippines to take out the Spanish Navy.&nbsp; Roosevelt then declared a state of War with Spain, despite the fact the he had absolutely no authority to do so.&nbsp; Acting on Roosevelt\'s orders, Dewey then sunk the entire Spanish fleet at Manila in about four hours. <br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>Immediately after issuing the declaration of War and giving the Spanish Armada a one-way all-expenses-paid trip to the bottom of the fucking ocean, Roosevelt resigned his post as Assistant Secretary and formed his own volunteer cavalry regiment called the \"Rough Riders\".&nbsp; He took anybody who wanted to join, regardless of race or creed, and headed out to Cuba to whomp asses.&nbsp; At the Battle of San Juan Hill, the decisive battle that sealed the American victory in Cuba, Roosevelt won the Congressional Medal of Honor for \"conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity\" and was promoted to Colonel.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n</ul>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/teddyroosevelt-citation.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"20\" /></center>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>When he returned as a war hero, Roosevelt decided to run for Governor of New York.&nbsp; Since the New Yorkers knew that TR was going to clean out all the corruption in town, George Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman decided to instead nominate him as a candidate for Vice President, a post where he presumably wouldn\'t have any power to do anything.&nbsp; The McKinley-Roosevelt ticket won, and McKinley was assassinated almost immediately.&nbsp; TR became President on 9/14/1901. <br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>As President, Roosevelt settled strikes, broke up powerful trusts, built the Panama Canal, desegregated Japanese schoolchildren in California, fought to preserve the independence of South American countries from Europe and worked to conserve the American outdoors by commissioning numerous state parks.&nbsp; He also invited Booker T. Washington to chill at the White House, marking the first time a black man had ever eaten dinner as an official guest at the White House. <br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>TR won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the end to the Russo-Japanese War.&nbsp; How many people in history can claim that they won both the Nobel Peace Prize for making peaceful and harmonious shit happen as well as the Congressional Medal of Honor for kicking asses and possibly even taking names? <br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>Just to prove how awesome he was TR built a huge fleet of white battleships and sailed it around the world, making sure to stop at the ports of any nation that thought it could possibly kick the US\'s ass just to prove to them that they couldn\'t. <br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>His personal philosophy was \"walk softly and carry a big stick (to kick asses with)\", which goes up there with \"live for revenge\" and \"cheat to win\" as one of the three best personal philosophies ever devised. <br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>He stood outside and gave a two-hour speech in Milwaukee immediately after being shot in the chest in an assassination attempt.&nbsp; It was only after the speech ended that he went to the hospital to get the bullet removed. <br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>TR went on an African Safari in 1909 and put an expedition together to explore the Amazon in 1913.&nbsp; While in the Amazon rain forest he battled disease, heat and hostile tribesmen before discovering a new river, the Rio Teodoro, and returning home in 1914. <br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>After his death, a notable politician remarked, \"Death had to take him sleeping, for if Roosevelt had been awake there would have been a fight\".</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Basically, TR was awesome.&nbsp; He succeeded at everything he attempted, could fight and ride with the best of them, and was essentially one of (if not the) most badass political figures in American history.&nbsp; If you\'re interested in learning more about the magical time when American Presidents were American Badasses, <a href=\"http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trbio.html\" target=\"blank\">this page</a> has a great biography of Roosevelt.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/teddyroosevelt-portrait.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />This is the portrait of a man<br />who doesn\'t take shit from anybody.</center>','2006-05-19','615018121978','teddyroosevelt-buckskin_new.jpg','teddyroosevelt-buckskin_new - Copy.jpg','Teddy Roosevelt','Adventurer, explorer, soldier, American President, Medal of Honor recipient, and Nobel Peace Prize winner.','Walk softly and carry a big stick.'),('The Smith & Wesson Model 500','2003','N/A','Springfield, MA, USA','21st-century American Weapon','<p>The Smith &amp; Wesson Magnum Model 500 is the biggest, heaviest, most badass revolver ever created.&nbsp; Merely pointing it at someone is enough to make them piss themselves.&nbsp; Actually shooting it might break your fucking wrist, but you can rest assured that whoever or whatever you hit is going to go down like a sack of lead bricks dropped in a swimming pool filled with Jell-O.</p>\r\n<p>First off, the revolver is the most badass of all pistols.&nbsp; Sure, automatics hold more bullets and can be more reliable, but nothing exudes toughness like a big honking revolver.&nbsp; As far as I\'m concerned, if it was good enough for cowboy gunslingers and good enough for <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/eastwood.html\">Clint Eastwood</a> then it\'s good enough for anybody.&nbsp; This beast is 15\" long and weighs six pounds when EMPTY, so when you inevitably run out bullets you can easily just bludgeon any surviving bad guys to death with it.&nbsp; It holds five of the biggest bullets ever created for a pistol, the behemoth S&amp;W .500 Magnum round, which is about eight inches long, weighs ten pounds and has the stopping power of a Civil War-era smoothbore cannon.&nbsp; It\'s the fucking King Kong of bullets.&nbsp; Check it out when compared some of those other pussy rounds out there:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/model500-bullets.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"20\" /></center>\r\n<p align=\"center\">The .500 round makes the second manliest of all bullets, the .44 Magnum, round look like a flaccid penis.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/model500-exhaust.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"20\" /></center>\r\n<p align=\"center\">You can also tell it\'s a badass gun because it has a fucking EXHAUST PORT on the barrel.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/model500-44cal.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"20\" /></center>\r\n<p>The second gun shown above is Dirty Harry\'s .44 Magnum revolver, the biggest most badass gun ever made until now.&nbsp; Next to the Model 500 it looks like a cross between a pellet gun and those dainty revolvers that chicks hide in their garters.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now when Matt first told me about this he was like, \"what the fuck would anyone need this gun for?\"&nbsp; At first I was clueless.&nbsp; Aside from killing buffalo, I wasn\'t sure what do do with it.&nbsp; I did however give it some though and come up with the following five things you can use this gun for (in addition to killing criminal scumbags of course):</p>\r\n<ol>\r\n<li>Killing African elephants that break into your home and try to steal your chips.</li>\r\n<li>Putting it down your pants and compensating not only for your own penis but for every penis within a twenty-five mile radius.</li>\r\n<li>Manually changing the channels on the TV from across the room if you lose the remote control.</li>\r\n<li>Industrial-grade paperweight or doorstop.</li>\r\n<li>Put AA-size batteries in the gigantic cylinders and always have batteries on-hand.</li>\r\n</ol>\r\n<p>So not only is it useful around the house and as intimidating as a viking helmet, but it also receives high marks in the accuracy and usability category as well.&nbsp; Most gun mags out there are like, \"considering that this thing weighs the same as a refrigerator full of midgets it\'s remarkably easy to use and creates quarter-sized holes in anything you point it at!\"</p>\r\n<p>And what more could you want from a handgun?</p>','2006-05-12','954137822822','badass-sandw500_new.jpg','badass-sandw500_new - Copy.jpg','The S&W 500 Magnum','The biggest fuck-off handgun ever produced.',''),('St. Michael the Archangel','The Beginning of Time','N/A','Heaven','Biblical Extraplanar Soldier','<p>Imagine the biggest, meanest, most badass evil diabolical puppy-kicking spine-crushing insane-o demon you can possibly think of.&nbsp; Then multiply that by infinity and you get <strong><span style=\"color: #cc0000;\">SATAN</span></strong>, the Lord of All Evil and Infernal Ruler of Hell.&nbsp; And presumably <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">nothing</span> could possibly be more badass than Lucifer, the Morning Star, the King of All Evil Unholy Spikey-Headed Pissed-Off Devils and his host of demon spawn.&nbsp; So he should be the Badass of the Week for crying out loud because he\'s the fucking Prince of Eternal Darkness right?</p>\r\n<p>Wrong.</p>\r\n<p>In recent years, the term \"Angel\" has become more of less synonomous with \"pussy\".&nbsp; It conjures up images of disproportionately huge-breasted ninety-pound lingerie-clad Victoria\'s Secret models having sweaty pillowfights in the clouds while innocent-looking fat kids play the harp and blow kisses at butterflies and rainbows or fly around on their white wings and shoot love arrows at teenage couples having picnics in the park on sunny summer afternoons or some other such fruity shit.&nbsp; Well people tend to forget that the most hardcore of all Harley-riding, heavy metal-listening, battle-axe wielding, cocaine-snorting bastards got his shit fucking annihilated by the biggest badass of all the Archangels.</p>\r\n<p>Just to refresh your memory, the story goes like this:&nbsp; Once upon a time Lucifer was this high-ranking Angel who didn\'t think he was getting the props he deserved so he decided he was going to start kicking some ass and try to see if he could run the show himself.&nbsp; He recruited one-third of all the Angels in Heaven to join up with him David Koresh-style and try to overthrow the big man upstairs.&nbsp; So one day God and everybody are chilling out and this fucking insane-o motherfucking demon busts through the pearly gates ready to kick fucking asses and making the lesser angels (the fat kids and VS models) piss themselves:</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/diablo-blizzardwallpaper.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /> <span style=\"color: #cc0000;\"><strong>Satan:</strong></span>&nbsp; Hey d00dz I\'m in charge now</center>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>Holy shit everybody thinks they\'re totally fucked because look at this motherfucker.&nbsp; He\'s a fucking huge red monster with gleaming talons and spikes covering one-third of his body and glowing eyes and he looks PISSED.&nbsp; But instead of handing over St. Peter\'s keys like some kind of two-dollar pussy carjacking victim, God takes one look at this thing and is just like, \"Mike, show this fucking douchebag the door\".&nbsp; The Archangel Michael calmly nods his head, slowly takes the cigarette out of his mouth and flicks it onto the floor, cracks his knuckles and confidently strides towards Lucifer.</p>\r\n<center><br /><br /><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/stmichael-stompsatan.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />OMG PWNED</center>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>Michael doesn\'t just whip Lucifer\'s ass, he completely fucking humiliates him by slamming him face-first to the turf and then <em>stepping on his head</em> for no reason other than to be a jackass.&nbsp; I mean, Michael has huge-ass wings so he doesn\'t even need to set foot on the ground for any reason, but he\'s badass enough to know that when you\'re jacking the Prince of Darkness\' shit up royally for fucking with your boss, you might as well get your digs in there and add to the humiliation of his defeat.&nbsp; In case you didn\'t notice, Michael\'s not even breaking a sweat here either.&nbsp; He\'s just that hardcore.</p>\r\n<p>But maybe it\'s not enough for you that Mike is the only living entity to ever defeat the living embodiment of Pure Evil in single combat.&nbsp; Well according to Hebrew, Christian and Muslim myth, he\'s not only credited with kicking Lucifer\'s ass but also whipping several other lesser Devils\' balls off as well.</p>\r\n<p>For instance when the Demon Belial, the Angel of Darkness and the Patron of Idolatry, flipped out Antichrist-style and proclaimed himself to be the Messiah who do you think had to step in and Layeth the Almighty Smacketh Down?&nbsp; Jesus?&nbsp; Whatever.&nbsp; Belial and his army, the Sons of Darkness, met up with Michael and his Sons of Light and they had an old-school throwdown.</p>\r\n<center><br /><br /><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/stmichael-angels.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />Michael executes his Limit Break Special Attack and trashes some bozos.<br /><br /></center>\r\n<p>Michael, the patron saint of getting shit done, went off and started kicking asses all over the place, tearing the Demon Belial a new asshole and wrecking the shit of his stupid \"Army of Pussies\" (Michael\'s term for them, not mine).&nbsp; He was so insane in the battle that he even beat fifteen fiery demons to death with their own arms.</p>\r\n<p>But that\'s not even the end of it.&nbsp; According to the Kabbalah the fallen Seraphim Samael, the Angel of Death and the Demon of Lust and Wrath, trieed to start shit with Moses and the Israelites while they were trolling around in the desert with the Ark of the Covenant.&nbsp; Once again Michael is the dude who has to step in and stomp some faces.&nbsp; He shows up and tells Samael that he better pack up and get the fuck out of Dodge while he still has the use of his appendages but Samael keeps talking shit so Michael finally agrees to face him mano-e-mano in a one-on-one duel.</p>\r\n<center><br /><br /><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/stmichael-stompdragon.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></center>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>Yeah, that demon doesn\'t look too happy.&nbsp; But that\'s what you get for fucking with the Big M.&nbsp; You get your goddamned neck stepped on so hard that your eyes bug out of your head.&nbsp; Michael goes out and battles all these crazy demons, fallen angels and dudes who have names that sound like they should be shitty Scandinavian death metal album titles, and he manages to ruin their collective asses like a ten foot-tall soccer hooligan in an albino nerd-filled mosh pit at E3.&nbsp; Oh, and then he steps on their heads to prove how hard he is.</p>\r\n<p>In addition to being the big man\'s personal enforcer, Michael is the patron of Chivalry and Knightly Orders, which is badass.&nbsp; He\'s also the Defender of Justice, the Healer of the Sick, the Shepherd of the Righteous and an all-around kickass motherfucker in all three major Abrahamic traditions.&nbsp; Now I\'m exactly not a religious man, but I\'d be remiss in making Satan the Badass of the Week while not giving credit to the guy who Pedigreed him Triple H-style onto a bed of tacks and then stepped on his stupid horned head.&nbsp; I mean if you can honestly look at that ridiculous picture of Michael desecrating Lucifer\'s unconscious body like a passed out jock at a frat party and tell me that Satan\'s the most badass mythological creature ever, then there\'s something wrong.</p>','2006-05-03','31557723089','stmichael-icon_new.jpg','stmichael-icon_new - Copy.jpg','St. Michael the Archangel','The Patron Saint of soldiers, cops, and shanking Satan in the face with an icepick.',''),('Jules Winnfield','Unknown','N/A','Washington, DC, USA','Fictional American Outlaw','<p>One of the difficulties I have come across in running this site is that sometimes I come across a badass who is so unassailably, unquestionably fucking <em>tough</em> that it\'s damn near impossible for me to come up with anything new or original to say about him (or her) that either hasn\'t already been done or isn\'t completely fucking obvious.&nbsp; <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/cash.html\">Cash</a> was one of those guys.&nbsp; Samuel L. Jackson\'s character in <em>Pulp Fiction</em> is another.</p>\r\n<p>If there has ever been a more quotable movie hardass than Jules Winnfield, then I don\'t know about it.&nbsp; Sure <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/ash.html\">Ash</a> has some good lines, but when it comes to serious, no bullshit, fuck-with-me-and-I\'ll-put-a-motherfucking-bullet-in-your-head stone-cold killer lines, Jules Winnfield is king.&nbsp; He\'s the quintessential hatchetman, the ultimate badass and a sharp dresser to boot.&nbsp; I could probably just fill this entire article up with Jules lines and make a perfectly good case for his &uuml;ber-badassitudeness.&nbsp; He\'s just that well-spoken.&nbsp; He\'s also a mushroom-cloud laying motherfucker, motherfucker.</p>\r\n<p>Nobody but Samuel L. Jackson could have pulled off a foul-mouthed tough-as-shit hitman with as much class and badassitude.&nbsp; It just wouldn\'t have worked.&nbsp; He exudes awesome through his pores because his body fucking manufactures that shit the same way normal humans produce red blood cells or sweat.&nbsp; On top of the fact that nobody delivers the time-honored word \"motherfucker\" better than Jackson, you only have to take one look at Jules to know that he would put a bullet in your brain and not only not even think twice about it, but probably also tell all his friends about how he made you piss yourself right before he waxed you.&nbsp; He\'s also the kind of guy who is so fucking cool that you could make an entire movie out of just him walking down the street in slow motion while awesome music plays in the background and it would be one of the greatest movies of all time.</p>\r\n<p>The scene where he interrogates that douchebag Brett is probably one of the greatest displays of badassery in cinema history.&nbsp; Nobody but Jules could successfully intimidate the shit out of someone simply by eating a cheeseburger and quoting The Bible.&nbsp; That\'s fucking SKILL right there.&nbsp; Shit, he freaks that one punk out so bad that he completely misses with six shots at point blank range.</p>\r\n<p>Just in case anyone ever has any doubts, his fucking wallet also has \"Bad Mother Fucker\" written right on it in huge retro-style bold lettering.&nbsp; That\'s not the sort of thing that you carry around with you if you\'re not completely prepared to back it up by wrecking someone\'s shit with nine millimeters of juicy hot lead at any given moment or pummeling some fools into submission with your bare hands simply for looking at you funny.&nbsp; And it sure as shit qualifies you to fucking KICK THE ASS of some <a href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0417148/\" target=\"blank\">snakes on a plane</a>.</p>\r\n<p>Towards the end of the film, Jules decides that he\'s going to give up the \"professional asskicker\" job to walk the Earth and have adventures.&nbsp; While this type of general aimless meandering is usually reserved for aging washed-up California ex-hippie stoners, Jules strikes me as being one of the few people who could probably just walk around being awesome and kicking peoples\' asses, sort of like <em>Lone Wolf and Cub</em> or some shit, just going from place to place saving villages from massacre and being a total hardass.&nbsp; He\'s awesome.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-juleswallet.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />\"ENGLISH, motherfucker!<br />DO-YOU-SPEAK-IT?\"</center>','2006-04-28','761742123327','badass-jules_new.jpg','badass-jules_new - Copy.jpg','Jules Winnfield','Samuel L. Jackson from Pulp Fiction.  Nuff said?','\"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.  Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother\'s keeper and the finder of lost children.  And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers.  And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.\" '),('Ellen Ripley','Unknown','Unknown','United States','Fictional American Soldier','<p>Ellen Ripley was just hanging out on the intergalactic transport ship <em>Nostromo</em> leading the mildly-exciting but often-dull life of a Space Teamster when she first realized that she was a badass.</p>\r\n<p>Everything was going fine until once day her idiot Captain decided to land on the remote planet LV-426 to investigate some stupid distress signal the <em>Nostromo</em> picked up, which as we all know is one of the top five most boneheaded decisions any science-fiction space captain can possibly make.&nbsp; So they land on this planet and find this giant destroyed spaceship, and some dumbass fucking crew member decides it would be funny to stick his face in one of the strange egg-like things they find in the smoldering wreckage of this ship.&nbsp; Well, congratulations dumbass - You\'ve now got some crazy fucking alien shit stuck to your face!&nbsp; They finally get the thing detached from this idiot\'s face, but as you all know that\'s really only the beginning.&nbsp; The guy then eats some bad Mexican food and a freaking tap-dancing monster busts out of his chest and starts running around the ship burning everything with acid and doing bonghits in the broom closet.&nbsp; The Captain\'s just like, \"I\'ll handle this little fucker\", and starts climbing around the oxygen ventilation ducts like a jackass looking for this stupid little two-foot tall anamatronic teddy bear, when he comes face to face with this:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/ripley-thealien.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />Holy shit!</center>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>Turns out this thing is like a seven foot-tall CRAZY AS HELL alien bug-monster that climbs through ducts at light speed, swims faster than Matt Biondi, eats people, spits acid, bites soda cans in half and chops even the most kickass robots into scrap metal and cyborg juice with its prehensile spiked tail.&nbsp; This is what you get for sticking your face in places you shouldn\'t!</p>\r\n<p>Well this thing starts running around waxing the entire crew one by one.&nbsp; Ripley barely has time to grab a blowtorch, rescue Jonesy the Cat and activate the ship\'s self-destruct before this crazy-ass alien eats all of her friends.&nbsp; As the only non-pussy on the ship, she\'s the only one left to get into the escape pod.&nbsp; But things are never easy for badasses like Ripley - it turns out the damn thing somehow snuck into the pod with her when she wasn\'t looking so she has to kick it in the head Pel&eacute;-style like fifty times until it flies out into space.</p>\r\n<p>Ripley gets home and finds out that the stupid corporation she works for had the incredibly fucking brilliant idea of building a human colony on the now-xenomorph-infested LV-426, so she has to go back there with a bunch of tough-ass Colonial Marines and Paul Reiser to \"investigate why we\'ve lost contact with the colonists\" (read:&nbsp; Kill everything that moves).</p>\r\n<p>So Ripley heads out there with the Marines to bust some fucking football-shaped heads and the shit hits the fan pretty much immediately.&nbsp; Marines are getting eaten by aliens, stuff is popping out of half-dead colonists\' chests, face-sucking monsters are scurrying around and through it all Ripley is blasting shit with her bitchin\' M-99 assault rifle, taking command of the Colonial Marines and crashing APCs through walls like she\'s the damn Kool-Aid Man.&nbsp; When Paul Riser is like, \"we need to study these aliens and not kill all of them\" Ripley\'s like, \"screw you, Paul Riser, you can just go get eaten by them\" (and he does).&nbsp; When Bill Paxton starts acting like a little bitch she slaps some sense into him and tells him to stop being such a damn woman all the time and grow a pair.&nbsp; When crap starts getting out of control she decides to nuke the entire planet.&nbsp; When the last surviving colonist chick gets captured by aliens she straps a blowtorch to a grenade-launching machine gun and goes down there to rescue her.&nbsp; Along the way she takes the time out to stare the Alien Queen dead in the face before turning the blowtorch on an entire room full of her crazy alien eggs.&nbsp; Ripley doesn\'t give a shit that the entire planet\'s going to be turned to dust in like five minutes - she\'s the kind of badass who\'s not going to pass up any opportunity to be a total bitch.</p>\r\n<p>Well obviously this pisses the Alien Queen off, so she hitches a ride on Ripley\'s ship and starts wrecking everything like a petty diva starlet who gets snubbed at the Grammys trashes her hotel room.&nbsp; This only succeeds at making Ripley EVEN MORE PISSED.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/ripley-powerloader.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />\"Get away from her, you bitch!\"</center>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>What happens next is like the mother of all catfights, with &uuml;ber-hardass Ripley punching the shit out of the bitch Alien Queen with her giant metal robot arms.&nbsp; What\'s not to like about chicks in \'Mechs battling aliens on a spaceship IN SPACE??&nbsp; It\'s so unbelievably kickass it sounds like something that I made up in some insane awesomeness-and-booze-fueled hallucination, and the fact that it\'s an actual scene from a movie makes my head want to implode from the G-force that the \"Awesomeness Field\" around my computer is generating.&nbsp; Of course, being the total badass that she is, Ripley beats the Alien Queen\'s ass and chucks her into space.</p>\r\n<p>Then a shitty movie happened.&nbsp; Ripley shaves her head Sinead O\'Connor-style, gets impregnated with an Alien Queen somehow and jumps into some fire to avoid spawning a new generation of Aliens.</p>\r\n<p>She\'s so notoriously badass though that the jerkass company she works for resurrects her only now she\'s like half-alien.&nbsp; She runs around on some space station with Winona Ryder and they completely trash the place, killing anything with more than four appendages and beating the crap out of that crazy hybrid alien at the end that shows up for some reason.</p>\r\n<p>Basically, Ripley is one kick-ass bitch.&nbsp; The Aliens seem to have little to no trouble tearing most humans (and sometimes even Predators) new abdomens, but the sheer awesomeness of Ellen Ripley allows her to kick their balls in three out of four times.&nbsp; The best part is that she doesn\'t even just shoot them to death or incinerate them all the time - she gets into some down-and-dirty hand-to-hand-motherfucking-combat with these crazy things and KICKS THEIR ASSES.&nbsp; The aliens are tough, but she\'s tougher.&nbsp; Ripley\'s awesome.</p>','2006-04-21','855040823495','ripley_badass_new.jpg','ripley_badass_new - Copy.jpg','Ellen Ripley','The most kickass chick to ever fry a horde of aliens with a blowtorch.',''),('Henry Morgan','c. 1635','August 25, 1688','Rhymney, Wales, UK','17th-century British Pirate','<p>Sir Henry Morgan was a hard-drinking, hard-fighting charismatic badass privateer and entrepreneur who sailed the Spanish main during the Golden Age of Piracy, breaking necks, cashing checks, sacking towns, making scurvy bastards walk the plank and generally just being awesome.</p>\r\n<p>Not much is known about Henry Morgan\'s childhood.&nbsp; It is believed that he was born in Wales and was sold into indentured servitude in Barbados at a young age, but most of that is just speculation by people with nothing better to do.&nbsp; He first starts showing up in any significant historical context as a soldier in an armada sent by British Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell to kick the ass of the Spanish in Santo Domingo.&nbsp; Basically, Cromwell was all pissed off that Spain was mining a shitload of gold and silver in the New World, so he sent his goons over to try and get a piece of the action.&nbsp; However, the assault on Santo Domingo in 1655 was a total clusterfuck and the majority of the British fleet was completely obliterated by angry Spaniards.&nbsp; The remnants of the British force retreated to some island called Jamaica that nobody had ever heard of before and after capturing a small Spanish fort there the British decided to set up their own base of operations.&nbsp; For their colossal failure, the commanders of the British force were thrown into the Tower of London and eaten by lions.&nbsp; Henry Morgan didn\'t really have a whole lot going on and was in no rush to return to indentured servitude, so he decided to chill out in Jamaica for a while.</p>\r\n<p>Over the next couple of years, disease and Spanish attacks whittled away at the British garrison but through it all Morgan successfully avoided death.&nbsp; In 1662 the British government had enough of Spain\'s crap and decided to give out Letters of Marque commissioning British sailors as privateers.&nbsp; Basically this was like the Queen\'s way of saying, \"If you assholes get out there and fuck those Spanish bastards up, you can keep whatever gold and shit you find\".&nbsp; Of course, this was a pretty sweet deal so Morgan got a crew together and sailed out for adventure and ass-kickery.</p>\r\n<p>In 1663 Morgan set out on an epic voyage, where he basically terrorized the Spanish main.&nbsp; He sacked cities all throughout South and Central America, Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Caribbean, plundering towns, taking ransoms, sinking treasure galleons and essentially holding everybody he came across upside-down by their ankles and shaking them for loose change.&nbsp; His M.O. was to sail towards a town with his ships, overpower the Spanish garrison, loot whatever he could from the town and then be like, \"OK jerks, give me like a hundred thousand pieces-of-eight or I\'ll burn your crappy town to the ground.\" and then probably burn their town to the ground anyways.&nbsp; By the end of his voyage, everyone involved was wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.</p>\r\n<p>When he got back, everyone though he was so badass that they made him Colonel of the Port Royal (Jamaica) Militia and \"Admiral\" of all English privateers in the Caribbean.&nbsp; If you think this (combined with the millions of dollars and all the hot babes) stopped him from going out on other expeditions though, you obviously don\'t know a lot about pirates and privateers.&nbsp; He set out again like a year later and sacked Puerto Principe, Portobelo, Maracaibo, and pretty much every city in <em>Pirates! Gold</em> for the SEGA Genesis.&nbsp; He struck so much fear in the hearts of Spaniards that many times they wouldn\'t even try to put up a fight against his insane-o cutlass-wielding peg-legged buccaneer badasses.</p>\r\n<p>Unfortunately, Britain and Spain ended their war while Morgan was still sailing around like a madman stealing all the gold he could get his hands on.&nbsp; Being a true badass, this didn\'t stop Morgan from sacking Panama and plundering the Spanish Silver Train.&nbsp; However since it was apparently some crazy violation of the peace treaty to have your privateers plunder and burn cities, the British were forces to call Morgan back to England and put him in jail for his crimes.&nbsp; This sucked, but as you may have guessed, Henry Morgan is way too badass to spend his days rotting in a British jail.</p>\r\n<p>Before long, England and Holland went to war, and those crazy Dutch started attacking the British fort in Jamaica.&nbsp; Well without Captain Morgan, the Brits were getting their shit fucked up big time.&nbsp; So the Queen decided to pay Morgan a visit in jail.&nbsp; She was all like, \"Captain Morgan, we\'re getting ass-reamed by the goddamned Dutch!&nbsp; Please save us!\" but Morgan was obviously still pretty pissed about being tossed in the slammer for no good reason.&nbsp; So not only did they let him out of jail, but they fucking <em>knighted him</em> AND made him the goddamned Lieutenant-Governor of all Jamaica!&nbsp; Morgan was so pumped up about this that he went out and bludgeoned the entire Dutch navy to death in an hour and a half by swinging a two-ton ship cannon like a baseball bat.&nbsp; Then he ate an entire cannonball in one bite just to prove how awesome he was.</p>\r\n<p>Once he was the Governor he couldn\'t really go out plundering any more, so he decided to settle down and become a respectable businessman in the sugar industry.&nbsp; This worked out pretty well for him, and by the time he died of illness in 1688 he was a highly-regarded politician and trader.</p>\r\n<p>Sir Henry Morgan is about as badass as any pirate/privateer could possibly hope to be.&nbsp; He sacked dozens of towns, hauled off as much gold and silver as he could carry, beat the crap out of anybody who crossed him and was revered as a hero among the entire population of the British Empire.&nbsp; His deeds are legendary;&nbsp; his exploits the stuff of movies.&nbsp; He kicked ass for a living and made himself quite a reputation as a notorious badass.&nbsp; And today, his legacy lives on as a badass drink.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/captainmorgan-ad.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><br /></center>\r\n<p>Link:<br /> <a href=\"http://www.cavazzi.com/morgan/\" target=\"blank\">Sir Henry Morgan</a></p>','2006-04-14','858838624227','badass-captainmorgan_new.jpg','badass-captainmorgan_new - Copy.jpg','Henry Morgan','The pirate who became an Admiral.',''),('Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter','July 24, 1783','December 17, 1830','Caracas, Venezuela','19th-century Venezuelan General','<p>From the time the first Conquistador gave a smallpox-infected blanket to an Incan villager the South American people were in the business of getting fucked by the Spanish.&nbsp; The Spanish crown spent the better part of three centuries looting gold and silver from South American mines and giving the native population death, disease and Catholicism in return.&nbsp; However, in a society where the native peoples are constantly being screwed over by foreigners, sometimes it only takes one man to stand up and say, \"fuck this shit\" to make a difference.&nbsp; In South America that man was Sim&oacute;n Bol&iacute;var.</p>\r\n<p>Bol&iacute;var was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1783.&nbsp; The son of aristocratic Spanish parents who died while he was still very young, Bol&iacute;var took an interest in the classical liberal ideals of the Enlightenment and dedicated much of his time to studying the American and French Revolutions and being pissed off at the antiquated idea of royalty.&nbsp; Once Napoleon decided to (in Bol&iacute;var\'s eyes) betray the ideals of the French Revolution and coronate himself as Emperor of France, Bol&iacute;var decided that was the last straw and moved back to Venezuela in 1810 to start kicking some asses.</p>\r\n<p>Venezuela was already pissed off at this point because Napoleon had installed his brother Joseph as the King of Spain and South America, and in general the Venezuelan people were getting a little sick of Europe\'s bullshit.&nbsp; So in 1811 Sim&oacute;n Bol&iacute;var and the province of Venezuela formally declared their independence from Spain.</p>\r\n<p>Naturally this didn\'t sit too well with Spain.&nbsp; They were like, \"who the fuck do these assholes think they are?\" and sent a dickload of well-trained, well-equipped, battle-hardened soldiers out to teach the Venezuelan people a lesson once and for all.&nbsp; Well once the Spaniards arrived they realized that war in South America doesn\'t really work the same as war in Europe, and all of a sudden the Spanish troops found themselves embroiled in a bloody guerrilla war with a small but mobile force of Venezuelan patriots under Bol&iacute;var\'s command.</p>\r\n<p>For the next nine years, Bol&iacute;var would battle the Spanish across the mountains, valleys and forests of the Venezuelan countryside.&nbsp; Outnumbered, tired, hungry and under-equipped, Bol&iacute;var\'s men relentlessly continued their bloody war against colonial domination despite the knowledge that they were almost always just one battle away from having their revolution utterly crushed.&nbsp; Bol&iacute;var\'s Republican forces were thrown out of Venezuela by the Spanish on several occasions, but like a true badass he was not going to let a little beat-down stop him from achieving his goal.&nbsp; Every time he suffered defeat, he would turn right back around and start marching against Spanish outposts.&nbsp; Along the way Bol&iacute;var pretty much recruited anybody who was strong enough to pick up a rock and throw it at a Spanish person into his army.&nbsp; He took peasant villagers, farmers, boys, Spanish deserters, British and Irish mercenaries, space aliens and woodchucks into his army, fighting with antiquated muskets, sticks, machetes, shovels, knives, knees to the sack and pretty much anything else they had available to fight for their independance.&nbsp; The relentless attack of the Republican army eventually proved to be too much for Spain and in 1819 Bol&iacute;var marched triumphantly into Caracas, effectively liberating Venezuela from Spanish rule.</p>\r\n<p>However, his work was not done yet.&nbsp; After his victory in Venezuela, Bol&iacute;var immediately undertook the incredible feat of crossing the Andes Mountain range into New Grenada (present-day Columbia), where his armies surprised the shit out of the Spanish army and won a series of sweeping victories.&nbsp; Before long, yet another province had been freed from Spain.</p>\r\n<p>After the victory in New Granada, Bol&iacute;var turned his attention to Peru - the last bastion of Spanish dominion in South America.&nbsp; After a bloody war in the Peruvian mountains, the Republican forces expelled the last of the Spaniards from South American soil.</p>\r\n<p>After these wars were over, the South Americans made Bol&iacute;var the President of the liberated territories.&nbsp; He had a grand vision of forming a confederation of South American states similar to that of the U.S.A.&nbsp; However, this was a little too radical for his time and he did not gain much support for this endeavor.&nbsp; After an assassination attempt, Bol&iacute;var decided to step down as the President of South America.&nbsp; He died in 1830, but has long since been known as \"the George Washington of South America\" and celebrated as a hero throughout the countries he freed.</p>\r\n<p>\"El Libertador\" was a well-educated, determined badass who almost single-handedly liberated six countries from colonial rule:&nbsp; present-day Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Bolivia.&nbsp; I mean shit, that has to be some sort of world record for \"number of countries liberated by a single individual\".&nbsp; The guy pretty much went all over the Northern part of South America battling the Spanish wherever he could find them, kicking ass and taking names.&nbsp; A truly underrated badass.</p>\r\n<p><br /> Link: <br /> <a href=\"http://www.militaryheritage.com/bolivar.htm\" target=\"blank\">Liberator of Latin America</a></p>','2006-04-07','781418724573','badass-simonbolivar_new.jpg','badass-simonbolivar_new - Copy.jpg','Simon Bolivar','The dude who liberated pretty much every friggin\' country in South America.','Do not compare your material forces with those of the enemy. Spirit cannot be compared with matter. You are human beings, they are beasts. You are free, they are slaves. Fight, and you shall win. For God grants victory to perseverance.'),('Emperor Palpatine','A Long, Long Time Ago','Also a Long, Long Time Ago','Coruscant','Fictional Alien Politician','<p>The Emperor is essentially the personification of evil.&nbsp; He\'s not only a tyrannical dictator who holds the majority of the civilized galaxy in his wrinkled old man grip but he\'s also a Grandmaster of the Dark Side of the Force and Darth Vader\'s fucking boss.&nbsp; Shit, I mean it\'s one thing that he seized power and overthrew a centuries-old republic, installing himself as supreme ruler of the universe, but throw in the fact that one of the most <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/vader.html\" target=\"blank\">badass motherfuckers</a> to ever live is completely and unquestioningly at his disposal and you\'ve got a recipe for total badassery.&nbsp; Vader, Solo and The Emperor basically form the Holy Trinity of Star Wars Badassitude.</p>\r\n<p>Oh yeah, and he shoots motherfucking lightning bolts out of his hands (!!) and probably even taught Vader that awesome Force Choke maneuver where you can crush peoples\' tracheas just by looking at them menacingly and pointing.&nbsp; And while I generally discount the prequel trilogy as fan fiction and not actual canon, I have to admit that it was nice to see the fucking &Uuml;ber Dark Lord of the Sith totally whip the ass of CG Yoda and leave him for dead.&nbsp; And I\'ll bet you didn\'t think any Jedis could be more badass than Yoda.&nbsp; This is because you don\'t understand the true power of the Dark Side.</p>\r\n<p>The Emperor also looks like the new Pope.&nbsp; It\'s the ultimate duality of man.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/emperor-popedark.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></center>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>More than just being an unstoppable badass who was only defeated by being completely fucking jobbed to death by his own sidekick at the exact moment of his ultimate triumph, he\'s also a master manipulator and a diabolical power-hungry madman.&nbsp; The actor that played him in all five films he appears in (Ian McDiarmid) said that when he portrayed The Emperor, he was doing his best to channel Iago from Shakespeare\'s <em>Othello</em>:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<blockquote>\"Everything he does is an act of pure hypocrisy, and that\'s interesting to play.&nbsp; I suppose it\'s rather like playing Iago.&nbsp; All the characters in the play - including Othello until the end - think that \'Honest Iago\' is a decent guy doing his job, and he\'s quite liked.&nbsp; But at the same time there\'s a tremendous evil subconscious in operation.&nbsp; There\'s a moment in one scene of the new films where tears almost appear in his eye.&nbsp; These are crocodile tears, but for all those in the movie, and perhaps watching the movie itself, they\'ll see he is apparently moved - and of course, he is.&nbsp; He can just do it.&nbsp; He can, as it were, turn it on.&nbsp; And I suppose for him, it\'s also a bit of a turnon;&nbsp; the pure exercise of power is what he\'s all about.&nbsp; That\'s the only thing he\'s interested in and the only thing that can satisfy him, which makes him completely fascinating to play, because it is an evil soul.&nbsp; He is more evil than the devil.&nbsp; At least Satan fell;&nbsp; he has a history, and it\'s one of revenge.\"</blockquote>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Sure Bill Shakespeare might be turning in his grave at the knowledge that one of his characters has translated to a science fiction super-villian who builds space stations capable of destroying entire planets and kicks Ewoks, but if he didn\'t come to life as a zombie and start eating people\'s brains after <em>Romeo + Juliet</em> was released then he\'s probably going to be cool with this, especially considering that The Emperor has some of the best lines in all six films because he\'s such a sarcastic evil bastard.</p>\r\n<p>In short, the Emperor kicks ass.