Archives for October 2011

Money is a fascinating tool. We use it for many things. Sure, you buy stuff with it but you can also save it, use it for equity of many types, assign it importance above or below something else and so on. Money can buy you sex. Don’t laugh. If this guy had any cash the cops wouldn’t have arrested him, naked, covered in cooking oil while trying to seduce teenage girls.Then again, I’m not sure there’s a hooker on the planet who would agree to this. Just FYI, the young ladies involved were not R. Kelly fans so, when offered the chance to spend an evening with a naked fat man covered in cooking oil and carrying crack cocaine, they called the cops. See? There is hope for America’s youth. Anyway, in general, money allows you to do stuff.

But not any more.

In Louisiana it is now illegal to pay for lots of stuff with cash.

Cold hard cash. It’s good everywhere you go, right? You can use it to pay for anything.

But that’s not the case here in Louisiana now. It’s a law that was passed during this year’s busy legislative session.

House bill 195 basically says those who buy and sell second hand goods cannot use cash to make those transactions, and it flew so far under the radar most businesses don’t even know about it.

“We’re gonna lose a lot of business,” says Danny Guidry, who owns the Pioneer Trading Post in Lafayette. He deals in buying and selling unique second hand items.

“We don’t want this cash transaction to be taken away from us. It’s an everyday transaction,” Guidry explains.

Guidry says, “I think everyone in this business once they find out about it. They’re will definitely be a lot of uproar.”

The law states those who buy or sell second hand goods are prohibited from using cash. State representative Rickey Hardy co-authored the bill.

Hardy says, “they give a check or a cashiers money order, or electronic one of those three mechanisms is used.”

Hardy says the bill is targeted at criminals who steal anything from copper to televisions, and sell them for a quick buck. Having a paper trail will make it easier for law enforcement.

“It’s a mechanism to be used so the police department has something to go on and have a lead,” explains Hardy.

Guidry feels his store shouldn’t have to change it’s ways of doing business, because he may possibly buy or sell stolen goods. Something he says has happened once in his eight years.

“We are being targeted for something we shouldn’t be.”

Besides non-profit resellers like Goodwill, and garage sales, the language of the bill encompasses stores like the Pioneer Trading Post and flea markets.

Lawyer Thad Ackel Jr. feels the passage of this bill begins a slippery slope for economic freedom in the state.

“The government is placing a significant restriction on individuals transacting in their own private property,” says Ackel.

Pawn shops have been forced to keep records of their clients for years. However under this bill they are still allowed to deal in cash.

I really can’t wait for cops to try and enforce this law. As written it would also apply to garage sales, church bake sales and so on. Because, as we all know, those are hotbeds of gang banging activity.

But, what can we do to help the economy? Not a problem. Lawmakers in Florida, where else, are demanding that dwarf tossing be legalized.

A POLITICIAN wants to make “dwarf tossing” legal in Melbourne.

But Victorians shouldn’t expect such a competition in their capital city any time soon.

It’s the city of the same name in the US state of Florida where the push is on to provide employment opportunity for little people.

Republican Ritch Workman filed the proposed legislation this week, according to the Palm Beach Post, which quoted him as saying, “In this economy, or any economy, why would we want to prevent people from getting gainful employment?”

Mr Workman also called the decision to outlaw dwarf tossing “an example of Big Brother government”.

The bar attraction generally involves people competing to throw dwarfs in padded clothing on to mattresses or at Velcro-coated walls.

“I would never force anybody to take this form of employment or pay to watch it,” Mr Workman said.

“I think it’s repulsive and stupid. But it’s none of the state’s business if somebody wants to do this.”

But members of Little People of America cautioned against what the Post called “a Leave No Tossed Dwarf Behind bill”.

Robert Van Etten, a 1.04m engineering consultant said, “The people who were thrown were alcoholics with low self-esteem. Many of them were injured. One committed suicide.”

David Dodge, a 1.32m computer network consultant warned, “The possibility of getting paralysed is high. And then to be used as an object for people’s amusement is very degrading.”

Although said to have started in Australia, dwarf tossing’s origins are sketchy. It was banned in Florida after a participant died.

But, c’mon, this is the state dedicated to the joy of dwarfs. After all, they have a whole section of the state set aside to the Heigh Ho theme. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, other than everything?

But in China, where capitalism was supposed to go to die, capitalist heroes, who are descendants of the most famous fascists in history, have come up with a perfectly family friendly way to sell cars. They are using live, nude, models to see cars.

And you thought we Asians are conservative. While the idea of pairing cars and women together seems like a decidedly Western concept, the Chinese have outdone the Americans in this department. Not content with having girls frolicking in teeny-tiny bikinis, the organizers at a Volkswagen show in Heilongjiang province decided that the models should wear their birthday suits!

I wonder what the Chinese commie government thinks about this….

Actually, this is not an isolated incident, if we can put it that way. Car shows in China have gotten raunchier by the minute. Just capitalism at work, my friends. Just capitalism.

I’m just trying to picture this conversation

“Oh, honey, we have to buy the new Jeta.”

“Why?”

“Because they have a hot naked chick who is pretending to think I’m cute.”

I wonder what the divorce rate in China will be?

