German Man Denies Teaching Dog Nazi Salute

54-year-old Berlin man was arrested on charges of contributing to the delinquency of a house pet last week for allegedly teaching his dog the “Heil Hitler� salute, according to German authorities. Though he admits his sheepdog can do the salute, Hans Roland insists he must have learned the gesture from other dogs in the neighborhood.

“It’s not my fault the pound sold me a Nazi dog,� claimed Roland through an interpreter. “You never know what you’re going to get, a carpet pee-er or a radical skinhead or whatever.�

“Sieg Heil!� screamed Roland at the sheepdog, Adolf, after it began to lower its paw.

When this reporter pointed out that Roland’s denials were implausible, given that he was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Adolf Hitler on it at that very moment, Roland called such allegations “absurd� and pointed out that the dog doesn’t know it’s Hitler.

“The dog’s not very smart,� explained Roland. “He thinks is Charlie Chaplin.�

Under German law, Roland can be prosecuted for displaying symbols of an unconstitutional organization and faces up to three years in prison. The laws against public display of Nazi symbols are meant to prevent a recurrence of Nazism in Germany and date back to the end of WWII. They likely wouldn’t pass constitutional muster but for the lucky fact they’re in Germany, which through a convenient loophole is exempt from American laws. Roland also faces lesser charges of contributing to the delinquency of a canine, a charge usually reserved for pet owners who give their dogs beer.

“I don’t know where these rumors get started,� Roland lamented. “Someone says you buy cheap coffee, you’re roaming around the neighborhood in the nude at nighttime, your dog’s a Nazi…�

If Roland is convicted, the dog likely will be housed in the war criminals wing of a local animal shelter.

“It’s just a rotten shame that people are going to judge this dog based on what his owner taught him,� fretted Cindy Farmou of the local animal protection agency. “It makes me sick. This dog probably isn’t even a Nazi, but because his owner was deranged he’ll have to wear that title and a swastika neckerchief for the rest of his doggie life. It’s important to remember the dog is the victim here. He probably thinks ‘Heil Hitler’ means ‘I love bacon snacks’ or something.�

“Fuck that Nazi dog!� disagreed teenager Hammel Stoiber, owner of a Jewish cocker spaniel. “They may say he’s not like the rest, but they’re all the same. Have you seen the look in that dog’s eyes? I bet he’d just love to put my Maxie in a concentration kennel.�

Roland is currently free on bail, preparing for trial by shouting at passers-by and coaching his dog on witness stand etiquette. According to court documents, police also confiscated a ferret named Manson and a parrot named Osama bin Laden from the man’s apartment.

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Ladies and gentlemen, I don't mean to shock you out of your pants (particularly you fatties), but I've got the most shocking news to report: Apparently I, Rokwell T. Finger, have been married for a while already.

I'm not defecating with you. Nor am I talking about my two previous wives, Arvelyn, the foul temptress, or Wyfe, my mysterious first spouse I never seem to reveal much about. No, this insidious beast is, as far as I can tell, some third entity I married more recently, after Arvelyn and after Wyfe, but before my engagement to my latest love, Ginger Baker.

You can't imagine, even with hyper-space imagining goggles, how surprised I was to get a call informing me I had abandoned my wife on a deserted island known as Australia, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Her name is Felchyana Finger, which is either an incredible coincidence or the tart has even taken to using my name. I called her a filthy liar, and now that's added into the lawsuit. Oh, yes—she's suing me for abandonment. And now slander. As far as I'm concerned, she can sue me for complete forgetment, because apparently she has a case for that more than anything else.

People, believe me, if I knew I had a wife, I never would have started up with Ginger Baker. Heart be damned, and loins be voodoo'd. I am not the kind of man who goes out milking cows when he has a jug of milk at home, even if it's goat's milk. Actually, I have never met this Felchyana character, and I can't fathom how I would even meet an Australian. But we were married. Her lawyer has pictures of me with her and everything. I'm not sure how they got me into that ridiculous Wild Kingdom get-up, but the woman tricked me into marrying her, there's obviously no end to her powers.

Not that I've met her—beyond our time of marriage, that is. We're speaking through attorneys, her attorney and me, who is representing myself. He's a nice fellow, her attorney Nick Digby, but you can't understand a damned thing the man says. I suppose they all speak that way on his primitive island.

Nice, yes, but he's been spinning some cock-and-balls story about the FBI giving me a new identity, me hiding from the mob, then some nonsense about getting kidnapped by pirates. Honestly, do they think me an idiot? What kind of sane person goes around offending the mob, marrying Australians, and turning pirate overnight? It doesn't sound like me at all. I'm not buying it.