&nbsp; Think back to the worst, most evil boss you\'ve ever had at any job and then multiply that by infinity and that\'s what he\'s like.&nbsp; Because while it certainly takes a special kind of megalomaniac asshole to be a workaholic slave-driving retail store manager it takes the all-powerful living embodiment of pure evil to be able to order Darth Vader around without fear of being chopped in half or choked to death.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/emperor-forcelightning.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />\"So be it... <em>Jedi</em>.\"</center>','2006-03-31','870575925018','badass-emperor_new.jpg','badass-emperor_new - Copy.jpg','The Emperor','The cruelest, most sinister supervillain in outer space, this dude shoots lightning out of his balls and kind of looks like the Pope.','Oh, I\'m afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive...'),('Dru-Zod','Unknown','N/A','Krypton','Fictional Alien General','<p>About a month ago, I received the following email:</p>\r\n<blockquote>Amazing Ben,\r\n<p>In my year or so of ardently reading about the many Badasses of the Week, one of the Badasses I have felt to be most deserving of the honor has never appeared.&nbsp; His name:&nbsp; General Zod. His occupation:&nbsp; Spreading slavery and increasing the strength of knees everywhere.</p>\r\n<p>You may remember him from Superman II.&nbsp; Recall that he was so badass and arrogant that when the President said, \"Oh, God,\" Zod corrected him, saying, \"That\'s Zod.\"&nbsp; Essentially, Zod thought of himself as a deity;&nbsp; and what\'s even more badass is that he backed it up.</p>\r\n<p>Surely you\'ve not forgotten how he used his eye lasers to destroy all sorts of shit.&nbsp; And certainly you\'ve not forgotten his grand, epic catchphrases that solidify him as a badass.&nbsp; \"Come to me, Son of Jor-El!&nbsp; Come and KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!!!\" How is one not a badass for saying something like that?</p>\r\n<p>On top of that, he\'s also a fantastic interior decorator.&nbsp; I get this from the way he described the Fortress of Solitude as having \"no style\" at all, so you must know that on Krypton he probably had the sweetest pad of all.</p>\r\n<p>I needn\'t say more.</p>\r\n<p>Respectfully (if I could give respect to anyone but Zod) and Forever Kneeling Before Zod,<br /> Josh</p>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n<p>After reading this, I was totally blown away that I hadn\'t put Zod up here yet, so I immediately sat down and started to write an article about him.&nbsp; However, after scrapping three separate attempts, I realized that there was little I could say that could improve upon this email.&nbsp; General Zod is a total badass who doesn\'t take crap from anyone.&nbsp; He fucking starts shit with Superman, he makes the most powerful criminal mind on the planet and one of the most diabolical villains in comic book history (Lex Luthor) his bitch and he forces the President declare him the Ruler of the Planet Houston.&nbsp; On top of that he has Superman-like strength, throws concrete slabs around like baseballs and shoots motherfucking LASERS OUT OF HIS EYES!&nbsp; What the hell else do you want from a Badass of the Week?&nbsp; General Zod is a superior being and the sooner we all recognize that and get to the kneeling the less painful this transition to absolute monarchy will be.</p>\r\n<p>Links:<br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.generalzod.net/\" target=\"blank\">GeneralZod.net</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.zod2008.com/\" target=\"blank\">Zod2008.com</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-generalzod1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />\"We will bring him to his knees!\"<br />\"Praying!\"<br />\"Yes, to ME!\"</center>','2006-03-24','980246725881','badass-generalzod_new.jpg','badass-generalzod_new - Copy.jpg','General Zod','Kneel before Zod!','\"Kneel, son of Jor-El!  Kneel before Zod!\"'),('Inigo Montoya','N/A','N/A','Spain','Fictional Spanish Mercenary','','2006-03-07','701337626169','badass-inigomontoya_new.jpg','badass-inigomontoya_new - Copy.jpg','Inigo Montoya','My name is Inigo Montoya. \r\nYou killed my father.  Prepare to die.','\"Hello.  My name is Inigo Montoya. \r\nYou killed my father.  Prepare to die.\"'),('Warren G. H. Crecy','Unknown','Unknown','Corpus Christi, TX, USA','WWII American Soldier','<p>Sergeant Warren G.H. Crecy was a badass killing machine in two major American wars, battling racial injustice on the homefront and angry Krauts on the battlefield.&nbsp; Ultimately his bravery and badassitude would earn him a battlefield commission and six medals, including a Medal of Honor recommendation which by all accounts he more than qualified for.</p>\r\n<p>Crecy enlisted in the Army nine months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and was one of the founding members of the 761st Tank Battalion, the first-ever all-black armored unit.&nbsp; At first, the cocks at U.S. Central Command were like, \"fuck those colored folks, they can\'t fight.&nbsp; Now where\'s my fucking banjo?&nbsp; I\'m fixin\' to drink me some shine and do it with my cousin!\"&nbsp; However, once the shit started to hit the fan in Europe the Army was pretty much ready to throw every able-bodied man, woman and child into the battlefield meat grinder, so the 761st was shipped out to sunny luxurious France by way of Omaha Beach.</p>\r\n<p>The 761st, dubbed \"The Black Panthers\", were assigned to Patton\'s 3rd Army during much of the European campaign.&nbsp; At first the American generals were reluctant to put black soldiers into battle, but once they saw what the 761st was capable of that changed pretty quickly.&nbsp; The 761st saw combat for over 180 straight days, battling in the Normandy and Ardennes campaigns.&nbsp; They were a badass crew of tankers, and the baddest man in the 761st was Warren G.H. Crecy.</p>\r\n<p>According to the unit historian, Crecy was a pretty mild-mannered, well-liked guy.&nbsp; He was quiet, unassuming and polite.&nbsp; But when he got out on the battlefield and had some Germans shooting machine guns at him, Crecy would totally flip out and become an unstoppable killing machine.&nbsp; Listen to this:</p>\r\n<p>On 10 November 1944, some of the forward American infantry came under attack from a German ambush.&nbsp; Crecy hopped in his tank and busted through the German lines, blasting the ambushers in an attempt to rescue his friends.&nbsp; Well the Nazis saw this coming and some jackass Panzerschreck team nailed Crecy\'s tank with a rocket.&nbsp; This only made him EVEN MORE fucking pissed off.&nbsp; Crecy jumped out of his burning tank, fucking hopped on a piece-of-shit American jeep, loaded up the .30 caliber machine gun and started wasting assholes left and right.&nbsp; Of course the first guys he turned the gun on were the dudes who blew up his tank, so he gunned them down while they shouted, \"mein leiben!\" like when you kill Nazis in <em>Wolfenstein 3D</em>.&nbsp; After wasting them, he braved machine gun and rifle fire to take out the forward observers who were acting as spotters for the German artillery.&nbsp; Once those dudes were toast, the American infantry was able to fall back to safety.</p>\r\n<p>But it doesn\'t end there.&nbsp; After hearing this story of total badassery, the 761st hooked Crecy up with another tank so that he could get back to the whole \"killing thousands of Germans\" thing.&nbsp; The next day, he\'s driving along, pressing the attack when all of a sudden his tracks get stuck in the mud.&nbsp; You should know by now that Warren Crecy isn\'t the kind of guy who\'s just going to sit around in a broken tank when he could be killing motherfuckers, so he <em>gets out of his tank</em> with all the Krauts shooting machine guns, artillery and rockets at him, braves the enemy fire and tries to pull his tank out of the mud.&nbsp; As he\'s doing this, he notices that the U.S. infantry is being pinned down by Nazi artillery and that the Germans are launching a counter-offensive so he abandons his efforts to free the immobilized tank and hops on the cupola-mounted .50 cal.&nbsp; The fucking Germans come over the ridge and are completely moked the fuck out by Crecy\'s machine gun fire.&nbsp; The dude completely wiped out a couple of machine gun nests that were pinning down the American soldiers and took out an AT team coming to blast the shit out of him with a rocket launcher, all the while taking fire from an exposed, immobile position.&nbsp; If that\'s not the definition of balls-out hardcore, then I don\'t know what is.&nbsp; According to the unit\'s historian, Crecy had to be physically pried away from his machine gun because he was so pissed off he didn\'t want to let go of it.</p>\r\n<p>The unit historian dubbed Crecy \"the baddest man in the 761st\", crediting him with about 300-400 kills during the war.&nbsp; For the actions described above, Crecy was nominated for the Medal of Honor.&nbsp; Since High Command were dicks and Crecy was black, he got totally jobbed and only received the Silver Star instead.&nbsp; During the rest of his service he would receive another Bronze Star for bravery and four Purple Hearts as well.</p>\r\n<p>After the war, Warren Crecy served as a prison guard at Nuremberg, where he was entrusted with making sure that the most notorious war criminals in the history of the world didn\'t get away.&nbsp; They didn\'t.&nbsp; He returned home in 1950 only to face racism and segregation from the country he had fought so hard for.&nbsp; This didn\'t discourage him though, and when the country called on him again Crecy shipped out to fight in Korea.</p>\r\n<p>In October of 1952, Crecy was hit with a mortar shell which left him severely injured.&nbsp; He was shipped home and would spend the next ten years in and out of various military hospitals.&nbsp; He passed away in 1976 - a war hero, a pioneer who helped pave the way for the desegregation of the Armed Forces, a fearless survivor and a bad motherfucker in the truest sense of the word.</p>\r\n<p>Links: <br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.761st.com/index.php?page=Crecy\" target=\"blank&quot;\">The 761st Tank Battalion Bio</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.texnews.com/1998/texas/vet0724.html\" target=\"blank&quot;\">Corpus Christi Honors War Hero</a></p>','2006-02-24','760526365','warrenghcrecy_new.jpg','warrenghcrecy_new - Copy.jpg','Warren G.H. Crecy','The baddest man in the 761st Tank Battalion, this guy was a Nazicidal maniac who mowed through the enemy and forgot about taking names.',''),('John Carter','19th Century','N/A','Virginia, USA','Fictional American Adventurer','<p>Before Han Solo.&nbsp; Before Lieutenant Starbuck, Captain Kirk and Flash Gordon.&nbsp; Even before Buck Rogers there was John Carter of Mars;&nbsp; the Warlord of Barsoom, the unparalleled swordsman and the Original Gangsta of intergalactic adventurers and alien assbeaters.</p>\r\n<p>John Carter is the hero of a series of early twentieth century novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs and owner of a Class-A Asskicker License.&nbsp; A Confederate cavalry officer turned frontiersman cowboy, Carter one day finds himself somehow inexplicably teleported to the planet Mars, where he wastes no time in beating the shit out of every alien he meets, scoring with the hottest babe on the planet and making himself Emperor of Mars.</p>\r\n<p>First off, the first novel in the series (<em>A Princess of Mars</em>) was originally written in 1911, back when men wanted their men to be MEN and not sniveling coward pussies who did lame shit like cry about their feelings and not punch people in the face.&nbsp; And Carter is no exception.&nbsp; As soon as he lands on Mars he realizes that everyone there is a weakling because they have shitty gravity there and Earth gravity rules so he just runs around punching alien monsters in the face and jumping on top of buildings and doing kickass awesome shit like eating plants.&nbsp; Eventually the nine foot-tall green alien creatures he meets up with decide he\'s so badass that he should fight one of their chiefs, and of course Carter kills the stupid bastard by stabbing him in the heart about a thousand times and takes over as a lesser chief of the tribe.</p>\r\n<p>One day some stupid assholes show up in their flying airships and get their shit wrecked by the green men that John Carter is chilling with.&nbsp; Well in the wreckage of the airships the green dudes capture a total alien mega-babe from a crazy race of Martians that look exactly like regular humans only their skin is a little redder and they don\'t wear much in the way of clothing.&nbsp; Well John Carter is like, \"well fuck these guys, I\'m going to help this hot naked alien space babe escape\", and so they get the fuck out of Dodge and try to bring her back to the city-state she\'s the Princess of.</p>\r\n<p>The rest of the story basically involves a series of crazy fucking adventures where John Carter ends up traveling throughout the entire face of Mars trying to rescue this chick, who is continually getting captured and transported to various locations.&nbsp; Along the way, John Carter battles crazy alien civilizations, obliterates an entire cult of Martian asshole priests, recruits tough-as-hell followers, explores uncharted regions and escapes from impenetrable fortresses armed solely with his wits, grim determination, super jumping ability and tireless sword arm.&nbsp; Oh, and every hot babe he meets falls in love with him.</p>\r\n<p>Holy shit John Carter is awesome.&nbsp; First off, he\'s doesn\'t back down from a fight for any reason.&nbsp; He could be completely fucking unarmed and fifteen gorillas could walk up to him and if one of them even so much as looked at him funny he\'d flip out and punch all of them to death and pull out their brains.&nbsp; Secondly, his Earth strength makes him a total badass of the first degree on Mars, and he can jack motherfuckers in the mouth and lay them out with one hit like he was Mike Tyson on PCP.&nbsp; Oh, and he\'s also a fucking platinum-grade swordsman and it just so happens that Mars is a backwards-ass planet where the blade is the weapon of choice.&nbsp; So Carter spends like 80% of his time hacking aliens to pieces and urinating on their corpses while flying around on airships shooting machine guns at panda bears and breaking giant spiders in half with his teeth.</p>\r\n<p>In addition to all this shit that already makes him badass, John Carter has a warrior\'s code of honor, which is totally respectable.&nbsp; He\'s not a cold-blooded murderer but rather a hardened soldier who never backs down, never retreats and never loses a battle.&nbsp; I guess when you\'re as badass as J.C. you don\'t have to resort to stabbing idiots in their sleep.&nbsp; I\'m sure it\'s much more satisfying to best your enemies in single combat by ramming your sword through their hearts, especially if you\'ve got serious beef with them or if you need to kill them to defend your woman\'s honor.</p>\r\n<p>I still feel as though I\'m not doing the badassitude of this character justice in this article though, so I\'m just going to conclude it here.&nbsp; I do suggest that you pick up a copy of <em>A Princess of Mars</em> if you\'re into cheesy old-school sci-fi, because few of the space heroes who came after have anything on John Carter of Mars.</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/johncarterofmars.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />John Carter tears some aliens new assholes.</center>','2006-02-17','626385027264','princessofmars_new.jpg','princessofmars_new - Copy.jpg','John Carter of Mars','The original gangsta of kicking the shit out of aliens and macking on hot space babes.','John Carter always takes time out for naked space babes.'),('Molly B.','21st Century','N/A','Montana, USA','21st-century American Adventurer','<p>Every once in a while, cows are awesome.</p>\r\n<p>Molly the Cow was just chilling out one day at the old meat-packing slaughterhouse plant in Montana when all of a sudden it dawned on her that she was about to get shot in the head, cut into tiny pieces, shipped to various locations throughout the world and then ultimately be eaten by people.&nbsp; Well this sort of shit wasn\'t going to fly with Molly, so she decided it would be in her best interests of self-preservation to get the fuck out of dodge while she still could and dramatically reduce her chances of becoming a deliciously greasy Quarter Pounder with Cheese.&nbsp; So she waited until nobody was looking one morning, hurdled the fence to her pen and started wandering around the town of Great Falls.</p>\r\n<p>It\'s hard to go unnoticed when you\'re a freaking 1,200 pound bovine, so eventually people called the cops saying that there was this crazy-ass heifer wandering around town.&nbsp; Well the cops showed up and set up a trap to corner Molly, but this only succeeded in pissing her off.&nbsp; The cow busted through a fence, almost got moked the fuck out by an SUV and then the chase was on.</p>\r\n<center><br /><br /><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-mollysprinting.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></center>\r\n<p><br /><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>The cops chased the cow through the streets, where it almost got hit by a semi, to a set of train tracks.&nbsp; The 5-0 thought they had her, but Molly ran right in front of an oncoming train Jason Bourne-style, further evading her would-be captors.&nbsp; So the cops kept chasing her around, cornering her with her back to the Missouri River.&nbsp; With no avenue of escape, she freaking jumped into the river and started drifting upstream.</p>\r\n<p>The freaking cops were like, \"well that cow\'s fucked now\", when all of a sudden Molly hit upon a midstream sandbar and safely walked out of the water.</p>\r\n<center><br /><br /><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-mollycrossing.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></center>\r\n<p><br /><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>So the cops, animal control, the National Guard, the SWAT team and SEAL Team 5 were called out to catch this motherfucking crazy ass cow, but even though they capped it with three tranquilizer darts Molly was like, \"screw you assholes, you\'re not going to eat me\", and just kept knocking over fences, kicking cops in the nuts and being awesome.&nbsp; When she hit a fence she couldn\'t break through, she just knocked over some police officers and kept running away.</p>\r\n<p>SIX HOURS after she escaped, she was finally just like, \"well, fuck it\", and calmly walked into a trailer that the slaughterhouse guys set up for her.&nbsp; She returned to the factory but after such an overwhelming display of bovine badassery the plant employees decided that she was too awesome to suffer the ignominy of human consumption, and they all agreed to let her chill out and spend the rest of her days grazing on the farmland surrounding the abertoirre.</p>\r\n<p>Molly kicks ass.&nbsp; Not only is she better at eluding the fuzz than most bank robbers and convicted murderers, but she\'s also not afraid to be totally balls-out and do Xtreme shit like leap infront of trains or jump into rivers and she\'s not the kind of pussy cow that\'s going to go down like a sack of anvils the second you peg her in the ass with a tranquilizer dart.&nbsp; You\'d have to look pretty hard to find an animal as badass as Molly the Cow.</p>\r\n<center><br /><br /><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-mollychased.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></center>\r\n<p><br /><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>Links:<br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/01/06/cow_escapes_meat_plant_dodges_cars_train/\" target=\"blank\">Boston Globe Article</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.freedomforanimals.org/mollybcow.htm\" target=\"blank\">The Story of Molly B.</a></p>','2006-02-10','277008427661','badass-mollyb_new.jpg','badass-mollyb_new - Copy.jpg','Molly the Cow','The insane cow that went on a wild rampage to avoid getting shipped to the slaughterhouse.',''),('Ying Zheng','259 BC','210 BC','Handan, Hebei Province, China','Ancient Chinese General','<p>A long time ago, China was crazy.&nbsp; During the Warring States Period, dudes like <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/suntzu.html\" target=\"blank\">Sun Tzu</a> and other guys were running around killing each other and the area that we now know as China was actually composed of six or seven different states that were all trying to conquer one another.&nbsp; There was near-constant war, and nobody was really able to get control of what the hell was going on.</p>\r\n<p>Well one day the king of the state of Qin decided he was sick of all this stupid bullshit, so he put together a hugeass army and kicked the nuts of all the other states, uniting everyone under the Kingdom of Qin in 221 BCE.&nbsp; It was the first time that anyone had accomplished this feat, and it was so momentous that Western jackasses from that point on started calling the country \"China\".&nbsp; If you are like a lot of people and have no fucking clue how you get \"China\" from \"Qin\", it\'s because in Chinese-English transliteration the letter \"q\" is pronounced as a \"ch\".&nbsp; Holy crap, I\'m so smart it almost hurts my brain sometimes.</p>\r\n<p>Since there wasn\'t a whole lot going on outside of the seven kingdoms, most Chinese people believed that the King of Qin had conquered the entire world.&nbsp; In honor of this achievement, Qin Shi Huang Di gave himself the title of \"Emperor\" or \"Son of Heaven\".&nbsp; In fact, Qin Shi Huang Di isn\'t even his real name - it just means \"The First Emperor of China\" - but he was such a super badass that he demanded that people only refer to him by that title for the rest of time.&nbsp; Since he was so kickass, everyone listened.</p>\r\n<p>Anyways, besides being a total assbeater with an unstoppable juggernaut of an army that crushed seven other nations, Qin Shi Huang Di was also a diabolical madman.&nbsp; He was like obsessed with finding the secret to immortality so he could rule China forever, leading expeditions out to find the legendary Islands of the Immortals and doing all kinds of awesome crap like eating mercury pills and drinking fire.</p>\r\n<p>Once in charge, Qin Shi Huang Di made life a little easier for the rest of China.&nbsp; He standardized all the measurments, roads, writing and other stuff so that it wouldn\'t be so fucking confusing to travel around the country there.&nbsp; He built some wooden walls which would become the basis for the Great Wall of China, one of the greatest and most balls-out construction projects in human history.&nbsp; Sure, he was oppressive, tyrannical and brutal, but he was also pretty damn efficient and he laid the groundwork for a Chinese national identity that has lasted upwards of two thousand years.</p>\r\n<p>He was also totally paranoid.&nbsp; Early in his reign, some jerk assassin named Jing Ke tried to stab Qin Shi Huang with a fan and even though Qin managed to whip out his sword and kill the shit out of Jing, he was pretty much untrusting of anyone from that point on.&nbsp; His paranoia led him to relocate the leaders of each of the states he conquered to live in the capital of Qin so that he and his men could keep an eye on them.&nbsp; He had royal food tasters try everything before he ate it.&nbsp; He rarely came out in public.&nbsp; He burned scholarly works that disagreed with his philosophy of Legalism and buried Confucian scholars alive so that they wouldn\'t fuck with him.&nbsp; While there\'s really nothing cool about burning books and executing scholars, you sort of have to respect the fact that Qin Shi Huang was willing to go that extra mile to ensure the longevity of his reign.</p>\r\n<p>It didn\'t really work though.&nbsp; After he died his son was an incompetent asshole and everyone had enough of Qin\'s shit.&nbsp; They overthrew him and installed the Han Dynasty, which would be a golden age in Chinese history made possible by the unification of the country in 221 BCE.&nbsp; But that\'s what happens sometimes.</p>\r\n<p>Qin Shi Huang Di was buried in a hugeass tomb he had constructed before his death.&nbsp; The tomb was designed in the exact layout of China with flowing mercury as the rivers and had a Terracotta army of earthenware soldiers, chariots and horses stationed to protect his spirit in the afterlife.&nbsp; Every one of the six foot tall terracotta warriors had an individual face and unique equipment, and all were hand-made and painted by skilled artisans employed/enslaved by the Empire.&nbsp; The full number of warriors entombed to protect Qin Shi Huang is not known, as many of the sections of the tomb still remain unexcavated, but it is believed to be in the range of about 7,000.&nbsp; That\'s a pretty insane undertaking, and the fact that he built an entire life-size full-scale army of model soldiers is totally Badass of the Week-worthy.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><br /><br /><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/qinshihuangdi-tomb.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />I took this shot of Qin Shi Huang Di\'s tomb when I was in China.<br />It\'s hard to grasp how massive this shit is just by looking at pictures though.</p>','2006-02-03','463605827997','qinshihuangdi_new.jpg','qinshihuangdi_new - Copy.jpg','Qin Shi Huangdi','The man who unified China, became the First Emperor, and set up an Imperial system that would last for two millenia.',''),('Michael Francis Foley, Sr.','June 7, 1965','N/A','East Setauket, NY, USA','20th-century American Athlete','<p>You would have a tough time finding a professional wrestling fan who could argue with the insane badassitude of Mick Foley.&nbsp; A long time veteran of the ECW, WCW and WWF/WWE, Foley was well-known for being a total crazy bastard who went out there and put his body on the line every single night, doing the craziest shit you could ever think of and risking serious physical pain and permanent bodily damage purely for the sake of entertaining fans who might never fully appreciate it.</p>\r\n<p>Mick Foley got his start wrestling the ECW circuit in the late 80s as Cactus Jack, where he spent much of his time being backdropped onto barbed wire boards and face-planting tables.&nbsp; During one match, he suffered severe second-degree burns when he was thrown into some explosives that went off in his face.&nbsp; He won the Tag Team Belt once in ECW, and in 1995 defeated Terry Funk to win the title of \"King of the Death Match\", which is probably the most badass title you could think of.&nbsp; It sounds like something out of <em>The Running Man</em> or something.</p>\r\n<p>After a brief stint in WCW, Foley burst onto the scene in the WWF in 1996 wrestling as the mentally-deranged Mankind.&nbsp; His humorous persona and complete lack of any sort of self-preservation instincts led him to become a huge crowd favorite, and during his career he would win the Tag belts eight times, the WWF Championship three times and would be the first ever WWF Hardcore champ.</p>\r\n<p>The thing that really set him apart from the other wrestlers was that he was fucking crazy and constantly put himself in situations where he could have been seriously hurt or killed.&nbsp; At King of the Ring in 1998, he battled The Undertaker in a <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_in_a_Cell#Undertaker_vs._Mankind\" target=\"blank\">Hell in a Cell</a> match, which would go down as one of the greatest wrestling matches in history.&nbsp; Towards the beginning of the match, Foley was fucking thrown from the top of the ten-foot cage, past the mat and through the Spanish Announcer\'s table on the floor.&nbsp; Later he would be chokeslammed <em>through</em> the top of the cage, an event which was NOT scripted, and would receive a concussion and be knocked unconscious when he hit the mat.&nbsp; He claims in his book to not even be able to remember the bout.&nbsp; In this match he received bruised kidneys, bruised ribs, a dislocated shoulder, several missing teeth and quite a few stitches in his lip, but it didn\'t even slow him down.&nbsp; A few years later he went back and did most of the same stunts AGAIN in his retirement match with Triple H, when he was also Pedigreed onto some fucking thumbtacks.&nbsp; He did this sort of shit all the time, all for the sake of entertainment.</p>\r\n<p>After he realized that he had to stop taking serious blunt trauma to the head on a weekly basis, Foley released his autobiography, <em>Have a Nice Day:&nbsp; A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks</em>.&nbsp; The book topped the New York Times bestseller list and contained thoughtful insight into his wrestling career, and many people learned that in addition to making a career out of being a human pinata, Mick Foley also had a brain in his head and a gift for writing.&nbsp; Since the success of his autobiography, Foley released a follow-up book, a couple of children\'s books and two full-length novels, all of which have found success.</p>\r\n<p>During his career, Mick Foley received eight concussions, had part of his ear ripped off, lost most of his teeth and required over three hundred stitches for wrestling-related injuries.&nbsp; The guy sacrificed his body for the sport, and left everything out on the mat.&nbsp; He gave it all and did it with a smile on his face, and that\'s the mark of a true badass.</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /> <img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/badass-mankind1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>','2006-01-27','321340328260','mick_foley_new.jpg','mick_foley_new - Copy.jpg','Mick Foley','A no-holds-barred wrestler who never hesitated to jump off a cage and face-plant some thumbtacks as long as it made for good television.','\"To truly understand Mankind,\r\nyou must first break down\r\nthe words that make up his name: \r\nMank and Ind. \r\nWhat do they mean? \r\nIt\'s a mystery. \r\nAnd so is Mankind.\" '),('Beatrix Kiddo','Unknown','N/A','United States','Fictional American Vigilante','<p>If there\'s one thing that being engaged has taught me, it\'s that you never EVER fuck with a bride for any reason ever.&nbsp; Especially if that bride is a trained assassin babe holding a hugeass samurai sword and you\'re not 100% confident that she won\'t lop your nuts off if you give her a hard time about her choice of hors d\'oeuvres.</p>\r\n<p>Beatrix Kiddo is a prime example of this.&nbsp; Considering the fact that most brides totally freak out and get homicidal/hysterical over stupid shit like the flower arrangements being made out of crimson roses instead of vermillion ones, you can pretty much imagine what would happen if instead of something like the DJ showing up late to the reception, the bride\'s ex-boyfriend and former co-workers show up and start shooting everyone.</p>\r\n<p>Well this happened to The Bride in <em>Kill Bill</em> and as soon as she got out of the coma she went on a mission of revenge like you wouldn\'t believe.&nbsp; She traveled the world hunting down and killing every single person responsible for fucking up her wedding, and quite a few people who really had nothing to do with it because when you\'re truly a total Class-A badass, you can get caught up in that whole decapitating people thing and just start lopping henchmen\'s stupid heads off for no reason at all.</p>\r\n<p>The Bride is one of the most kickass bitches in movie history.&nbsp; She\'s a highly trained assassin, marksman, swordswoman and the self-proclaimed \"most dangerous woman in the world\", which she fucking proves when she goes into the House of Blue Leaves and kills like a million Yakuza swordsmen before chopping Lucy Liu\'s brain in half.&nbsp; Once her wedding gets fucked up she has nothing to live for but revenge, so she just runs around doing all sorts of badass shit like hacking people\'s appendages off, swordfighting every single person in Japan, stabbing bitches to death, using ancient Chinese martial arts to instantly kill people, punching boards in half and kicking hillbillies in the head.&nbsp; Oh yeah, and she fucking pulls Daryl Hannah\'s only functional eye out, steps on it and then lets her live so that she can just be a blind miserable fucking wretch for the rest of her days.&nbsp; It really doesn\'t get more badass then that, especially since Daryl was expecting this big-time honorable sword duel for the title of \"biggest badass ever\" and all of a sudden BAM! -- her fucking eye gets yanked out Tiger Crane style, and Uma doesn\'t even give a shit.&nbsp; Even later when she finds out that her ex-boyfriend and former mentor Bill has been taking care of her kid for a couple years and the kid really likes him, The Bride is just like, \"whatever\" and fucking kills him anyway because like a true badass, she knows that NOTHING comes before vengeance.</p>\r\n<p>Plus she\'s like invincible.&nbsp; She gets gunned down at her wedding by a machine gun, shot in the head at point-blank range, buried alive, slashed, cut, shot, stabbed, paralyzed, tied up, beaten up, spit on and probably like hit in the head with a slingshot or something.&nbsp; You can\'t kill her.&nbsp; You can\'t phase her.&nbsp; She\'s so determined to slaughter everyone who\'s wronged her that nothing will stand between her Hanzo Steel and ultimate vengeance.&nbsp; And if that isn\'t the textbook definition of badass, then I\'m obviously not qualified to run this website.</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 90%;\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td align=\"center\" width=\"50%\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/co7.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><br /><br /></td>\r\n<td align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kill_bill01.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>','2006-01-20','282780129057','bride_new_a.jpg','bride_new_a - Copy.jpg','The Bride','A one-woman wrecking crew of limb-severing violence.',''),('Mariusz Zbigniew Pudzianowski ','February 7, 1977','N/A','Bia&#322;a Rawska, Poland','21st-century Polish Athlete','<p>A couple months ago I mentioned my dog <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/savickas.html\" target=\"blank\">Zydrunas Savickas</a>, and this week the BotW honors are going to my wife\'s favorite professional strongman, Mariusz Pudzianowski of Poland.</p>\r\n<p>Mariusz is a total badass who needs to be recognized on this site, mostly because he\'s been crowned as the Met-Rx World\'s Strongest Man three out of the last four years and that by definition makes him an &uuml;ber-badass.&nbsp; He won it in 2002, 2003, 2005, and 2007, came in second place in 2006, third place in 2004 and has won three straight Europe\'s Strongest Man competitions and four Poland\'s Strongest Man contests.&nbsp; The guy fucking DOMINATES professional strongman events, benching about 606lbs and deadlifting 870lbs and holding world records in events like the 500lb Suitcase Carry and the Pick Up a Goddamned Motorcycle and Carry It Around for a While.&nbsp; Holy shit, that\'s awesome.&nbsp; Plus, Mariusz is set apart from some of the other strongmen by virtue of the fact that he\'s probably the most ridiculously cut men I\'ve ever seen in my life.&nbsp; He doesn\'t have any of that trademarked paunch that the rest of the dudes out there have;&nbsp; He\'s just like completely chiseled out of a giant mass of solid muscle.&nbsp; It\'s fucking ridiculous that God would allow any human being to be as ripped as him.</p>\r\n<p>On top of being a five-time World\'s Strongest Man and the most dominant professional strongman in the sport today, Pudzianowski is also a fourth-degree black belt in Kyokushin Karate and was a professional boxer in Poland for seven years, so you know he could seriously fuck someone\'s shit up.&nbsp; I mean, I would probably seriously put money on him in a fight against fucking King Kong.&nbsp; The guy\'s ridiculous.&nbsp; The only real points I have against him is that my wife thinks he\'s hot and I don\'t like it when she thinks anyone other than me is even remotely attractive.</p>\r\n<p>You can check out his personal site <a href=\"http://www.pudzian.pl/\" target=\"blank\">here</a>, where he\'s got a bunch pictures of himself cracking walnuts with his biceps and tearing a hole in the universe by deadlifting cattle.</p>','2006-01-13','157380229444','pudzianowski_new.jpg','pudzianowski_new - Copy.jpg','Mariusz Pudzianowski','The strongest man in the world.  No question.',''),('Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton','February 15, 1874','January 5, 1922','Kilkea, County Kildare, Ireland','20th-century Irish Adventurer','<p>Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish Royal Merchant Marine and Antarctic explorer, and lays claim to one of the most amazing, unbelievable survival stories ever recorded.</p>\r\n<p>On August 9th, 1914, Commander Shackleton set out on an expedition to become the first person to ever cross the Antarctic continent by sea.&nbsp; He was a veteran of antarctic exploration and a total badass, and since he had gotten totally gypped out of discovering the South Pole (he was about 100 miles away from it two years before Amundsen got there) he was determined to do something wildly fucking important and make his mark on the history of exploration.</p>\r\n<p>Well, shit got fucked up pretty quickly.&nbsp; On January 19th his ship, the HMS <em>Endurance</em> was permanently wedged between two huge-ass ice floes.&nbsp; Shackleton and his crew of 28 tried to extricate the vessel by doing everything from hacking the ice with axes to gunning the engine like a pickup truck stuck in the mud, but nothing was successful.&nbsp; When temperatures dropped to negative 10 degrees Fahrenheit on February 22nd, the crew of the <em>Endurance</em> realized that the Antarctic Summer was over and the hull of their ship was going to become their new winter quarters, so they might as well learn how to play ice hockey or at least get used to freezing their asses off.</p>\r\n<p>The crew waited out the winter for months, braving freezing sub-zero temperatures, 70+ mile per hour winds and a stretch of seventy days where the sun didn\'t rise.&nbsp; Unfortunately on October 27th of 1915, the hull integrity of the <em>Endurance</em> was finally compromised and the crew had to abandon ship as it was crushed by the ice and sank to the bottom of the sea.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Over the 281 days they had been stuck in the ice, the ship had drifted a total of about 1200 miles.&nbsp; The crew was stranded on an ice floe with only what they were able to salvage from their ship... food, stores, sledges and three smaller ships, which they hauled across the ice for four months on their trek across the Antarctic.&nbsp; Their goal was to reach open water and sail to Paulet Island, which was 346 miles away from their location.&nbsp; However, on April 9th, the ice floes they were traveling on cracked in half and they were forced into their boats to avoid death by drowning or getting eaten by Orcas.</p>\r\n<p>The boats braved icebergs and landed on Elephant Island a few days later.&nbsp; Shackleton left most of his crew there, and set out with a small party to travel to a waling station on South Georgia island.&nbsp; He set off in a tiny 20-foot boat, braving storms, freezing temperatures, tidal waves and wind gales as he traversed 800 miles of open water in only 14 days in a not-quite-seaworthy vessel.&nbsp; When he reached South Georgia island though, he still wasn\'t finished.&nbsp; He had landed on the wrong side of the island from the station, so he embarked on an epic 36-hour trip where he became the first man to cross the 4500 foot tall snow-covered mountain range that bisected the island.&nbsp; Finally, he reached the station and was able to charter a ship to go back to Elephant Island and save the rest of his men.</p>\r\n<p>The remnants of Shackleton\'s crew were picked up on August 30, 1916.&nbsp; They had gone through an incredible and arduous adventure, and remarkably all twenty-eight crew members survived the two-year expedition from hell.&nbsp; For his unbelievable story, courage and ability, Sir Ernest Shackleton was instantly catapulted to hero status in Great Britain, and will forever be remembered as one of the bravest and most badass explorers in the history of the world.</p>\r\n<p>You can read a more detailed account of his tale <a href=\"http://www.south-pole.com/p0000097.htm\" target=\"blank\">here</a>.</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hmsendurance.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />The HMS <em>Endurance</em> caught in the ice.</center>','2006-01-06','124292229733','shackleton_new.jpg','shackleton_new - Copy.jpg','Ernest Henry Shackleton','Probably the most insane Antarctic explorer in history.',''),('John McClane','Unknown','N/A','New York, NY, USA','Fictional American Lawman','<p>In honor of the upcoming winter break, this week\'s badass award goes to the main character of my favorite holiday movie of all time:&nbsp; Die Hard.</p>\r\n<p>John McClane is a hardass NYPD detective visiting L.A. for Christmas to see his kids and rekindle the strained long-distance relationship he has with his wife.&nbsp; When he gets into town, he gets suckered into going to this lame ass holiday party on the thirtieth floor of the Nakatomi Building downtown and hanging out with his wife\'s dipshit co-workers.&nbsp; Just when things are looking really boring - BAM! - Alan Rickman and his gang of fucking East German terrorists take control of the building and start fucking shit up big time.&nbsp; Well John McClane isn\'t the kind of guy who\'s going to sit around like a pussy and wait for the cops to rescue him, so he starts running around the building breaking peoples\' necks, throwing dead bodies at cop cars and shooting terrorists in the balls.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>When McClane isn\'t smoking cigarettes, crawling through ventilation ducts, running through broken glass barefoot, blowing shit up or getting into fistfights with guys that look like a mix between Ivan Drago and Fabio, he\'s on the two-way radio talking shit to Alan Rickman and pissing him off.&nbsp; It\'s pretty fucking funny too, because John McClane is one of the few movie badasses that can get away with a bunch of sarcastic one-liners without sounding like some corny lame-ass chump James Bond motherfucker.&nbsp; It\'s probably his copious use of swearing and the phrase \"Yippie kai yay, motherfucker\", but I can\'t swear to that.</p>\r\n<p>Anyways, Alan Rickman gets all pissed off and decides to capture McClane\'s wife and hold her hostage.&nbsp; Big mistake.&nbsp; McClane gets so fucking ripshit that he takes the last two bullets out of his MP5, puts them into his 92F and then puts them into the last two terrorists\' brains with a couple of STONE COLD quick-draw shots.&nbsp; You gotta love a guy who makes sure to use every last bit of his available ammunition to kill motherfuckers.&nbsp; It takes more than that to defeat Alan Rickman though, so McClane throws his ass out the window of the building\'s 30th floor and watches him plummet to his death in super slow-motion.</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/diehard_drop.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />\"I hope that\'s not a hostage.\"</center>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>Die Hard has everything.&nbsp; It\'s got a crazy-ass limo driver, the Principal from the Breakfast Club, exploding FBI helicopters, guys getting shot in the head and chicks punching asshole reporters in the face.&nbsp; Oh, not to mention that it features one of the most badass cops to ever grace the silver screen murdering a shitload of terrorists, getting the girl and helping a former beat cop overcome his traumatizing past.&nbsp; Seriously, is there any scene in movie history more likely to make a <em>real man</em> shed a tiny tear then the end of Die Hard when Carl Winslow finally overcomes his fear of shooting kids and puts six rounds into Karl the Terrorist?&nbsp; It\'s doubtful.&nbsp; Die Hard kicks ass.