Some things that can help you save money, even without hot naked girls, is making sure your cell phone plan covers the people who are using it. A Florida lady – c’mon – where else? – let her 2 deaf mute relatives use the phone out of the country (i.e., all text and video) in Canada and got a $200,000 bill. T-Mobile, to their credit, cut the bill to 1% of the total, but that’s still a couple of grand.

Nevertheless, America has long been the world’s leader using naked women to sell stuff and I refuse to see a great American tradition die just because there are a few minor glitches in the economy. Let’s support our history and make America great again.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/10738300 w=400&h=227]

Mayday Parade / Kids In Love from Nickolas Hawkins on Vimeo.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!

Family, it’s the cornerstone of all civilization. No matter your religion or ethnicity or zip code, without family you – literally – would not exist. Granted, some families are different than others. Some reside in veritable communes, some in rigid patriarchies and others somewhere in between. Some familes make you wonder how inbred they are, as is the case with the recently discovered cyclops shark (happy birthday uncle dad?) or the Kentucky genius who was arrested after telling cops he’d only had two pizzas to drink. Of course he made the cops’ job much easier by leaving his heroin all over the front seat of his car. But those are isolated cases of genetic mutation gone wrong. I’m more interested in the family dynamic as it plays out in day to day life.

An obvious example would be the 9 year old girl who was driving her dad around at 3:00 AM to buy booze. His friend, who seems to define the word “enabler,” had this bit of insight to the affair.

Michael Wheatley, who said he is a friend and employee of Weimer’s, said he was shocked when showed the video showing the girl getting into the driver’s seat of her father’s full-size van at a gas station near Telegraph and West roads but that he considers Weimer a great dad to his little girl.

“I was in shock,” Wheatley told reporters Tuesday following the adjournment of Weimer’s preliminary examination. “That is not the Shawn I know. That’s the drinking Shawn.”

I should also note the the girl’s mother was upset because …. wait for it …..

… she was unaware her daughter could drive.

“I know that she does drive that four-wheeler, a little one,” Heather Hannon, a 36-year-old Lincoln Park resident told The Detroit News on Tuesday.

“I have no clue how she reached the pedals (of her father’s vehicle).”

I have a whole list of things that I would be upset about in this case, finding out that my 9 year old had basic driving skills would be so low on that list as to be laughable.

But some families do manage to keep their transgressions limited to adult participants. One such example happened here in Chicago when a woman was arrested for assault with attempt to cupcake or some similar legal term.

A food fight led to domestic battery charges for a woman on Chicago’s Southwest Side.

Late Saturday night, a man called police to his home on the 4700 block of South Western Avenue because his wife was hurling cupcakes at him, Chicago police said. When officers arrived at the home in the Brighton Park neighborhood, they said the man was covered in frosting and crumbs.

He told officers he feared for his safety. The police report states the woman was verbally aggressive with officers.

On Sunday, a Cook County judge ordered electronic monitoring for the woman and a $10,000 bond. The woman was also charged with a misdemeanor count of domestic battery.

This isn’t the first time the couple have been in trouble with the law. Records indicate that since 2003, the alleged victim himself has been arrested three times on domestic battery or battery charges. Charges in all three cases were later dropped.

Now that’s love, don’t you think? As long as they don’t procreate I think they should stay together.

I cannot say the same about this Seattle family who used their daughter as a jousting dummy.

Yes, I said “jousting,” as in King Arthur and all that crap.

A Thurston County couple is accused of beating their daughter and forcing her to fight them in a medieval-style duel.

Investigators arrested the 16-year-old girl’s stepfather, Fremon Seay, and her mother, Julie Seay, this weekend.

According to police, the teen was forced her to dress in armor and fight Fremon Seay with a wooden sword for two hours. Police also said Seay punched and beat his stepdaughter with a tree branch prior to the duel. Investigators said she collapsed from exhaustion.

The couple told officers they punished the teen for going to a party without their permission.

Investigators learned the couple is part of a group of Renaissance enthusiasts, who recreate fights from the medieval era.

Officers said the parents told them it was their right to discipline their child however they see fit.

Police said Julie Seay witnessed the abuse. She is employed at a daycare in Yelm.

The teen reportedly has bruises all over her body, but is expected to recover. She and two other children who live at the home are temporarily staying with other family members.

The couple appeared at the Thurston County Courthouse Monday afternoon.

No, Mr. and Mrs. Moron, you do not get to “discipline (your) child however (you) see fit.” That is the same excuse offered by demented freaks who lock their kids in closets for days on end without food or worse. The reason that laws were written to protect children is because parents like you forced lawmakers to act. Hopefully it will be a slow day in court when you appear so the judge can have fun taking his or her time turning your life into a personal hell.

But, to me, nothing says “Good natured family fun” like an evening with a power saw and a severed artery. Just FYI, this is our third story today from Washington state. Anyway, according to Everett police, this was a night of family fun taken to a whole, new, level.

A woman has appeared in court accused of cutting her sleeping husband’s neck and shoulder with a power saw.

Officers who arrived at the home in Everett, Wash., say they could hear the victim shouting: “You tried to cut my head off. You’re going to jail.”