But, from a legal standpoint, Digby and the foul-mouthed wife of mine have some kind of case, I can't deny that. Worse than that, they have me over a barrel, and it's full of piranha who are nibbling my kibbles 'n' bits. If I want to marry Ginger Baker—and I do—I'll have to find a way to settle things amicably with Ms. Down-Under. Or I suppose that's Mrs. Down-Under. No matter what lies she spins about me, the important thing is not to take it personally, just keep friendly, and try to walk out of this a single man.

In the interest of honesty, I have to tell Ginger Baker what kind of man she's marrying. What I'm trying to decide right now is whether to wait until after we're married, or if it's quite necessary I tell her before. My conscience is telling me the latter, but I'm not sure how much I can trust my conscience, given that I'm a man who has huge gaps in his memory and has married women at the drop of a veil before. Ah, the dilemma! Torn between two women, only one of whom I really want. I suppose many men would happily trade places with me. If anyone wants to, try to match my height and my approximate looks so Felchyana won't be able to distinguish us.

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Few would deny we're living in troubled times: gas is really expensive, the air is polluted and you can't sleep with a hippie these days without hearing about alternative energy. Though most still tune out at the mention of windmills or crystal meth, others are fed up with shelling out at the pump or dealing with a collapsed lung on their morning run. And many are starting to think this alternative energy talk might be more than just the price you pay for a night of free love. So what the hell is it, and why hasn't Ben Affleck been in a movie about it yet? Good question.

Contrary to popular belief, the world hasn't always run on gasoline and Mini Thins. A countless array of fuels have gone in and out of favor over the course of history. Early man preferred to use dirt as fuel, even though it wouldn't burn, because he liked that it was soft and brown. With advances in science, humanity moved on to wood, coal, and witches for its energy-burning needs.

Eventually, man discovered that he was crapping up the planet by running around and burning things in hopes of making his life easier. This didn't concern man much, he actually thought it was kind of cool, but woman was pretty pissed about it and nagged man into searching for alternative non-polluting energy sources. And by this she didn't mean that smelly old donkey he'd had since he was a kid and wouldn't get rid of because it had hilariously large nuts.

In the fourteenth century, Dutchman Happy Goetner made a name for himself as a major proponent of "rainbow power" and was soon after stoned to death for being silly. This setback to the cause of alternative energy was only temporary, however, and Goetner became a martyr for generations of quasi-scientific flaky dreamers everywhere.

The first windmills were built solely to lure in monsters, who could then be burnt to death in a dramatic fashion by bored villagers, and they served this purpose well for hundreds of years. Then, in 1681, townsfolk chased a monster to his supposed doom only to discover that it was just "Big Ed" Chuntrock, the ugliest man in five counties but a hell of a nice guy and pretty decent at horseshoes. After the misunderstanding was straightened out, and Ed forgave the townsfolk for burning down his house, hanging his wife, raping his cat and cutting off one of Ed's own ears with a six-foot-long saw, the village was stuck with a windmill and nobody to burn to death inside it. Thankfully for all, it was soon after discovered that the windmill was also useful for grinding corn and beans, and fans of bean-powder sandwiches danced the night away.

Bean-powder sandwiches fell out of popularity along with farting in the 1930's, and today windmills are used primarily to generate electricity. The machinations of this process are highly complex, with local residents pledging a certain dollar amount for each time the windmill's blades go around, much like a charity AIDS walk, and these funds are used to buy coal to generate electricity. While windmills are considered by some to be an inefficient source of energy, others love to watch the blades spin when they're drunk.

The 1960's saw a rising public interest in flower power and pyramid power, neither of which turned out to be a feasible energy source on a national scale. A scientist from Berkeley named Johan Bertelbong did develop a car that ran off flower combustion, but the thing took so many flowers to run it was like some kind of Dr. Seuss nightmare, and Bertelbong was soon kicked out of Northern California for fucking up the scenery. He was last scene driving slowly out of the region in his flower car, followed by an enormous swarm of bees.

In the 1970's, many pinned their hopes on solar power, until it was discovered that a square mile of solar panels in the Mojave Desert only produced enough electricity to run a small handheld calculator for four minutes. Solar panels are still in use as a fashion statement on the roofs of many flaky liberal dwellings, and proponents argue that they can still be used to heat a small home if you take the metal parts out and use them as skylights.

Many consider hydrogen to be the fuel of the future, and doubters should remember that hydrogen is the magic fuel that made the Hindenburg burn so brightly. Most agree that it'll only be a matter of time before our cars are hydrogen-powered, which will go a long way toward making every day like an exciting video game, with cars blowing up all around you because a leaf landed on somebody's hood or a careless motorist ran over a lollipop stick. Could this really be the future? Shit yes.

But until that day, it's up to us to keep the planet clean. So the next time you're thinking of burning a big, smelly stack of coal to meet your energy needs, remember alternative energy and see if you can get a non-polluting hippie to do the work for you instead.

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