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">Man I love the holidays.</p>','2005-12-23','3723076571','mcclane-diehard.jpg','mcclane-diehard - Copy.jpg','John McClane','The ultimate action movie hero.',''),('Hugh Glass','1780','1883','Pennsylvania, USA','19th-century American Adventurer','<p>I could probably just post this guy\'s picture with no description at all and nobody would even question the fact that he was a total badass.&nbsp; Look at this fucking guy!&nbsp; He looks like the kind of man that would pound a bottle of Jack or eat an alligator while skinning a human being alive for looking at him cross-eyed on a Tuesday.&nbsp; And he pretty much was.</p>\r\n<p>Now early 19th Century America was awesome because you could be hired by the government to be what was called a \"mountain man\", which was essentially the official way of saying \"professional badass\".&nbsp; Basically a mountain man would get hired on by an expedition to scout out territory, kill bears, play the banjo and give people the evil eye.&nbsp; Well that\'s what Hugh Glass did for a living.&nbsp; Hugh was an Irishman raised by Pawnee Indians who wandered the countryside lending his services to various expeditions that required a crazy bastard capable of busting bears\' heads together, collecting furs, frightening the city-folk and being a hardass.</p>\r\n<p>In 1822 Hugh Glass signed on to go on a fur-hunting expedition into the northern Missouri River area.&nbsp; One day while he was out alone hunting for food, he was surprise attacked by a bigass angry grizzly bear.&nbsp; The bear knocked the rifle out of Glass\' hands, bodyslammed him Bill Goldberg-style and started clawing the shit out of him.&nbsp; Since he was a hardass Davy Crockett motherfucker though, Glass just started punching the thing back and hacking at it with his bigass mountain man combat knife.&nbsp; There was this huge battle, and when his friends finally got there to see what was going on, they found a half-conscious Glass pinned down underneath the body of a big dead bear.</p>\r\n<p>But the badassitude of Hugh Glass doesn\'t solely reside in his ability to take a grizzly bear in hand-to-hand combat.&nbsp; The battle had left Glass half-dead, with a broken leg and huge scratches all over his body.&nbsp; Basically, he was so fucked up that the commander of the mission left two guys behind and was like, \"wait until he dies, bury him, and then catch up with us\".&nbsp; So these two guys threw a bearskin coat over Glass\' badly maimed body, dug him a grave and waited around for him to die.</p>\r\n<p>A little while later though, some hostile Native American warriors showed up, so the two guys grabbed Glass\' equipment and bolted.&nbsp; Well it turned out that Glass wasn\'t about to die after all.&nbsp; He regained consciousness to find that he had been left for dead with no food, weapon or equipment.</p>\r\n<p>Hugh Glass <em>re-set</em> his broken leg, climbed out of his shallow grave, cleaned out his infected wounds, and headed out for the nearest trace of civilization.&nbsp; His trek would take him through hostile territory where he was at risk of being attacked by Indians and wild animals alike.&nbsp; With only his bear fur, Hugh Glass crawled, walked, limped and rafted 600 miles to Fort Kiowa on the Missouri River.</p>\r\n<p>This is probably one of the most badass survival stories I\'ve ever heard.&nbsp; The guy\'s half-dead, he can\'t even walk and he manages to make it 200 miles through the treacherous American wilderness to safety.&nbsp; Not only that but once he\'s recovered he hunts down the two guys who took his gear and left him for dead, kills one of them and lets the other one (Jim Bridger) go when he begs for his life and sincerely apologizes for ditching his comerade.</p>\r\n<p><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Glass\" target=\"blank\">Hugh Glass</a> went on to travel with pirates, go on more expeditions and continue to be awesome.&nbsp; In true badass mountain man fashion, he was killed in 1833 by hostile Indians.</p>\r\n<p>---</p>\r\n<p>Update 6/16/06:&nbsp; Thanks to Joe in Dallas for sending me <a href=\"http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/old_west/103632\" target=\"blank\">this link</a> that does a great job of accurately detailing the life of one of America\'s toughest frontiersmen.</p>','2005-12-16','94911513536','badass-hughglass1.jpg','badass-hughglass - Copy.jpg','Hugh Glass','Killed a grizzly with his bare hands (hahaha puns FTW), then traveled 200 miles after being left for dead by his buddies.',''),('Zahir-ud-din Mohammad Babur','February 14, 1483','December 26, 1530','Andijan, Uzbekistan','16th-century Uzbek General','<p>Zahir-ud-din Mohammad Babur was born in the Fahrgana region of Uzbekistan in 1483 and would be the founder of the Mughal Empire in India, a dynasty that would last for three hundred and thirty-one years.&nbsp; Babur was a descendant of <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/khan.html\">Genghis Khan</a> on his mother\'s side and <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tamerlane.html\">Tamerlane</a> on his father\'s side, so you can rest assured that he was a total A-grade assbeater.&nbsp; According to most sources he was the epitome of the Muslim scholar-warrior-ruler-facekicker and a total badass.</p>\r\n<p>First off, Babur\'s name (according to some sources) was a Turkish derivation of the Indo-European word for \"beaver\".&nbsp; Honestly, you know a guy\'s going to be a raging unstoppable badass when his nickname is something innocuous like \"Beaver\", sort of like how those seven-foot tall three hundred pound bald sunglass-wearing Mafia hitmen go by \"Tiny\".&nbsp; You just can\'t trust the nicknames like -=1337MurderKillazApocalypseOfBlood666=- because you know that \"Apocalypse of Blood 666\" is really some fifteen year-old ninety-pound computer nerd desperately trying to act hard but who in actuality probably sprained his ankle last week running away from the neighbor\'s pet Shih Tzu.&nbsp; When you\'re <em>truly</em> hard, you don\'t have to make up a shitty nickname to prove it.&nbsp; You can go by \"Beaver\" and pretty much DARE people to say shit about it.</p>\r\n<p>It\'s a little-known fact that Babur was also the progenitor of Xtreme Sports.&nbsp; Way before Tony Hawk and the X Games Babur was doing all kinds of crazy Xtreme shit throughout India and Afghanistan.&nbsp; For starters, one of his favorite pump-up activities was sprinting up and down the battlements of his fortress carrying a person under each arm.&nbsp; So he would walk up to some random chump and instead of reciting the typical jock bitch insult of, \"I could bench you\", he would just grab him under his arm and start running.&nbsp; Once he got the the top of the battlements, he would then probably railslide the Great Wall of China and then somersault over the Moon.</p>\r\n<p>Also, Babur swam across every river on the Indian subcontinent just for the hell of it.&nbsp; Some people make it their life goal to climb a mountain or ride a motorcycle across the United States; this guy wanted to swim every river in India so he just woke up one day and fucking did it.&nbsp; That\'s pretty rad.&nbsp; I can\'t imagine very many people have ever accomplished that feat.</p>\r\n<p>Babur was also a kickass swordsman and tactician, and was noted by historians and having near-limitless energy (I would hope so because the guy had ten freaking wives in his harem).&nbsp; When he was fourteen, he was overthrown and exiled from Uzbekistan by a group of rebellious nobles, but instead of just giving up and posting crappy emo lyrics on his LiveJournal he put together a new army, crossed the snow-covered Hindu Kush mountains into Afghanistan and captured the heavily fortified city of Kabul.&nbsp; From there, he continually battled to regain his native Uzbek territories while also beating the crap out of the much-hated Dehli Sultan Ibrahim Lodi and conquering most of India.&nbsp; When all was said and done he had won numerous battles despite being outnumbered most of the time, achieving victory because of his uncanny ability to size up and predict his opponents\' next moves.</p>\r\n<p>Babur was more than just an unstoppable warlord who carried people up hills though.&nbsp; He was very well-educated and cultured as well.&nbsp; His personal memoirs, the <em>Baburnamah</em>, are still studied in textbooks throughout Asia and the Middle East and are noted as being filled with not only beautiful language but also interesting insight into the geography and culture of his civilization, right down to a comprehensive listing of the flora and fauna native to his region.&nbsp; By all accounts, it is truly an excellent insight into the life of Babur and the world in which he lived.</p>\r\n<p>Babur\'s final act came in 1530 when his first-born son Humayun became deathly ill and was given little chance of survival.&nbsp; Babur wasn\'t about to let his son die before him, so he prayed to Allah to transfer his son\'s illness to him.&nbsp; Since Babur was such a badass, Allah listened.&nbsp; Humayun\'s condition dramatically improved while Babur fell ill, ultimately dying at the age of 47.</p>\r\n<p>Humayun would go on to consolidate Babur\'s Empire and build the foundation of a Mughal Empire that would last three centuries in India.&nbsp; Babur was not only an accomplished leader and warrior, but he was a scholar and a totally extreme master of disaster.&nbsp; He was a total badass.</p>','2005-12-09','63381353982','babur.jpg','babur - Copy.jpg','Babur','Founder of the Mughal Empire and one of the toughest Central Asian warlords in history.',''),('Charles XII','June 17, 1682','November 30, 1718','Tre Kronor, Sweden','18th-century Swedish General','<p>Charles XII was the King of Sweden from 1697 to 1718 and by all accounts was pretty hardcore.&nbsp; He never registered physical or emotional pain, lived to drive his enemies before him, and was essentially an emotionless automaton who in the span of twenty-one years took the European country with the smallest population and briefly made it into one of the most formidable powers in the East, only to eventually watch everything crumble before him.</p>\r\n<p>Charles assumed the throne of Sweden at age fifteen.&nbsp; Since Europeans were all pretty much dicks back then, a bunch of neighboring countries like Denmark, Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth all decided that they could beat the crap out of this kid and take his territories (back then, the Swedish Empire encompassed not only present-day Sweden but also the Baltic lands of Livonia and Estonia).&nbsp; Well Charles wasn\'t about to let that shit fly.&nbsp; He had made himself hardcore as a youth by spending his winters camped out in Swedish fir forests hunting wolves and bears just for the fuck of it, and he wasn\'t going to back down from a fight.&nbsp; Voltaire once quoted Charles as saying, \"I have resolved never to start an unjust war but never to end a legitimate one except by defeating my enemies\", which is pretty much old-school talk for, \"I don\'t start shit.&nbsp; I end it.\"</p>\r\n<p>So Charles raised an army and used his superior tactical skills to whomp some major Eastern European asses.&nbsp; First, he sent his men into Denmark where they put a stop to any plans the Danes had to occupy Sweden.&nbsp; Charles put his own man on the throne and ended that war pretty fucking quickly.</p>\r\n<p>Well this totally pissed off Peter the Great, who sent Russian troops to occupy Livonia and Estonia and build a new city on Swedish turf.&nbsp; Charles was like, \"oh hell no\" and sent his troops to attack the main Russian army at the Battle of Narva in 1700.&nbsp; Charles and his force of about 10,000 attacked a Russian garrison of about 40,000 soldiers under the cover of a blizzard and despite being heavily outnumbered Charles won a sweeping victory, completely obliterating the Russian army while only losing about 600 of his own men.</p>\r\n<p>After this, Charles turned his attention to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, who were formally declared as neutral but who were also definitely fucking with him.&nbsp; The Swedes beat the crap out of the Polish armies and Charles put another one of his cousins on the throne there.&nbsp; He became heralded as \"The Alexander of the West\" for his youth and military brilliance.&nbsp; An army directly under the control of Charles XII never lost a major engagement.</p>\r\n<p>Well about this time Charles started to think he was pretty badass.&nbsp; Peter was remodeling his Russian army and provoking Swedish forces once again, and Charles decided it was time to end this shit.&nbsp; He made the same freaking mistake that so many conquerors would make after him and decided to invade Russia.</p>\r\n<p>Charles, just like everyone else, got pretty much fucked in Russia.&nbsp; The weather was bad and the Russians were using \"scorched earth\" tactics to draw out the Swedish lines.&nbsp; Eventually, the Russians destroyed Charles\' supply train and the cossack army that Charles\' forces were counting on joining up with was completely annihilated by Peter\'s troops.&nbsp; Charles himself was wounded, and while he was in the hospital and unable to fight the Russians attacked his army at Poltava and dealt the Swedes a crippling blow.&nbsp; The Swedish army was crushed and Charles was forced to flee to the refuge of the Ottoman Empire.</p>\r\n<p>In the Ottoman Empire, Charles kept trying to get the Sultan to piss off the Russians.&nbsp; Eventually the Sultan got sick of this crap and sent his men to kill Charles, but Chuck managed to escape and ride the entire width of Europe on horseback in about fifteen days.&nbsp; When he arrived back in Sweden he attempted to rebuild his army, but eventually got capped in the head by some idiot and died.</p>\r\n<p>Charles was pretty badass.&nbsp; He completely abstained from alcohol and sex and was pretty much uncomfortable doing anything other than leading his troops to victory or being stoic as fuck.&nbsp; He lived fast, died young and when he went down he took the entire fucking country of Sweden with him.&nbsp; What more can you ask for from a historical badass?</p>\r\n<p>You can read more about Charles XII of Sweden <a href=\"http://www.pierre-marteau.com/resources/charles-xii-sweden.html\" target=\"blank\">here</a>.</p>','2005-12-02','71009674728','charlesxii.jpg','charlesxii - Copy.jpg','Charles XII of Sweden','Immune to pain and defeat, this guy single-handedly made Sweden a national power, then made sure that when he went down the entire country went down in flames with him.',''),('Keith Rupert Murdoch','March 11, 1931','N/A','Melbourne, Victoria, Australia','21st-century American Supervillain','<p>Rupert Murdoch recently bought a house in New York that used to be owned by the Rockefellers\' for $44 million dollars in cash.&nbsp; There are a couple of things about this that are badass:</p>\r\n<ol>\r\n<li>$44 million.&nbsp; In cash.<br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>The fact that the house used to belong to a Rockefeller.&nbsp; This shows that Rupert Murdoch understands his spiritual ancestors, his role in the world.&nbsp; Every era needs an evil, heartless plutocrat in can blame its problems on.&nbsp; And Rupert Murdoch is that plutocrat.<br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>Rupert Murdoch is awesome because he\'s the closest thing the world has to an actual James Bond villain.&nbsp; If there\'s one man in the world who might ever possibly build a device to control the weather and freeze us all unless the governments of the world pay him several billion dollars and recognize Fox News\'s copyright of the phrase \"Fair and Balanced,\" it would be Rupert.<br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>The man has amassed a giant fortune and news empire through consistently pandering to the lowest common denominator and relentless yellow journalism, in true William Randolph Hearst fashion.&nbsp; He got big in Britain by putting topless girls on page three of <em>The Sun and the Daily Mirror</em>.&nbsp; Unfortunately for us all, he was unable to use this tactic in the U.S., so he had to latch on stuff like the non-existent killer bee threat to get a foothold over here.<br /><br /></li>\r\n<li>Of course, he also owns the Fox networks, which have given the world some great TV shows, but mostly tasteless sitcoms and horrible reality shows about gold-digging idiot whores.&nbsp; And then there\'s Fox News.&nbsp; Rupert must have gotten up one day and said, \"I don\'t like liberals, so I\'m going to start my own news channel where blowhards like Bill O\'Reilly can yell at them all day.&nbsp; I\'ll put a few liberals on to keep a semblance of balance, but they\'ll all be weak shrill, chinless she-males like Allan Colmes.&nbsp; And I\'ll throw in a few freaks like Geraldo and Greta Van Susteren to kill time.&nbsp; Excellent.\"&nbsp; It\'s not really the politics of Fox News I find badass as much as Murdoch\'s ability to start up his own blatantly obvious propaganda news network.<br /><br /><ol>\r\n<li>Rupert Murdoch is badass because for all the talk to about evil corporations around today, even those clowns at Enron can\'t compete with a good old-fashioned robber baron like Rupert.&nbsp; He\'s a super-rich, selfless jerk who doesn\'t even attempt to hide it.&nbsp; He\'s Mr. Burns come to life with his own propaganda machine.&nbsp; He\'s awesome. <br /><br /><center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/doom_murdoch.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></center></li>\r\n</ol></li>\r\n</ol>','2005-11-17','19710385030','rupertmurdoch.jpg','rupertmurdoch - Copy.jpg','Rupert Murdoch','The closest thing to a James Bond villain that the real world has to offer.',''),('Ron Woods','Unknown','N/A','Beaufort, SC, USA','21st-century American Vigilante','<p>Picture this:&nbsp; You\'re driving down the streets of South Carolina in the early morning.&nbsp; The streetlights are all still on and the sun has yet to make its ascent.&nbsp; Your head is pounding from partying too hard the night before, though you can\'t even remember exactly what you guys were even doing last night.&nbsp; It\'s all a blur.&nbsp; You\'re only thinking of one thing right now, and that\'s a bigass cup of coffee and a handful of painkillers to try and lessen the dull throbbing in your head, a strange by-product of your caffeine addiction and having slammed your head on the bathroom counter the night before while you were stumbling around in the dark.&nbsp; You finally get into the local gas station, grab a bag of beef jerky and pour yourself a tall cup of second-rate black coffee.&nbsp; The aroma of fresh-brewed Colombian java heightens your cognitive senses just enough that you remember you\'re going to be at work in a half hour and won\'t get to partake in a hard-earned night of comatose sleep any time in the foreseeable future.&nbsp; Your spirits sink again.</p>\r\n<p>You pay for the coffee, hop back into your car and search for a radio station that\'s playing any kind of music at all.&nbsp; All you get is the inane banter of morning talk show hosts as they bitch about why eighteen year-old girls don\'t throw themselves at fat, overweight balding thirty-somethings with no social skills.&nbsp; You groan and flip the dial off.&nbsp; The first beam of the sun starts to rise on the horizon and it pierces your skull like a dagger.&nbsp; You shield your eyes as it ducks behind a cloud.&nbsp; You catch your first glimpse of yourself in the rearview as you\'re stopped at a red light.&nbsp; Damn, you look like hell.&nbsp; You rub your dry red eyes and look out the side window to see what\'s going on.&nbsp; You\'re confronted by a man with a gun.&nbsp; He taps on the window with his pistol and motions for you to open the door.&nbsp; He looks serious.</p>\r\n<p>What do you do?</p>\r\n<p>Most of us would probably just grumble profanity under our breath and/or piss ourselves, right before getting out of the car and letting this thug totally fucking ruin our day.&nbsp; Well this happened to some dude last week, and he dealt with it in the way that only a total badass could.</p>\r\n<p>Ron Woods didn\'t fuck around.&nbsp; He was ready to end this shit.&nbsp; The dude opened his car door, took a step back and as soon as the thug got into the drivers\' seat Woods kicked the door into the dudes\'s legs and threw his full cup of scalding hot coffee into his face.&nbsp; The thug reached for his eyes and brought his gun up, but Ron Woods chucked his cell phone at the guy, grabbed the pistol by the hammer and started jacking this motherfucker in the face like he didn\'t even give a shit.&nbsp; The gun fired off a round into the air and instead of freaking out Ron Woods got so pissed off the he fucking took the thug down, kept beating the shit out of him and wrestled the gun away.&nbsp; Then Woods chased the thug into a nearby forest before giving up and going back to his car to eat some damned beef jerky.</p>\r\n<p>That\'s awesome.</p>\r\n<p>If more people had one-tenth the nuts that this dude had then crime would be a thing of the past.&nbsp; He didn\'t start this shit, but he totally fucking ended it.&nbsp; Beating the crap out of a guy who\'s trying to carjack you while you\'re on the way to work is probably one of the most hardass things I\'ve ever heard.&nbsp; This guy is a true badass of the highest order.&nbsp; You can read about his story <a href=\"http://www.beaufortgazette.com/local_news/story/5269604p-4782731c.html\" target=\"blank\">here</a>.</p>','2005-11-10','10844015165','ronwoods.jpg','ronwoods - Copy.jpg','Ron Woods','When some dude tried to jack his car, Ron fought him off with nothing more than a cell phone and a cup of coffee.',''),('Moby-Dick','November 14, 1851 (pub. date)','N/A','The Fuckin\' Ocean','20th-century Extraplanar Monster','','2005-11-04','21199565332','mobydick-poster.jpg','mobydick-poster - Copy.jpg','Moby-Dick','A gigantic evil Sperm Whale that crushes ships by ramming them with his face.',''),('George Ouzounian','1978','N/A','Woods Cross, UT, USA','21st-century American Entertainer','<p>According to legend, the enigmatic Maddox is a seven foot tall, totally ripped eyepatch-wearing pirate who lives in the wilderness of Utah in a log cabin made entirely out of trees he chopped down with his boner.&nbsp; He has been known to sail the high seas of The Great Salt Lake, searching for unsuspecting mariners, wayward Mormons and Spanish galleons to plunder, sack, pillage and ultimately devour.&nbsp; When he\'s not terrorizing the open waters he spends much of his time roaming the highways and byways of his home state chewing a softball-sized cud of beef jerky, punching horses in the face and using small children as projectile weapons with which to slaughter old people.</p>\r\n<p>On top of being the most notorious pirate of the 21st century, Maddox is also enviable for the fact that he owns and operates the most popular, the most widely read, and (dare I say it) <a href=\"http://maddox.xmission.com/\" target=\"blank\">The Best Page In The Universe</a>.&nbsp; Using only word-of-mouth advertising he\'s built an empire consisting of millions of loyal fans who cling to his every word, essentially making him what every internet humorist aspires to become from the first time they post an article on their website about how much \"Rush Limbaugh sucks balls\" or whatever.&nbsp; He was the first and the best at what he does, and for that reason he casts an enormous Che Guevara-sized shadow over the entire realm of internet-based self-aggrandizing political and social satire, down to the point where he may as well have trademarked oversized light-colored text on black background and the phrase \"I rule\".&nbsp; Despite all of his successes, he still shoulders all bandwidth and hosting costs himself without throwing ads in your face or forcing you to pay for any of the content on his site, which is especially admirable now that I have some sort of idea how much that type of shit costs.&nbsp; Honestly, nobody that has come after him can claim that they haven\'t been influenced by his success and his presence, and nobody may ever be as successful at single-handedly creating a world-wide internet phenomenon as he has been.</p>\r\n<p>And that might just be even more badass than being a face-kicking, head-butting, blood-thirsty pirate with a hook for an arm, a peg leg and a bad attitude.</p>','2005-10-28','2919616111','maddox-pirateflag.jpg','maddox-pirateflag - Copy.jpg','Maddox the Pirate','The best pirate in the universe.','I\'m not going to take an image from his site simply out of fear\r\nfrom being email spammed by millions of his loyal followers.'),('Eugene Jacques Bullard','October 9, 1894','October 12, 1961','Columbus, GA, USA','WWI American Pilot','<p><em> The following is a brief biography of a total badass that was posted to the <a href=\"http://www.somethingawful.com/\" target=\"blank\">Something Awful</a> forums this week.&nbsp; This guy is so badass that I </em>had<em> to make him BotW, but I can\'t improve upon this story in any way so I\'m just going to cut-and-paste the original post below.&nbsp; </em></p>\r\n<p>If anyone knows the name of the goon who posted this, <a href=\"mailto:admin@badassoftheweek.com\">let me know</a> so I can give credit where credit is due.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<hr />\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>How can a man named Eugene be cool?&nbsp; By being fucking awesome.&nbsp; Eugene Bullard was born black, poor and in the South in 1895.&nbsp; Now, being black, poor, and in the South positively sucked in 1895, and Bullard picked up and got the fuck out, running away at the age of eight. Bullard had heard that France was a good place to be.&nbsp; Undetered by something as minor as the Atlantic Ocean, Bullard stowed away on a ship to the UK, arriving in Scotland.&nbsp; He was twelve.&nbsp; Bullard then supported himself by being an all around badass and boxer, then joining a traveling vaudville group, touring Europe and Russia.&nbsp; When Bullard arrived in Paris around the age of 17 or so, he stayed.</p>\r\n<p>Then World War One breaks out.&nbsp; Not one to put up with any crap from the dirty Hun, Bullard joins the French Foreign Legion.&nbsp; Luckily for Bullard, he is apparently bulletproof or something, as he survives battles that wipe out a staggering number of his comrades and is awarded the Croix de guerre for bravery in battle.</p>\r\n<p>At this point, Bullard is transfered to the Lafayette Flying Corps in the French Air Force, and is considered to be the first black combat pilot ever.&nbsp; Bullard manages to continue to not die, which is a pretty major accomplishment in WWI, and is credited with shooting down two Germans.&nbsp; Then some French officer mouths off to Bullard, who decks the idiot son of a bitch.&nbsp; Now, back in the dark days of WWI, when the French troops in the trenches were a lot smarter than the idiots running things, the enlisted men were starting to ask questions like \"Why is the general staff, who are roughly six miles from the nearest german, asking us to charge into certain death?\"</p>\r\n<p>In order to put a stop to these annoying questions, the French had fairly harsh punishments for any sign of insubordination, namely shooting you.&nbsp; But Bullard was so fucking awesome they let him transfer back to an infantry unit, probably assuming that he would die there.&nbsp; Bullard had other ideas, and survived the war.</p>\r\n<p>Fighter pilot, war hero, general badass.&nbsp; Now the war was over, and it was time to pimp out like a motherfucker.&nbsp; Bullard opened a nightclub in Paris, married a Countess (!) had two daughters, and partied hard with the likes of Josephine Baker.</p>\r\n<p>If you want to know who Josephine Baker is <a href=\"http://img411.exs.cx/img411/582/josephinebakerburlesque0nj.jpg\" target=\"blank\">click here</a> (not safe for work).</p>\r\n<p>However, the fucking Krauts just couldn\'t let Bullard be, and invaded France during WWII.&nbsp; Bullard, who spoke fluent German (that\'s three languages so far, for those of you who are counting) offered to stay behind to spy on the filthy Hun.&nbsp; However, when the Blitzkrieg was about to take Paris, Bullard spirited his two daughters out of the city and south to safety.&nbsp; Bullard, technically a civilian, found a rifle and joined in the defense of the city of Orleans.&nbsp; Bullard was injured in the spine, but shrugged off the injury to such a minor organ, and escaped to the United States, again finding the North Atlantic to be but a minor obstacle.</p>\r\n<p>Bullard would end his days in Harlem, working during the day as an elevator operator.&nbsp; Some would say this was an ignominous end for such a man, but I imagine every day Bullard woke up without any fucking Germans trying to kill him was a pretty good day.</p>\r\n<p>In 1954, Bullard was invited back to France to be one of three men to relight the Eternal Flame at the French Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.</p>\r\n<p>Bullard died in 1961 was buried in Queens with full military honors by the French government.</p>\r\n<p>In 1994, Bullard was posthumously commisioned as a Second Lieutenant in the USAF.</p>\r\n<p>He would have been one hundred and ten years old this week.</p>\r\n<p>Happy birthday, Mr. Bullard.</p>\r\n<p>Here are some links:<br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Bullard\" target=\"blank\">Wikipedia</a><br /> <a href=\"http://aia.lackland.af.mil/homepages/pa/spokesman/May02/heritage.cfm\" target=\"blank\">The Black Swallow of Death</a></p>','2005-10-14','1114976378','eugenebullard.jpg','eugenebullard - Copy.jpg','Eugene Jacques Bullard','History\'s first black combat pilot, and aviation hero of WWI.',''),('The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse','N/A','N/A','Heaven','Biblical Extraplanar Supervillain','<blockquote>\r\n<blockquote><span><span>And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, \"Come and see\".&nbsp; And I saw, and behold a white horse:&nbsp; and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him:&nbsp; and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.&nbsp;</span></span>\r\n<p>And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, \"Come and see\".&nbsp; And there went out another horse that was red:&nbsp; and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, \"Come and see\".&nbsp; And I beheld, and lo a black horse;&nbsp; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.&nbsp; And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, \"A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny;&nbsp; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine\".&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span> And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, \"Come and see\".&nbsp; And I looked, and behold a pale horse:&nbsp; and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. </span></p>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Holy shit the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are badass.&nbsp; There\'s only four fucking dudes but according to some Christian scholar-types they\'re so wicked hardcore that they can wipe out all sentient life on the planet.&nbsp; That\'s pretty damn impressive.&nbsp; Basically the story goes that whenever God gets sick of our bullshit he calls on these motherfuckers and each one of them manages to kill one-fourth of the world\'s population.&nbsp; So even when the biggest, strongest, most badass people to ever live join forces into a huge Voltron-like mega-badass, they don\'t even stand a chance against the horsemen.&nbsp; Then once everyone\'s dead, the horsemen each pick up a corner of the universe and smash it together, blinking everything out of existence.&nbsp; Which rules.</p>\r\n<p>Here\'s a little background on the various horsemen, and a little commentary on why they\'re awesome:</p>\r\n<blockquote><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Conquest:</strong></span>&nbsp;<br />\r\n<p>The first horseman has been interpreted to mean \"Conquest\" or \"The Antichrist\".&nbsp; Either way, you\'d probably have to be out of your mind to fuck with him.&nbsp; I mean Antichrist by definition pretty much means \"the meanest motherfucker ever\", so this guy\'s probably a total crotch-kicking face-smashing douchebag.&nbsp; He rides a white horse, wears a ridiculous crown along with his even more ridiculous facial hair and shoots people in the face with a bow and arrow just to be a dick.&nbsp; So you\'ll just be walking along minding your own business trying to grab an Extra Value Meal at McDonald\'s when all of a sudden some fucking dude rides up out of nowhere on a horse and puts an arrow in your eye.&nbsp; That would suck ass.&nbsp; I\'ll bet he\'s a pretty hardcore shot with it though.&nbsp; He\'d have to be if he was going to conquer a quarter of the world using a weapon that\'s been obsolete for about two centuries.&nbsp; Like \"shoot an arrow into the cockpit of a stealth fighter flying at top speed and kill the pilot\" good.&nbsp; And you can\'t fuck with that.</p>\r\n<p>By the way, doesn\'t the description of the First Horseman sound a little too familiar?</p>\r\n<center><br /><br /><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/wheregod.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><br /><br /></center><span style=\"color: #cc0000;\"><strong>War:</strong></span>\r\n<p>Ah, war.&nbsp; It\'s been around for centuries and despite our best efforts there are still some people that haven\'t been killed by it.&nbsp; Well, that will change when the horseman of War comes along.&nbsp; He\'s the biggest, most totally ripped barbarian to ever exist and he has a ten foot long sword which he uses to decapitate fools.&nbsp; I mean, look at the picture.&nbsp; He\'s so freaking jacked that he flexed once and his shirt and pants completely ripped into shreds and flew off his body.&nbsp; But he doesn\'t even give a shit.&nbsp; He\'s not going to let something like being pantsless stop him from killing anything with a pulse with his Sword of Justice.&nbsp; Nothing in the universe can defeat him in single combat, and on top of his ability to slaughter millions of people with a big honking sword, he can also cause people to flip out ninja-style and kill each other for no reason at all.</p>\r\n<span style=\"color: #666666;\"><strong>Famine:</strong></span>\r\n<p>Famine is probably the biggest cock of them all.&nbsp; He doesn\'t waste bozos by impaling them on sharp objects, but rather opts for the more \"hands-off\" approach.&nbsp; He just jacks up the prices of food, causes droughts and/or eats all the food that he can find.&nbsp; He\'s like a ten-time World Eating Champ, and he manages to kill people simply by either scarfing down every Moon Pie and Ho-Ho in a twenty mile radius or becoming a corporate asshole big-wig and getting rid of the Dollar Menu at Wendy\'s so college students around the world perish from starvation.&nbsp; He\'s like Arn Anderson in the sense that he\'s the craftiest and most diabolical of the Four Horsemen.</p>\r\n<span style=\"color: #33cc99;\"><strong>Death:</strong></span>\r\n<p>Every time I hear Johnny Cash read that line about Death riding forth and bringing Hell with him at the end of \"When the Man Comes Around\", I get a chill down my spine.&nbsp; Death is without a doubt the most badass of the Horsemen.&nbsp; He doesn\'t even have a weapon or a method of killing, all he does is show up and the shit hits the fan big time.&nbsp; Who besides Bill S. Preston, Esquire and Ted Theodore Logan can stand up to the physical embodiment of death in a fight?&nbsp; Nobody, that\'s who.&nbsp; Death rides around on his pale green horse (The original Greek indicates the color of Death\'s horse as being the sickly sort of pale green that people turn when they\'re dying or recently dead.&nbsp; Since \"green horse\" doesn\'t sound all that badass, the English translation is \"pale horse\") and everything that he comes in contact with dies.&nbsp; It doesn\'t get more badass than that.</p>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n<p>Those are the horsemen of the apocalypse.&nbsp; Maybe it\'s morbid or creepy or depressing, but you have to admit that nothing in the universe could take the horsemen in a fight.&nbsp; I mean, they freaking <em>destroy the universe</em>, succeeding where so many diabolical madmen have failed.&nbsp; That\'s hardcore.&nbsp; They\'re the most awesome mythological creatures to ever be thought up by anyone, if nothing else than simply by the scale of their mission and the lengths they go to accomplish it.</p>','2005-10-07','42719596752','4horsemen.jpg','4horsemen - Copy.jpg','The Four Horsemen','The four beings charged with annihilating the Earth.',''),('The 300 Spartans','N/A','September 10, 480 BC','Sparta, Greece','Ancient Greek Soldier','<p>Once upon a time there was this place called Sparta, where everyone who lived there was a total badass.&nbsp; They were so badass that whenever one of their citizens said some stupid bullshit like, \"Hey man Democracy kicks ass... I like reading books, petting small puppies and not violently killing people with pointy sticks that are on fire\", they just shipped his pansy ass off to Athens or Thessaly or Bill\'s Gay Land to philosophize about the nature of the soul, pick fresh daisies and have sex with men.&nbsp; Sparta was one of the hardest cities ever built;&nbsp; It\'s men were all trained from birth to be highly-disciplined explosive killing machines of death who didn\'t fuck around and it\'s women were taught to raise strong children and encourage their husbands to die honorably in battle.&nbsp; In fact, all citizens were required to be able to break at least three wooden boards with their foreheads, another four with a well-placed judo chop and punch bullets out of mid-air with their bare hands.&nbsp; Anyone who failed this test was sent into exile.</p>\r\n<p>Well one day some fucking jackass named Emperor Xerxes I of Persia got all pissed off at how awesome Sparta was so he sent a bunch of soldiers to invade it and burn all of Greece to the ground so that he could make Persia the most badass civilization in the known world.&nbsp; Well obviously this didn\'t sit well with the Greeks.&nbsp; They hate it when fuckers burn down their cities.</p>\r\n<p>Anyways, Xerxes\' army of about 200,000 dudes created an impractically large pontoon bridge across the Hellespont and arrived in Greece in 480 BC with the intention of kicking everyones ass and possibly even taking names while doing so.&nbsp; However, in order to get through the countryside and sack Athens, they needed to pass through a hugeass mountain pass known as Thermopylae.&nbsp; The Spartans knew this, and they had every intention of using this to their advantage.</p>\r\n<p>The Spartan King Leonidas I hand-selected a force of 300 of the most hardcore balls-out warriors in Sparta to defend the pass at Thermopylae.&nbsp; Knowing that it was pretty much a suicide mission, all the men he chose to accompany him had sons that were old enough to take over as head of their families.&nbsp; When Leonidas\' wife was like, \"what shall I do while you\'re gone?\", Leonidas was just tipped his helmet and said, \"Marry a good man, and have good children\", before puffing on his cigar and riding out into the sunset Clint Eastwood-style.</p>\r\n<p>The Spartans arrived at the pass along with a force of about 4,000 other Greek troops.&nbsp; The Spartans were like \"get out of here, losers\" and sent the other troops home to organize the defense of Athens while the Spartans stretched out, did some jumping jacks and then oiled themselves up like professional wrestlers.&nbsp; The other Greeks got the fuck out of there, except for a contingent of about 600 Thespian citizen-soldiers who may not have been hard as hell, but were totally brave as shit.</p>\r\n<p>Xerxes showed up and was like, \"what the fuck is this shit?\".&nbsp; He opened a parlay with the Spartan King.</p>\r\n<blockquote><strong><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\">Xerxes:</span></strong>&nbsp; What the fuck is this shit? <br /><br /><strong><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Leonidas:</span></strong>&nbsp; Eat me.<br /><br /> <strong><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\">Xerxes:</span></strong>&nbsp; There are 200,000 dudes here and you\'ve only got 300 pussies guarding this pass.&nbsp; You\'re so fucked.&nbsp; Just lay down your weapons. <br /><br /><strong><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Leonidas:</span></strong>&nbsp; Why don\'t you come and get them, bitch?&nbsp; We\'ll see who\'s a pussy when I shove all 200,000 of those knuckleheads up your ass.<br /><br /> <strong><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\">Xerxes:</span></strong>&nbsp; Fuck you. <br /><br /><strong><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Leonidas:</span></strong>&nbsp; Good one, fag.&nbsp; I\'ve heard better insults from retards.<br /><br /> <strong><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\">Xerxes:</span></strong>&nbsp; That\'s it.</blockquote>\r\n<p>Xerxes got totally pissed and assaulted the Greek defenses but the Persian light infantry was ill-equipped and way too lame to dislodge the battle-hardened Spartan warriors.&nbsp; They were torn to shreds by huge spears of the Greek phalanx and then put into a huge water balloon launcher and catapulted into the Aegean Sea.&nbsp; Xerxes finally ordered the light infantry to pull back and moved his archers to the front to fire a couple of volleys at the Greeks.&nbsp; One Spartan remarked that it was all good because there were so many arrows it was like they got to fight in the shade for a while.&nbsp; Seeing this was unsuccessful as well Xerxes brought in his bodyguard contingent of 10,000 Immortals, an elite unit in his army that was world-renowned for its ass kicking skills.&nbsp; The Spartans and Immortals clashed in fierce combat, and Xerxes could not believe it when he saw his most disciplined and experienced troops getting seriously fucked up by Leonidas\' men.</p>\r\n<p>At the end of the second day of battle, the Greeks still held the pass and the Persians had lost a shitload of soldiers.&nbsp; Unfortunately for King Leonidas, a Greek traitor defected to the Persians and told Emperor Xerxes about a secret way around the mountain pass.&nbsp; During the night, Xerxes sent what remained of his Immortals around to the other side of the pass and when the Spartans got ready to fight in the morning they noticed that there were now Persians on both sides of them.</p>\r\n<blockquote><strong><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\">Xerxes:</span></strong>&nbsp; Alright, bro.&nbsp; Nice try, but now you\'re toast. <br /><br /><strong><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Leonidas:</span></strong>&nbsp; Come on down here then.&nbsp; I\'ve got a present for you.<br /><br /> <strong><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\">Xerxes:</span></strong>&nbsp; Dude, you have no chance to survive.&nbsp; Just give up. <br /><br /><strong><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">Leonidas:</span></strong>&nbsp; I\'ve got a better idea.&nbsp; How about you shut the fuck up and bite my dick?&nbsp; That sound like a good plan?</blockquote>\r\n<p>So the Persian forces assaulted the Greeks from both sides.&nbsp; The Greeks held out for far longer than they should have, throwing themselves against the onslaught and battling with whatever they had -- spears, swords, fists, teeth, sticks, knees to the crotch... you name it.&nbsp; Eventually the last of the 300 Spartans fell to the Persian army as they tried to defend the body of their fallen King.&nbsp; The Persians found the body of Leonidas I, beheaded it and crucified his body outside the pass.</p>\r\n<p>It takes a special kind of person to volunteer for a suicide mission and battle to the end against impossible odds.&nbsp; Leonidas found three hundred men willing to do just that.&nbsp; They did not fail the honor of their city or their people, willingly and unflinchingly facing an entire army to defend their homeland.&nbsp; The 300 Spartans (and 600 Thespians) held the mountain pass against impossible odds, being slain to the man but inflicting an estimated 30,000 casualties on the Persian army\'s most capable units.