The Daily Herald reported the 43-year-old woman appeared in court Monday on a charge of domestic violence assault and a judge kept her bail at $250,000. The newspaper did not identify her.

Police say the woman told officers she grabbed the saw Friday night because an intruder escaped out her daughter’s window.

Sgt. Robert Goetz said a child lock prevented the window from opening more than a few inches. “There was no evidence there was an intruder,” he told the Daily Herald.

The home’s front and back doors were also locked, police said.

The 36-year-old man was treated at a hospital. The Daily Herald reported that the victim also said he had been wounded with a hatchet.

Um, yeah, I believe her without question. She should be let go right now to avoid a travesty of justice.

NOT!!!!!!

Really? The burglar (who took nothing and left no clues) escaped through a 4 inch gap in a window so you had to cut off your husband’s head? Not even after many beers would that make sense to me.

So, the next time you’re kvetching about your odd uncle who seems obsessed with baseball stats, thank your favorite deity you’re not related to any of these folks.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysXHKWwh54o&w=480&h=360]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!

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We all want to be liked. It’s hard wired into our DNA. Even those lonely losers who play World of Warcraft and talk about their twelfth level dwarfs would giggle like school girls if a real person actually took the time to get to know and, eventually, like them. For some people the best way to get noticed is to remind people of others. Some come about this gift naturally, like the poor bastard featured in the film The Devil’s Double. HEY! You look just like Uday Hussein! Let’s party!.

Yeah, maybe not.

But what if you were wanted because, and we’re just talking here, you looked like President Obama and people wanted you to star in porn. Or, maybe, you look like Sarah Palin and people wanted you to star in porn. You get the idea. And, no, I couldn’t find any Mother Theresa porn so your beliefs are safe for another day.

But the one thing that all these scenarios have in common is that you could say “no.” You don’t need a reason, you don’t even need a lawyer. You just say “no, thanks,” and walk away. But what if you lived in a country where you couldn’t? Ahram Online (I’m linking to the English translation, so don’t panic) says that’s exactly what happened to this poor guy.

An Egyptian man was severely beaten after an Iraqi gang tried to kidnap and force him to film pornographic videos because of his astonishing resemblance to former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein.

Mohamed Bishr says he was on his way on Sunday to a café in the bustling downtown area of Egypt’s second city of Alexandria when three men wearing black suits tried to force him into the back of a van.

“The three men, who had guns hanging from their belts, forced me out of my car and shoved me into a van, hitting my head,” Bishr, a devout Muslim, told Ahram’s Arabic portal from his hospital bed.

The incident was short but traumatic. Bishr said the last thing he remembers was the men yelling at each other, and then throwing him out of the van where he hit his face on the pavement.

Passers-by quickly gathered around but were too afraid to apprehend the apparently armed kidnappers.

Bishr’s son, Mahmoud, said that his father had previously met with a group of unidentified people — who spoke Arabic in an Iraqi or Syrian dialect — and had been offered LE2 million pounds (US$333,000) to impersonate the late dictator in a pornographic video. Bishr refused.

His son said that after the meeting his father had received several telephone calls threatening him with kidnap if he didn’t change his mind and shoot the Saddam sex tape.

It is believed his kidnappers would have tried to pass off the video recording they made as genuine and sell it to international media.

This was not the first time Bishr has been harassed because of his looks, according to his sons. They said other Iraqis in Egypt had previously assaulted their father, telling him “you are Saddam Hussein and we will turn you in for the million-dollar reward.”

Bishr has changed his residence four times to avoid such harrassment, they claimed.

“We asked the police to put special protection on our father, because this has happened to us several times,” said Mahmoud.

Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, executed in Baghdad in 2006, was rumoured to have used the services of several doubles to make public appearances in his place.

None are thought to have performed in adult films.

Really, Saddam porn? Is there a market of any type for that and, if so, can we just nuke it for the good of all humanity? As to Mr. Bishr, might I suggest dying, and trimming, that beard? It would go a long way to solving your problem.

Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t thank my good buddy Nick for making sure I read this.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKbhQCcBuY8&w=500&h=317]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!

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A long time ago in a land far, far away I was making fun of people who were predicting the end of the world. Oh, wait, that was this week and just about a block from here. You see it becomes kind of a blur. All of the different apocalypses get confusing to me after a while. Is this the Rapture or just the Revenge of the Mayans or maybe something serious like Nibiru? Wait, did I say serious? Excuse me for a second.

Okay, I’m better now. If you’re bored and Google Nibiru you’ll end up on web sites such as the one I’m linking to which are written by complete idiots. I mean we are talking about people who shouldn’t be allowed outside without adult supervision. Seriously, just read this crap.

In 1841, John Couch Adams began investigating the by then quite large residuals in the motion of Uranus. In 1845, Urbain Le Verrier started to investigate them, too. Adams presented two different solutions to the problem, assuming that the deviations were caused by the gravitation from an unknown planet.

Sept 30, 1846 — one week after the discovery of Neptune, Le Verrier declared that there may be still another unknown planet out there. On October 10, Neptune’s large moon Triton was discovered, which yielded an easy way to accurately determine the mass of Neptune, which turned out to be 2% larger than expected from the perturbations upon Uranus.

Another attempt to find a trans-Neptunian planet was done in 1877 by David Todd. He used a “graphical method”, from the residuals of Uranus, he derived elements for a trans-Neptunian planet: mean distance 52 a.u., period 375 years, magnitude fainter than 13.

All that sounds cool until you realize that there is not one itsy bitsy piece of evidence to back up any of it. Nor will there be since – as I’ve noted – it’s all crap. Space.com set aside a page to deal with all the idiots but that’s like setting a garden hose aside to deal with the Chicago Fire.

But, as much as I like making fun of these idiots they do have effects on the real world that need to be dealt with. Life’s Little Mysteries reports on a terrifying ramification.

The waxing obsession with Nibiru, which conspiracy theorists say is a planet swinging in from the outskirts of our solar system that is going to crash into Earth and wipe out humanity in 2012 — or, in some opinions, 2011 — shows that an astonishing number of people “are watching YouTube videos and visiting slick websites with nothing in their skeptical toolkit,” in the words of David Morrison, a planetary astronomer at NASA Ames Research Center and senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

Morrison estimates that there are 2 million websites discussing the impending Nibiru-Earth collision. He receives, on average, five email inquiries about Nibiru every day.

“At least a once a week I get a message from a young person ― as young as 11 ― who says they are ill and/or contemplating suicide because of the coming doomsday,” Morrison told Life’s Little Mysteries.

Great. Try explaining to an 11 year old that their parent’s a moron. That’s got to be fun.

And, by “fun,” I mean just like having your spleen ripped out with a rusty spoon.

Anyway, as you’re reading this the comet Elenin, a/k/a Nibiru for dummies, is coming to our neighborhood. Unless you have a telescope or live in a very rural area and get lucky you’re going to miss it. Mike Wall at CBS tells us all why while trying not to laugh his (posterior) off at the believers who’ve been clogging up his phone lines.

The moment long feared by conspiracy theorists is nearly upon us: The “doomsday comet” Elenin will make its closest approach to Earth Sunday (Oct. 16). Or what’s left of it will, anyway.

Comet Elenin started breaking up in August after being blasted by a huge solar storm, and a close pass by the sun on Sept. 10 apparently finished it off, astronomers say. So what will cruise within 22 million miles (35.4 million kilometers) of our planet Sunday is likely to be a stream of debris rather than a completely intact comet.

And the leftovers of Elenin won’t return for 12,000 years, astronomers say.

“Folks are having trouble finding it, so I think it’s probably dead and gone,” said astronomer Don Yeomans of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

That means it probably won’t present much of a skywatching show Sunday, scientists have said.

The doomsday comet

Elenin’s apparent demise may come as a relief to some folks, since apocalyptic rumors circulating on the Internet portrayed the comet as a major threat to Earth.

One theory claimed Elenin would set off havoc on Earth after aligning with other heavenly bodies, spurring massive earthquakes and tsunamis. Another held that Elenin was not a comet at all, but in fact a rogue planet called Nibiru that would bring about the end times on Earth. After all, the comet’s name could be taken as a spooky acronym: “Extinction-Level Event: Nibiru Is Nigh.”

Those ideas were pure nonsense, Yeomans said.

“Elenin was a second-rate, wimpy little comet that never should have been noted for anything, really,” he told SPACE.com. “It was not even a bright one.”

Elenin’s remains will not be the only objects about to make their closest pass of Earth. One day after the Elenin flyby, the small asteroid 2009 TM8 will zip close by. Like Elenin, it poses no risk of striking our home planet.

Asteroid 2009 TM8 is about 21 feet (6.4 meters) wide and the size of a schoolbus. It will come within 212,000 miles of Earth – just inside the orbit of the moon – when it zips by on Monday morning (Oct. 17).

Say goodbye to Elenin

Elenin was named after its discoverer, Russian amateur astronomer Leonid Elenin, who spotted it in December 2010. Before the icy wanderer broke up, its nucleus was likely 2 to 3 miles (3 to 5 km) in diameter, scientists say.

Elenin never posed any threat to life on Earth, Yeomans said. It was far too small to exert any appreciable influence on our planet unless it managed to hit us.

“Just driving to work every day in my subcompact car is going to have far more of a gravitational effect on Earth than this comet ever will,” Yeomans said.

Elenin’s supposed connection to earthquakes was just a correlation, and a weak one at that, he added. Relatively strong earthquakes occur every day somewhere on Earth, so it’s easy — but not statistically valid — to blame some of them on the comet’s changing position.

Yeomans views the frenzy over Elenin as a product of the Internet age, which allows loud and often uninformed voices to drown out the rather more prosaic results that scientists publish in peer-reviewed journals.

“It’s a snowball effect on the Web,” Yeomans said. “You get one or two folks who make an outrageous claim, and a bunch of others pile on. Some folks are actually making a living this way.”

Elenin’s crumbs will soon leave Earth in the rear-view mirror, speeding out on a long journey to the outer solar system. But Yeomans doesn’t think the departure will keep the conspiracy theorists down for long.

“It’s time to move on to the next armageddon,” he said.

And, HOORAY!, the next scheduled Armageddon is due in 14 months. Get your party reservations now.