&nbsp; They dealt a serious blow to Xerxes\' forces and managed to hold back the Persian advance long enough for the Greeks in Athens to prepare for a major military engagement at Salamis, where they would crush the Persian navy and effectively end the invasion of Greece.</p>\r\n<p>If you\'re interested in reading a no-bullshit account of one of the greatest last stands in history, <a href=\"http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/%7Esparta/topics/essays/academic/alamo.htm\" target=\"Blank\">check this</a>.</p>','2005-09-23','50131147458','thermopylae.jpg','thermopylae - Copy.jpg','The 300 Spartans','The famous last stand of King Leonidas and his 300 badasses.',''),('Hermann the German','18 BC','21 AD','Hanover, Germany','Ancient German General','<p>Arminius was a German tribal chief during the early part of the 1st Century CE, and is best known for being a total badass and giving the Roman Empire the beating of their lives.</p>\r\n<p>He was born in the year 16 BCE as part of the Germanic Cherusci tribe, located East of the Rhine River on the outskirts of the Empire.&nbsp; The son of the tribe\'s war chief, Arminius was shipped off to Rome at an early age to be trained as a military commander, obtaining the rank of Equestrian and eventually leading a Roman auxiliary military force in the Balkans from 4-6 CE.&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>When Arminius returned from his successful campaign in the Balkans, he found that the Roman governor Varus was making a great deal of progress for the Empire by beating up on Arminius\' clansmen in Germanica.&nbsp; Well once Arminius realized that he was totally screwed over and was actually dealing with total dicks he busted out a plan to fuck Rome\'s shit up once and for all.&nbsp; He took a brief leave of absence from the military and traveled to Germany to try and unite the tribes there for a counterattack against the Roman aggressors.&nbsp; The German tribes liked the idea of killing Roman bitches, so they decided to join up and stab some things with their axes and/or swords.</p>\r\n<p>Meanwhile the governor of Germania, Roman general Plebius Quinctilius Varus, was about to launch a massive raid into the German lands in an effort to expand the Empire and bring glory to himself like the total cock that he was.&nbsp; He set out on an expedition into the Teutoberg Forest in the Fall of 9 CE accompanied by three full Roman Legions:&nbsp; Legio XXVII, Legio XXVIII and Legio XXIX, as well as several Cohorts of Auxiliaries and support units.&nbsp; Their goal was the conquest of the Eastern German tribes and the expansion of Roman rule across the Elbe river.&nbsp; However, as the Roman Legions broke ranks and tried to make their way through the heavily wooded forest, Arminius and his men fell upon them in an ambush and totally kicked the living shit out of them, cutting them to pieces over the course of the three-day battle.</p>\r\n<p>No written record survives of exactly what happened at the Battle in the Teutoberg Forest.&nbsp; All that is really known for certain is that 30,000 Roman soldiers entered the woods and none returned.&nbsp; When Emperor Tiberius dispatched the Roman general Germanicus to the forest four years later, he learned that not only had all three legions and their auxiliaries been annihilated, but that the skulls of the fallen Roman soldiers had been nailed to the tree trunks throughout the forest to serve as a warning against future invasions.&nbsp; It was the single most devastating defeat of Roman forces in the history of the Empire.</p>\r\n<p>Arminius didn\'t give a crap though;&nbsp; he was a badass.&nbsp; He was just like, \"bring it bitches\", and when Germanicus sent his force of 80,000 through the forest to raid German lands, Arminius once again mounted a resistance and through guerilla tactics and his cunning military strategy of \"get a lot of bigass guys to run through the woods and hit the Romans with axes and broadswords\", he was successful in beating back the second Roman invasion of Germany and permanently marking the border between Germanica and the Roman Empire.&nbsp; In fact, the division still remains today as the border between France and Germany.</p>\r\n<p>Unfortunately, Arminius was another poor bastard who had bitches for in-laws.&nbsp; You see, his wife was supposed to marry this other dude in an arranged marriage, but after the events at the Teutoberg Forest she was so desperately turned on by how much of a badass Arminius was that she threw herself at him and they got married.&nbsp; This pissed off her in-laws like you wouldn\'t believe, and when Germanicus invaded, her father turned over his own pregnant daughter to the Romans out of spite for her actions.&nbsp; The Romans brought her back to their capital and it is believed that she was eventually sacrificed to Jupiter.&nbsp; Her son was sent off to be a gladiator and died at a young age.</p>\r\n<p>Arminius was crushed by this, but didn\'t let it break his resolve.&nbsp; He continued to battle the Romans whenever they got too close to his borders, and he also successfully whipped the asses of some other German tribe that tried to seize power from him.&nbsp; Unfortunately Arminius was stabbed to death at age thirty-seven by members of his wife\'s bitchy family.</p>\r\n<p>Arminius was a badass because he completely fucked up the Romans when they tried to mess with his peeps.&nbsp; He not only managed to preserve his peoples\' independence and prevent the Romans from ever setting up rule in his homeland, but he beat their asses harder than any asses have ever been beaten.&nbsp; He freaking nailed their skulls to tree trunks he was so hardcore.&nbsp; Plus, he did it all by pulling together \"barbarian\" German tribes that hadn\'t worked together for as long as they had been in existence and he managed to make them fight as one against a common foe.&nbsp; He had diplomacy skills, military skills, and the ability to personally whip the ass of anyone who pissed him off (because he was a big ass German) -- all of which combined to make him a pretty serious badass.</p>','2005-09-16','83480927676','arminius.jpg','arminius - Copy.jpg','Arminius','The berserking German who dealt Rome it\'s greatest and most total defeat.',''),('Žydr&#363;nas Savickas','July 15, 1975','N/A','Biržai, Lithuania','21st-century Lithuanian Athlete','<p>Ever watch that crazy shit on ESPN at like four o\'clock in the morning when you\'re really wasted and they have those huge-ass dudes bench press motorcycles in a run-down industrial park while wearing weightlifting belts made out of loaded beer kegs and pulling fifty thousand-ton express trains with their teeth?&nbsp; Well Zydrunas Savickas is the King of those bastards.&nbsp; This guy weighs like 350 pounds and makes his living out of basically just walking around picking up things that weigh more than fifteen people combined while shitting bullets and getting shot in the chest with cannonballs.&nbsp; He fucking squats 903lbs, benches 600 and deadlifts 800, has a 58\" chest and 22\" pythons, and uses all of it to fucking throw scrap metal tank hulls into the sun and pick up giant rocks the size of Kuwait.&nbsp; I mean, he probably benches more weight than I\'ve lifted in my entire life combined and his deadlift is roughly equivalent to about 6.4 Hot Andreas.&nbsp; That\'s insane.</p>\r\n<p>To say that Zydrunas Savickas is the strongest man in the world is not an overstatement.&nbsp; He\'s not only an eight-time powerlifting champion in his native Lithuania, but he won the Arnold\'s Strongest Man competition the last three years straight and currently leads the IFSA Super Series in Strongman Points or however the hell they rate you there.&nbsp; He\'s also got a couple of Silver Medals in ESPN Strongman competitions and finished second in the IPF World Powerlifting Championship in 2000.&nbsp; The guy\'s a fucking beast, and you really can\'t debate the badassitude of a guy who makes his living by deadlifting polar bears, bodyslamming monster trucks into scrap metal and holding a refrigerator full of bricks over his head for no reason at all.</p>','2005-09-09','29799827866','zydrunas1.jpg','zydrunas1 - Copy.jpg','Zydrunas Savickas','The real-life embodiment of the Incredible Hulk.  Only this guy\'s Lithuanian.',''),('Dirk J. Vlug','August 20, 1916','June 25, 1996','Maple Lake, MN, USA','WWII American Soldier','<p>U.S. Army Private First Class Dirk J. Vlug was kickin\' back on Leyte Island in the Philippines on 15 December 1944, cold chillin\' with a fat stogie in one hand and a highball glass in the other, taking in the sights and possibly listening to some sweet Jazz or Swing records and thinking about how awesome it was going to be when the war finally ended and he could go home and hang out with some hot chicks.&nbsp; He had been tasked with defending the American roadblock of the Ormac Road, which was a pretty sweet gig I guess because it probably totally beat getting your ass shot off on Okinawa or Iwo Jima or some other crappy rock of an island with a bunch of other American troops.&nbsp; I mean, I know I\'d rather be watching cars roll by all afternoon and listening to baseball on the radio than having a bunch of little Japanese dudes sticking rifles into my brain and yelling swear words or personal insults at me in whatever crazy language it is that they speak in Japan.</p>\r\n<p>Well all of a sudden PFC Vlug saw some whacked-out shit rolling down the street towards him.&nbsp; It turns out that there were a pair of Japanese tanks headed his way, looking to break through the U.S. roadblock and fuck some shit up big time.&nbsp; Dirk took one look at this and was like, \"Aw hell naw, bro\".&nbsp; He left his posh country-club community-style guardhouse, abandoned his portable TV, grabbed his bazooka and six rockets and ran out to let those fuckers know exactly what was up for really real this time.</p>\r\n<p>PFC Vlug, having left his fortified position, calmly walked towards the enemy tanks as they tried to blast the shit out of him with their machine guns and 37mm cannons.&nbsp; Not surprisingly, they couldn\'t hit the side of a barn if they were parked inside of it, and Dirk just fearlessly walked up to the first tank, took a big puff off his cigar, cracked his neck to the side and then fired his bazooka one-handed at the Japanese tank, blasting the shit out of it.</p>\r\n<p>After seeing this dude with a bazooka blowing their comrades up, the crew from the second Japanese tank opened the hatch and came piling out after Dirk.&nbsp; Once they were all out of the tank, they pulled out huge ass samurai swords and those crazy white headbands with the Japanese sun in the middle of them and started yelling the Japanese equivalent of, \"I kill you, motherfucker!\" while charging towards PFC Vlug.&nbsp; In one swift motion, Dirk flicked the lit cigar into the eye of one of the Japanese dudes, quick-drew his .45-caliber Colt 1911 from his thigh holster and plugged another Japanese tanker right between the eyes.&nbsp; The Japanese, totally freaked out by this, ran back into their tank to try and turn the 37mm on him.&nbsp; Dirk laughed, possibly said some sort of witty James Bond-style one-liner, popped another rocket into his bazooka and blasted the tank into the stratosphere.</p>\r\n<p>Peering through the two smoldering craters, PFC Vlug noticed three more Japanese tanks rolling towards him.&nbsp; Dirk sighed, loaded another rocket and headed around to flank the relief column.</p>\r\n<p>PFC Vlug made it around to the flank and blew the crap out of another Japanese tank.&nbsp; Once they figured out what was going on, the Japanese tanks started trying to shoot Dirk to death (nobody had informed them that he was completely fucking bullet and rocketproof) but could not succeed in that endeavor.&nbsp; PFC Vlug blew up his fourth tank, reloaded and fired his last rocket at the fifth and final tank.&nbsp; The impact of the blast on the final tank knocked it off a cliff where it tumbled all the way down and exploded at the bottom like the tank in <em>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</em> but with more Japanese and no Nazis.&nbsp; And in this case, after the tank exploded the tiny pieces caused by the explosion actually exploded some more.</p>\r\n<p>One man.&nbsp; Five tanks.&nbsp; Six rockets.&nbsp; For his incredible efficiency, absolute fearlessness and overall badassitude, PFC Dirk J. Vlug was awarded the United States Congressional Medal of Honor and probably some sort of Bazooka Marksmanship Merit Badge or something.&nbsp; You can read his full citation by <a href=\"http://www.michigan.gov/dmva/0,1607,7-126-2360_3003_3012-8023--,00.html\" target=\"blank\">clicking this link</a>.</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dirkjvlug-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />The side of the tank hull was spray painted:<br /><em>Da V1uggin8r Wuz H3re!<br />pwned!</em></center>','2005-09-02','33765098800','dirkjvlug.jpg','dirkjvlug - Copy.jpg','Dirk J. Vlug','This dude took out an entire squadron of Japanese tanks, on foot, while carrying nothing more than a bazooka and four rounds of ammunition.',''),('Cefka Palazzo','N/A','N/A','Unknown','Fictional Extraplanar Supervillain','<p>Kefka is one of those video game characters who holds a special place in the hearts of any gamers lucky enough to cross virtual blades with this eccentric, mentally-unstable lunatic.&nbsp; The clinically-insane egomaniac from <em>Final Fantasy VI</em> (better known as <em>Final Fantasy III</em> to anyone in the States who owned a Super Nintendo, couldn&rsquo;t tell you the difference between a Famicom and a Sitcom, and doesn&rsquo;t sit upright in bed a four in the morning memorizing kanji or masturbating to violent cartoon pornography) elicits both fond memories and hateful remembrances from everyone familiar with the games, and nobody can dispute the fact that this creepy, psychotic, over-the-top villain was a diabolical madman and one of the biggest pixilated bastards to ever grace the gaming industry with his evil presence.</p>\r\n<p>Orphaned at a young age, Kefka worked his way through the prestigious Imperial Military Academy, graduating at the top of his class.&nbsp; He served the Empire valiantly as a military officer, and during his career he proved himself to be a brilliant strategist and a genius on the battlefield, winning countless battles and rapidly advancing through the ranks until he was one of the Emperor Gestahl&rsquo;s top Generals.&nbsp; However, even though he was at the pinnacle of the soldiering profession, Kefka longed for greater power.&nbsp; He underwent an experimental transfusion of Esper essence that gave him the awesome ability to use magic, blow shit up with fucking lightning bolts and poison motherfuckers with giant balls of disgusting plague-infused green energy.&nbsp; However, since the whole \"inject your bloodstream with magic\" process had not yet been perfected by Imperial engineers, these newfound powers rapidly began to dissolve Kefka&rsquo;s already-tenuous grip on his own sanity.&nbsp; He became increasingly bloodthirsty, ruthless, and sadistic, until one day he completely snapped like a piece of straw being crushed underneath ten tons of camel meat.&nbsp; He became wildly eccentric and started wearing extravagant, garish clothing and makeup like some kind of sociopathic drag queen from Hell.&nbsp; Because in his mentally-unsound condition he couldn&rsquo;t be trusted with the power his generalship held, the Emperor Gestahl appointed Kefka to the position of Court Mage and sent him out to perform the Empire&rsquo;s dirty work &ndash; capturing the eternal souls of ancient magical beings called Espers and stealing their energies to power the Imperial war machine.</p>\r\n<p>Kefka was good at his job.&nbsp; He unflinchingly burned Figaro Castle to the ground simply for resisting him, he broke the siege of the city of Doma by poisoning the water supply and killing all the civilians, he assassinated several high-ranking Imperial Generals foolish enough to stand in his way, and he participated in the violent capture and subjugation of the once-peaceful town of Narshe.&nbsp; He delighted in stealing souls, enslaving the Espers, and exterminating anyone who crossed him, but despite all of his success and power he still hated his job with the sort of fiery passion that you don\'t often see outside of retail establishments and Dilbert cartoons.&nbsp; He was sick of being treated like a little bitch errand boy, and understandably thought it was total bullshit that the Emperor got all the glory while he did all the dirty work, so Kefka formulated a plan.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<table cellpadding=\"15\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kefka2.png\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></td>\r\n<td align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kefka3.png\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kefka4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></td>\r\n<td align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kefka5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Ultimately, the Emperor and Kefka succeeded in enslaving the Espers and managed to bring back a giant magical floating island that housed the spirits of some ancient, all-powerful gods and goddesses.&nbsp; However, right in the Emperor&rsquo;s moment of triumph, Kefka turned on his master like Darth Vader on the observation deck of the second Death Star, blasting him with magic and then unceremoniously drop-kicking him off the edge of Bespin Cloud City.&nbsp; Kefka then seized ultimate power for himself, unleashed a bunch of insane powerful dragons on the world, banished his only remaining opposition - a rebel group called The Returners - to another fucking dimension, and basically threw the entire world into complete ruin for no reason other than to flex nuts and satiate his own desire to be completely fucking awesome and all-powerful.</p>\r\n<p>Once in charge, Kefka used the Light of Judgment (a giant fucking beam of energy like the hand of God or the Ion Cannon from <em>Command &amp; Conquer</em> that shot down from the sky and annihilated anything it touched) to smite anyone who didn\'t agree to worship him and submit to his evil will.&nbsp; Like any good egomanaical despot, he formed his own insane cult of rabid zealots, who holed up David Koresh-style in the Tower of Fanatics, and his reign of terror ruled over the world for an entire year.&nbsp; Eventually he was killed by The Returners in an insane boss battle where he had access to the most powerful magics in the game and transformed into the physical manifestation of Lucifer himself, but even though his iron grip on the world was broken, he was such a badass, ultra-powerful motherfucker that his destruction brought about the death of all magic in the universe.</p>\r\n<p>Kefka is great because he starts off as a loser henchman and becomes one of the greatest villains in video game history, inspiring young people across the globe by demonstrating to them that even the most worthless, pathetic peon can transform himself into the God of Destruction, bend the minds of weaklings to serve his mad desires, and obliterate all life on Earth.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s completely unpredictable, he has no motive except an unquenchable thirst for power and destruction, and his sarcastic wit provides for some of the best dialogue in the entire <em>Final Fantasy</em> series.&nbsp; Basically, the great Lucius Diamond put it best when he said, &ldquo;Anyone who doesn&rsquo;t like Kefka is an A-1 cock and an anti-Kefkite bastard.&rdquo;</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><br /> <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kefka-laugh.wav\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/kefka6.gif\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span>Click on Kefka to hear the hideous laugh<br />that gave an entire generation nightmares.</span></p>','2005-08-19','24252828982','kefka1.png','kefka1 - Copy.png','Kefka','A psychotic evil clown who becomes Emperor of the World and then turns himself into a God.','\"I will hunt them down.  I will destroy them all.\"'),('The PzKpfw V Panther Tank','July 5, 1943 (first combat)','April 29, 1945','Nürnberg, Germany','WWII German Weapon','<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-family: helvetica; font-size: xx-small;\"> Vehicle Statistics </span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 65%;\" border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"1\" cellpadding=\"3\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td width=\"30%\"><strong> Designation:</strong></td>\r\n<td>PanzerKampfwagen V <em>Panther</em> Ausf. G</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong> Function:</strong></td>\r\n<td>Medium Battle Tank</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong> Nation of Origin:</strong></td>\r\n<td>Germany</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong> Speed:</strong></td>\r\n<td>34 mph (55 km/h)</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong> Range:</strong></td>\r\n<td>110 miles (177 km)</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong> Weight:</strong></td>\r\n<td>44.8 tons (45.5 metric tons)</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong> Primary Armament:</strong></td>\r\n<td>One 75mm KwK 42 L/70 main gun with 75 rounds</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong> Secondary Armament:</strong></td>\r\n<td>Two MG34 machine guns (coaxial and hull)<br /> One cupola-mounted MG42 AA machine gun (optional)<br /> 4,500 rounds of 7.92mm ammunition</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong> Armor:</strong></td>\r\n<td>80mm sloped frontal hull armor</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong> Crew:</strong></td>\r\n<td>Five (driver, radioman, gunner, loader, commander)</td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>For its time, the Panther tank was the most badass vehicle on the face of the planet.&nbsp; It outclassed anything that the Allies could field and spent the better part of the period between 1943 and 1945 blowing the shit out of anything that it came across.</p>\r\n<p>The Panzer V project was undertaken during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.&nbsp; The German blitzkrieg had been incredibly successful in France due to the fact that their tanks were far superior to anything the French and British could scrape together and throw against them.&nbsp; Well when the Panzer IIIs and IVs started facing Soviet-made T-34 tanks during Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the German high command realized the need for a new medium tank that could be more effective in the field against the heavily-armored T-34s.</p>\r\n<p>Well of course the Germans went completely over-the-top with it and designed the Panzer V <em>Panther</em>.&nbsp; The Panther was intended to be the ultimate medium tank, and it was designed well enough, but the initial models had a miserable showing because of fucking Hitler and his typical M.O. of completely bungling the entire situation by pretending he was a military genius when he was actually just a pretentious petulant child.</p>\r\n<p>Hitler rushed production of the tanks so that they would be ready for the Battle of Kursk on the Eastern Front.&nbsp; Well the Germans managed to roll them out on time, but they hadn\'t been perfected and many tanks broke down or caught fire on their way out to the front because Hitler was a fucking assclown who couldn\'t lead his country out of a wet paper bag if you gave him an industrial-grade set of wet paper bag openers and directions on how to use them.&nbsp; On top of the technical issues they faced, the first batch of Panther tanks also weren\'t fitted with hull machine guns, so the few that actually managed to make it to the front lines at Kursk without catching fire were blown up by Russian infantrymen who basically walked up to the front of the tanks and threw hand grenades inside.&nbsp; Without a machine gun, the tankers could do nothing but watch themselves get fucking incinerated inside a Fascist George Foreman grill.</p>\r\n<p>Well the Germans finally got their shit together after that disaster and put out several far more effective models of the Panzer V, which were used extensively throughout the Eastern front as well as in the Normandy and Ardennes campaigns in the West.&nbsp; The Panthers kicked ass, wasting any Allied tanks that they came across with their heavy 75mm cannons that could penetrate over 120mm of 30-degree plate armor from over 1,000 yards away.&nbsp; The common ratio used by most Allied tankers was that it would take five Sherman or Churchill tanks to defeat one Panther, since the Allied guns were too weak to penetrate the Panther\'s frontal armor.&nbsp; They would have to get two tanks to \"distract it\" (read:&nbsp; \"get blown up by it\") while two or three others swung around behind and tried to pierce the weaker side or rear armor before the Panther could get around to smoking them.</p>\r\n<p>Many people point to the Panzer VI <em>Tiger</em> as being the supreme German tank of WWII, but the Tiger actually sucks compared to the Panther.&nbsp; Sure, the Tiger had a larger 88mm main gun and heavier armor, but what\'s the point since the 75mm was actually fired at a higer velocity and was plenty strong enough to destroy any Allied vehicle, while the lighter armor still prevented the Panther from getting blown up all the time.&nbsp; Plus, the Panther was lighter, faster and more maneuverable than the Tiger.&nbsp; It had a better range, was more fuel efficient and also was far less likely to break down, get stuck in the mud, or spontaneously combust than the often-troubled Tigers.&nbsp; In fact, when Joachim Peiper was outfitting his SS units for their attempted breakthrough in the Ardennes forest, he ordered that all Tiger tanks in his SS regiment be scrapped and replaced with the more resilient Panthers.</p>\r\n<p>The Russian tank soldiers envied the Panzer Vs as well, and would often just repaint captured or abandoned German Panthers so they could use them instead of their own T-34s.&nbsp; The Soviet Union actually even translated the entire German Panther Operation Manual into Russian so that Soviet troops could use captured vehicles because the Panthers were awesome and every other tank from WWII sucked compared to them.</p>\r\n<p>The Panthers were virtually unstoppable when they faced Allied mechanized or armored divisions.&nbsp; Fortunately for everyone in the world (except for the Nazis), they eventually succumbed to overwhelming Allied air superiority, for while they were unstoppable on the ground they were also easy, slow-moving targets for dive bombers and other such aircraft.&nbsp; Up until their final defeat though, they were unmatched in their ability to kick the asses of Allied forces and keep on rolling.</p>','2005-08-12','30323239305','panther-ausfg1.jpg','panther-ausfg1 - Copy.jpg','The Panther Tank','One of the most effective and powerful tanks ever produced.','A Panther tank looking for people who need their shit wrecked.'),('John Matrix','Unknown','Unknown','Unknown','Fictional American Vigilante','<p>John Matrix never asked to be brought back into the business of wrecking peoples\' shit.&nbsp; He was happily living the retired life in the remote wilderness of the Great State of California, doing manly tough guy things like lugging around tree trunks, chopping wood and eating ice cream with his daughter Alyssa Milano.&nbsp; But when some of his old special forces buddies decided it would be funny to kidnap his daughter for no reason other than just to fuck with him, he decided he had no choice but to go on a mad killing spree until he got her back.</p>\r\n<p>If you\'re not familiar with the movie <em>Commando</em>, you should throw your computer out the window and immediately go break into the local video store because this movie whomps more ass than a one-legged asswhomper in an asswhomping contest.&nbsp; Now don\'t get me wrong;&nbsp; the film is total crap.&nbsp; But it\'s the kind of crap that you can watch about a thousand times and still enjoy, if for no other reason than just to appreciate the unlimited badassitude embodied within the main character.</p>\r\n<p>Colonel John Matrix is not happy that is daughter was kidnapped and he doesn\'t plan on doing anything lame like calling the authorities or responding to the kidnappers\' demands.&nbsp; No, he does the awesome thing and gets totally pissed to the max.&nbsp; He doesn\'t even care about stupid shit like \"working out your differences\" or \"not being totally crazy\";&nbsp; all he cares about is getting his daughter back, and he\'s willing to slaughter thousands of terrorists and drug dealers to do it.&nbsp; No obstacle is too great for him to overcome with little more than sheer brute force and a healthy lack of respect for his own safety or the safety of others.&nbsp; When he gets stuck on an airplane headed to South America, he snaps some dude\'s neck, climbs down the landing gear and jumps off the plane as it\'s taking off.&nbsp; When some asshole tries to duck into a phone booth to hide, he pulls it out of the ground and throws it down the stairs.&nbsp; When one of the bad guys is getting away in his Porsche, he kidnaps some chick and steals her car so that he can wreck the guy\'s ride and throw him off a cliff.&nbsp; When he finds out that his daughter is being held on a heavily-fortified island, he breaks into a dubiously-legal gun store and makes off with everything his gigantor arms can carry.&nbsp; When he needs an airplane, he busts into the airfield, snaps the necks of about ten guys and then steals a plane.&nbsp; He blows shit up with a rocket launcher.&nbsp; He stabs people to death with garden tools.&nbsp; He fulfills every teenager\'s fantasy by beating the holy living shit out of about twenty mall security guards.&nbsp; He sets the all-time record for Necks Broken in a Single Motion Picture.&nbsp; He holds an M60 machine gun in one hand and uses it to destroy an entire army.&nbsp; He is completely unstoppable.</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">In short, he is a total badass.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><br /><br /><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/johnmatrix.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />\"Remember when I said I was going to kill you last?\"<br />\"Yeah?\"<br />\"I lied.\"</p>','2005-06-10','73483912441','johnmatrix_ak.jpg','johnmatrix_ak - Copy.jpg','John Matrix','After terrorists kidnapped Alissa Milano, Arnold had to blow their heads off with a rocket launcher.','Don\'t bother his friend.  He\'s dead tired.'),('Ashley J. Williams','Unknown','N/A','United States','Fictional American Adventurer','<p>Ash.&nbsp; What can be said about him that hasn\'t already been done?</p>\r\n<p>While I have long believed that the \"Ash as the King of All Super-Badass Movie Anti-Heroes\" theory has slowly been beaten into the ground over the past decade or so, the fact remains that you absolutely cannot have a moderately-credible list of the biggest badasses of all time and not include this undead-slaughtering assbeater and star of the <em>Evil Dead</em> trilogy.&nbsp; So instead of rehashing the dead horse\'s revisited corpse and mentioning all the reasons that Ash kicks ass (they should be obvious to anyone who\'s seen the movies -- the sawed-off double-barreled shotgun, the chainsaw hand, the sarcastic hard-as-fuck one-liners), I\'ll present to you a theory that originated with my fiance&eacute;\'s ex-boyfriend\'s former roommate, but that I believe absolutely holds true.</p>\r\n<p>The theory is that any sort of physically impossible event occurring in <em>Army of Darkness</em> or <em>Evil Dead 2</em> can be completely rationalized in an intelligent and logical manner.&nbsp; The explanation?</p>\r\n<p>Because he\'s Ash.</p>\r\n<p>How can he chop off his infected hand with a chainsaw and not only withstanding passing out from the pain or the system shock, but go on to spend the next half-hour locked in mortal combat with the now-autonomous severed hand?</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Because he\'s Ash.</p>\r\n<p>Why can he slaughter a beautiful woman\'s sole surviving family member, be a complete dick to her when she tries to make amends with him and then still have her fall madly in love with him simply by saying, \"Gimme some sugar baby\"?</p>\r\n<p>Because he\'s Ash.</p>\r\n<p>How was he possibly able to shoot an undead zombie hag right between the eyes with a sawed-off shotgun from fifteen yards away by resting the gun on his shoulder and firing backwards over his head?</p>\r\n<p>Because he\'s Ash.</p>\r\n<p>How is it that his belt managed to whip around a moving chain in a perfect knot strong enough to simultaneously support the weight of a fully grown man and a zombie creature while lifting him to safety above?</p>\r\n<p>Because it\'s Ash\'s belt.</p>\r\n<p>The fact is that you can\'t hold Ash to the same standard that you hold mere mortals to.&nbsp; He is not only just a complete and total badass;&nbsp; He is the standard by which all future badasses will be measured.&nbsp; So if he wants to jump onto a department store trampoline and fire fifteen perfectly-aimed shotgun shells in rapid succession while soaring twenty feet in the air, he can do it.&nbsp; You and I can\'t; but you and I are also not Ash.&nbsp; And while it may seem impossible for do the things that he does and kick as much ass as he is famous for doing, I assure you that it isn\'t.&nbsp; Why, you ask?&nbsp; Simple.</p>\r\n<p>Because he\'s Ash.</p>','2005-05-27','9131812635','armyofdarkness.jpg','armyofdarkness - Copy.jpg','Ash','Good, bad, he\'s the guy with the gun.  And the chainsaw arm.','Come get some.'),('Jake and Elwood Blues','Unknown','N/A','Chicago, IL, USA','Fictional American Outlaw','<p>I caught <em>The Blues Brothers</em> on TNT recently and was quickly reminded that this is probably one of the most perfect movies ever created.&nbsp; These guys are totally badass in every way, despite the fact that they spend half the movie running away from people and accomplish wussy things like saving orphanages instead of breaking peoples\' faces with their foreheads.&nbsp; There is just something about these two hapless brothers and their wild adventures that makes you totally pumped up and ready to crash a car through a window while smoking cigarettes, wearing a black suit and listening to James Brown.</p>\r\n<p>The best part about it is that they are so timelessly cool.&nbsp; This movie came out twenty-five years ago and watching it still makes me want to get a pair of sunglasses, join a blues band, drink an orange whip and make sweet dirty love to Carrie Fisher.&nbsp; Twenty years from now, people will still watch this movie and be like, \"damn those guys are cool\".&nbsp; You can\'t really do that with guys like Dwayne Wayne, He-Man or Marty McFly who, while totally cool at the time, seem more than a little dated (and kind of fruity) twenty years after the fact.</p>\r\n<p><em>The Blues Brothers</em> is an awesome movie and the only excuse for not watching it is that you were too busy getting your ass kicked by cool people because you suck and are a worthless excuse for a human being.&nbsp; Being blind isn\'t eve an excuse for missing this movie.&nbsp; You can just listen to it an imagine the most badass fat guy / skinny guy combination in all of film history running around being jackasses to everyone and getting away with it just because they rule and no fat cops can catch them.&nbsp; This flick has all the necessary elements for a classic film, and even throws in those little things that movies today seem to overlook, such as \"developed characters\", \"car chases\", \"humor\" and \"a plot\".&nbsp; Check it out:</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000;\"><strong>Things That Rule About The Blues Brothers Movie:</strong></span></p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>Two badass lead characters</li>\r\n<li>Ray Charles</li>\r\n<li>Nuns</li>\r\n<li>Nazis</li>\r\n<li>James Brown</li>\r\n<li>Gunfights</li>\r\n<li>Cab Calloway</li>\r\n<li>Rednecks</li>\r\n<li>Fat guys doing handsprings</li>\r\n<li>Aretha Franklin</li>\r\n<li>Wagner\'s \"Flight of the Valkyries\"</li>\r\n<li>Car chases</li>\r\n<li>Cops making asses out of themselves</li>\r\n<li>John Lee Hooker</li>\r\n<li>Prison</li>\r\n<li>Car crashes</li>\r\n<li>The SWAT Team</li>\r\n<li>Afros</li>\r\n<li>Guys running around going \"hut hut hut\"</li>\r\n<li>The National Guard</li>\r\n<li>Sunglasses</li>\r\n<li>Hats</li>\r\n<li>The song \"Rawhide\"</li>\r\n<li>Smoking</li>\r\n<li>More Nazis</li>\r\n<li>Explosions</li>\r\n<li>Psychotic ex-girlfriends</li>\r\n<li>Machine guns</li>\r\n<li>Exploding Nazis</li>\r\n<li>Orphans</li>\r\n<li>Tanks rolling down the streets of Chicago</li>\r\n<li>Frank Oz</li>\r\n<li>An awesome old police car</li>\r\n<li>Chicken wire</li>\r\n<li>Suspension of the laws of physics</li>\r\n<li>Princess Leia</li>\r\n<li>Swearing</li>\r\n<li>A car crashing through a plate glass window</li>\r\n<li>The Army</li>\r\n<li>Orange Whips</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<p>This movie has everything you could ever want in a film packed into ninety minutes of awesome.&nbsp; See it or I will kill you.</p>','2005-04-29','839400113299','bluesbrothers.jpg','bluesbrothers - Copy.jpg','The Blues Brothers','These guys are pretty much the coolest motherfuckers ever.','It\'s 106 miles to Chicago.\r\nWe\'ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes,\r\nit\'s dark and we\'re wearing sunglasses.\r\nHit it.'),('Hannibal Barca','247 BC','182 BC','Carthage, Tunisia','Ancient Tunisian General','<p>Hannibal Barca was born in Carthage in 247 BCE, the son of Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca and a Spanish wife.&nbsp; He would come to be known throughout the world as one of the greatest military minds of the Classical Age.&nbsp; He is featured as the BotW this week to commemorate the fact that my website received it\'s first hit from the African continent this week and also because I heard that they were going to release a movie next year starring Vin Diesel as Hannibal.&nbsp; I might as well get him established as a true Classical Age badass before Hollywood starts depicting him running around the desert shooting lasers out of his hands and punching aliens.</p>\r\n<p>Hannibal assumed control of a large Carthaginian army around 216 BCE, as Carthage was reeling from it\'s defeat in the First Punic War and attempting to accept its place as a declining power in the Mediterranean region.&nbsp; Hannibal set out to re-establish Carthage by campaigning successfully in the Iberian peninsula, conquering what is present-day Spain and Portugal from the native peoples there.&nbsp; Hannibal took a Spanish woman to be his wife, but when he had his first child the High Priest of Carthage demanded that he sacrifice the baby to the gods.&nbsp; Hannibal was like, \"Uh... how about I sacrifice thousands of enemy soldiers instead?\".&nbsp; The Carthaginian theocracy determined that would also be acceptable.</p>\r\n<p>So at the age of thirty Hannibal set about trying to start a war with Rome.&nbsp; He instigated conflict with Roman-governed cities and finally managed to get Rome to declare open war on Carthage when he faxed Xeroxed copies of his bare ass over to the Roman Consuls with a note reading, \"kiss this, you Roman bitches\".&nbsp; Hannibal then mobilized his main army in Spain and marched through Gaul, uniting the tribes to his cause.&nbsp; After sweeping through Gaul Hannibal\'s army, which contained several squadrons of elephant-riding troops, reached the foothills of the Alps.&nbsp; In one of the greatest logistical feats ever recorded, Hannibal and his men crossed the Alps and attacked the Roman Republic from the direction that they were least expecting it.&nbsp; Roman forces had been certain that they were going to be attacked from Sicily or the Mediterranean that they spent their resources fortifying their coastal towns.&nbsp; Hannibal\'s invasion of Northern Italy caught everyone by surprise.</p>\r\n<p>Roman forces finally mobilized against Hannibal, but he managed to use his outnumbered and outgunned forces to their utmost potential, winning sweeping battles at Trebia and Lake Trasimene.&nbsp; The main Roman Army met Hannibal on the field of Cannae in 216 BCE and in one of the most brilliant tactical maneuvers of all time Hannibal managed to use his force of 60,000 to perform a double envelopment on the Roman force of 80,000, sweeping his troops around both flanks of Roman infantry and utterly decimating several Legions.</p>\r\n<p>After Cannae, Hannibal sent a message to Carthage saying, \"OK guys, I\'m ready to take Rome.&nbsp; Just send me some more troops\".&nbsp; Carthage responded by saying, \"Don\'t worry about it dude.&nbsp; You\'re doing fine.&nbsp; Just hang in there\".&nbsp; Hannibal ended up roaming around Italy trying to drum up support for his cause for fifteen years;&nbsp; his force wasn\'t strong enough to take the city of Rome but no Roman force could defeat him.&nbsp; Finally the Romans got sick of his bullshit and send their general Scipio to invade Carthage while Hannibal was dicking around in Italy.&nbsp; Once that happened, the Carthaginians were like, \"Oh snap!&nbsp; Hannibal, come help us!\".</p>\r\n<p>Hannibal, sick of his country\'s bullshit, went home and his tired and demoralized troops got their asses kicked by Scipio Africanus at the Battle of Zama in 202 BCE.&nbsp; Rome burned the city of Carthage to the ground, pissed on the ashes and salted the Earth so that nothing would ever grow there again.&nbsp; Hannibal was appointed Magistrate of the Carthaginian territories, but eventually the Romans came to fear his influence, so he was exiled to Ephesus.&nbsp; Soon the Romans issued a warrant for his arrest, so Hannibal popped open his special poison ring and ended his life in 182 BCE.&nbsp; He was the biggest threat the Roman Republic ever knew and was hatefully remembered in the annals of Latin history.&nbsp; He was a brilliant tactician, a master of logistics and one of the greatest military minds that the world has ever seen.&nbsp; If he had only received more support from his country, the history of the world would have been completely reshaped.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><br /><br /> <img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/cannae.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The Battle of Cannae, 216 BCE</p>','2005-04-15','248493813434','hannibal.jpg','hannibal - Copy.jpg','Hannibal','One of the greatest military minds in history, Hannibal crossed the Alps with elephants and then crushed the Romans on their own turf.',''),('Alcibiades','450 BC','404 BC','Athens, Greece','Ancient Greek Admiral','<p>Alcibiades was the biggest jerk to ever live in the Classical Age.&nbsp; Born near Athens, Greece, Alcibiades earned a reputation growing up as one of the most attractive men ever in history.&nbsp; I mean, you know that when the local histories from your era make extra-special sure that they mention how hot you are there\'s got to be something to it.&nbsp; As a result, naturally, Alcibiades was getting laid more than Wilt Chamberlain in a New Jersey bordello.&nbsp; Chicks (and dudes) pretty much threw themselves at him every time he walked out the front door of his super-fly bachelor swinger\'s pad, and he even hooked up with the legendary Greek philosopher Socrates;&nbsp; an achievement that even the most archconservative gay-bashing bible thumper has to concede is pretty damn impressive.&nbsp; Before Socrates swigged that shot of hemlock, he actually wrote a couple works about how freaking hot Alcibiades was, calling him pretty much the most attractive man ever to live in all of history.&nbsp; Alcibiades made sure to dress the part of an eccentric millionaire superstar as well:&nbsp; His golden shield was studded with diamonds and jewels, and was pretty much the Ancient Greek equivalent of Lil Jon\'s Pimp Chalice.&nbsp; He was pimpin\' before it was pimpin\'.