These guys are the best Armageddon band on the planet, by the way.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEx13xa7CgU&w=480&h=360]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!

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This is the kind of day that makes me weep for joy. The kind of moment in life when you realize that all your rantings and ravings about something have been finally, and irrevocably, been proven valid. Long have I proclaimed that Florida is where the gene pool goes to die. Yea and verily have I cried from the rooftops that the only sane people in that godforsaken state are tourists. But, no matter my well reasoned opinion, the state still seemed to find its defenders. I know them well. They send me emails in ALL CAPS that explain that …. well, let’s just quote one, shall we?

UR AN IDOT1

When faced with scathing criticism like that it’s all I can not to wither.

But, today, finally, I am pretty sure we can settle this matter once and for all.

Let’s start with the easy stuff first. A Florida teen, looking for a way to kill time between trips to the unemployment line, made a blow gun and shot people at random.

It’s a jungle out there!

Now we have to be alert for blow gun attacks.

Because the sad truth is Floridians never seen to run out of ways to hurt somebody.

Michael Brittain Brabham of Marathon was arrested for shooting a man in the side with a dart from a “blow gun” at a Circle K in Big Coppitt Key, according to a media release from the Monroe County Sheriff’s office.

According to the release:
The man was in the parking lot of the convenience store with his wife Wednesday when he felt a sharp sting on his right side.

It wasn’t a mosquito.

The man found a dart sticking in his shirt and saw a green vehicle pull quickly away.

He called the Sheriff’s Office who put a notice to be on the lookout for a green sedan with lots of stickers on the back window. The man was taken to a hospital because he was concerned about what the dart may have had on it.

A few hours later a vehicle matching the description was spotted on Big Pine Key and pulled it over. Several people were in the car.

A deputy also found a PVC pipe in the car.

Brabham was arrested and charged with aggravated battery after he admitted to shooting the victim with a dart using the PVC pipe.

The injured man was treated for minor injuries and released from the hospital.

I’m glad the guy is fine. Since he responded rationally and intelligently, we can assume he’s from out of state. But that kid’s far from the only motorized moron meandering the highways and byways of the Sunshine State. This guy ran over a little person carrying a sign. To do this he had to drive on the sidewalk where the little person was standing.

Driver accused of hitting sign-waver: ‘I thought I hit a stop sign’

A sign of the time: Being a human billboard is downright dangerous work.

You stand near busy roads waving a sign and hope folks who are passing within feet of you aren’t drunk or texting.

Etem Alajbegu, 27, is accused of driving a Porsche SUV onto the sidewalk and fatally striking sign-waver Stephen “Lugnut” Duzick, 49, reports the Naples Daily News.

Authorities say Alajbegu was drunk at the time. He told FHP troopers that he thought he had hit a stop sign, according to an arrest report.

Duzick, a little person, was holding a sign for Black Eyed Pig BBQ when he was killed.

Good of them to get a shout out for the restaurant, don’t you think? Now, I’m not sure, but isn’t calling a midget “Lugnut” kind of offensive? Maybe not. At least not in Florida.

Of course, not every Floridian has their own vehicle to wreck havoc with. That’s why some of them have to steal police cars.

It looks like David Tooth, 47, of Christmas Tree Lane in Panama City Beach will be having a blue holiday season.

That’s because Tooth apparently set some teeth on edge.

He’s accused of knocking down a Panama City Beach police officer before getting into his police cruiser and leaving the scene of an accident, reports the Panama City News-Herald.

The cops caught up with Tooth, who they say was drunk, after a couple of miles.

Guess age doesn’t bring wisdom: He’s getting a little long in the tooth for this sort of behavior.

I love the hairdo. It just screams sexy, don’t you think? I mean there are trailer parks swooning over this guy. I’m sure of it.

But, one thing’s for sure, Floridians have shown, time and time again, that they know the best way to deal with volatile situations. You take a baseball bat to them and beat them senseless.

It was closing time at a Four Corners bar when Carlos Javier Gonzalez, 24, accused James Moore, 38, of drinking his beer. Moore allegedly told Gonzalez “he didn’t like Puerto Ricans” and denied taking his beer, according to an arrest affidavit, reports the Orlando Sentinel.

Gonzalez, who was born in Puerto Rico, took umbrage at the remark and later attacked the couple with a baseball bat after they left the bar, leaving Moore in critical condition.

Witnesses told Lake County Sheriff’s deputies Gonzalez hit Moore on the head multiple times with the bat and yelled “This is what happens when you [expletive] with a Puerto Rican,” the report said.

Several of the commenters, on the page where the original article is posted, are demanding that Gonzales be deported back to Puerto Rico. In Floridian schools they don’t know about that whole “Commonwealth of the United States” thing and are unaware that the government could no more do that than they could deport someone to Kentucky.

Which is also a Commonwealth of the U.S.

Well, as Ron White likes to say, “You can’t fix stupid.”

But what does the average Floridian do when they don’t have a bat or someone to be mad at? Not a problem, they just beat up an ATM.

Fed up with bank fees?

Think ATMs are one-armed bandits?

So does Joel Gaudreaul.

The 29-year-old Vero Beach man had a tiff with a teller, an automated teller machine, that is.

So he demonstrated his frustration in a unique way — call it an ATM Smackdown.

According to his arrest affidavit, Gaudreault damaged the ATM’s face plate and broke the color screen “due to being charged (too) much by the machine in fees,” reports Will Greenlee in his Off the Beat blog for TCPalm.com in Stuart.

One of my step fathers was from Stuart. He was a jerk too.

But women in Florida have set the bar for stupid to a level so high (low?) that it may never be seen again. It turns out many of them fell for the old door to door breast exam scam.

Phillip Winikoff, 81, was accused of posing as a doctor and offering free door-to-door breast exams at a Lauderdale Lakes apartment in 2006, reports the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Investigators said two women allowed Winikoff into their apartments before they realized something was amiss after the exams started.

Winikoff even carried a little black doc bag. The first woman, 36 at the time, told detectives he started the exam by fondling her breasts, and she knew something was wrong when his hands wandered elsewhere, the Sun-Sentinel reported.

If tried and convicted, he could have faced more than 45 years in prison for the sexual battery charges and another 10 years for practicing medicine without a license.

It was not revealed whether Winikoff’s plea deal will keep him out of prison.

He sure looks like a medical professional, doesn’t he? Okay, seriously, ladies, is this something you’d fall for? Some random guy shows up at your door and offers to feel your boobs for free and you just say “Hokey dokey, let me just lose this bra.”

Really? Why do we men even bother paying for dates?

But, I have saved the best for last. Because, while one story like this is tragic eleven are freaking hysterical. I’ll just link the headlines so this doesn’t turn into the internet version of War and Peace.

Man shoots self after claiming gun was not loaded.

For the rest of us, you can check to see if a gun is loaded simply by checking the chamber.

Ouch! Teen playing with gun shoots his own testicles.

Thanks for getting out the gene pool buddy. Humanity appreciates it.

Man’s last words: ‘Go ahead and shoot me’

See? Wishes do come true.

Felon shot himself, got busted for possessing gun, cops say

I love it when they save the police ammunition.

Man accidentally shoots self at gun show

Nothing more needs to be said.

Man accidentally shoots himself while in line at Mickey D’s

Oh, I need another quarter? Hold on while I …. ooops.

High theatrics: Bang! Uh, that gun was loaded, not a stage prop

It’s a sad comment on their society that even their Thespians are morons.

Sign that you shouldn’t own a gun: You have one and accidentally shoot yourself

Yep, that’s a very good sign.

Man, 75, shoots himself instead of snake

HA HA HA HA HA …. etc.

Your shirt drawer probably isn’t the best place for your gun — especially since it’s loaded

Neither is your sock drawer.

So there you have it. Empirical proof that Florida is where the gene pool went to die.

Now, let’s dance in celebration.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXT52qGsfJM&w=500&h=317]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!

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If you’re like me, and your therapist thanks God that you’re not, but if you are – or were – then there are times when your mind is going to turn to naked women. That time is usually between sun up and sun up on any given day. Certainly this blog has come out in favor of smoking hot women getting naked to support worthy causes. But only worthy causes, we’re not cads. And, being that we agree with Michelle Obama that Americans need to get out and exercise more, we can see no greater example to follow than the famous nude rugby scrum in Dunedin England. That is not to confused with a nude Dumbledore, even though both have British roots. And, certainly, mainstream media seems to be catching up with the progressive think tank that is the Nude Hippo World News Center. From the, internationally renowned, Naked News to the stunning upstart, Clothes Free TV to the fact that if you Google Nude News this blog will show up on the first page of searches, it is clear that more and more people want to see other people naked.

In other words, the terrorists have not won.

So, today, in honor of all that, we’re going to take a look at nudes in the news. Our first story comes from – drum roll please – FLORIDA! And, because it’s from Florida, it involves people who screw up the whole concept of being naked. Also combining it with indoor golf was just stupid.

A tiff over porn in Vero Beach ended not in hugs and kisses but rather with a golf club and a beat down, according to a recently released Indian River County Sheriff’s Office report.

A 23-year-old man on Sept. 19 told deputies his “female roommate” whacked him with a golf club, which the roommate apparently identified as a six iron.

“He said that they got into an argument over porn,” the report states. “She told him to get away from her and he did not. She then grabbed a golf club and started beating him with it.”

The 24-year-old woman appeared to be teed off and said she was leaving and not coming back.

“She told me she used a six iron on him,” a report states.

Golfers typically use a six iron for an approach shot, though it can be used to tee off on a par 3.

In 1971, Alan Shepard, commander of Apollo 14, used a six-iron head attached to a utility tool to hit a couple of golf balls on the surface of the moon.

Shepard’s famous lunar golf incident came about 16 years before the birth of the woman in the apparent Vero porn golf club beating brouhaha.

A six iron is not to be confused with a six pack of soda, a six shot handgun, Six Flags amusement park, six degrees of separation, a sixth sense or a sick sense of humor.

A deputy noted “several large contusions” on the man’s arms, face and back.

The man apparently gave the woman a mulligan, not wanting her to be arrested.