</p>\r\n<p>Alcibiades was pretty handy in battle, proving himself so well at the Battle of Delium in 424 BCE that the Athenian Commander give his daughter to Alcibiades in marriage.&nbsp; Alcibiades lived with her until she died from cancer or something and then he continued to go about his wild ways of hooking it up with Republic courtesans and such.</p>\r\n<p>When the Peloponnesian War broke out between Athens and Sparta Alcibiades was appointed commander of the Athenian Naval Forces.&nbsp; He was so pumped up about being in charge of this campaign that the night before he was going to ship out he got totally wasted and ran around downtown Athens screaming and pulling the schlongs off of every statue in the town square.&nbsp; When the Athenian government woke up the next morning and found a pantheon of dong-less gods lining the streets, they issued an arrest warrant for Alcibiades and stripped him of his command.</p>\r\n<p>Alcibiades didn\'t give a crap though.&nbsp; He ditched the Athenian Army and went over to Sparta, where he helped the Spartan king fortify the town of Decelea since he knew there would be an Athenian attack there.&nbsp; The King of Sparta did this and the Spartans won a tremendous victory over the Athenians.&nbsp; Alcibiades was livin\' large until the King found out that his daughter had been impregnated out of wedlock by his newest General.&nbsp; Oops.</p>\r\n<p>The Spartan King flipped out and Alcibiades had the good sense to get the piss out of Dodge before he had his balls chopped off, so he fled to Persia.&nbsp; Alcibiades lived in Persia for a while and befriended the Sultan, but eventually defected back to Athens where he was received as a hero.&nbsp; He fought with the Athenians as a lesser military officer until their final defeat at Aegospotami in 405 BCE, when he then fled back to Persia.</p>\r\n<p>Alcibiades tried to rally the Persians to attack the Spartans, but by this point everyone had put up with enough of his crap.&nbsp; A bunch of Spartans convinced the Persian Sultan that Alcibiades would hump his daughter when he wasn\'t looking (which he would have), so Artaxerxes sent a bunch of Persian warriors to attack Alcibiades while he was in the shower.&nbsp; They set his house on fire while he was bathing, but he didn\'t even give a crap.&nbsp; He grabbed his dagger and ran outside buck naked trying to stab anyone that came near him.&nbsp; Eventually he was killed after he got nailed by fifteen arrows.</p>\r\n<p>Alcibiades was a badass because he was such a total douchebag to everyone that supported him.&nbsp; He was a fierce warrior and also one of the most attractive men of his era... not something that can be said about a whole lot of people.&nbsp; He played the political games perfectly, led his forces to military victory and spent the better part of his life getting busy with anyone that would let him.&nbsp; In the end, that\'s pretty badass.</p>','2005-04-08','832941113733','alcibiades.jpg','alcibiades - Copy.jpg','Alcibiades','The sex-crazed alcoholic naval commander who helped Athens gain advantage in the Peloponnesian War, then flipped sides and won the war for Sparta.',''),('Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov','1939','N/A','USSR','20th-century Russian Soldier','<p><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov\" target=\"blank\">Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov</a> was the ranking officer at a critical Soviet nuclear missile delivery silo in the early 1980\'s.&nbsp; Once upon a time on September 26th of 1983, the Soviet Union\'s long range missile detection sites discovered that the United States had launched an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) loaded with nuclear warheads, nails and dead babies at Russia and would hit the Motherland in fifteen minutes.&nbsp; Russian leaders then flipped out and gave Col. Petrov the order to launch all of the nuclear weapons at his disposal immediately and wipe the planet clean of Capitalists for the rest of eternity.&nbsp; When Petrov got the order, he was like, \"Whatever dudes.&nbsp; I\'m busy.&nbsp; I\'ll do it later\".&nbsp; A couple of minutes later, Soviet leaders discovered that the US actually <em>hadn\'t</em> launched any missiles, but rather that there was a glitch in their system, which was crappy and out-of-date.&nbsp; Even though Petrov\'s actions saved the world from a thermonuclear holocaust, his bosses still got totally pissed at him for being a slacker and not following orders.</p>\r\n<p>Col. Petrov is a perfect example of laziness and procrastination paying off big time.&nbsp; Just think of that the next time your boss slams some extra work down on your desk and tells you to do it \"immediately\" and that it\'s a matter of life and death oh my god what the hell do it now or you\'ll be fired, because there\'s probably a good chance that kicking back and putting it off until later will make you one of the greatest heroes of your generation.&nbsp; Case in point:&nbsp; this website.&nbsp; If I didn\'t slack off at least two or three hours a week at work, who would entertain you on a weekly basis?&nbsp; Slacking off rules.</p>\r\n<p align=\"\">You can read more about the man who is solely responsible for the continuation of sentient life on this planet by visiting the Wikipedia article link above.</p>','2005-03-24','111850213895','petrov.jpg','petrov - Copy.jpg','Stanislav Petrov','The man who single-handedly saved the planet from annihilation by disobeying a direct order to launch nuclear warheads at the United States.',''),('Yersinia pestis','6th Century AD','N/A','Constantinople, Greece','Medieval Greek Supervillain','<p>The Bubonic Plague is a deadly disease carried by fleas and is incredibly contagious, deadly, disgusting and also deadly, and by the time you start showing signs of it, it\'s pretty much too late.&nbsp; In the Middle Ages the phrase went, \"You can have lunch with your friends, catch the plague, and then have dinner with your ancestors in paradise because you are totally dead\".</p>\r\n<p>The Black Death, so called because of the black spots that appear on infected persons\' arms, first arrived in Europe on board an Italian merchant vessel in 1347.&nbsp; Over the next six years, the Plague swept through Europe faster than an outbreak of Zombieism, killing close to twenty-five million people -- over one-third of the entire population of Europe.&nbsp; People lived in the grip of fear for years, abandoning their towns and their families and quarantining the infected in an effort to rid themselves of this killer.&nbsp; However, it turns out they should have just stopped living with rats and maybe that would have solved their problems.</p>\r\n<p>While the biggest outbreak of Plague was in the 14th century, there have been reports of it throughout history and up to the present day, as many wild rodents such as squirrels and rats in the Western portion of the United States are still known to be carriers for Bubonic Plague.&nbsp; The most recent documented death from Plague in America was in 2003.</p>\r\n<p>Plague is badass because especially during the middle ages there was no way to fight it, and in six years it killed more people than war, famine, heart disease or any other epidemic in human history.&nbsp; It was an outbreak of near-biblical proportions.&nbsp; Plus, it\'s not like you could be so tough that you couldn\'t catch it and die.&nbsp; It\'s like, it doesn\'t matter how much of a badass you are, you\'d still get your ass kicked by the Black Death.</p>','2005-03-11','17714414529','blackdeath.jpg','blackdeath - Copy.jpg','The Black Death','The pandemic that killed more people than every war in history combined.',''),('Lu Bu','Unknown','February, 199 AD','China','Ancient Chinese Warrior','<p>Lu Bu was the \"invincible warrior\" from the Three Kingdoms period of Ancient China, and one of the most feared and powerful warriors in the history of the world.&nbsp; Renowned and infamous throughout all of China, the mere mention of his name was enough to send chills down the spine of even the most veteran warriors and cause small children and college freshmen to weep gently into their pillows at night.&nbsp; Lu Bu was by all accounts a massive man, possessing immense strength, mastery of archery and horsemanship and incomparable hand-to-hand fighting prowess.&nbsp; So it\'s pretty safe to say that he was like the Amazing Ben of the Three Kingdoms period.</p>\r\n<p>Lu Bu was adopted into a noble family where he proved his worth on the battlefield, but once the powerful warlord Dong Zhou offered him Red Hare, the fastest horse in all of China, Lu Bu flipped out, chopped off his adopted fathers head and allowed himself to be adopted by Dong Zhou.&nbsp; He hung out with the Donger for a while, killing people, eating cheeseburgers and maintaining a tyrannical hold over much of Imperial China, until one day he decided that he wanted to get it on with Dong Zhou\'s maid, some hot chick named Diao Chan.&nbsp; Dong Zhou found out about this and was like, \"dude, WTF?\". Being the treacherous bastard that he was, Lu Bu just killed the shit out of Dong Zhou with his battle cry of, \"OMG Owned\".&nbsp; Instead of taking over the rule of China, Lu Bu just got together a big army and started wandering around China killing everyone who looked at him funny.&nbsp; Sadly however, he ended up being one of the first recorded cases of \"drunk shaming\", when he got really loaded, passed out and then got tied up by his own men while he was sleeping.&nbsp; They were sick of him being such a jackoff to everyone, and turned him over to a rival general named Cao Cao.&nbsp; When Lu Bu woke up, he was totally pissed.&nbsp; He offered to join Cao Cao and beat the shit out of his own men (and everyone else in China), but Cao Cao wasn\'t buying it and he had Lu Bu strangled to death.</p>\r\n<p>Lu Bu was a sad case of a super badass who got totally jobbed in death.&nbsp; Until he got totally worked over by his own men though, he was the strongest, fastest and most invincible warrior in Chinese history, and more than deserving of a place in the Hall of Badassitude.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Lu+Bu%27d&amp;defid=295162\" target=\"blank\">Urban Reference definition of \"Lu Bu\'d\"</a></p>','2005-02-24','126891814695','lubu1.jpg','lubu1 - Copy.jpg','Lu Bu','The most feared blood-raging berserker warrior of Three Kingdoms China.',''),('Ivan Drago','Unknown','N/A','Soviet Union','Fictional Russian Athlete','<p>Ivan Drago is a goddamned insanely badass boxer from the Soviet Union and the chief villain in <em>Rocky IV</em>, where he perpetually beats the shit out of anyone who crosses him and demonstrates ass-kicking abilities the likes of which make the ghost of Josef Stalin weep tears of joy.&nbsp; &ldquo;The Siberian Express&rdquo; is Communist-bred to be the ultimate killing machine &ndash; he&rsquo;s like fucking seven feet tall, two hundred and fifty pounds, has a massive reach advantage over anybody not named Shaquille O&rsquo;Neal, and has a crazy over-the-top right hook that hits hard enough to knock most livestock unconscious.&nbsp; At the time he faces Rocky in the biggest boxing match since <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/ali.html\">Ali</a>-Frazier he&rsquo;s got a record of one hundred wins and zero losses with something like ninety knockouts, one Olympic gold medal, the Russian National Title, and one guy who got such a royal ass-kicking that he died right in the middle of the ring.</p>\r\n<p>For starters, Drago is the perfect bad guy.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s little more than a fucking insanely-muscular propaganda engine for the Soviet Union, and it&rsquo;s a well-known fact to everyone outside of Moscow that the Soviets are the most fun-to-hate villains in the history of the world.&nbsp; He comes to the U.&nbsp;S.&nbsp; in 1987 with his veins pumping pure Marxism and Creatine, threatening to kick the ass of any American Capitalist pig-dog who would dare oppress the Proletariat and unblinkingly giving the death stare anyone who would dare talk to him.&nbsp; When washed-up ex-champ Apollo Creed decides to fuck with Drago for some dumbass reason, it only takes two rounds for the Siberian Express to get so pissed off at Creed&rsquo;s red, white and blue boxing trunks that he punches Carl Weather&rsquo;s brains out the back of his head and makes Rocky cry.&nbsp; He doesn&rsquo;t even give a crap either because he&rsquo;s an emotionless automaton who shows no compassion whatsoever and only speaks when he&rsquo;s threatening someone.&nbsp; He also takes shit from no one &ndash; when his own KGB Politburo Commie bastard politician buddy starts talking shit to him in the middle of a match Drago just gets super omega pissed, chokes him like Darth Vader and then chucks him face-first through the <a href=\"http://www.123exp-sports.com/t/01981023161/\">Spanish announcer&rsquo;s table</a>.</p>\r\n<p>Drago is a trendsetter as well &ndash; back in a time when the training regimens of top American athletes were centered around punching meat, drinking raw eggs, jogging around outside like jackasses and putting together elaborate workout montages while Loverboy&rsquo;s &ldquo;Working for the Weekend&rdquo; played in the background, Ivan was hooking himself up to electrodes, monitoring his heart rate, running on treadmills and getting injected with five thousand cc&rsquo;s of anabolic horse steroids - a forward-thinking workout used my many of today&rsquo;s most successful professional athletes.&nbsp; Of course, most sources say that Drago actually believed that he was being injected with flaxseed oil at the time.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/drago1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />\"I must break you.\"</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Unfortunately we don&rsquo;t get to see a whole lot of Drago kicking ass in <em>Rocky IV</em> (believe me, the movie would have been a lot better if it was just two hours of Ivan punching motherfuckers in the face, knocking out random people on the street and yelling curse words in Russian, mixed in with the occasional scene where hot wife gets naked), so aside from the epic, unholy, commercial-grade face-busting he dropped on Apollo Creed, the action centers around his first (and presumably only) defeat in the ring &ndash; the World Championship bout against Rocky Balboa.</p>\r\n<p>Now in the early rounds of the Battle of the Century, Drago lays a huge fucking asskicking on Balboa, getting him backed up in the corner and wailing on his face like a ninja wailing out a bitchin&rsquo; guitar solo on a Gibson Les Paul.&nbsp; He slaps Rocky around like a little bitch, knocking him down several times in the first two rounds and coming close to a &ldquo;Mike Tyson&rsquo;s Punch-Out!!&rdquo; &ndash;style three-knockdowns-in-a-round TKO on more than one occasion.&nbsp; When Balboa tries to work on Drago&rsquo;s massive eight-pack washboard abs he doesn&rsquo;t even flinch.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s also so pumped up about beating up Americans that he keeps on fighting even after the bell rings to end the round, because real badasses don&rsquo;t need no stinking thirty-second breaks between rounds.&nbsp; Of course, he eventually gets screwed when Rocky harnesses his inner Adam Smith power and gives him an onslaught of his trademark Capitalist <em>Wealth of Nations</em> body-blows before knocking him unconscious and delivering the speech that single-handedly end the Cold War (&ldquo;Everybody can change!&rdquo;), but we all know that Drago&rsquo;s defeat was not because of a physical shortcoming on his part but rather, like the 1980 Soviet Hockey Team, his failure stemmed from his representation of a flawed socio-economic theory that could never stand up to the good old stars-and-stripes U-S-A U-S-A do you believe in miracles.</p>\r\n<p>Basically what I&rsquo;m trying to say here is that Ivan Drago is fucking awesome, and messing with him is a huge mistake because even with gigantic padded red sickle-and-hammer-embroidered boxing gloves on his fists he can still cave in your face and make you throw a clot in your brain in about fifteen seconds.&nbsp; Also, I don&rsquo;t know how this really fits in, but Dolph Lundgren has a master&rsquo;s degree in chemical engineering from MIT, which I&rsquo;m going to count as bonus points towards the badassitude of his character.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/drago.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />\"You will lose.\"</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Drago\" target=\"blank\">Wikipedia</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/ivan-drago/\" target=\"blank\">Ivan Drago: Justice Enforcer</a></p>','2005-02-04','447815214954','drago3.jpg','drago3 - Copy.jpg','Ivan Drago','The genetically-engineered Soviet super-athlete.','\"Whatever he hits, he destroys.\" '),('Sarah Connor','Unknown','N/A','United States','Fictional American Vigilante','<p>For anyone who has seen Terminator 2 the first image that should pop into your head when you think \"female badass\" should be the moderately-unbalanced matriarch of future human civilization that is Sarah Connor. While she was kind of a whiny bitch in The Terminator and even more so in her TV stint on \"Beauty and the Beast\", from the first scene of T2 when she beats the holy living shit out of an orderly with a broken-off broom handle \"Escape From Women\'s Prison\"-style you know that you\'re about to see some serious, grade-A, no bullshit asskickery. She\'s tough as hell, pretty cut and capable of using any projectile weapon she can get her hands on to deal out massive robot destruction, and she\'s not afraid to use it either. Not like those \"Not Without My Daughter\" pussy housewives on the Lifetime channel who are just content to point a small-caliber handgun at their abusive ex-husbands and then start crying because they know they don\'t have to guts to pull the damn trigger. Hell no! When the Terminator tells Sarah Connor the name of the dude responsible for the destruction of the human race, she just whips out an M-16 and drives over to his house to cap him in the head. When trying to snipe him from the bushes outside his house fails, she just pulls out a pistol and breaks in to finish the job. She would have done it too, if it wasn\'t for her dipshit kid who thinks he\'s so damn cool just because he\'s the future saviour of human civilization.</p>\r\n<p>Sarah Connor is resourceful, another key component of badassery. It takes serious ovarian fortitude (read: nuts) to steal a paperclip, hide it in your mouth and use it to break out of a mental institution despite the fact that all of your appendages are locked into restraints. She\'s like a female MacGyver, except instead of a ruler and a hockey ticket she uses a syringe full of cleaning solvent and a human shield to bust out of a tight situation. Plus she\'s pretty fucking tough. When the T-1000 jabs her in the shoulder with his finger that turns into a knife and tries to torture her for information? Sarah Connor doesn\'t give a shit about that either! She just uses her one good arm to try and reload her bigass shotgun so she can blow his nonexistent nuts off. She even manages to get away and try to save her kid. I think if the T-1000 stabbed me in the shoulder I would probably just piss myself.</p>\r\n<p>Sarah Connor is easily one of the most respectable female movie heroines. She separates herself from the oversexed pseudo-badass bimbo Tomb Raider types because of the fact that I actually buy her as being someone who could either kick my ass or kill me without blinking. And while I appreciate scantily-clad backflipping women with huge breasts and perfect hair as much as the next testosterone-drived male, I dig the fact that Sarah Connor\'s not about anything other than killing robots and saving humanity. There\'s no bullshit romantic side-plot and no roomfull of dudes drooling over her every move; just a shitload of guns, a couple cartons of cigarettes and a whole lot of swearing. You gotta love that.</p>','2005-01-14','954349115161','sarahconnor1.jpg','sarahconnor1 - Copy.jpg','Sarah Connor','The toughest, most no-nonsense asskicking female action hero of all time.','Sarah Connor kicks ass and smokes while she is doing so.'),('Alfonse Gabriel Capone','January 17, 1899','January 25, 1947','New York, NY, USA','20th-century American Outlaw','<p>Al Capone was a quiet, unassuming Italian-American boy born in Brooklyn in 1899. During his lifetime he would seize power of a major Mafia outfit, rule the streets of Chicago and compile a criminal empire so large and all-encompassing that his name will forever be synonymous with badass mafia motherfuckers who would just as soon pop a cap in your balls as spit on you.</p>\r\n<p>As a young man, Capone was involved mostly in petty crime and local street gangs on the streets of Brooklyn, New York, beating up kids for their lunch money, fencing stolen goods on random street corners, and doing all manner of unsavory crap that would land most punks in juvie these days.&nbsp; At the age of fourteen, Capone was expelled from school for punching a teacher in the face (presumably because the teacher was being a fucking jackass), and he joined up with the Five Points Gang under the command of a dude name Frankie Yale.&nbsp; Yale saw that Capone was a ruthless badass that was not to be fucked with, and gave him work as a bouncer and a bartender at Yale&rsquo;s numerous speakeasies and bordellos.&nbsp; Capone was right at home in his newfound job checking IDs, standing in the corner with his arms folded, looking as intimidating as possible, and punching the shit out of drunk assholes who didn\'t realize that there is no sex in the Champagne room.&nbsp; One night, Al received a huge scar on his face when he tried to bounce five rowdy, insane ninjas wigged out on PCP from a hot nightclub.&nbsp; Capone bashed those jerks in the neck with a baseball bat and the broken-off leg of a wooden bar stool until they were all pummelled unconscious, but during the battle he took a shuriken to the cheek that left him with a permanent mark of badassitude and a totally sweet gangster nickname &ndash; Scarface.</p>\r\n<p>In 1919, shit got a little too hot in the Big Apple for Capone.&nbsp; He was under investigation by New York&rsquo;s finest for two different murders, and a rival gang was after him because Capone had beaten one of their top lieutenants up so bad that he had to be hospitalized for two weeks.&nbsp; Frankie Yale sent Capone to work under a guy named Johnny Torrio in Chicago, where Capone would be placed in charge of the two rackets that would serve as the foundation of his criminal empire &ndash; prostitution and bootlegging.&nbsp; From this point on, Al Capone&rsquo;s life pretty much became a real-life game of <em>Grand Theft Auto III</em>, only instead of running hookers over with his car and then beating up their dead bodies with a baseball bat, he was pimping them out for a shitload of money and paying his mafia wiseguys to illegally obtain large quantities of booze so he could sell it at three thousand percent profit.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/capone1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Initially, most of Capone&rsquo;s actions were taking place in the suburb of Cicero, Illinois, which served as his base of operations.&nbsp; He quickly became such a powerful and influential man that he completely took over the Cicero government and the police force though ruthless extortion and bribery.&nbsp; His men took control of the election polls, got Capone&rsquo;s ally elected mayor, and then during the inauguration ceremony Capone punched the mayor in the fucking face and threw him down the steps of city hall just so everyone would know who the real power in the city was.&nbsp; Some dumbass rival outfit known as the O&rsquo;Donnell Gang tried to carve out a piece of Capone&rsquo;s criminal fiefdom, but a bitter gang war left over 200 dead and Capone&rsquo;s Outfit in command of all criminal enterprises in Cicero.&nbsp; That\'s why you don\'t fuck with the family - because the Family will shoot you in the face with a drum full of .45 caliber ammunition and then use the empty gun to beat the carp out of all of your friends.</p>\r\n<p>Incidentally, that last line was supposed to read, \"beat the crap out of all your friends\", but I think I prefer the typo.</p>\r\n<p>Torrio retired in 1925 after a failed attempt on his life, leaving Al Capone in charge of one of the largest gangs in the Chicagoland area.&nbsp; The enterprise racked up over ten million dollars a year in bootlegging alone, which might sound like a Dr. Evil miscue today but was actually a fucking shit ton of money back in the 1920&rsquo;s.&nbsp; Capone was untouchable by the police thanks to his ability to bribe, extort, and outright threaten the entire force, he was unhittable by rival gangs thanks to his constant escort of badass Tommy Gun-toting Mafioso motherfuckers packing more heat than a hazardous materials transport loaded up with molten hot liquid magma, and he rolled around town in a pimp-tastic bulletproof Cadillac with run-flat tires, a police siren, two heavy machineguns mounted on the hood, four cupholders, a plasma-screen DVD player, some crazy hydraulics and a built-in mini-fridge stocked with bourbon and scotch.&nbsp; His main base of operations, the Lexington Hotel, was populated entirely by gangsters loyal to the Outfit, and in only a few years of masterminding a criminal enterprise more powerful than anything Batman has ever seen, Capone had become so famous and notorious that his \"hideout\" was a stop on all major Chicago tour bus routes.&nbsp; Capone also had numerous bases located across North America, ranging from Saskatchewan to Miami, and encompassing everything in between.&nbsp; He had all the money, women, and power that any man could imagine, and despite his legacy as an evil, hardcore, Tony Soprano motherfucker, Capone also funded and ran free soup kitchens to help out the poor during the Great Depression in the early 1930s.&nbsp; So he wasn\'t <em>all</em> bad.&nbsp; Just <em>mostly</em>.</p>\r\n<p>Of course, when you&rsquo;re the fucking top dog everyone wants to get a cut of your action, and even the great Al Capone was not immune to this.&nbsp; A rival group of hooligans known as the North Side Gang under the command of an evil bastard known as \"Bugs\" Moran fought a near-constant turf war with Capone&rsquo;s Outfit in the late twenties.&nbsp; Tommy Guns and fedoras tore up the streets of the Windy City as vicious underworld warfare raged throughout Chicago, killing more gangsters than the Tupac-Biggie feud.&nbsp; Capone himself had several attempts made on his life, including one time when a caravan of ten black cars loaded up with machinegun-toting hitmen drove by his hotel with their weapons blazing.&nbsp; Eventually, Capone decided it was time to end that shit.&nbsp; On Valentine&rsquo;s Day of 1929, several of his men dressed up as police officers, rounded up some of the North Side Gang&rsquo;s highest-ranking lieutenants and went nuts on them with Thompson submachine guns and large-gauge shotguns.&nbsp; Seven of the North Siders&rsquo; top men had their heads exploded, and Bugs Moran was on the run.&nbsp; The power of Capone&rsquo;s enemies had been broken, and the Outfit had free reign over Chicago\'s bootlegging operations from that point on.&nbsp; No one was ever prosecuted for the crime.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/capone2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Eventually, Capone was busted for tax evasion by hardcore Internal Revenue agent Eliot Ness and his crew of &ldquo;Untouchables&rdquo;.&nbsp; Despite ordering numerous murders and running some of the largest criminal rackets in the history of the United States, Al Capone was shipped off the fucking Alcatraz for failing to claim illegally-obtained profits on his goddamned income tax return.&nbsp; The fucking IRS will screw you every single time.&nbsp; Just remember this the next time you\'re trying to lie on your fucking 1040EZ - if you don\'t claim all the proceeds from your illicit prostitution and numbers rackets, the fucking Service is going to send a half-dozen highly-trained German Shepherd attack dogs to ring your doorbell and bite you in the scrotum when you open the door.&nbsp; After prison, Capone retired to the Miami area, where he eventually died of a heart attack at the age of 47.</p>\r\n<p>Al Capone was one of the most hardcore, notorious, balls-out criminal masterminds in American history, and to this day his legend stands as a testament to what it means to be a badass motherfucker who takes no shit and gets whatever he wants, no matter how many people he needs to eliminate in the process. &nbsp; This was not a man you messed with if you wanted to remain alive.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/capone3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone\" target=\"blank\">Wikipedia</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/mob_bosses/capone/index_1.html\" target=\"blank\">Al Capone: Made in America</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.mistercapone.com/index.htm\" target=\"blank\">Mister Capone</a></p>','2005-01-07','21512215752','capone4.jpg','capone4 - Copy.jpg','Al Capone','America\'s most notorious bootlegger, and a hardcore Sicilian gangster who would just as soon machine gun you into gibs than piss on your burning corpse.',''),('The Movie Starship Troopers','November 7, 1997','November 7, 1997','Hollywood, CA, USA','Fictional Alien Warrior','<p>I was working in a movie theater when Starship Troopers came out and as a result I probably saw some portion of this film about three times a week over the course of several months, and when I caught it on Encore the other night I remembered that it still rocks my face off.</p>\r\n<p>For those of you who are uninformed, \"Starship Troopers\" was a book written by some science fiction author about a future where the world is united under a Fascist government at war with a confederation of alien insects.&nbsp; The plot follows the adventures of a group of recent high school graduates as they enlist in the army, and makes several political and social commentaries regarding individuality, free will and the attitudes of people towards the government.&nbsp; Or at least that\'s what I hear from my friend Bill.&nbsp; I don\'t read anything that isn\'t my website.</p>\r\n<p>When they decided to adapt the book into a movie, the producers were just like, \"what do people want to see in their science fiction movies?\".&nbsp; They thought about it for a while and then just decided, \"screw this sentimental intellectual tacky commentary crap, let\'s just make a movie full of explosions, blood, machine guns and chicks\".&nbsp; The result was \"Starship Troopers\", the quintessential movie about war in space.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-family: helvetica; font-size: xx-small;\">Reasons Why \"Starship Troopers\" Is Badass to the Xtreme Gonzo</span></p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>First off, it features FSU grad Casper Van Dien and Denise Richards, who is sort of horse-faced but is also the first woman to ever make out with both Neve Campbell and Charlie Sheen.&nbsp; Now if this isn\'t a recipe for disaster, I don\'t know what is.&nbsp; Luckily, the script writers realized what they were working with and wrote some of the cheesiest, most badass dialogue in any movie ever.&nbsp; I don\'t know how they did it, but every single line in the movie is completely corny but awesome at the same time.&nbsp; This results in the audience getting a good laugh in the fifteen minutes of the movie when people aren\'t getting their arms ripped off or aliens aren\'t being exploded into pieces and spewing green fluid all over the place.\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n</li>\r\n<li>The movie ends up being about an hour and a half of space marines using their bitchin\' heavy machineguns (with a large-gauge shotgun as an under-barrel attachment) to slaughter aliens while their friends get torn in half and eaten by giant bugs, which is really all you can ever ask for from a trashy action/sci-fi movie.\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n</li>\r\n<li>There\'s a random arena football game in the beginning which serves no purpose to the plot but guys do somersaults and then their heads almost knocked off when they\'re tackled and bodyslammed by guys the size of Lawrence Taylor.&nbsp; How can you argue with a movie about killing aliens and scoring touchdowns?\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n</li>\r\n<li>Buenos Aires gets blown up by a giant asteroid that is knocked out of orbit by a huge alien bug that shoots lasers out of its ass.\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n</li>\r\n<li>Some chick pukes while dissecting a dead alien.\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n</li>\r\n<li>Right in the middle of all the killing and mayhem and monster blood Diz takes her shirt off.&nbsp; It\'s like the script writers were saying, \"OK, sorry nobody\'s been killed or maimed in the last seven minutes... here\'s some tits\", and you have to love that.&nbsp; Maybe the Star Wars prequels wouldn\'t have sucked so much ass if you got to see Natalie Portman\'s rack instead of a bunch of boring soliloquies about the nature of good and evil or midichlorians or other pretentious asshole rationalization of the plot crap.\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n</li>\r\n<li>The dialogue is best summed up in the scene where the dude who used to be on Babylon 5 looks at the gaping head wound of one of his soldiers and exclaims, \"Oh my god... they\'ve SUCKED OUT HIS BRAINS!\".\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n</li>\r\n<li>When all the guys are in boot camp and Ace is trying to act like a total badass his drill sergeant knifes him to get him to shut the fuck up because he was totally pissing everybody off.&nbsp; Then there\'s the random angry black man who chases people around with a spring-loaded stun baton when they\'re running laps, which is pretty cool.\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n</li>\r\n<li>Doogie Howser is in it.&nbsp; Wait, maybe that\'s not badass.&nbsp; It IS entertaining though.&nbsp; You can\'t avoid laughing when you see Doogie trying to act all hard and mysterious.\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n</li>\r\n<li>Tons of aliens get their shit wrecked.&nbsp; Tons of humans also get their shit wrecked.\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n</li>\r\n<li>The little bitch character who pisses you off throughout the entire movie TOTALLY gets what\'s coming to him and you don\'t even feel bad for him.\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n</li>\r\n<li>Space marines are just awesome.&nbsp; I\'m pretty sure it\'s impossible to make a movie about any kind of marines and have them not rock ass.&nbsp; I mean, even Imperial Stormtroopers are cool and all they did was bump into each other and fire their blasters in the wrong direction for three consecutive films.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n<p>Anyways, the movie \"Starship Troopers\" rules.&nbsp; It\'s the kind of movie that you can watch about five thousand times and still enjoy.&nbsp; It\'s like the ideal movie to put on when you\'re stoned or drunk and just sitting around with your friends while eating chips and salsa and you want to see some blood, guns, spaceships, tits and Doogie Howser.&nbsp; It\'s awesomely bad.&nbsp;</p>','2005-07-22','772880210472','starshiptroopers1.jpg','starshiptroopers1 - Copy.jpg','Starship Troopers','The worst/best movie ever.','\"Shiiiiit!  Kill this fucking thing!\"'),('Optimus Prime','1984 (first appearance)','August 8, 1986','Cybertron','Fictional Alien Warrior','<p>Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots and one of the coolest robots ever. Optimus is badass for a couple of reasons; First, he\'s a giant frikkin alien robot with a huge laser gun and superhuman leadership, managerial and networking skills. Second, he can turn into a goddamned Mack Truck and run over anything that crosses him. Like any good comic book/cartoon character, he sacrificed his life to save his teammates, only to be revived later and take over his position as leader of his organization as if nothing had happened. In this sense, he\'s the Christ-like figure of the 80\'s children\'s cartoon era. How\'s that for symbolism, Mrs. Fernandes, you miserable wretch?</p>\r\n<p>Prime has been in charge of his crack team of alien robots that turn into cars for, I think like a thousand years, and he continues to inspire nostalgia into the hearts of anyone who ever followed the Transformers. On top of that, he\'s easily the toughest and most badass robot-alien-motor vehicle among his people, and since he\'s just a robot he can\'t ever really be killed because they can just rebuild him. Plus he gets bonus points for avenging his own death. Not a lot of people can claim that they\'ve accomplished that.</p>','2004-12-20','52282815943','optimusprime.jpg','optimusprime - Copy.jpg','Optimus Prime','A giant alien robot that transforms into a Mack Truck.',''),('Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.','January 17, 1942','N/A','Louisville, KY, USA','20th-century American Athlete','<p>Cassius Clay was born in Louisville, Kentucky on January 17th, 1945.&nbsp; He would go on to become one of the most well-recognized and totally badass sports figures to ever live.</p>\r\n<p>Cassius got his start by boxing for his high school, where he won six Kentucky gold glove titles and two U.S. light-heavyweight division gold gloves.&nbsp; Much of his success was attributed to his unorthodox fighting style of keeping his hands to his sides (instead of up in front of his face), his excellent mobility and his exceptional 83\" reach.&nbsp; His success at the amateur level would earn him a spot on the U.S. Olympic Boxing Team, and he captured the gold medal in the 1960 Summer Games in Rome.</p>\r\n<p>When he returned from Rome, Clay went into the professional boxing circuit where he quickly rose to the top, winning his first twenty fights, including sixteen knockouts.&nbsp; What he was even more well-known for was his mouth.&nbsp; The \"Lip from Louisville\" was notorious for running his mouth and declaring that he was \"the greatest\" and how he was going to \"float like a butterfly and sting like a bee\".&nbsp; Before bouts, he would write poems predicting which round he would knock his opponent out in, which pissed them off and made him awesome at the same time.&nbsp; The buzz surrounding Clay was enough to get him a world heavyweight title shot at superstar Sonny Liston in 1965 despite the fact that he was only the #9 contender for the belt.</p>\r\n<p>Nobody put a whole lot of faith in Clay, who was going up against a guy who was basically what some analysts call \"the Mike Tyson of his time\", but Clay beat the holy hell out of him and captured the title after a late-round TKO.&nbsp; Cassius would remain awesome after he won the title, defending it seven times in 1966, a record for title defenses in a single year that still stands to this day.&nbsp; He knew he was the best and he wasn\'t afraid to kick everyone\'s ass to prove it.</p>\r\n<p>However, he wouldn\'t be defending his title as Cassius Clay.&nbsp; In 1965 he converted to Malcom X\'s Nation of Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali.&nbsp; This caused a tremendous outcry among the American public and many people refused to recognize his Muslim name at first.&nbsp; Ali persevered through the racism and religious intolerance with his trademarked egomania, which is something I totally can respect.&nbsp; When he stepped into the ring with one guy who kept calling him \"Cassius\", Ali yelled \"What\'s my name?\" every time he landed a huge punch on him.&nbsp; That guy didn\'t last long.</p>\r\n<p>Ali retained his title until 1967, when he was drafted for the Vietnam War.&nbsp; His religious beliefs prevented him from going to war for any reason so he refused to fight, stating that there was a lot more work to be done with our country before we went overseas and got into other peoples\' affairs.&nbsp; When he was told that it was his duty to fight the Communists, his reply was, \"No Vietnamese ever called me a nigger\".&nbsp; Ali was stripped of his title, expelled from boxing and sentenced to five years in prison.&nbsp; He would later get the ruling overturned by the Supreme Court.</p>\r\n<p>Ali returned to boxing in 1970, where he once again made his way up the ranks before being knocked out by heavyweight champion Joe Frazier in 1971.&nbsp; This didn\'t deter him though, and in 1974 he won his rematch with Frazier and subsequently reclaimed his title by KO\'ing then-champion George Foreman in what was one of the greatest boxing matches in history, 1974\'s \"Rumble in the Jungle\".</p>\r\n<center><br /><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/muhammadali2.jpg\" alt=\"\" /></center>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<p>Ali would defend his title in \"The Thrilla in Manilla\" in 1975, besting Joe Frazier in a late-round TKO.&nbsp; He would retain the title for four years until he was finally defeated by Leon Spinks in 1978.&nbsp; Ali won the rematch in 1979, claimed the title for a record third time, and then retired that same year.&nbsp; He made a couple attempts to return to the ring, but was never very successful.&nbsp; He ended his career at 56-5 with 37 knockouts.&nbsp; Especially impressive considering three of those losses came after his retirement in 1979.</p>\r\n<p>In 1982 Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson\'s disease.&nbsp; This didn\'t slow him down though, as he continued to preach peace, tolerance and responsibility to anyone who would listen.&nbsp; In 1985 he would attempt to negotiate the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon.&nbsp; In 1985 he also refereed Wrestlemania I.&nbsp; In 1996, he lit the torch at the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics.&nbsp; In 2001 he gave a speech at Ground Zero.&nbsp; Afterwards, a reporter asked him what it was like to be the same religion as the terrorists.&nbsp; Ali responded by asking the reporter what it was like to be the same religion as Hitler.</p>\r\n<p>Muhammad Ali is totally badass.&nbsp; He not only made an entire career out of kicking peoples\' asses, but he was also the best to ever do it.&nbsp; He was the world heavyweight champion for portions of ten years.&nbsp; On top of his complete badassitude in the ring, he was cocky and arrogant and was sure to let you know that he was going to kick your ass just before he did it.&nbsp; He didn\'t make any apologies and he didn\'t take any prisoners.&nbsp; He was funny, outgoing, brash and <a href=\"http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali\" target=\"blank\">infinitely quotable</a>;&nbsp; everything that makes an athlete successful in the media and also Xtreme to the max.&nbsp; On top of it all, he fought for civil rights and equality, and wasn\'t afraid to stand up for what he believed in, even if it meant he would lose everything he loved.&nbsp; Muhammad Ali was more than just a successful boxer and a guest referee for the Hulk Hogan - Andre the Giant match.</p>\r\n<p>He was The Greatest.</p>','2005-07-29','718291510251','muhammadali1.jpg','muhammadali1 - Copy.jpg','Muhammad Ali','The greatest.','\"There\'s not a man alive who can whup me.\r\nI\'m too fast. I\'m too smart. I\'m too pretty.\r\nI should be a postage stamp. That\'s the only way I\'ll ever get licked.\"'),('Daniel M\'Mburugu','1932','N/A','Kenya','21st-century Kenyan Adventurer','<p><a href=\"http://www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news.php?articleid=23419\" target=\"blank\">Daniel M\'Mburugu</a> is probably the hardest motherfucker to ever step foot in the rural farmlands of Kenya.&nbsp; On June 22nd, this 73 year-old grandfather was out in his farmland minding his own business when all of a sudden this gigantor leopard jumped out from some tall grass and mauled the fuck out of him.