Yesterday we talked about an 18 year old woman who was arrested for stealing to support her porn habit. It only took me one day to find her soul mate. Now, as long they don’t breed, I wish them nothing but happiness.

Moving on, we turn our jaundiced eye to a Kid Rock concert. No, not The Wiggles, the guy from Detroit. Because only in Canada could a woman get arrested for flashing her breasts during a show that features non-stop nudity.

Kid Rock is not exactly known for his progressive, respectful opinions about women. His concerts illustrate this quite plainly. With female pole dancers on stage and numerous images of naked and nearly-naked women flashing on the big screens in time to the music, one could be forgiven for thinking nudity was perfectly acceptable at the event. Add in a cameraman who’s encouraging the female audience members to flash a la Girls Gone Wild, and it’s no surprise the audience got into the groove and flashed their breasts.

But when Andrea Irwin joined in the breast-revealing fun, the owners of Scotiabank Place, the Ottawa-area arena where Kid Rock played Tuesday night, didn’t think it was fun at all and summarily ejected Irwin from the arena.

After her ejection, Irwin told the Toronto Sun:

“There were two strippers on stage and pornographic pictures in the background with women with their breasts exposed. It was very X-rated. So I thought what I was doing was just part of the concert.”

Scotiabank Place, however, released a statement via email where they supported the ejection, stating “We pride ourselves on providing a safe and respectable environment, especially at all-ages shows like the Kid Rock event was last night,” said Vice President and Executive Director Tom Conroy.

Calling a Kid Rock concert a “safe and respectful environment” is certainly a stretch of credibility. Perhaps the organizers extend the courtesy only to the the concert attendees rather than the concert performer. While I’m certainly not a fan of nudity for the purposes of publicity, exploitation and titillation, it’s certainly rich for the organizers to say that this individual was ejected because of the “family friendly” environment at a concert where breasts and pole dancers are prominently on display.

It’s also questionable whether the reaction of Scotiabank Place staff was appropriate. If a man had removed his shirt, would he have been asked to leave or would he have been simply asked to put his shirt back on?

Given that it is legal to be topless in Ontario, it would certainly be interesting to see if the reaction would be any different if the flasher was a man. But given that nobody makes money off exploiting topless men, nobody seems to worry about that.

Umm … nope, nothing I can add there. The Scotiabank Place staff is clearly run by diseased howler monkeys so let’s move on.

In this great land of ours it is now legal to paint naked women in public, with only a couple of minor restrictions. Artist Andy Golub, whose work celebrates the energy of the naked female, will now be allowed to hone his craft as long as his models wear g-strings when it’s daylight.

An artist arrested for applying body paint to a nude model in New York’s Times Square will have charges against him dropped if his models strip naked only after dark, according to a court agreement reached Thursday.

Police arrested Andy Golub, 45, in July and charged him with violating public exposure and lewdness laws. He has been painting nude models for about three years.

Golub’s lawyer, Ronald Kuby, argued that New York laws do not prohibit public nudity in the name of art, and a compromise was reached that was the basis of the court ruling.

Under the agreement, “he is permitted to paint bare breasts any time, anywhere, but the G-strings have to stay on until daylight goes out,” Kuby said after a hearing in Manhattan criminal court.

State laws against public exposure exempt “any person entertaining or performing in a play, exhibition, show or entertainment,” Kuby said. Municipalities are allowed to devise their own restrictions, but New York City generally does not do so, Kuby said.

Golub, of Nyack, New York, said he likes to paint nude models because their bodies have energy and dynamism that he finds lacking in canvas.

“I feel that when I do live body painting it’s a good thing, a positive thing,” he said.

Charges against Golub will be dropped in six months if he abides by the terms of the agreement and is not arrested again. Charges against Karla Storie, a model from Texas arrested with him, will be dismissed if she too is not arrested again in the next six months.

Golub said he was planning to return to criminal court on Friday and paint a nude model in a park near the courthouse.

Good for him. It’s a pity justice is blind, I think she’d like his stuff.

But there is one theme that cannot be ignored. Nudity is not just for the young anymore. And that’s fine since people are living longer, enjoying life (when they can afford to) and trying very hard not to be those old wankers who keep yelling for kids to get off their lawn. That is why the entire staff here is proud to support a group of aging British soap opera stars who ripped off all their clothes to demand better script writing.

No, I am not making this up. Quit laughing and read the damn article.

A group of British soap opera actresses appear naked this month in a magazine to raise awareness of age discrimination on television.

According to Jessica Laurence of AOL News, “The stars of Loose Women, Eastenders and Coronation Street have stripped bare for a photo shoot in Best magazine as part of a campaign to fight ageism in TV. Posing completely nude for the magazine’s Body Image issue, Gillian Taylforth (EastEnders), Beverley Callard (Coronation Street), Sherrie Hewson and Andrea McLean (Loose Women) protested against the scarcity of roles for older women on television.”

This is, of course, not the first time that a group of British women of a certain age (or a bit beyond) have stripped for a cause. The 2003 hit comedy film Calendar Girls, starring Helen Mirren, was based on a real-life story of a dozen women in their sixties and seventies who posed nude as a fundraiser for a women’s community organization.