&nbsp; The beast let out an earth-shaking howl and pinned M\'Mburugu to the ground, scratching the shit out of his chest with its back claws and trying to bite his face off with its gleaming fangs.&nbsp; M\'Mburugu tried to free up his <em>panga</em> (Swahili for \"big ass machete\") so that he could take a good swipe at the creature that was slowly killing him, but then all of a sudden JESUS CHRIST sent a messenger pigeon down to him with a note that read:</p>\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<blockquote><em><em>Dear Daniel,</em></em>\r\n<p>Fuck the machete.&nbsp; Just rip this motherfucker\'s tongue out.</p>\r\n<p>Love,<br /> God</p>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n<p>So Daniel M\'Mburugu <em>dropped his machete</em> and shoved his hand into the leopards mouth.&nbsp; The leopard chomped down on his hand, be he totally didn\'t even give a fuck.&nbsp; He just <em>pulled the fucking leopard\'s tongue out of its head</em>, causing it to die and get totally pwned by a 73 year-old dude.&nbsp; After he was done wrecking the leopard\'s shit, he told his neighbor to go get him some salt just so that he could rub it into his wounds, pound his chest like Tarzan and prove to everyone that he was the baddest motherfucker in town.&nbsp; Awesome.</p>','2005-07-08','220190510885','mmburugu.jpg','mmburugu - Copy.jpg','Daniel M\'Mburugu','73 year-old dude kills a wild leopard by punching it in the mouth and pulling it\'s tongue out of its head.',''),('Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub','1137','March 4, 1193','Tikrit, Iraq','Medieval Arab General','<p>Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub was born in the small town of Tikrit to Kurdish Muslim parents in the year 1137 CE.&nbsp; He would become one of the most influential and admired military leaders in medieval history;&nbsp; loved by his people and respected by his enemies for years to come.</p>\r\n<p>Salah al-Din (known in the Western world as Saladin) grew up as a warrior and a strategist.&nbsp; He served as an officer in the armies of the Abbasid Caliphate of Syria, and would cut his teeth battling the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt in the 1160s.&nbsp; In 1169 Salah al-Din succeded his father as the Vizier of the Abbasid Caliphate, taking over as regent for the child Caliph and essentially holding all the power for his wealthy and powerful Empire like Jafar does in <em>Aladdin</em>.</p>\r\n<p>At this time, Crusader States had formed in the Middle East and the holy city of Jerusalem was firmly in Christian hands.&nbsp; For the past several years, the Crusaders and the Arabs had been battling each other and Salah al-Din was not about to step in.&nbsp; He followed a policy of consolidating his power from within the Caliphate and when his forces would be harassed by crusaders or rival Arabs, he would wisely retreat.&nbsp; Over the next few years, he watched as the Christian knights and the Fatimid Caliphate whittled away at each other\'s power.&nbsp; After the child Abbasid Caliph\'s death, Salah al-Din seized power and declared himself the Caliph of the new Ayyubid Dynasty.&nbsp; He then went out and whipped the asses of the Fatimid Caliphate and by 1181 he had taken control of Egypt and Syria.</p>\r\n<p>Now Salah al-Din was renowned throughout the world for his ability to not be a dick to people.&nbsp; So when he took over the vast Arab territories, the Christian knight commander Raynald of Chatillon decided it would be cool to fuck with him and try to provoke him into a fight.&nbsp; He resorted to the professional wrestling method of starting a battle;&nbsp; he would come out and say crazy shit like he was going to burn the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina to the ground, he raided Muslim shipping routes and attacked unarmed pilgrims while they were making the Hajj after Ramadan.</p>\r\n<center><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/saladin3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"20\" /></center>\r\n<p>Finally, Salah al-Din was like, \"OK seriously, fuck this guy.\" and he set out to kick the ass of Raynald of Chatillon.&nbsp; Raynald got all pumped up and sent out his knights to try and fight the Muslim infidels, but Salah al-Din was patient and cautious with his forces.&nbsp; He waited out the crusader knights until they had become tired, thirsty and exhausted, and when they went to go get some water from the river, Salah al-Din\'s forces jumped them at the Battle of Hattin in July of 1187 and beat the holy living hell out of the Christian knights.&nbsp; Raynald of Chatillon was captured at the battle, as were the Grand Masters of the Knights Templar and the Hospitallers.&nbsp; Salah al-Din sold all the captured knights back to their families for hefty ransoms except for Raynald, who was executed because he had been both a total bitch and a pain in the ass.</p>\r\n<p>Salah al-Din then decided to show the Christians what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass, and proceeded to conquer Jerusalem in October of 1187.&nbsp; This sparked the Third Crusade, when Richard I of England came down to try and recapture the holy city.&nbsp; Did it work?&nbsp; Hell no!&nbsp; Salah al-Din not only held Jerusalem - he also conquered every crusader state except for Tyre, which he spared so that the Christians would have somewhere to run to after he was done making them his bitches.&nbsp; Basically, he whipped the asses of the Christian knights like they were a pack of Finishing School girls.</p>\r\n<p>Despite the fact that he was a heathen infidel godless Muslim, Salah al-Din was well-liked and respected by the Christian knights and especially by Richard I.&nbsp; It was because Salah al-Din was totally cool to everyone that wasn\'t damn fool enough to fuck with him.&nbsp; For instance, when the crusaders took Jerusalem in the First Crusade, they slaughtered the entire city - men, women, Christians, Jews, Muslims - everyone was butchered.&nbsp; The streets ran red with blood.&nbsp; When Salah al-Din took the town, not only did he spare the Christian population from death, but he actually granted safe passage for defeated crusaders who wanted to visit the city for religious purposes, which is pretty tolerant and cool of him.&nbsp; Also, he wasn\'t even a jerk when he was kicking the crap out of Richard;&nbsp; when Richard was wounded in battle, Salah al-Din sent over his personal physician.&nbsp; When Richard\'s horse was taken out from under him, Salah al-Din presented him with a new one.&nbsp; Basically, he was hard as hell but also totally cool.&nbsp; He like totally represented the ultimate duality of man.</p>\r\n<p>Salah al-Din\'s legacy as a chivalrous and righteous man carried on throughout Western culture, which is pretty much unheard of for a non-Christian warrior.&nbsp; He\'s mentioned in Dante\'s <em>Inferno</em> as being among the virtuous pagan souls in Purgatory.&nbsp; He is shown in medieval art as being a great king and a heroic figure.&nbsp; He is written about favorably not only by Richard but by many of the notable authors of the medieval era and later.&nbsp; He was respected for his badassitude and admired for his awesomeness, which in the end is something we should all aspire to.</p>\r\n<p><img style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/saladin.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"20\" /></p>','2005-06-30','78418411094','saladin1.jpg','saladin1 - Copy.jpg','Saladin','Scourge of the Crusaders and the greatest Muslim military commander since Mohammad.',''),('Aron Lee Ralston','October 27, 1975','N/A','Indianapolis, IN, USA','21st-century American Adventurer','<p>Aron Ralston should go down in history as one of the hardest motherfuckers to ever live, despite the fact that he was a mechanical engineer and a French major in college.&nbsp; The type of badassery and self-sacrifice he demonstrated on a fateful week in May of 2003 is something that was otherwise unheard of in anything outside of an implausible action movie, an ancient Greek myth or a National Geographic documentary on wolverines.</p>\r\n<p>Ralston was canyoneering in the Blue John Canyon in Utah when all of a sudden there was a shifting of rocks and a giant boulder fell onto his right forearm, pinning it against the canyon wall and trapping him.&nbsp; Ralston stayed cool and just waited for help to arrive.&nbsp; However, after a couple of days nobody had come by and he had exhausted his water supply.&nbsp; Instead of being a chump-ass bitch and dying of exposure and dehydration, Aron Ralston got totally fucking hardcore and freed himself the only way that he could:&nbsp; By whipping out his fucking dull pocketknife and <em>using it to sever his own arm</em>.&nbsp; Yeah.&nbsp; He had a crappy multitool that he received free with the purchase of a crappy id=\"mce_marker\"5 flashlight and used it to hack and saw his damn arm off to extricate himself from the boulder.&nbsp; Shit, I had a tough time looking at my knee without the bandage for the first time after I had surgery; I can\'t imagine being able to actually chop off my arm without passing out from pain or blood loss or not being insane or something.&nbsp; I guess desperate times call for desperate measures, but even so, I\'d be willing to bet that few people in the world would have the stones to do what Aron Ralston did.</p>','2005-06-24','39708411898','aronralston.jpg','aronralston - Copy.jpg','Aron Ralston','Amputated his own arm with a pocketknife in order to survive after a horrific canyoneering accident pinned him on a canyon floor.',''),('Chan Kong-sang','April 7, 1954','N/A','Hong Kong, China','21st-century Chinese Entertainer','<p>Jackie Chan belongs right up there with <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/jetli.html\">Jet Li</a>, and <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/brucelee.html\">Bruce Lee</a> as one of the three most dominating kung fu movie stars in film history.&nbsp; He\'s lightning quick, resourceful, agile, funny and completely out of his mind.</p>\r\n<p>Jackie Chan got his start in the Chinese Opera, which sounds kind of fruity but in actuality is pretty freaking rad.&nbsp; Those guys can really backflip their asses off, and it was there that Jackie became adept at tumbling, leaping, kicking shit and being awesome.&nbsp; Eventually he progressed to kung fu films and had the good luck of being on screen just long enough to have his neck snapped by Bruce Lee in <em>Enter the Dragon</em>.&nbsp; Jackie eventually wound up with starring roles in several Hong Kong action films and over the years has grown into one of China\'s biggest celebrities.&nbsp; Basically, he rules.</p>\r\n<p>One of the things that kicks ass about Jackie Chan movies is that he has his own distinct style that makes every film different and enjoyable.&nbsp; He has the ability to laugh at himself and crack jokes on camera, which is more than can be said for some of these self-proclaimed hardasses that think they\'re too tough to smile or get poked in the eye or something.&nbsp; Plus, Jackie Chan is awesome when it comes to improvising weapons and beating the hell out of people with random household items.&nbsp; Sure, kung fu films have featured people being beaten with pool cues or table legs or stuff like that, but Jackie Chan was a real pioneer in the field of kicking ass with crazy shit like refrigerator doors, paint cans, ladders, pinball machines, horseshoe and steering wheels.&nbsp; Basically, if he can find some way to either pick it up or otherwise manipulate it, he can probably find some way beat the shit out of you with it.</p>\r\n<p>On top of that, Jackie does ALL of his own stunts, which is crazy.&nbsp; They have professional expendable stunt guys just so you don\'t have to climb out of a trash compactor as it\'s closing or risk injury and death by jumping from rooftop to rooftop without a safety net or leaping out of a moving car.&nbsp; Jackie\'s nuts though; he does all that shit himself.&nbsp; And while he\'s probably single-handedly destroying the stuntperson industry one film at a time, you totally have to respect the testicular fortitude it takes to get out there and volunteer to leap from a bridge onto a moving train and then plummet a hundred feet into a river.&nbsp; It\'s pretty badass.&nbsp; Couple that with the fact that he\'s STILL doing shit like that even though he\'s like 51 years old and it\'s even more impressive.&nbsp; Shit, I\'m in my mid-twenties and I can\'t run up a wall and do a backflip without breaking my neck;&nbsp; this guy\'s twice my age and he can do it while CIA assassins lob hand grenades at him.&nbsp; He\'s just that hardcore.</p>\r\n<p><img style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/jackiechan1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"20\" /></p>','2005-06-17','910211212085','jackiechan2.jpg','jackiechan2 - Copy.jpg','Jackie Chan','One of the biggest icons in the history of martial arts cinema.',''),('Samuel Toloza','Unknown','N/A','El Salvador','21st-century ElSalvadoran Soldier','<p>El Salvadoran Cpl. Samuel Toloza is a total badass. He was part of a small Central American unit stationed in Najaf, Iraq that came under attack from Iraqi insurgents in May of this year. The small unit was caught off-guard and managed to put up a tough defense before running out of ammunition. With one man dead, twelve others wounded and no bullets left Toloza and his three remaining comerades desperately attempted to hold their position. When Iraqi rebels surrounded one of his wounded friends and tried to pull him off, Toloza freaked out ninja-style, whipped out his goddamned pocket knife and started stabbing the shit out of anyone that came near him. The Iraqis were totally unprepared for some fucking lunatic to start shivving them and were beaten back just as an Allied relief column arrived to secure the area.</p>\r\n<p>You can\'t question the badassitude of this guy, seen here holding the bloody knife. It takes serious cojones to run at a bunch of gun-toting Iraqis armed only with a 3-inch blade and start stabbing faces. The U.S. was so impressed with how hardcore this dude was that they awarded him the Bronze Star for Bravery and the WCW Hardcore Title.</p>','2004-11-26','772104728894','toloza.jpg','toloza - Copy.jpg','Samuel Toloza','When a unit of Iraqi troops tried to drag one of his comrades off, this dude freaked out and stabbed them all with a pocketknife until they ran for it.','He\'ll stab you in the goddamned face.'),('The Aggro Crag','September 19, 1992','N/A','Orlando, FL, USA','20th-century American Supervillain','<p>Since my wife and I bit the bullet and decided to pay the extra five bucks a month to upgrade our digital cable, we\'ve been watching more than an unhealthy amount of the Nickelodeon Games and Sports Channel, a low-budget cable network that\'s entire television lineup consists of Double Dare, Super Sloppy Double Dare, Family Double Dare, Finders Keepers, Legends of the Hidden Temple and GUTS. Watching close to five hours of GUTS a week has made me realize that the AGGRO-CRAG is the greatest thing ever constructed by human or alien technology.</p>\r\n<p>The AGGRO-CRAG is located deep in the heart of Nickelodeon\'s EXTREME ARENA and represents the ultimate test of courage for kids ages twelve to fourteen not only across the country, but across the globe as well. The AGGRO-CRAG, or AGGRESSIVE ROCK, is a forty-foot tall mountain made up of spikes, steel girders, broken robot parts, volcanic rock and THE ESSENSE OF PURE EVIL. It could totally kill Frodo and Samwise and make Mount Doom it\'s bitch if it wanted to, and it would still have energy left to beat the crap out of pussy mountains like K2 and MOUNT ST. HELENS. If the AGGRO-CRAG were a real person, it would be a mix of Tony Hawk, The Big Show, a post-apocalyptic mutant cactus and a really awesome bloodthirsty PIRATE because it would be big, mean, irradiated and XTREME.</p>\r\n<p>After the contestants on GUTS manage to get past the other pointless GUTS contests such as ROAD WARRIOR, ELASTIC BASKETBALL and THE SACK ATTACK, they face off in a race to the top of the most Radical Rock to ever grace Nickelodeon Studios. The climb to the top isn\'t easy though, as contestants face BIG GREEN FALLING ROCKS, WOBBLY FLOORS, SNOW STORMS, FALLING CONFETTI/GLITTER STUFF, and the dreaded NUCLEAR FLYING CRYSTALS, all the while being heckled by Florida Marlins jersey-wearing charisma vortex Mike O\'Malley and his big-haired screeching Irish bird sidekick/sexual harrasment target Moira (or MOE, as he likes to call her). As if getting to the top isn\'t difficult enough, these kids have to hit seven ACTUATORS on the way up, otherwise the vicious man-eating CRAG TROLL at the top of the mountain bites off their arms and throws them off the cliff to their deaths so that Mike O\'Malley can steal their WALLETS and Moe can feast on their souls. If all seven ACTUATORS are hit and the kid manages to scale the FIVE FOOT sheer cliff face and get to the top, they pound a final ACTUATOR and then collapse to the floor dead from exhaustion. At least they can die happy though, knowing that they had done the impossible and bested the most awesome mountain to ever be crafted by underpaid Nickelodeon stagehands.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">\"The MEGA-CRAG is MEGA: MEGA bad, MEGA tough, MEGA EVERYTHING\"<br /> - Mike O\'Malley</p>','2004-11-05','635461029125','aggrocrag - Copy.jpg','aggrocrag.jpg','The Aggro Crag','The confetti-spewing death mountain that makes all other mountains look like flaccid micropenises.','Do you have it?'),('Bunyaviridae Hantaan virus','1950','N/A','Korea','20th-century Korean Supervillain','<p>The Hanta Virus doesn\'t get a whole lot of respect these days as bioterror threats have attracted most people\'s attentions to the \"designer diseases\" such as Anthrax, Ebola and Smallpox, but this week I\'ve decided to recognize the Hanta Virus as one of the most badassed of all viral infections. The most diabolical thing about the Hanta Virus is that when you contract it at first it just feels like you have the flu, and then you feel better, then you die. You don\'t even see it coming. You\'re just going along, telling everyone you\'re going to pull through and then all of a sudden fluid seeps into your lungs and it\'s Respiratory Failure City. It\'s like the viral equivelant of being blindsided by a bus right after you\'ve been released from the hospital.</p>\r\n<p>First discovered when it started affecting UN soldiers during the Korean War, Hanta Virus is transmitted through mouse and rat feces and is also present in the vapors of their saliva and urine, so if you do manage to contract it you had better have a good explanation or else you will be mocked incessantly by your friends right up until your horrible death.</p>\r\n<p>Only the most badass diseases contain the vicious one-two punch of being both degrading and potentially fatal.</p>','2004-10-29','523129029928','hantavirus.jpg','hantavirus - Copy.jpg','The Hanta Virus','First you get a minor cold.  Then you get better.  Then you die.',''),('Damnatio Memoriae','31 AD','N/A','Rome','Ancient Roman Supervillain','<p>The Damnatio Memoria was a practice utilized by the ancient Romans and Egyptians when someone was such a fucking dickhead that the Emperor or Pharaoh declared that they should no longer exist.&nbsp; When a Damnatio Memoria was issued, all historical references to that person were destroyed or erased and any statues or paintings of them were horribly defaced and urinated upon forcefully so that it was impossible to tell even tell who they were or what they looked like.&nbsp; All mention of their names in the historical record were redacted as hell, torn up, run through a paper shredder and then hurled into a furnace.&nbsp; Basically since it was such an important thing in those cultures to have people remember your legacy, this was a huge \"fuck you\" and was reserved for the most serious assholes around.</p>\r\n<p>Damnatio Memorii are totally badass because they ensure that the people who are complete major flaming shitburgers aren\'t even hatefully remembered, which is something the we all aspire to. In fact, a lot of scholars have a hard time even figuring out who some statues were even of since it\'s impossible to make out the faces and any record of their existence has been completely stricken from the official histories. It\'s like issuing one of these things makes it so that a person never even existed, which is awesome.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/damnatio3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />Saddamnatio Memoria</p>','2004-08-27','135535930414','damnatio1.jpg','damnatio1 - Copy.jpg','The Damnatio Memoria','He does not exist.  He never existed.','\"He does not exist.  He never existed.\"\r\n- George Orwell, 1984'),('Sho\'Nuff','Unknown','March 22, 1985','New York, NY, USA','Fictional American Outlaw','<p>Sho\'Nuff is the self-proclaimed \"Shogun of Harlem\" and the baddest mofo low-down around the town in the balls-out 80\'s blaxploitation/breakdance/kung-fu movie Berry Gordy\'s The Last Dragon.&amp;nbps; He basically dresses up in his outrageous costume and goes around with his posse of eighties street thugs doing all sorts of crazy shit like trashing mom-and-pop pizza joints, destroying people in underground cage-matches and stuffing ten year-olds into garbage cans.&nbsp; At one point he even makes kung-fu master/<a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/brucelee.html\">Bruce Lee</a> wannabe Leroy \"kiss his converse\" in front of his entire karate school.&nbsp; Sho\'Nuff is a badass because while Leroy spends the whole movie bitching about attaining Zen or whatever and avoiding intimate physical contact with his rock star girlfriend like the plague, Sho spends his time trying to start shit with random people, growing his afro and being total wank to everyone he encounters.&nbsp; When he gets super-pissed he starts glowing red and kicking ass.&nbsp; A lot of people can\'t do that.&nbsp; His breakdancing kung-fu expert thug cronies help him out in these endeavors by constantly stroking his massive ego, kicking in windows and participating in Sho\'s signature monologue, which goes as follows:</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\">Sho\'Nuff: Am I the meanest?<br /> Gang: Sho\'Nuff!<br /> Sho\'Nuff: Am I the prettiest?<br /> Gang: Sho\'Nuff!<br /> Sho\'Nuff: Am I the baddest mo-fo, low-down, around this town?<br /> Gang: Sho\'Nuff!<br /> Sho\'Nuff: Well, who am I?<br /> Gang: Sho\'Nuff!<br /> Sho\'Nuff: Who am I?<br /> Gang: Sho\'Nuff!<br /> Sho\'Nuff: I can&rsquo;t hear you!<br /> Gang: Sho\'Nuff!<br /> Sho\'Nuff: The Shogun of Harlem!</p>\r\n<p><br /> <img style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/shonuff1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>','2004-08-13','811801531029','shonuff.jpg','shonuff - Copy.jpg','Sho\'Nuff','The Shogun of Harlem, and the baddest mo-fo, low-down, around this town.',''),('I Have No Fucking Clue','Unknown','N/A','Satan\'s Bunghole','Prehistoric Extraplanar Monster','<p>Holy shit, look at this fucking thing. I don\'t know the size of that leaf it\'s standing on so I have no real frame of reference as to how large this motherfucker is, but it\'s probably a pretty safe bet it could take your entire arm off with one chop. The truly badass thing about bugs is that they really don\'t give a fuck about inflicting death and dismemberment on humans stupid enough to try and mess with them because they have no conscience and show no remorse. It\'s just instinct for them to clamp their machete-sized pincers down on anything that they even remotely percieve as a threat. Plus, I think I read that many species of beetle can carry around 850 times their own weight on their back, which is roughly equivelant to a person lugging around a Volvo dealership. I mean, look at this thing. There\'s no way would I ever fuck with it.</p>','2004-07-16','331896731212','beetle.jpg','beetle - Copy.jpg','This Huge-Ass Beetle','What the fuck is this goddamned thing pls send help immediately wtf',''),('aka The Banana Monster','Unknown','Unknown','China','Fictional Chinese Supervillain','<p>The Watermelon Monster (or Banana Monster) is a giant cannonball looking thing with legs, eyes and teeth that runs around and tries to bite off your balls. It also has these weird antennae that pop out and can shock your nipples with electric current. It is from the movie Taoism Drunkard (also known as Drunken Wu Tang) which is one of the most insane movies I have ever seen. Basically this thing lives in a box and guards a scroll or something. It comes out to do somersaults and munch the balls of anyone who tries to get the scroll, which belongs to on opium-smoking grandma (obviously played by a guy). I saw this movie at midnight kung-fu and it kicks ass. This monster is the craziest and most awesome thing I have ever seen, heard of or had nightmares about. Check this shit out (double-click to start the video, but be aware that it has sound):</p>\r\n<p><br /><br /></p>\r\n<center><object width=\"320\" height=\"240\" data=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dwutang1.mpg\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\"><param name=\"autostart\" value=\"false\" /><param name=\"src\" value=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dwutang1.mpg\" /></object></center><center></center>','2004-06-25','339342631440','bananamonster2.jpg','bananamonster2 - Copy.jpg','Watermelon Monster','It\'s a cannonball with teeth that does kung fu and tries to bite peoples\' nutsacks off.  Seriously.',''),('Brian R. Chontosh','1974','N/A','Rochester, NY, USA','21st-century American Marine','<p>The Badass this week is First Lieutenant Brian R. Chontosh of the United States Marine Corps. Lt. Chontosh was heading up a convoy during the march to Baghdad when his unit came under heavy machinegun fire from a nearby trench system. According to reports, Chontosh didn\'t even flinch as he ordered his Humvee driver to DRIVE TOWARDS THE MACHINEGUN FIRE. The .50 cal gunner on the Humvee took out the machinegun nest and Chontosh bailed out into the trench where he went went around killing every motherfucker he came across. He used up all the ammo in his M16A2 service rife, his 9mm pistol as well as two AK-47s he picked up off of dead Iraqis. He even took some guys out with an RPG. All in all he wasted about twenty guys and injured several more when he single-handedly kicked the ass of an entire platoon of Iraqi Regular Infantry using everything but the kitchen sink as an implement of munchy crunchy death. For his actions, he was recently awarded a promotion to Captain, the Navy Cross for Heroism and a place in the Hall of Badassitude.</p>','2004-05-21','135535931868','chrontosh.jpg','chrontosh - Copy.jpg','Brian R. Chontosh','This guy single-handedly wiped out an entire company of Iraqi infantry by kicking the shit out of them and then killing them with their own guns.','\"God has a hard-on for Marines, because we kill everything we see.\" '),('The Big Fucking Gun 9000','December 10, 1993','N/A','Mars','Fictional Alien Weapon','<p>This week\'s badass is one of the most awesome things to ever be developed for a video game.&nbsp; The BFG 9000 is the most diabolical instrument of death ever created, the \"Number 6\" weapon in the <em>Doom</em> games and the only thing on the planet that can make Satan Himself crap his pants while crying and pleading for his miserable life.&nbsp; Basically, it shoots a hugeass ball of green energy that disentigrates anything and everything in your line of sight and sucks up thirty points of energy faster than you can say \"IDKFA\".&nbsp; While <em>Doom</em> revolutionized video games, particularly the first-person shooter genre, the BFG 9000 revolutionized totally over-the-top video game weaponry and paved the way for other bizarre inconceivable guns that only get more and more ridiculous as time goes on.&nbsp; While many of them have attempted to rival the BFG, nothing quite comes close to the raw testosterone production that results from dishing out some monster-liquidating justice with the BFG 9000.&nbsp; So the next time you see an over-the-top weapon like a catapult that shoots nuclear chickens or a toaster that fires heat-seeking burritos at Mexican immigrants, just remember that they\'re all just crappy substitutes for the BFG 9000 - the only weapon in the universe capable of putting hair on your chest simply by pulling the trigger.</p>','2004-05-14','941492732530','bfg9000.jpg','bfg9000 - Copy.gif','The BFG 9000','When you absolutely, positively have to kill every motherfucker in the room.',''),('Anakin Skywalker','A Long, Long Time Ago','Also a Long, Long Time Ago','Tatooine','Fictional Alien Supervillain','<p>Darth Vader - the Darth Vader that I grew up with &ndash; the diabolically evil cyborg killing machine from the Original Star Wars Trilogy &ndash; was one of the meanest, most sinister, badass motherfucking characters in the history of cinema.&nbsp; Before the prequels went and gave him some fruity bullshit backstory, The Dark Lord of the Sith was universally feared and respected by anyone who was a fan of science-fiction, movies, or things that don&rsquo;t suck, and his mere presence was enough to make friend and foe alike tremble with awe and maybe even urinate themselves a little bit.</p>\r\n<p>One of the greatest things about Darth Vader was that he was so mysterious.&nbsp; Nobody knew what lurked beneath his black helmet, how he became the robotic monster that he was, or how he was corrupted to the Dark Side, and nobody really gave a shit.&nbsp; It was more than enough for us that this fucking seven foot-tall, hulking behemoth barely resembling a man showed up in his black armor, threatened people in James Earl Jones&rsquo; imposing voice, and choked the fucking life out of any motherfuckers who displeased him while awesome music played in the background.&nbsp; He was powerful, scary, and certainly not to be trifled with.</p>\r\n<p>Vader also epitomizes badassitude in that when it&rsquo;s time to lay the smack down he doesn&rsquo;t fuck around for any reason.&nbsp; He doesn&rsquo;t do crazy backflips or spin kicks or any of that ridiculous showy bullshit &ndash; he&rsquo;s just big, tough, and strong.&nbsp; His fighting style utilizes his massive size and unmatched strength to beat down his enemies and batter their defenses until they are unable to continue fighting.&nbsp; You can kind of see this in how Vader wipes the floor with Obi-Wan (&ldquo;your powers are weak, old man!&rdquo;) and in how he toys with Skywalker at the end of <em>Empire</em> &ndash; Luke goes into Bespin thinking that he&rsquo;s really hot shit, but it&rsquo;s obvious that Vader could ruin his ass in an instant if he wanted to.&nbsp; Instead he decides to let Luke live (he does lop his hand off just to show Luke where his fucking place is) and tries to see if he can turn his son to the Dark Side of the Force so that together they can rule the Galaxy.&nbsp; This is a perfect example of why Vader is the ultimate badass villain;&nbsp; Sure, it&rsquo;s one thing to just destroy this kid for foolishly thinking he can take you on, but it&rsquo;s a whole new layer of evil to seriously wound him, crush his entire world by revealing your paternal relationship to him, and then use his severe emotional distress as a means to turn him over to the side of evil.</p>\r\n<p>Of course even though Vader knows it&rsquo;s more strategically advantageous to convert your enemy over to your side, he certainly doesn&rsquo;t have any compunction about callously crushing the sack of anyone who crosses him.&nbsp; Vader&rsquo;s ultimate evil and mastery of the Dark Side is another means of showing how much fucking ass he can kick.&nbsp; Seriously, Force Choke has to be one of the coolest fucking powers around.&nbsp; I know that Force Lightning is the sexier power amongst most nerds out there, but you can only shock the crap out of someone who is in the same room as you &ndash; Vader can Force Choke a guy through a goddamned cameraphone, which is fucking NUTS!&nbsp; Plus, his strength makes him a tough matchup for most Jedi Knights when it comes to one-on-one lightsaber duels, as would be evidenced by the fact that Darth Vader is alluded to as being pretty much solely responsible for the destruction of the entire Jedi Order.&nbsp; Basically, Vader is big, intimidating, and deadlier than an underwater electric chair.</p>\r\n<p>Darth Vader is eventually redeemed when he turns on his master and hurls the Emperor into Mount Doom in order to save his son from death by painfully-slow electrocution.&nbsp; Sure, turning traitor isn&rsquo;t exactly badass, but the end of <em>Jedi</em> when the half-melted head of Anakin Skywalker tells Luke that there was still some good left in him is probably the most touching scene in cinema history, and goes to show that Vader is more than just an imposing visage and the physical embodiment of pure evil.&nbsp; Plus, now that he&rsquo;s redeemed he gets to party in the afterlife with Yoda and Obi-Wan, which is awesome.&nbsp; I bet Yoda makes awesome margaritas.</p>\r\n<p>Darth Vader is an enduring icon of what it means to be badass, and a character that still conjures up feelings of respect, awe, and fear thirty years after his first appearance on the screen.&nbsp; He hacks people&rsquo;s limbs off, he chokes the life out of anyone who fucks with him either with his bare hands or through the medium of the Force, and he doesn&rsquo;t fuck around when it comes to serving as the vengeful hand of the Galactic Empire bent on exterminating all who would dare oppose its glorious reign.&nbsp; He fucking rocks.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"/vader2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br />I find your lack of faith disturbing.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7466911/\" target=\"blank\">Darth Vader Lives!</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darth_vader\" target=\"blank\">Wikipedia</a></p>','2004-04-09','7612928366','vader.jpg','vader - Copy.jpg','Darth Vader','It\'s Darth Vader.  If you don\'t at least have some vague idea of who that is, you\'re probably in the wrong place.','You!  Shut the fuck up.'),('Pier Gerlofs Donia','1480','1520','Kimswerd, Frisia, Netherlands','16th-century Dutch Pirate','<p>When you think about the Dutch, you (perhaps unfairly?) picture a bunch of totally chill, easy-going, business-savvy dudes who have a well-documented appreciation for the finer things in life &ndash; little luxuries like windmills, three-masted wooden ships, gratuitious red light districts, and spending weekday afternoons in a coffee shop smoking enough weed to make Snoop&rsquo;s eyes bug out of his head like a cartoon character and roll around on the ground. You don&rsquo;t picture seven-foot-tall, William Wallace motherfuckers who hack people in half with broadswords and eviscerate the corpses of their fallen enemies with meat cleavers like a psychotic butcher on a PCP rampage hacking his way through the lunch meat aisle at the grocery store.</p>\r\n<p>Meet Pier Gerlofs Donia.</p>\r\n<p>Even though this giant sword-swinging warrior hailed from the land we now know as Holland, the Netherlands, and the Place Where Dutch People Live, Pier Gerlofs Donia wasn&rsquo;t really Dutch. He was Frisian, which, for the sake of brevity, is kind of like what you get when you cross a Dutchman with a German, give him a two-handed <em>zweihander</em> greatsword and send him off to split his enemies from head to groin with one swing of his mighty blade like the Conan the Librarian skit from Weird Al&rsquo;s cinematic masterpiece <em>UHF</em>.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/bigpier1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Known simply as Grutte Pier (a clever Dutch phrase that translates to \"Big Pier\"), this legendary semi-barbarian pirate berserker of neck-severing Dutchman annihilation was born in Kimswerd in 1480. Now, at this time the Frisians were basically a group of people who lived in Holland and Germany but were neither Dutch nor German, a fact that alternatively pissed off both the Dutch and the Germans &ndash; both of whom responded by fucking with the Frisians at every possible opportunity, usually in the form of ultra-strict penal measures, curfews, and taxing the jock straps off of them until the only thing the Frisians could afford to do for fun was sit around in their underwear eating Top Ramen out of a dirt bowl and playing with their Pet Rocks. Those Frisians who didn\'t see this as a viable means of spending their time took up swords and rebelled against the Saxon Dukes who ruled Friesland, and a series of intense wars resulted in a copious amount of mutilated corpses and nearly drained the Saxon treasury of its last gold coins.</p>\r\n<p>But Pier Gerlofs Donia wasn\'t one of those rebellious motherfuckers. He was just a quiet farmboy, minding his own business, chillin\' like a villain\' in his little wood house with his wife and kids, chopping up firewood with a single stroke of his pocketknife, carrying trees up and down the neighborhood like Arnold in <em>Commando</em>, and spending his weeknights watching <em>Dancing With the Stars</em> on basic cable. Life was good, until one day in 1515 when a rampaging horde of mercenary soldiers rolled into town, burned Pier\'s house down, murdered his two kids, raped and killed his wife, and then burned his church down just for good measure.</p>\r\n<p>Now would be a good time to point out that Pier was seven feet tall, carried a six-foot-long greatsword that weighed approximately fifteen pounds, was so strong that he could bend a coin between his thumb and his forefinger, and was such a fucking maniac berserker in combat that he allegedly once decapitated seven enemy soldiers with one swing of his weapon.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/bigpier2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Big Pier\'s sword. No shit.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>From this point on, Grutte Pier\'s story becomes a 16th-century iteration of Clint Eastwood\'s character in <em>The Outlaw Josey Wales</em>. Instead of the Kansas Redlegs, the villains this time were the Black Band &ndash; a jackass gang of mercenary thug douchebags who, when they didn\'t get paid, went out to extract their blood money from the locals &ndash; but these weren\'t the only motherfuckers who were going to suffer for the injustice that Pier just had to suffer. Yeah, he was going to carve his name into the faces of every single one of those assholes with a Bowie knife &ndash; that was a given &ndash; but he was going to take this shit all the way to the top. He was going after the Saxons and the Dutch, both of whom he blamed for unleashing this plague of war on his land and for oppressing his countrymen. It was pretty much on like Donkey Kong.</p>\r\n<p>The Giant of Kimswerd went on a goddamned rampage, massacring every soldier, Saxon, and Dutchman he could find by hacking them into ground round with a two-handed sword until all that stood between Pier\'s front door and the local Black Band Union was an inch-deep oil slick of human blood and entrails. A bunch of Pier\'s fellow Frisians got word that this guy was wrecking more asses than a habanero chalupa and joined up, and before long Pier found himself at the head of a rebel army composed of pirates, landless noblemen, and peasants on a single-minded rampage against all who stood before them. They called themselves the Black Gang from Arum (awesome), and on land and sea they attacked the Dutch, the Saxons, the Burgundians, and pretty much anybody else who wasn\'t Frisian.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/bigpier3.png\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>It didn\'t take long before the Saxon Duke (the dude who had hired the Black Gang) said \"fuck it\" and bugged outta there like the MiGs at the end of <em>Top Gun</em>, selling all of his land in Frisia to the future Hapsburg Emperor Charles V and then running off to a nice quiet part of Europe where a human juggernaut with a badass \'stache wasn\'t actively trying to cut him into many tiny pieces and feed his dismembered corpse to dogs. Charles V tried to quell the revolt, but Pier continued roaming the countryside plundering and pillaging and wreaking havoc on everything he saw.</p>\r\n<p>Pier also roamed the high seas between 1515 and 1517, hammering Dutch and Saxon ships ferrying troops and supplies to Charles\' forces. Basically, he worked like this &ndash; any time Big Pier ran into a ship he didn\'t recognize he charged right at it, boarded it, and forced the people on board to recite a Frisian tongue-twister. Anyone who couldn\'t say, \" B&ucirc;ter, brea en griene tsiis: wa\'t dat net sizze kin, is gjin oprjochte Fries\" (and I can only imagine this is even harder to pronounce than it is to spell) was executed by keelhauling. For those who don\'t know, keelhauling is when they tie a rope around your waist, throw you off the front of the boat, and then drag you underneath it until you drown. I really feel like there should be some sort of \"long walk off a Big Pier\" joke to be made here, and it bothers me that I can\'t find it.</p>\r\n<p>In just two years of this hardcore scurvy pirate action, Pier sunk 132 enemy ship &ndash; including one battle where he destroyed 28 Dutch ships in a single day, a deed that earned him the badass nickname \"The Cross of the Dutchmen\".</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/bigpier4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Keelhauling.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>When he wasn\'t making up insane tongue-twisters about fries and buter, Pier also attacked and plunder land targets as well as naval ones. In 1516, he attacked Medemblik, a stronghold of Saxon sympathizers. The city was sacked, razed to the ground, and its inhabitants massacred. Two enemy castles fell to him soon after. In 1517 the town of Asperen was also annihilated in a similar manner &ndash; the Dutch responded by sending a punitive fleet to bombard him with cannons. Pier\'s pirate armada captured 11 of their ships and drove the rest from the harbor.</p>\r\n<p>Pier\'s countless battle wounds and injuries finally caught up with him, and in 1519 he retired as a rebel leader, went back to his new home, and died peacefully in his bed in 1520. His buddy Wijerd carried on the fight against the Saxons for a while, but that guy was no Giant of Kimswerd. He suffered a number of defeats and was decapitated in 1523. Charles V wasn\'t able to fully assume control over Friesland until 1524.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/bigpier5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&amp;sl=nl&amp;u=http://www.friesland-digitaal.eu/wunseradiel/Kimswerd/gruttepier.html&amp;ei=liHYTrflLYOl2AX2uJXIDg&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=translate&amp;ct=result&amp;resnum=1&amp;ved=0CCIQ7gEwAA&amp;prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.friesland-digitaal.eu/wunseradiel/Kimswerd/gruttepier.html%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DPlx%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26prmd%3Dimvns\">Grutte Pier</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&amp;sl=nl&amp;u=http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pier_Gerlofs_Donia&amp;ei=xwDZTrOODcGsiAL3utXmCQ&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=translate&amp;ct=result&amp;resnum=5&amp;ved=0CEQQ7gEwBDgU&amp;prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522Grutte%2BPier%2522%26start%3D20%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3D4cC%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D666%26prmd%3Dimvns\">His Dutch Wiki Page</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.crossofthedutchman.com/2011/09/legend-grutte-pier/\">Cross of the Dutchman</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pier_Gerlofs_Donia\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Harrison, Paul.&nbsp; <em>Pirates</em>.&nbsp; Rosen Publishing Group, 2008.<br /><br /> <em>History of Europe</em>.&nbsp; eM Publications, 2011.<br /><br /> Lokin, J., Frits Brandsma, and C. Jansen.&nbsp; <em>Roman-Frisian Law of the 17th and 18th Century</em>.&nbsp; Duncker &amp; Humblot, 2003.<br /><br /> McNamara, Timothy and Carsten Roever.&nbsp; <em>Language Testing</em>.&nbsp; John Wiley and Sons, 2006. </span></p>','2011-12-23','50517573060','bigpier.jpg','bigpier copy.jpg','Grutte Pier','When his house was burned down and his family murdered, this seven-foot Dutchman turned pirate and kicked ass with a 35-pound greatsword.',''),('Drew Dennis Dix','December 14, 1944','N/A','West Point, NY, USA','20th-century American Soldier','<p>Dennis Dix always knew he wanted to be a Green Beret. Growing up, he\'d read everything he possibly could about them, and when he turned 18 in 1962 he immediately went down to the local recruiting office and told the dude behind the counter that he wanted to kick as many asses as possible in as short a time as possible. The recruiter put him into the 82nd Airborne.</p>\r\n<p>Dix served three years with the 82nd, including a stint in the Dominican in 1965 where he helped crush out a nascent Communist revolution by kicking a bunch of pinko Russkie sympathizers in the throat with a steel-toed boot, and his skills in destroying everything in his path quickly got him recruited into the American Special Forces. He went through the grueling training program, received the coveted green beret he\'d waited for his entire life, and then promptly received orders to deploy to the Mekong Delta for a lovely beach party in the tropical paradise known as South Vietnam. Working with the CIA on a bunch of insanely super-secret <em>Mission: Impossible</em>-style \"the government will disavow all knowledge of your existence\" shit, Dix was tasked with tracking enemy troop movements along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia, and when he wasn\'t flying solo sneaking around enemy positions hundreds of miles behind friendly lines trying not to get shot this guy was living in the city of Chau Pau, setting up an infrastructure aimed at convincing the Vietnamese people that Communism was bullshit and Democracy was like an adorable pixelated Pop-Tart cat flying through space on a rainbow of happiness.</p>\r\n<p>It was around this time that the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive &ndash; one of the largest and most well-coordinated multi-front offensives ever launched against the United States. The short version of the Tet Offensive goes like this: both North Vietnam and South Vietnam came out and said that they were going to enforce a two-day cease-fire for the national holiday Tet Nguyen Dan, but instead of kicking back and eating fondue for Vietnamese New Year the North Vietnamese (and guerilla troops of the Viet Cong) launched a mega-balls-to-the-wall coordinated sneak attack that simultaneously murder-boned over 100 cities and towns across Vietnam &ndash; including 36 of the 44 provincial capitals and the capital of South Vietnam itself. So, in effect, the peaceful people of Chau Pau, South Vietnam, went to sleep on January 31, 1968 with dreams of sugar plum fairies dancing in their heads, and woke up the next morning to find enemy troops in their base killin their d00ds.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dix1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The Tet Offensive</span>.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now, Dix had sort of had an idea that some obscene shit was about to go down in the near future &ndash; when the first North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops were running around like maniacs detonating Capitalists on the sidewalks of Chau Pau, the 23 year-old U.S. Army Staff Sergeant was on patrol in the waters of the Mekong Delta with a two-man Navy SEAL team, trying to recon enemy positions to figure out what the damn hell was going on. When the team received word that Chau Pau was being sneak-attack dickpunched by two full battalions of North Vietnamese Army regulars and an unknown number of Viet Cong guerillas, this guy figured, \"hm, that\'s probably exactly what we\'re looking for.\" He pulled the handbrake on his inflatable motorized raft, kicked up a fucking sweet sheet of water, and hauled ass back there like Vin Diesel chasing after that biological missile submarine at the end of <em>XXX</em>.</p>\r\n<p>But even getting to Chau Pau wasn\'t exactly like strolling into a lovely tea party with six-year-old-girls and pink stuffed animals and ordering a hot cup of invisible Chamomile &ndash; as Dix and the SEALs approached the shores of the besieged town they found sandbagged heavy machine gun emplacements and searchlight teams sweeping the water with thousands of rounds of ammunition, but even faced with a solid wall of lead death these hardass commandos didn\'t even fucking blink &ndash; they just crashed their ship onto the shore full-speed and sprinted into the city under intense fire from every direction. Dix says, \"It was a little like Normandy\", though I think I\'d have to disagree because at Normandy the Germans had a hell of a lot more to shoot at than just three Special Forces operators in an inflatable motorboat. Either way, Dix somehow fought his way into the city, looked around, and astutely observed that everything was on fire, shit was blowing up like everywhere, and there were something on the order of a thousand enemy troops running through the streets circle-strafing everything that moved with a double-shot of automatic weapons and incendiary hand grenades.</p>\r\n<p>It was time to go to work.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dix2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Did I mention that Chau Pau was known as \"River City\"?</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Aided by the two SEALs, Dix took his tiny squad and rushed a house where he had heard an American nurse was being held captive by NVA (North Vietnamese Army) soldiers. Charging through the fires, guns blazing, the team busted through the defenses, cleared the house of enemy troops, found the nurse, and got her the hell out of there in one piece. Shortly after this, the SEALs had to move back to regroup with the rest of their unit, so Dix started grabbing every South Vietnamese man he could find who was armed with something bigger than a Phillips-head screwdriver and directing them in how to fight off the attack &ndash; everyone from regular front-line ARVN (South Vietnamese regular army) troops to civilians armed with hunting rifles flocked to Dix\'s command, since it was pretty friggin\' obvious even in the early hours of the Tet Offensive that this dude was the only motherfucker in Chau Pau who knew what the hell he was doing.</p>\r\n<p>Dix\'s new-found pitchfork-and-torch militia\'s next target was a large downtown office building that was under attack by heavy machine guns, mortars, and rocket teams. Dix and his South Vietnamese allies charged into the building, fought through the hallways of the office building (for some reason the only mental image I get when thinking about this are scenes from <em>Halo: Reach</em>) cleared the structure, and saved eight civilians by pulling them out of there while mortar explosions ripped through the building around him. Later on, with the South Vietnamese laying down covering fire on another heavily-defended enemy-controlled structure, Dix ran around the back, personally assaulted the fortress by himself, killed eight defenders with his M-16, grenades, and a knife, and then saved two wounded Filipino aid workers by pulling them out of the rubble and dragging them out of the building.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dix3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Welcome to the internet son<br />i\'m 38.<br />on snap</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now by this point the sun was finally starting to come up, but even though this lone Green Beret John Rambo motherfucker had fought through the night and had already saved 11 non-combatant civilians from falling into the hands of the NVA he still wasn\'t done &ndash; this was some Jack Bauer <em>24</em> shit, and he wasn\'t going to remove his finger from the trigger of his assault rifle until he was absolutely sure that every last fucking Communist in Chau Pau was running off into the jungle telling his buddies horror stories about how Dennis Dix and his ARVN comrades were the most goddamned hardcore bastards south of the 17th parallel.</p>\r\n<p>Dix now had about twenty or thirty Vietnamese warriors with him, each one armed to the teeth with captured weapons and ready to rock faces like a roadie at a black metal festival. Using his training in urban combat , Dix led this makeshift platoon on raids aimed straight at the heart of the NVA occupation force, assaulting the hotel and theater they were using as a base of operations. Rushing through downtown Chau Pau, sometimes fighting house-to-house, room-to-room, Dix and his men cleared the enemy from their city with extreme violence. Whenever they\'d break through and capture an enemy structure, Dix would wisely take the wounded ARVN troops and position them in easily-defensible positions so they could cover his flank and keep the NVA from getting the drop on him while he moved on with the rest of the force. Once the rest of the Chau Pau defenders noticed what was happening, they flocked to his aid, and after a couple more hours of intense fighting Dix not only cleared the enemy from their headquarters, but he fucking captured the enemy commander and 19 of his staff officers.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dix4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>But this insane Staff Sergeant STILL wasn\'t done. After taking the enemy commander prisoner, Dix learned that the South Vietnamese deputy province chief\'s house had been overrun by the enemy, and the Vietnamese politician\'s family were now being held hostage by Communist troops.</p>\r\n<p>I don\'t think I need to tell you what Dix did when he heard this.</p>\r\n<p>That\'s right &ndash; this dude ran up to the front door, kicked it in, capped every Commie inside, and saved the minister\'s wife and children, rescuing the entire family without so much as a scratch on any of their heads. I wish I had more detail about how the fuck this went down, so in my head I\'m just picturing it like the end of <em>Delta Force 2</em> where Chuck Norris saves those DEA dudes by shooting up that cocaine dude\'s house with a helicopter.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dix5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Finally, after fifty-six hours of non-stop fighting, the smoke cleared over the South Vietnamese provincial capital of Chau Pau. Over 200 of the enemy lay dead in the streets, with Dix personally accounting for somewhere between 14 and 39 by himself. The enemy commander and 19 of his colleagues were captured. The city was firmly in South Vietnamese hands. Dennis Dix, the lone warrior, had single-handedly coordinated the successful defense of Chau Pau, fighting off a sneak-attack by an enemy force that outnumbered the city garrison thirty-to-one, and personally rescuing 14 civilians from imminent peril in the process.</p>\r\n<p>Dix continued fighting through the war, performing so many insane feats of ridiculousness that in 1969 when he was informed he was going to become the first enlisted Special Forces operator to ever receive the Medal of Honor, he told his commanding officer he wasn\'t sure specifically which battle he was being singled out for. He remained in the military for 13 more years, including another deployment in \'Nam (this time with the 101st Airborne) in 1971. He retired as a Major, and after the war he worked alongside dudes like Richard Marchinko to help establish U.S. counterterrorism programs. He\'s now the Deputy Commissioner for Homeland Security for the State of Alaska.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dix6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/sep/13/the-medal-of-honor-the-highest-accolade-the-on-a/\">Rocky Mountain News</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.pbs.org/weta/americanvalor/stories/dix.html\">MoH Citation at PBS.org</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Dennis_Dix\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Collier, Peter and Nick Del Calzo.&nbsp; <em>Medal of Honor</em>.&nbsp; Artisan, 2006.<br /><br /> Dix, Drew.&nbsp; <em>The Rescue of River City</em>.&nbsp; Drew Dix Pub, 2001.<br /><br /> Farinacci, Donald J.&nbsp; <em>Last Full Measure of Devotion</em>.&nbsp; AuthorHouse, 2007. </span></p>','2011-12-30','437931529127','dix.jpg','dix - Copy.jpg','Drew Dix','The lone Green Beret who single-handedly saved a South Vietnamese town from the Tet Offensive.','\"I was just doing my job, something you felt like you just have got to do.   It was nothing extraordinary.\"'),('Julie D\'Aubigny','1670','1707','Gaston d\'Aubigny, France','17th-century French Adventurer','<p>Julie D\'Aubigny was a 17th-century bisexual French opera singer and fencing master who killed or wounded at least ten men in life-or-death duels, performed nightly shows on the biggest and most highly-respected opera stage in the world, and once took the Holy Orders just so that she could sneak into a convent and bang a nun. If nothing in that sentence at least marginally interests you, I have no idea why you\'re visiting this website.</p>\r\n<p>One of the most badass human beings ever produced by France was born in 1670 into a life of wealth, privilege, and one-percenter opulence that meant she could have just spent her entire life chilling out <em>Real Housewives</em> style without ever so much as having to shank a single human being in the eye in a hellacious fit of rage, but, as we shall soon see, that sort of malaise really wasn\'t this chick\'s bag. Her father was the Grand Squire of France, meaning that he was pretty much the number-one dude responsible for training King Louis XIV\'s pages and maintaining the Royal Stables, and this guy wasn\'t really the sort of hard-drinking drill sergeant motherfucker who was going to let his little daughter grow up without learning the finer arts of dishing out knuckle sandwiches to her enemies or running would-be suitors through the small intestines with the pointy end of a rapier. This French R. Lee Ermey trained young Julie the same way he trained the King\'s Squires, and as a young woman she learned the finer points of necessary life skills such as horseback riding, horse maintenance and repair, drinking excessively, gambling, fistfighting, avenging your honor, and stabbing people in the fucking face when they don\'t have the good sense to step off when you\'re threatening them. Growing up surrounded by tough men, this tall young beauty with the dark auburn hair and piercing blue eyes was forged into an instrument of badassitude.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/lamaupin1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Julie D\'Aubigny got started early on her career of banging and/or killing everything in sight when, at the age of sixteen, she started having an affair with her father\'s boss. The young Mademoiselle D\'Aubigny soon proved herself way too hot for that guy to handle, however, so before long he gave her father a promotion, then got her married off to some spineless jackass-non-gratta known only as Monsoir Maupin so that she would leave him alone. Maupin was a Count or Viscount or Demi-Count or some shit, and he lived in one of the colonies across the sea and rarely spent time in France, and since this chick wasn\'t about to move out to bumfuck nowhere and be a quiet little housewife in some malaria-infested corner of the world she rarely saw him and he doesn\'t factor into her life story in any appreciable manner at all. The only real thing this guy provided was a title, some money, and a wedding ring, all of which allowed Julie to use her marital status as a way of being able to do promiscuous shit she wouldn\'t have been able to get away with as an unmarried woman.</p>\r\n<p>So, while her husband was off doing god-knows-what in Africa or India or wherever the hell he was, Julie D\'Aubigny moved to Marseille and started hooking up with a badass fencing master who just so happened to be on the run for murder after he stabbed some dude to death in an alley outside Paris. The homicidal fugitive swordsman trained D\'Aubigny in the finer arts of fencing for a while, but as soon as she realized the student was now the master she ditched his broke ass and started giving sword exhibitions across Marseille to hone her skills and make a little extra dough. Basically it worked like this &ndash; she\'d pull out her sword, sing a song or two, and challenge anyone in the audience to battle her in a duel. If someone stepped up, she\'d sing a humiliating song about them, then make them look like assholes who couldn\'t tell the difference between a sword and a limp piece of linguine. Her skills were so lights-out gonzo that one time some jerkwad in the crowd called out that she wasn\'t really a woman, but was some badass cross-dressing cavalier musketeer motherfucker who was ripping everyone off. She responded by ripping open her blouse and telling the audience to \"judge for themselves\".</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/lamaupin2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Oddly enough, kicking peoples\' asses for money eventually led to a completely unrelated job prospect &ndash; a career as the star attraction of the Paris Opera. Apparently, while this chick was singing songs to humiliate her enemies in the dueling circle, some powerful record execs were in the audience, and they were so impressed by her melodious contralto voice that they decided she should be doing better shit than stabbing people in the balls for spare change. In the span of a few months, the woman known in Marseilles only as \"La Maupin\" (meaning \"The Mapuin\") went from a completely untrained street performer to the lead actress in the world\'s most respected Opera, playing roles of badass Classical chicks like Pallas Athena, Medea, and Dido. In addition to her flair for the dramatic and innate musical talent, it also helped that La Maupin had a near-photographic memory and rarely needed to read her lines more than once before committing them to memory.</p>\r\n<p>Of course, her fiery temperament in love and combat meant that she slept with or swordfought with most of the men and women in the opera at various points during her career. Like, one time some jackass doucheface pretty-boy actor was being overly-aggressive while talking to one of Julie\'s actress friends, so La Maupin told that asshole to take a chill pill and show the lady some respect. He told her to fuck off and mind her own bitch business. Later that night, as he was walking home, he found La Maupin standing in the street, weapon drawn, challenging him to a duel for honor. When the guy refused to pull his sword, she fucking beat his ass with a wooden cane, stole his pocketwatch, and left his dumb ass in an alley. The next day, the dude came to work with a couple black eyes, and when people were like, \"WTF is up with your face,\" he told them he got jumped by three big black dudes armed with hammers and baseball bats. As soon as he said this, La Maupin pulled out the dude\'s pocketwatch and called him out a lying liar from Douchebagville. Then, to make matters more humiliating, she then forced the dude to kneel and beg forgiveness in front of all his co-workers before he could get his shit back.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/lamaupin3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>La Maupin was also kind of a hardcore bisexual, and some of her tales of badass awesomeness dueling over female lovers and seducing chambermaids read like they were perpetrated by musketeers or pirates or some other ultra-daring swashbuckling male heroes of eighteenth-century literature. Of course, being a woman, Julie D\'Aubigny could pull off some feats of romantic badassitude that most men could only dream of. The most notable example of this was the time that she became a nun just so she could hook up with one of the sisters in the convent. The story goes like this: One time the Mademoiselle D\'Aubigny got some super-hot lusty blonde to fall in love with her. When the blonde\'s parents found out their daughter was a lesbo, they had their \"ravished\" daughter put into a convent, totally unaware that this wasn\'t going to be nearly enough to deter La Maupin &ndash; D\'Aubigny took the holy orders, entered the convent as an initiate, created a diversion by setting the fucking convent on fire, and then kidnapped the blonde nun, snuck her out of there, and shacked up with her for like a month. Are you kidding me with this?</p>\r\n<p>Of course, this chick was a lover as well as a fighter, and sometimes she was actually both at the same time. Like, one time a trio of drunk assholes were giving Julie shit while she was performing her songs in a rowdy tavern, so the star of the Paris Opera took all three of them out into the grassy courtyard, and when they all jumped her at the same time with their swords she drew her blade and made sure every single one of them was suffering from multiple stab wounds before she went back to the tavern. The next day she felt kind of bad about stabbing the fucking ass out of one of the dudes, so she went to his room to see how he was doing, and then ended up seducing him and getting busy with him relentlessly for like three weeks straight. You know you\'re a fucking baller chick when you can shank a dude through the abdomen with a rapier and then still get it on with him. I mean, guys are easy, but they ain\'t <em>that</em> easy.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/lamaupin4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>On another occasion, La Maupin was at a Royal Ball in the palace of King Louis XIV, attending as the guest of Louis\' brother, Prince Philippe of France. She showed up to the party dressed as a man in a scarlet tunic and immediately started dancing with all the hot bitches, showing up all the young dudes looking for hot young wives. This was fine and all, but when La Maupin had the audacity to tongue-kiss a particularly fine-looking blonde marquise right in front of the entire Royal family, three jackass noblemen got a little bent out of shape about it and told Maupin she needed to start acting like a lady and stop macking on all the hot babes. La Maupin offered to take it outside, defeated all three men in three consecutive duels, then came back to the party while the trio of poseurs were still lying bleeding in the street like dogs. This event drew a little heat on the Maupin, so while she waited for things to cool down she decided to go to Brussels for a while and have an affair with the German Prince who happened to be the guy in charge of ruling over the Spanish Netherlands (no biggie).</p>\r\n<p>Julie D\'Aubigny, La Maupin, the most badass swashbuckler of 17th-century France, did eventually settle down a little, returned home to Paris, reunited with her husband, resumed her career as the star attraction of the Paris Opera. She died in 1707 of unknown causes at the age of 37, living fast, dying young, and leaving a good-looking corpse.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/lamaupin5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.thecimmerian.com/%E2%80%9Cbeautiful-valiant-generous-and-supremely-unchaste%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%94-julie-daubigny-swordwoman/\">The Real Red Sonja</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.eldacur.com/%7Ebrons/Maupin/LaMaupin.html\">Julie D\'Aubigny</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_d%27Aubigny\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Clayton, Ellen Creathorne.&nbsp; <em>Queens of Song</em>.&nbsp; Smith, Elder &amp; Co., 1863. <br /><br /> Cohen, Richard.&nbsp; <em>By the Sword</em>.&nbsp; Random House, 2003. <br /><br /> Gauthier, Theophile.&nbsp; <em>Mademoiselle de Maupin</em>.&nbsp; Trans. Helen Constantine. Penguin, 2006.<br /><br /> The Sketch Book of Character.&nbsp; E.L. Carey, 1835 </span></p>','2012-01-20','672138630154','lamaupin.jpg','lamaupin5-small.jpg','Julie D\'Aubigny','French opera singer who killed ten men in duels and once snuck into a convent to bang a nun.','\"Beautiful, valiant, generous and supremely unchaste.\"'),('Chris Kyle','1974','n/a','Odessa, TX, USA','21st-century American Sailor','<p>It should be a pretty well-established fact by now that if you go out and do something that threatens American lives, <a href=\"http://badassoftheweek.com/sealteamsix.html\">Navy SEALs</a> will literally fall out of the sky and <a href=\"http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/africa-emerges/somalia-news-daring-us-raid-frees-hostages\">kill you in your sleep</a>.</p>\r\n<p>Chris Kyle is one of the men who made sure that happened. He\'s recently-retired SEAL who also happens to have the most confirmed sniper kills of any person in American history.</p>\r\n<p>The man known who is now hatefully remembered by his enemies as \"The Devil of Ramadi\" grew up, ironically enough, as the son of a church deacon and a Sunday school teacher on a cattle ranch in some random rural part of Texas. Starting from age 8, Kyle hunted pheasant and quail with his father on the weekends, and worked hard on the ranch doing typical John Wayne cowboy shit like lassoing sheep, chewing rawhide, hog-tying things, and/or punching horses in the face (or, you know, whatever it is that cowboys actually do in real life). After high school he tried his hand at being a professional rodeo rider, doing that crazy shit where you desperately try to hang onto a the reins of super-pissed-as-hell bronco that wants nothing more than to hurl you teeth-first into the dirt and then trample your skull under its tremendous evil hooves of fury. When that stuff got too boring, the 24 year-old cowboy enlisted in the Navy, signing on in 1999 with the singular intent of being a badass-as-hell Navy SEAL sniper who rained death upon everything in front of him. Kyle quickly proved himself such a stone-cold marksman that he was sent off to sniper school. He almost failed out, but eventually got his shit together, passed a school with a 60-75% washout rate, and was assigned to Charlie Platoon of SEAL Team 3 &ndash; a unit so hardcore that they had the <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/punisher.html\">Punisher</a> skull emblazoned on their helmets, body armor, and weapons. This is something I think we can pretty much all agree kicks ass.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/chriskyle1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As you probably noticed, things got significantly more insane on planet Earth after the United States simultaneously declared war on everyone in the world in 2001, and it wasn\'t long after this that Chris Kyle got orders for his first deployment -- a combat drop into Iraq in the opening hours of the 2003 Iraq War. It would be a pretty simple, straightforward mission &ndash; he was to sit in the gunner\'s seat of an armored truck and be dropped out of helicopter, landing behind enemy lines in the middle of the night while guys shot at him from a 360-degree field of fire, and then advance on an Iraqi-controlled oil refinery and capture it before the defenders could turn it into one of those annoying Kuwaiti oil field fires that pissed everyone off during Desert Storm. Welcome to the SEALs, buddy. Have fun out there. Don\'t forget to buckle your safety belt.</p>\r\n<p>Well, as things tend to go when you\'re talking about insanely complicated military operations, it took about two minutes before everything totally went to shit. Almost immediately after the tires hit the ground, Kyle\'s truck got hopelessly stuck in the soft, oil-soaked sand, lodged in there like a giant million-dollar paperweight loaded up with enough ammunition to dent the Earth\'s crust. Since he wasn\'t all that interested in sitting there presenting a stationary target for the thousand or so automatic weapons currently trying to draw a bead on him, Kyle had to bail out of his relatively-protected gunnery position, hump it across the desert while assholes took potshots at him, and still somehow manage to get there before the enemy had time to pull out a matchbook and throw it in the refinery storage tanks. Kyle didn\'t flinch &ndash; he ripped the heavy machine gun off of his turret, ran across the field with his team, and together they somehow managed to capture the refinery intact, waxing the defenders in a short but bloody battle.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/chriskyle2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>This is, of course, ridiculously hardcore, but Kyle\'s main claim to fame involves shooting lots of people with a sniper rifle. Kyle\'s first time using his signature weapon was during battle was when Team Three was tasked with helping Marines clear a small town on the road to Baghdad, when his Chief gave him a bolt-action .300 Winchester Magnum &ndash; basically a hunting rifle designed to take out North American big game, and not usually used in military service. Kyle quickly learned that he could use the weapon\'s massive muzzle velocity to regularly hit targets up to 1,800 yards out with insanely-deadly precision, and, since he wasn\'t one to fix things that ain\'t broken, would end up carrying that rifle through most of his career.</p>\r\n<p>Kyle survived four deployments in Iraq between 2003 and 2009, fighting alongside some of the world\'s most hardcore elite special forces units &ndash; groups like the Polish GROM, the Special Air Service, and the US Marine Corps (not to mention his work in dedicated SEAL missions). The details of most of the stuff he saw are still mostly labeled <span>\"SUPER FUCKING CLASSIFIED\"</span> by the U.S. government, but we basically get the gist of it, and it amounts to taking point on dangerous missions, single-handedly sneaking into a hardened enemy fortresses by himself, staying undetected, finding an overwatch position on a rooftop somewhere, and then radioing in intelligence while Marines or soldiers move in to clear the area. If trouble presented itself, Kyle took it out, moking out enemy soldiers with the ruthless, detached precision required by his profession. From Fallujah to Baghdad to Sadr City, this guy capped fighters in some of the most difficult fighting the country has ever seen &ndash; a war where every single person in the city can potentially be an enemy, and the difference between life and death for your friends involves identifying the potential threats, waiting for them to show themselves as armed combatants, and then taking them down before they get the chance to pull the trigger and turn your buddy\'s wife into a widow. Crazy shit, like the time outside Sadr City, when Kyle had an eye on a dude acting a little suspiciously &ndash; Kyle kept an eye on him, then watched as the guy pulled out an RPG and lined up a rocket-propelled grenade round towards the windshield of an unsuspecting U.S. Army Humvee convoy. The would-be ambusher was 1.2 miles away (almost 2km), but Kyle dropped him with one shot. Say what you want, but that\'s fucking stone-cold.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/chriskyle3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 500px;\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><span>\"There is so much more to being a sniper than just being a monkey on a gun. You almost feel like a secret agent, because you get onto the battlefield before your guys do, and you give them live, up-to-the-minute intel about what&rsquo;s happening. That keeps your guys safe. If you&rsquo;re lucky, it could save their life.\" </span></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>But it wasn\'t just all spawncamping hax0rz for Chris Kyle &ndash; he also occasionally had to (or, in some cases, volunteered to) get down in the dirt and clear rooms himself. In the Battle of Fallujah alone, Chris Kyle recorded 40 kills, many of which involved house-to-house fighting alongside US Marines, including one instance where he braved heavy machine gun and RPG fire to rescue a team of Americans who had been pinned down in the middle of a street by a horde of unseen enemies attacking from every goddamned direction. In the battle of Ramadi, he resorted to fighting with his pistol and a captured AK after the battery died on his rifle sight, and still managed to kick so much ballsack that the Iraqis put a $20,000 bounty on his head and nicknamed him \"The Devil\".</p>\r\n<p>Chris Kyle retired in 2009 at the age of 35, wrote a book about his life, and opened his own private military contractor. During his ten year career wreaking havoc across the battle-torn Iraq countryside, the \"Devil of Ramadi\" recorded 160 confirmed kills in battle, with an additional 100 unconfirmed &ndash; far outstripping the former record-holder, U.S. Army sniper Adelbert Waldron, who notched 109 confirmed in Vietnam (USMC super-sniper Carlos Hathcock, who I wrote about in <em>BADASS</em> recorded 93 confirmed, but his actual total is believed to be well over 300 &ndash; but, honestly, any time you\'re talking about taking the lives of over a hundred people, the actual body count becomes kind of a moot point). He received two Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars for valor in combat &ndash; the citations of which are still classified by the Navy and thereby unpublished, but it\'s probably safe to assume they were for doing totally insane shit that most likely involved shooting a lot of people in the face and/or head from a long ways away, and saving American lives in the process. Kyle himself was shot twice, blown up six times by IEDs, and lost a couple good friends in battle. He also claims to have punched Jesse Ventura in the face in a Navy bar while on shore leave &ndash; Ventura denies it, and nobody\'s confirmed it one way or the other, but naturally any time you can be attributed to a story involving cold-cocking a former governor, SEAL, and professional wrestler in the grill, it\'s only going to help contribute to your legend.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/chriskyle5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 500px;\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><span>\"It was my duty to shoot the enemy, and I don&rsquo;t regret it. My regrets are for the people I couldn&rsquo;t save: Marines, soldiers, buddies. I&rsquo;m not naive, and I don&rsquo;t romanticize war. The worst moments of my life have come as a SEAL. But I can stand before God with a clear conscience about doing my job.\" </span></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2081430/255-confirmed-kills-Meet-Navy-SEAL-Chris-Kyle--deadliest-sniper-US-history.html\">Daily Mail</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/meet_the_big_shot_BxlVpxzQijkC9mwZcmwkrN\">New York Post</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.harpercollins.com/browseinside/index.aspx?isbn13=9780062082350\">Book Excerpts</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.sniperinfo.com/forum/showthread.php?16832-Chris-Kyle-quot-American-Sniper-The-Autobiography-of-the-Most-Lethal-Sniper-in-U.S.-Military-History-quot\">SniperInfo.com</a></p>','2012-01-27','227639430623','chriskyle.bmp','chriskyle-small.bmp','Chris Kyle','The deadliest sniper in American history.','\"I signed up to protect this country. I do not choose the wars. It happens that I love to fight. But I do not choose which battles I go to. Y\'all send me to them.\"'),('Anthony Omari','1988','n/a','Ngong, Kenya','21st-century Kenyan Vigilante','<p>Late on the night of January 23, 2012, a 24 year-old Kenyan uber-hero named Anthony Omari awoke to find three gigantic dudes with machetes standing over his bed. He knew right away that they weren\'t there to sell Girl Scout cookies or ask him for a jumping mid-air high-five.</p>\r\n<p>Omari is the custodian of Faraja Children\'s Home in Ngong, Kenya &ndash; a sanctuary of healing and love that over the past several years has grown from a tin-roofed one-room shack in the slums of Nairobi into a decent-sized facility that has taken in 37 boys and girls who have been abandoned or orphaned from the street. A place of hope and peace for children who have tragically slipped through the cracks of Kenyan society. Omari\'s mother, known to her charges only as \"Momma\", runs the Home, and, ever the diligent son, Anthony lives at the facility and helps his mom make sure that the children are provided for with a warm bed, a hot meal, a primary school education, and medical attention when they need it. As the only adult male at the Home, he\'s by default charged with ensuring the physical security and safety of all 37 kids in his care. You\'d be hard-pressed to find a dude less deserving of taking a fucking machete to the face.</p>\r\n<p>The second Omari snapped awake, he immediately recognized the jokers standing around him &ndash; it was the fourth time this month that the Faraja Children\'s Home had been broken into, and it was at least the second time that <em>these exact assholes</em> had paid the orphans a visit in the middle of the night. I honestly have no idea what the hell people are doing breaking into an orphanage so dirt-poor that it has to struggle just to provide basic life necessities to its children, but needless to say, it probably ain\'t good.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/omari1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>A Kenyan machete, also known as a <em>panga</em>.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The last time Anthony Omari had encountered this gang of home invading douchebags, he\'d had the advantage of surprise. A noise had awoken him in the middle of the night, and as he Solid Snake\'d his way through the Home pursuing the noise, came upon the would-be thieves/kidnappers/child soldier conscription agents/god-knows-what-else jackasses rummaging through one of the rooms.</p>\r\n<p>Omari shouted, and when the guys turned to see what the hell was going on, he whipped a hammer into the face of the closest guy, chucking this thing like a tomahawk and hopefully cracking him in the teeth with the claw end.</p>\r\n<p>The gang had seen enough. They ran for it.</p>\r\n<p>The next night they came back looking for revenge. And now they were all in Omari\'s bedroom, carrying ferocious machetes like a horrible posse of orphan-hating <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/voorhees.html\">Jason Voorhees</a>.</p>\r\n<p>But Anthony Omari wasn\'t impressed by this cowardly display of dickhead behavior. In a super-scary situation that would have resulted in most rational human beings wetting the bed and then dying, he did the last fucking thing these guys expected.</p>\r\n<p>He reached under his bed and pulled out his thief-smashing hammer.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/omari2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As soon Omari pulled out the vicious instrument of blunt-force douchebag annihilation that had wrecked their shit so hard the night before, the dude who had been on the receiving end of Omari\'s 90 mph fastball of blunt force trauma immediately had post-traumatic stress disorder flashbacks and, in a knee-jerk reaction, threw his machete right at Omari\'s head. Omari ducked, the machete clattering against the wall, then rolled out of bed, weapon at the ready, determined to take down three assholes with machetes at the same time and protect those fucking orphans at all costs.</p>\r\n<p>The thugs didn\'t know what the hell hit them. Omari charged in, swinging hard, <em>beating back three giant thugs with machetes</em>. Screaming like a madman, not only to make himself more intimidating but to warn the children what was going on, Omari rushed ahead, furiously clubbing at his enemies. After a brief, intense battle, Omari somehow managed to force the intruders out of his room, down the hall, and finally sending them retreating out the front door of the Home, chasing them out into the yard.</p>\r\n<p>With all three men out in the front yard, Omari continued to menace them with his weapon (a home improvement tool which, somehow, in the hands of this righteously hardcore badass was even more threatening than a trio of gigantic machetes). Then, from behind, he heard the sounds of children crying &ndash; the kids had come to the door, and now were frightened by the battle taking place inside their home.</p>\r\n<p>Overcome with worry for the kids, Omari ran back to the open door, quickly trying to assure the kids that everything was alright. He turned back around just in time to see a machete swing down at his face.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/omari4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>But Anthony Omari didn\'t go down immediately. Bleeding intensely from the face, his vision obscured by blood and rapidly becoming dimmer and more blurry by the minute, Omari swing wildly, connecting with his assailant, driving the cowardly asshole back once again. Stumbling, his strength failing him, Omari ran to the front door of the home, closed it, and locked it. Only after the orphans were safe did he allow himself to pass out.</p>\r\n<p>It took 11 stitches, and it\'s going to leave the kind of badass scar that action movie characters can only dream about (the closest thing that comes to mind is Kurt Russell in <em>Soldier</em>) but after only two days in the hospital Omari was back at the Faraja Children\'s Home, taking care of his beloved orphans once again.</p>\r\n<p>In the end, Anthony Omari saved the orphans not only with his hammer, but with his incredible story of personal bravery in the face of incomprehensible danger. When word of his battle reached Ben Hardwick, a 21 year-old Penn State student working as an intern at a facility nearby, Ben came to talk to him. Impressed by the story, and further concerned for the safety of both Omari and the children, Hardwick put the dude\'s story up on Reddit, asking for $2,000 in donations so Omari could build a bigger fence to keep those assholes out.</p>\r\n<p>He received $65,000 in the first twenty-four hours. At last count, the total was up to $83k in donations from Blues Brothers in 46 countries, or roughly 40 times the amount requested &ndash; more than enough to build the 8-foot stone fence Omari needed, plus new beds for the kids (some of whom were just sleeping on mattresses on the floor), two full-time night security guards, and extra padlocks for the doors, while still having enough left over to purchase dogs that shoot bees out of their mouths and automated robotic anti-douchebag defense turrets. For a tiny, cash-strapped orphanage in a remote part of Kenya that has spent the last decade struggling just to provide food for their children, eighty grand can go a long way.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/omari5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>\"I was sitting on the floor just watching the donations come in. <br />I just couldn&rsquo;t believe it &mdash; $83,000 is what it&rsquo;s at now. <br />I still get chills just thinking about it, and it&rsquo;s only been five or six days\"</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://imgur.com/HWTH9\">The original post</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/oye34/meet_omari_two_days_ago_he_returned_from_the/?limit=500\">The Reddit Posting</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/a-machete-to-the-face-while-defending-a-kenyan-orphanage-nets-80k-in-internet-donations/2012/02/02/gIQA2aFHkQ_story.html\">Washington Post</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://online.wsj.com/article/APfc09ba2f85504c659d170aefa26be232.html\">Wall Street Journal</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/27/reddit-donates-kenya-orphanage_n_1237016.html\">Huffington Post</a></p>','2012-02-03','361965531600','omari.jpg','omari-small.jpg','Anthony Omari','Dude saves 37 orphans from a gang of thieves, then survives a machete to the face.',''),('Somdet Phra Naresuan Maharat','April 25, 1555','April 7, 1605','Phitsanulok, Thailand','16th-century Thai Warrior','<p>King Naresuan was a badass warlord who, while he was the reigning King of Thailand, won freedom for his people and fought off a foreign invasion by battling a tyrannical enemy king in a goddamned swordfight fought on the back of two rampaging elephants.</p>\r\n<p>The tale begins in the mid-1560s, when the power-hungry King of the neighboring realm of Burma invaded Thailand, murdered the ass out of the Thai army, conquered their capital, took out the Thai King, sold half the population of the kingdom into slavery, and then rode back to Burma with Prince Naresuan as a prisoner. The grandson of the Thai King, Prince Naresuan grew up far from home, in the royal court of Burma, spending his formative years studying alongside the Burmese nobility. When this guy wasn\'t seething about the treatment of his family and his beloved Thai people, he was hardcore feuding with the Burmese Crown Prince &ndash; an almost-equally tough young man who was about the same age as Prince Naresuan yet almost constantly acted like a giant dickbag to him whenever possible. Basically he was like the Malfoy to Naresuan \'s Harry Potter.</p>\r\n<p>Well despite having to put up with that asshole\'s obnoxious overly-self-entitled douchebag bullshit Naresuan sucked it up and made the most of his time as a hostage, spending every waking hour studying military tactics from Burma\'s greatest generals and training in groin-kickingly-hardcore martial arts that would (I think) eventually be developed into Muay Thai Kickboxing &ndash; a fighting style I think we can all agree ranks among the most badass in the world.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/naresuan1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>ELEPHANT DUEL</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Well the King of Burma eventually got really sick of Naresuan hanging around learning all of his country\'s most intimate military secrets, so after spending seven years as an unwilling hostage in enemy lands, the 16 year-old Prince was shipped back to Thailand in exchange for his hot babe sister, who was forced to join the King\'s harem as a concubine. Naresuan was allowed to serve as the Crown Prince of Siam, though this was pretty much in name alone, since Thailand at this point was little more than a sub-region of the Kingdom of Burma.</p>\r\n<p>Despite the fact that Naresuan now had to serve as an obedient vassal of the man who killed his grandfather, enslaved his people, and humped his little sister, the man known as \"The Black Prince\" gritted his teeth and played along, assisting the Burmese in their invasion of the Khmer lands in present-day Cambodia. He quickly became super-popular for all the badass Tony Jaa shit he dropped on his enemies, like smashing dudes in the head with a flying knee strike while his legs were on fire and then spitting gasoline on the burning enemy troops to further immolate them (or something along those lines). Naresuan also once captured a heavily-fortified mountain castle by climbing up a sheer cliff face, sneaking into the city, and beating the shit out of everyone there, and, even better, he\'d done it after gigantic idiotic frontal assaults by both the Burmese King and the Burmese Crown Prince had failed to even dent the Khmer defenses.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/naresuan2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 500px;\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><span>Tony Jaa\'s official website describes a cockfighting story where, after Prince Naresuan \'s cock wins the battle, the Burmese Prince exclaims, \"this vassal of a cock is really impudent!\" Prince Naresuan responds with, \"not only can this cock bet for money, it can also fight for kingdoms!\" This exchange probably makes more sense in the original Thai, and is really only included here as an excuse for me to include the word cock five times in a single paragraph while talking about 16th century history.</span></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As is the case with these things, in 1584 the Burmese got a little sick of being shown-up on the battlefield by the Black Prince and his flying-spinning side-kicks of fury and <em>Sports Illustrated</em> cover shots, so they did the kingly thing and tried to have him whacked by assassins when he least expected it. Naresuan somehow found out about the plot, thwarted the ambush by elbow-striking his would-be murderers in the throat repeatedly until they died of it, and fled across Burma and crossed the river into Thailand. When a giant fucking enemy army showed up to stop him, Naresuan stopped for a second, capped the enemy commander all the way on the other side of the river with one shot from his Portuguese-made musket in the first great sniper rifle shot in Thai history, and continued fleeing back to his capital while the rest of those jokers tried to figure out what the fuck they\'d just witnessed.</p>\r\n<p>Naresuan declared Thai independence almost immediately upon reaching his capital. The people of Thailand, sick of being oppressed by the Burmese tyrants, flocked to banner of their rightful ruler, coming from across the country to fight alongside the Black Prince. Under the command of their military genius King (who, oh yeah, basically had the entire Handbook of Burmese Military Tactics committed to memory), the Thais fought off five separate invasions of their homeland between 1584 and 1593, despite being heavily outnumbered in pretty much every battle they fought.</p>\r\n<p>But fighting off five invasions through military genius alone wouldn\'t be enough. No, Ultimate Thai Independence would require something more epic &ndash; like, something involving elephants and swords and bloodshed &ndash; and, at a place called Nong Sarai in January of 1593, they got it. It would be here that the two Crown Princes (who by this point were kings of their respective lands) finally settled their bitter personal blood feud that dated back to their days playing heated dodgeball deathmatches in elementary school.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/naresuan4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The Battle of Nong Sarai began when the largest Burmese invasion force ever assembled marched through a narrow mountain pass into Thailand and found a small contingent of vastly outnumbered Thai troops waiting for them. The Thais, hopelessly outgunned, immediately ran for it. Burmese chased after them, but froze in their tracks when the discovered that they\'d fallen into a trap &ndash; the entire rest of the Thai army lay in wait just on the other side of the pass, and as the disorganized Burmese force blitzed through the gap they were immediately pounced on from all sides by a horde of spear-swinging Thai asskickers who resembled the bad guy at the end of <em>Bloodsport</em> with the broken glass stuck to his hands.</p>\r\n<p>Well, sure, the plan was solid, but even a badass guerilla ambush wasn\'t going to be enough to make up for the overwhelming numerical superiority of the Burmese army. The Burmese King had come to Thailand with one objective &ndash; kill Prince Naresuan and deposit bite-sized chunks of him all across the Thai countryside &ndash; and he wasn\'t fucking around with piecemeal attacks. The battle quickly started to turn against the Thais.</p>\r\n<p>It was at this point that King Naresuan personally charged, smashing into the enemy lines on the back of a gigantic fucking elephant that ran full-speed, tusks-and-balls-out, sending dudes flying fifty feet through the air like drug dealers getting blown up in a bad 80s action movie. Cleaving through the enemy in a frenzy of blood, spear-points, sword blows and ferocious tusked fury, Naresuan single-handedly cut through the enemy, when, out the corner of his eye, he saw his hated enemy across the battlefield &ndash; the King of Burma, who, it turned out, was ALSO mounted on the back of a terrifying war elephant.</p>\r\n<p>There was no doubt in anyone\'s mind what had to happen next. Two kings. Two pachyderms. An entire country\'s independence on the line. ELEPHANT DUEL TIME.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/naresuan5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The two elephants charged each other, smashing against one another in a thunderous crash of pachyderm meat and tusks. The warriors climbed out onto the heads of the animals, fighting with swords in a battle so fucking over-the-top awesome that both sides actually stopped fighting each other so that they could watch this ultimate deathmatch go down. The two men bobbed and weaved, hacking furiously while the elephants kicked and tusked at each other like psychotic battle-raging Oliphaunts, each man knowing that one false step would result in death by either sword or trampling. After a heated, gutsy battle, King Naresuan harnessed his inner getting-pissed powers, smashed the Burmese King\'s weapon away with a massive stroke, then swung his sword down HARD on his enemy\'s collarbone. There was a brief pause, where both men stood motionless like a Kurosawa samurai duel, and then the Burmese King totally fell in half &ndash; he\'d been bifurcated from his right shoulder all the way through to his left hip. Darth Maul style. The top half of him fell to the ground. The rest collapsed where it was. Blood fountain. War over. The now-leaderless Burmese army immediately turned and headed home. Thailand was free once again.</p>\r\n<p>It\'s hard to top something like that, but King Naresuan the Great would go on to conquer Cambodia, reunite the cities of Thailand, and even go so far as to invade Burma and take a few cities away from the Burmese while those guys were having an internal crisis over who was supposed to succeed their now-dismembered king. He died of sepsis in 1605 at the age of 50. To this day, he remains the national hero of Thailand, and every January they celebrate their national holiday &ndash; a badass celebration known only as Elephant Duel Day &ndash; in his honor.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/naresuan3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.simply-thai.com/Thailand_History_Ayutthaya_Period_4.htm\">Simply-Thai.com</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.tonyjaa.org/sword_king.shtml\">TonyJaa.org</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naresuan\">Wikipedia</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Mishra, Patit Paban. <em>The History of Thailand</em>. ABC-CLIO, 2010.<br /><br /> Moore, Tony. <em>Muay Thai</em>.&nbsp; New Holland, 2008.<br /><br /> Sandler, Stanley. <em>Encyclopedia of Ground Warfare</em>. ABC-CLIO, 2002.<br /><br /> <em>The International Dictionary of Historic Places</em>.&nbsp; Fitzroy Dearborn, 1996.<br /><br /> Wyatt, David K. <em>Thailand</em>. Yale University Press, 2003. </span></p>','2012-02-10','606623120746','naresuan.jpg','naresuan1-small.jpeg','King Naresuan','National hero of Thailand saved his people by fighting a duel on the back of an elephant.',''),('Sekonaia Takavesi','c. 1945','n/a','Fiji','20th-century Fijian Soldier','<p>In the early hours of July 19, 1972, the nine members of the British SAS who had been assigned to defend the Omani port city of Mirbat had themselves a little bit of a Communist problem. Specifically, they had a problem with the fact that a few hundred heavily-armed Communist rebels were descending on their tiny fort from every direction, supported by artillery fire from mortars and RPGs in a concerted effort to wipe out the city\'s defenders in an explosion of blood and massacre the entire population to death in order to demonstrate that Karl Marx\'s socio-economic theories were better than those of Adam Smith.</p>\r\n<p>When the mortar rounds started dropping in, blowing gigantic chunks out of the fort itself and ripping gigantic gaping holes through the barbed wire perimeter around the structure, SAS Captain Mike Kealy quickly took stock of what he had to work with. There were 9 SAS guys &ndash; badass, hardcore elite warriors in the mold of <a href=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/mayne.html\">Paddy Mayne</a> who are considered some of the world\'s toughest soldiers &ndash; and roughly 30 Omani militiamen garrisoning the fort. The Omanis were armed only with old-school .303-caliber bolt-action rifles &ndash; throwbacks from WWII that, while certainly still capable of spewing forth a large bullet that could easily bring a person\'s existence to a screeching halt in a hurry, weren\'t exactly the ideal service weapon when you\'re facing a horde of dudes with fully-automatic AK-47s and Soviet-manufactured heavy machine guns. The SAS had L1A1 rifles (basically FN FAL assault rifles), some hand grenades, a mortar, and two Browning .50-caliber heavy machine guns. They were facing somewhere between 250 and 400 guys arrayed in a circle around the fort, charging in from every direction at the same time in a coordinated assault.</p>\r\n<p>The odds weren\'t good.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/takavesi1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The fort at Mirbat.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Under cover of smoke and artillery, the Communist guerillas rushed forward into range of the SAS guns. The heavy Brownings immediately sprung to life, spraying a hail of gigantor bullets in every direction, blasting continuously until their barrels literally became white from the heat. Captain Kealy directed his troops as best he could, reinforcing positions where needed, but it was pretty damned obvious that this wasn\'t going to be enough to hold this massive onslaught back &ndash; 30 dudes with bolt-action guns and two heavy MGs weren\'t even close to enough to dent the oncoming swarms of humanity.</p>\r\n<p>It was at this point that Kealy looked out through a sandbagged window and saw Sergeant Talaisi Labalala, a gigantic SAS man who hailed from the sunny South Pacific beaches of Fiji, sprinting straight across the wide-open, coverless desert towards a small structure 500 meters from the main fort. The dude didn\'t even see to notice the tracer fire swirling around him from every direction.</p>\r\n<p>He was headed for a small trench that housed, of all things, an obsolete World War II-era 25-pounder anti-tank field gun:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/takavesi2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Sergeant Labalala dove head-first into the trench as bullets ripped the sand up around him, crashing into the gun pit like a slip-n-slide and immediately getting to work with the serious business of blowing the fucking shit out of Commie bastards. Operating a 25-pounder field gun was a four-man job &ndash; on a good day &ndash; but this giant ripped Fijian didn\'t seem to get the memo &ndash; he cranked a heavy artillery round into the breach, lowered the gun barrel to zero-trajectory (i.e. pointing it <em>directly at them</em> rather than lobbing a shell at them from a distance), and ripped a high-explosive round straight into the teeth of the enemy formation, ripping a gigantic smoking crater where there used to be a couple dozen Communists with automatic weapons.</p>\r\n<p>Labalala\'s friend, SAS Sergeant Sekonaia Takavesi, wasn\'t far behind his balls-out countryman. Not the sort of hero who was going to sit back and let his buddy single-handedly take on the entire Communist Party of Oman on his own, the former international rugby player known to his friends as \"Tak\" sprinted the 500 yards towards the trench, drawing fire from a few hundred AK-47s as he ran, utterly oblivious to the mortar shells and RPG rounds zipping past his head and shredding the countryside around him. Covered by the Brownings from the fort, Tak sped to his friend\'s aid, sliding into the trench like Luke Duke hood-sliding across the <em>General Lee</em>, and the two men &ndash; neither of whom had any formal training in the operation of World War II era howitzer artillery &ndash; began working the gun like they were born with anti-tank artillery shells in their cribs. Cranking out a little more than one round per minute, these psychotic kill-raging Fijians blasted shell after shell into the faces of rampaging horde of enemies so close that these guys had to sight their weapon by looking straight down the barrel because the trajectory sights were totally worthless at that range.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/takavesi3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>Tak (on the left) standing with the gun.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As you can probably expect, the gigantic piece of fucking field artillery &ndash; a weapon originally designed to take out German Panzers &ndash; quickly became the prime target for the Communist rebels, and they pasted Lala and Tak\'s position with everything they could throw at it. Lobbing grenades and mortar rounds, the rebels desperately tried to silence the Fijians and their gigantic twenty-five pound boomstick, as these psychotic, apparently-fearless men poured explosive anti-personnel rounds into them.</p>\r\n<p>It wasn\'t long before Labalala took an AK-47 round to the jaw. It blew off part of his face, but this still didn\'t stop this hardcore SAS motherfucker from working the gun and taking as many of the enemy out as possible. Tak was also hit, with a burst of 7.62mm ammunition and an errant grenade ripping a ridiculous gaping hole in his chest, but still the men continued to work their weapon.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/takavesi4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>The blockhouse at Mirbat.</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>As the enemy continued firing from point-blank range, Labalala was hit again, this time fatally, dying at his gun. Tak, unable to work the AT gun by himself due to his intense, probably-mortal injuries, simply propped his back up against the wall, rested the barrel of his assault rifle on the edge of the trench, and fired at the enemy, each squeeze of the trigger driving the stock into his wounded chest and causing excruciating pain. The enemy was going down, dying in every direction, but they still weren\'t stopping. They continued their advance, closing in rapidly now that they didn\'t have to worry about being pasted in the dome with a shell big enough to punch through the armor of a Tiger tank.</p>\r\n<p>When Captain Kealy heard the 25-pounder stop, he immediately rushed out to the trench himself, taking a medic and one other man along with him. They hit the trench, laying down heavy fire, but things weren\'t looking good. After a few minutes of hard fighting Kealy was wounded, the medic was dead, Tak was barely clinging to life, and the only other surviving SAS man in the trench had his hands full trying to hurl live grenades back at the enemy just as quickly as they could lob them into the trench. It wasn\'t looking good for the defenders of Mirbat, as the enemy closed in around them from all sides.</p>\r\n<p>It was then that Sekonaia Takavesi heard the most beautiful sound he\'d ever heard in his life &ndash; the deafening screech of British ground attack aircraft screaming in, streaking 150 feet off the deck, barely underneath the ridiculously-low cloud cover, dropping their payloads of high explosives on enemy positions a mere ten meters away.</p>\r\n<p>I kind of picture this going down like the end of <em>Saving Private Ryan</em>:</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/takavesi5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>The jets were followed by a helicopter assault from the rest of Captain Kealy\'s company &ndash; SAS troops fast-roping down, supported by air-to-ground rockets, and the Communist forces immediately broke and ran the hell out of there. In several hours of non-stop battle, the SAS and Omanis had suffered three dead and one wounded. They\'d killed 85 communist guerillas, and captured 10 more. Sekonaia Takavesi was immediately attended ti by medics, but when they brought out the stretcher to carry him to the ambulance, he told them, \"Fuck that, I\'m walking out of here.\" He then proceeded to stand up, walk to the helicopter, and fly out of there with the rest of his team. When he checked himself into the base hospital, the surgeon remarked that Tak had the worst chest wounds he\'d ever seen on a living person.</p>\r\n<p>Takavesi survived the battle and had some other adventures as time went on, though nothing quite like single-handedly firing a WWII anti-tank cannon at a horde of Communists from point-blank range while dudes flung hand grenades in his face. He participated in the Iranian Embassy raid in 1980, when he and 20 other SAS men stormed a terrorist-controlled structure on national television, killed 6 terrorists, and saved 18 of the 19 hostages held inside. He was also working as an advisor during the 2003 Iraq War, when the 58 year-old Fijian found himself in a blazing gunfight on a tarmac near Baghdad &ndash; outnumbered by a dozen guys who were shooting his jeep up with AK-47s, Tak put his hands up and pretended to surrender, and the second the enemy lowered their guards he pulled the MP5 off his lap, smoked them, and then leaped out the driver\'s side door, tackled another guy, and clubbed him to death with the stock of his weapon. The bad guys managed to shoot Tak in the thigh, chest, and head during that particular encounter, but, as you can probably imagine, he still simply managed to dust himself off, get in the car, and drive himself to the hospital.<br /><br />He lived.</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/takavesi6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/3563394/Special-Forces-Heroes.html\">Telegraph</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1088456/Special-forces-heroes-MICHAEL-ASHCROFT-examines-makes-soldier-hero-coward.html\">Daily Mail</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mirbat\" target=\"blank\">Battle of Mirbat</a></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Sources:</span><br /><br /><span> Ashcroft, Lord. \"A Rare Kind of Courage.\" <em>The Daily Mail</em>. November 25, 2008<br /><br /> Geddes, John. <em>Highway to Hell</em>. Random House, 2008.<br /><br /> Scholey, Pete. <em>Who Dares Wins</em>. Osprey, 2008.<br /><br /> Warman, Matt. \"Special Forces Heroes.\" <em>The Telegraph</em>. November 18, 2008. </span></p>','2012-02-17','253598521755','takavesi.jpg','Copy of takavesi.jpg','Sekonaia Takavesi','Fijian SAS hero single-handedly held off 200 communists with an anti-tank cannon.',''),('Vernon J. Baker','December 17, 1919','July 13, 2010','Cheyenne, WY, USA','WWII American Soldier','<p>It was a cold, rainy April afternoon in 1945 when Lieutenant Vernon J. Baker of the 92nd Infantry Division led his small, 25-man weapons platoon high through the smoke and crater-swept mountainside leading to the ominous German-controlled fortress known as Castle Aghinolfi &ndash; a foreboding old-school Dracula-style castle that was kind of like Castle Wolfenstein, only real and sort-of Italian. A heavily-fortified enemy stronghold high in the Appenine Mountains of Italy, this intimidating medieval Castle overlooked one of the few major roads that led through the ferociously-defended Gothic Line &ndash; an almost impenetrable wall of machine guns and artillery that blocked the Allies from charging straight up through Italy into the soft, delicious, peanut-butter-stuffed underbelly of the German Reich. If this position were to fall, it would spell the end of German power in Italy forever.</p>\r\n<p>Lieutenant Baker and his team carefully picked their way through the barbed wire and minefields that lay between themselves and the sniper-filled Mountain Fortress of Doom. Baker had already been badly wounded during a battle a few months earlier, and after seeing the rest of his Division get mowed down attempting full-frontal assaults on the this stone-walled Nazi Death Lair, he resolved to be a little more careful on his approach. It worked &ndash; using his badass stealth skills, staying low and picking his way through well-defended arias, Baker led his men deep through enemy territory, past patrols, and somehow emerged through the fortified front lines, climbing up the mountain to a position a mere 250 yards from the castle. Along the way, he found a concrete German observation post (he stuffed his rifle in the viewport and emptied the clip, smoking both Germans inside), and also stumbled into a camouflaged Italian machine gun nest (the crew were eating breakfast and he waxed them faster than they could cough up their disgusting sauerkraut and Nutella-slathered omelets). Neither presented Baker with much of a problem.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/vernonbaker1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>After getting his team in position, Baker ran back and linked up with his commanding officer, a total flaming douchebag Captain named Runyon who only got this far behind enemy lines by simply following along behind Baker. Runyon started issuing orders to advance on the castle when suddenly a German potato-masher grenade came flying in out of nowhere and clanked right off Runyon\'s helmet. Runyon ran for it and/or crapped himself (probably while crying) while Baker smoked the dude who threw the grenade, then calmly told his C.O. that the grenade was a dud. On his way back to his team, Baker stopped for a second to blow up a German bunker with a few well-placed grenades of his own (these ones didn\'t have any trouble blowing up), and cut a telephone wire that connected front-line weapons teams with the headquarters unit back in the castle.</p>\r\n<p>With the Castle looming ominously in the distance <em>Dark Tower</em>-style, Baker ordered his team to move up into the olive groves at the base of the castle itself. His team moved up, careful to watch for ambush, but once they reached the orchard all of a sudden all goddamned hell broke loose &ndash; all at once a Chuck-E-Cheese animatronic jug band nightmare of machine guns, snipers, and mortars rained down on him from concealed positions in the fortress and on the mountain, and suddenly Lt. Baker found himself in the middle of an insane-as-hell killzone.</p>\r\n<p>Well despite being surrounded on all sides by dudes trying to kill him, totally cut off from his own lines, and with his tiny squad taking casualties from every direction, Vernon Baker still wasn\'t about to go down without a fight. This was a guy who\'d dealt with all the bullshit life had to throw at him and still always emerged on top &ndash; when his parents died in a car accident when he was four years old, he survived by working tough jobs like railroad porter and shoeshiner. When his family needed food, he went hunting in the woods with his grandfather Vasily Zaitsev-style, shooting everything from elk to cougars.</p>\r\n<p>This wasn\'t a guy who was just going to give up and die.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/vernonbaker4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>First, Lieutenant Baker did the sane thing and radioed in for help, calling down artillery to the coordinates of the German and Italian weapons teams. His request was denied. Apparently, the dude on the other line couldn&rsquo;t possibly fucking fathom the idea that Baker had reached the Nazi Castle Death Mountain by himself, especially considering that any Allied soldier who stood within ten miles of the damn thing spontaneously combusted. So, he raced over to Captain Runyon and asked him for orders. Runyon told Baker he\'d bravely run the hell out of there, and that he\'d send reinforcements when he got back to American lines. He lied. When Captain Runyon returned to his command post, he reported Baker\'s platoon had been annihilated. Awesome.</p>\r\n<p>Left for dead, Baker fought on, battling the Germans for hours, deep behind enemy lines, totally oblivious to the fact that he had absolutely no hope of reinforcements or relief. Finally, after several hours of constant firing against an impossibly-gigantor, heavily-equipped enemy force, almost completely out of ammo and with 19 of his 25-man team lying dead, Baker ordered a withdrawl.</p>\r\n<p>Naturally, in order to make sure his six surviving men got out of there alive, Baker stood up in full view of the enemy, screamed like a maniac, and sprayed a hail of bullets in every direction. The Germans concentrated their fire on him, letting Baker\'s men slip out safely.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/vernonbaker6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Baker was shot a couple times during his epic diversion, but he somehow managed to achieve the Steven Segal Singularity (complete immunity to all bullets, i.e. the \"IDDQD God Mode Rule\") and get out of there with his life. All told, he had single-handedly killed at least nine Nazis, and destroyed six machine guns nests, two observation posts, and cleared four enemy dugouts. When he reached HQ safely, after everyone had already written him off for dead, dudes were all like, \"WTF how the shitballs did this happen?\" They nominated him to lead another attack the following night &ndash; despite having two bullet wounds in him, Baker complied, leading a full-strength battalion of white soldiers on a night attack through the enemy minefield and right up to the front doors of the castle. The position fell the next day. It was one of the first times in American history that a black soldier was placed in command over white troops (even though it was technically \"unofficial\")</p>\r\n<p>For his ultra-badass deeds getting Medieval on a fucking German castle, Vernon J. Baker would receive the Distinguished Service Cross &ndash; the second-highest award for bravery offered by the United States government. He\'d finish out the war, spending the later days with the army of occupation in Rome and hooking up with a smoking-hot Italian babe, and by the time he was done, he also had a Polish War Cross, a Bronze Star, and the Croci de Guerra, which kind of sounds like an appetizer at a pasta joint but is really just the Italian version of the Medal of Honor. Baker would serve with the Army until 1968 (airborne no less, jumping out of planes until he was 48 years old), return home, move to Idaho, marry a German woman, have some kids, and survive a ferocious battle with brain cancer, which, I can only assume is the only thing in the world deadlier than a life-or-death struggle with a rampaging battalion of blood-raging panzergrenadiers entrenched in a 16th century castle.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/vernonbaker2.jpeg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Eventually, many years after the war ended, some enterprising, moderately-observant human being suddenly noticed that while African-American soldiers received the nation\'s highest award for military valor &ndash; the Medal of Honor &ndash; in every single damn war since the American Civil War, out of the 433 Medals of Honor awarded for action during WWII, the nation\'s highest award for valor was not issued to any of the 1.2 million black soldiers who fought and risked their lives for their country in the global struggle against totalitarian Fascism. It wasn\'t until 1993 that the Army ran a full investigation into this ridiculous discrepancy, and decided to review many of the Medal of Honor recommendations that had been passed over during the war. So, finally, in 1997, fifty-two years after the destruction of Nazi Germany and the fall of the Japanese Empire, the U.S. Army officially upgraded the Distinguished Services Crosses of seven African-American war heroes to full-fledged Medals of Honor.</p>\r\n<p>Vernon J. Baker was the only man still alive to receive the award in person.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/vernonbaker5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 500px;\" align=\"center\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><span>\"Give respect before you expect it. Treat people the way you want to be treated. Remember the mission. Set the example. Keep going.\"</span></td>\r\n</tr>\r\n</tbody>\r\n</table>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;\">Links/Sources:</span><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.history.army.mil//html/moh/mohb.html\">Army.mil</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2010/jul/14/world-war-ii-hero-vernon-baker-dies/\">Spokane Spokesman-Review</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/us/15baker.html?hpw\">New York Times</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://www.pbs.org/weta/americanvalor/stories/baker.html\">PBS</a><br /><br /> <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Baker\">Wikipedia</a><br /><br /> Putney, Martha S. <em>Blacks in the United States Army</em>. McFarland, 2003.</p>','2012-02-24','938746322508','vernonbaker.jpg','Copy of vernonbaker.jpg','Vernon J. Baker','The only living black WWII soldier to receive the Medal of Honor, this guy personally led an assault on a fortified German castle.','\"Vern was the finest combat leader I saw in World War II.\r\nAnd I haven’t seen too many in the Korean War or my two tours in Vietnam that were any better.\"'),('Bass Reeves','July 1838','January 12, 1910','Crawford County, AR, USA','19th-century American Lawman','<blockquote>\r\n<blockquote><em>Note: I had to put down my 19-year-old cat last night. I realize this is one of the least-badass reasons to punk out on my weekly update (I didn\'t even skip weeks when my grandparents passed away!), but, as I sit here working on my update, I find that I am really not feeling particularly interesting, funny, or motivated. So in lieu of trying to crap out something that is going to totally suck, here\'s one of my favorite chapters from my book, <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061749443?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=badofthewee-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0061749443\">BADASS</a>.</em></blockquote>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>A lone rider came to a leisurely halt along the side of the dusty trail. Standing in his path were three of the deadliest outlaws in the Indian Territory &ndash; the notorious Brunter brothers. These infamous murderers and thieves were the sort of cop-killing fugitive bastards who would just as soon have immolated you with a blowtorch as urinated on your burning corpse. The men, all looking like they\'d just stepped off the set of the movie Tombstone, pointed a multi-flavored assortment of shotguns and revolvers at the interloper, gesturing for him to dismount from his horse. The rider complied.</p>\r\n<p>Bass Reeves calmly took three steps towards the Brunter brothers, his grim face registering neither fear nor respect for these punk-ass bitches. He was an intimidating, serious-looking man, standing over six feet tall and solidly built. His clothes and equipment were nondescript, covered with the dust from several thousand miles of hard riding, hard fighting, and hard drinking. His beaten-up black hat and long black coat sported a variety of bullet holes and blood stains. The brass star proudly displayed on his lapel was tarnished with age.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/bassreeves3.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>\"What the hell are you doing out here, lawman?\" the elder Brunter brother demanded.</p>\r\n<p>Bass spit. \"Well, I\'ve come to arrest you,\" he said in the sort of nonchalant, matter-of-fact way that an evil mechanic tells you that you need a new transmission. \"Got the warrant right here.\" He reached into his coat pocket, produced a worn, folded up piece of paper, and casually handed it to the elder brother.</p>\r\n<p>The Brunters all looked at each other in disbelief. They couldn\'t believe the stupidity of the man standing before them to have admitted this fact as plainly as he had. Sure, they respected the fact he possessed what obviously must have been solid brass balls, but they were still definitely going to have to kill his ass.</p>\r\n<p>The eldest brother unfolded the warrant, and jokingly showed his brothers the lengthy list of serious charges leveled against them. The moment their collective eyes looked down towards the page, Reeves\' right hand twitched ever so slightly. Then, in a flash, he closed his fingers around the handle of the .45-caliber Colt Peacemaker strapped to his thigh, drew his weapon and fired two shots from the hip in rapid succession. Both bullets hit home, sending two Brunters spinning into a dance of death. The eldest brother pointed his gun at the lawman\'s head, but before he could fire it Bass Reeves was on him. Reeves grabbed the man\'s revolver with one hand, redirected the weapon so it was pointing up into the air, and then proceeded to pistol-whip the dude unconscious with his free hand. In the span of about twenty seconds, the toughest U.S. Marshal West of the Mississippi had just taken out three of the Indian Territory\'s deadliest criminals.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/bassreeves2.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /><br /><span>A Colt Peacemaker</span></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Starting his life out as a young, illiterate slave belonging to Confederate Colonel George Reeves, Bass was an unlikely candidate to become one of the most insane, over-the-top, jerky-chomping asskickers in the American West. Sure, he was big, tough, and strong, but for a lot of black slaves living in 1860s Texas there really wasn\'t a whole lot available in the way of social mobility. Growing up, all Bass really had to look forward to was a lifetime of servitude and bullcrap menial labor.</p>\r\n<p>Well screw that. One day, Bass and Colonel Reeves were playing a nice friendly game of cards, when all of a sudden things became a little less than friendly. The Colonel was being a ten-gallon jackoff, so Bass leaned back and coldcocked the dude in the chops with a lights-out roundhouse punch. Colonel Reeves hit the deck like a sack of lead potatoes, TKOed by a solid George Foreman-esque right hook.</p>\r\n<p>Realizing that he\'d basically just signed his own death warrant, Bass decided it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. He fled the plantation and traveled several miles north, crossing the Red River into Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). The law of the White Man had no sway there, and Bass was soon taken in by the Seminole Indian tribe of Oklahoma.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/bassreeves1.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>While living with the Seminoles, Bass learned how to speak the languages of the Five Civilized Tribes, and trained himself in the arts of sweet badassitude. He enthusiastically took up shooting, becoming a deadly marksman with a rifle and an incredibly fast quick-draw with pistols. He was ambidextrous, could fire equally well with both hands, and could dual-wield pistols Chow Yun Fat-style. He became such a crack shot with a rifle that that he was actually forbidden from participating in all competitive turkey shoots in the Indian Territories.</p>\r\n<p>After the Thirteenth Amendment made the south a little less suck-tastic for black people, Bass Reeves left his adoptive home with the Indians, bought a home in Arkansas, got married, had like ten kids, and lived for a while as a farmer and a horse breeder. That was cool and all, but Bass Reeves was the kind of guy who was always looking to serve up a nice warm knuckle sandwich to anything capable of feeling pain and he wasn\'t happy living the boring life of successful rancher. So when the infamous hardass \"Hanging Judge\" Isaac Parker put out a call for U.S. Marshals in 1875, Bass was one of the first volunteers ready and willing to bring lethal hordes of armed-and-dangerous felons to justice. Thanks to his mammoth physical strength, tracking skills, intimate knowledge of the terrain, and language proficiency, he easily earned a spot on the force.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/bassreeves5.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Now back in the 1870s the Indian Territory was a sick nightmare from hell. The vast uncharted expanse &ndash; nearly seventy-five thousand miles of lawless terrain &ndash; was infested with fugitives, criminals, and escaped convicts, and was a horrible bitch that feasted on the broken dreams of wayward travelers and drank the blood of anyone foolhardy enough to cross her. It was up to guys like Bass Reeves and the U.S. Marshals to go into that dangerous territory, hunt down murderers, rapists, bank robbers, bootleggers, legbooters, and cattle rustlers, and bring some of the West\'s most dangerous outlaws in for some cowboy-style justice. Bass quickly proved that he was more than up to the task.</p>\r\n<p>Going out on lone-wolf style missions deep into unknown territory, Reeves relied on his toughness and his wits to survive and bring his men to justice. He used tactics he had learned from the Seminoles to traverse vast distances quickly and leave no trace of his trail. He tracked his foes down, never backed away from a job no matter how many bounties or death threats were leveled at him, and never blinked in the face of extreme danger. In thirty years of service, Bass Reeves arrested over three thousand fugitives &ndash; including one trip to Comanche country when he single-handedly captured and brought in seventeen prisoners. He was also the man who took out the notorious bank robber and murderer Bob Dozier. Dozier had eluded capture from posses and lawmen for several years, but he wasn\'t quite as adept at eluding a gunshot wound to the brain from Bass effing Reeves.</p>\r\n<p>Another famous Reeves arrest was Belle Starr, the \"Bandit Queen of Dallas,\" who was a hard-drinkin\', hard-ridin\', hard-swearin\', gunfightin\' hardass who wore enjoyed gambling, wearing over-the-top outfits, sleeping around, and raking in cash hand-over-fist through an organized racket of horse thievery and stagecoach robbery. During her sixteen-year career as an outlaw, Bass Reeves was the only lawman to ever successfully apprehend her.</p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><img src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/bassreeves6.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\r\n<p>&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p>Despite the fact that he spent much of his life drilling folks in the head with bullets, Reeves\' service record was utterly stainless. He killed fourteen men in gunfights &ndash; more than Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Billy the Kid, and Wild Bill Hickok - and wounded dozens more, but was never once convicted of unlawful use of force or murder or police brutality or any of that stupid crap. He couldn\'t be bribed or paid off, and one time he even hunted down and arrested his own son when the kid murdered Bass\' daughter-in-law. Unbelievably, Bass Reeves was also apparently more bulletproof than a Steven Seagal movie, seeing as how he was never wounded once during his time on the force. He had his belt shot in two, his hat brim shot away, a button on his coat shot off, and his bridle reigns cut in half by bullets, but never felt the sting of a gunshot to any part of his body.</p>\r\n<p>Bass Reeves served valiantly for three decades, and when his branch of the Marshals was disbanded in 1907, the seventy year-old lawman took a job as a police officer with the Muskogee Police Department, walking the beat with a cane and a revolver. He retired two years later and died in 1910, one of the most badass and obscure heroes of the American West and a man whose story is so over-the-top awesome that it pretty much generates its own gravitational field.</p>\r\n<p><br /> <img style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" src=\"http://www.badassoftheweek.com/bassreeves4.jpg\" alt=\"\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>','2012-03-02','841799523352','bassreeves.jpg','Copy of bassreeves.jpg','Bass Reeves','Runaway slave who became one of most successful lawmen and gunfighters of the American West.','\"He stepped out into the open, 500 yards away, and commenced shooting with his Winchester rifle… his first bullet cut a button off my coat, and [the] second cut my bridle reign in two. I shifted my six-shooter and grabbed my Winchester and shot twice. He dropped, and when I picked him up I found that my two bullets had hit within a half-inch of each other.\"'),