Fair or not, the emphasis on beauty and youth is universal. Ancient Greek myths were overwhelmingly about young, attractive heroes and heroines going on quests and overcoming great obstacles. From Sandro Botticelli’s 1484 painting The Birth of Venus to Francisco Goya’s 1880 Nude Maja, artists have always focused on beauty and youth. There are, of course, some representations of older men and women in classical art and literature, but youth has always been prized.

Perhaps recognizing this, the women wisely target screenwriters. One of the women noted, “Women my age face a lack of parts because writers don’t write about women in their 50s. You used to confront ageism in your 50s, then it was in your 40s now anyone over the age of 35 suffers the stigma of being ‘too old.'”

Though addressing issues of ageism through nudity creates awareness among the general public, it’s easier to change the screenwriting world than the rest of the world.

The fact is that there are few good TV and film roles written for older people, male or female. Actors undeniably have a longer shelf life than actresses, though even Hollywood’s biggest male stars are offered fewer and fewer significant roles as they age.

Once-handsome but aging leading men like Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner, Robert Duvall, Richard Gere, and others rarely appear in films anymore. Many have taken producing and directing roles to keep a hand in the youth-and-looks focused business.

Pressuring screenwriters may help, but consumers can also vote with their purses and pocketbooks. Studios respond to box office receipts, and when audiences decide that they want to see films about older women (and men), Hollywood will make more films starring older actors. But an audience must create the demand.

Today’s Brad Pitts and Johnny Depps will be tomorrow’s Kirk Douglases and David Nivens, replaced (maybe) by Nicolas Hoults and Anton Yelchins. The ageism the women are protesting is partly about Hollywood’s narrow vision, but it’s also about the numbers.

There are only so many TV and film roles to go around, and an ever-growing population of actresses and actors wanting those roles. A casting director for a coming-of-age script (an ever-popular genre) won’t call Jessica Lange, Kate Winslet, or probably even Natalie Portman.

There has never been a society that generally values old age over youth, and it seems unlikely that there ever will be. Youth has always represented opportunity and potential, and the promise of future generations. Favoring youth and beauty over old age seems inherent in humanity.

But it’s not a zero-sum game; there’s no reason a society can’t value its older citizens for their abilities and experience as much as it values youth.

Amen to that sister. Age is a matter of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.

So, today, we’ll close our little blog with a look at the famous Russian diva, Nikita, sadly edited to meet Nude Hippo’s public guidelines.

Our private guidelines would make Larry Flynt blush.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdUiTe2TU_c&w=500&h=317]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!

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As I was flipping through my options for topics today I glanced outside my window and saw a homeless man, pushing an old TV while wearing a chiffon dress. I said to myself, “Self, that’s something you don’t see every day.” Add it to underwater phones and 300lb cheerleaders as yet another thing you could have lived your whole life without seeing. But there are some things, life’s little oddities shunted to the side, that are worth hunting down and viewing. And, astute readers of this blog will know – automatically – that I’m talking about anything to do with female breasts.

All over the world, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and – no – this doesn’t mean you can ignore it the other 11, people are creating events to drive home the point that women need to be examined on a regular basis by a qualified physician and not just that dude in the bar. Or chick in the bar, as your tastes may run.

They do this by making professional athletes wear pink. They do this by ramping ads in various forms of media and, my favorite, tehy do this by showing happy, healthy, breasts wearing fun bras. York Arts Association, in Pennsylvania, is hosting an exhibit of bizarre bras. Various locales in Asia, especially India, are also hosting bizarre bra events. And, of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention New Zealand. Florida doesn’t participate because their politicians don’t believe women have breasts to begin with. Those things they see on South Beach aren’t really there. Just ask them.

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Anyway, it’s all fun for a good cause, so go out and buy a bizarre bra for someone you love today.

Now, to the dark side of women with healthy breasts but no brains.

Minnesota police have arrested a girl for supporting her porn collection by crawling through doggie doors and stealing stuff.

Authorities say an 18-year-old Minnesota woman admitted to investigators that she broke into a neighbor’s home three times looking for items she could fence to feed her porn addiction.

Anoka County sheriff’s investigators say the neighbor called to report he had surveillance footage of Amanda Rose Owens sneaking into his East Bethel home through a dog door.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports (http://bit.ly/oXEskf ) that the neighbor set up the camera after $300 and several items were stolen.

Investigators say Owens admitted she had broken in three times. She said she need money so she could pay for 20 to 30 pornographic DVDs she bought.

Seriously, how ugly could this girl be? I mean a girl who likes porn is so rare that men will gladly sever an arm to spend an hour with one. And she had to steal to support her collection.

Oh, wait, never mind, they posted her pic.

Well, maybe she can turn tricks on Twitter or something.

Okay, let’s seriously talk about something you never see. In fact, until today I would have bet it was something no one had ever seen. Some scientists in Nevada are claiming they’ve found the remains of a Kraken.

The curious arrangement of giant bones in a prehistoric ocean graveyard has caused one paleontologist to propose the existence of a giant squid-like kraken that preyed on bus-size “sea monsters.”

Other scientists, though, say the fossils can easily be explained without resorting to theories based on kraken—mythological sea monsters perhaps based on centuries-old sightings of giant squid or octopuses.

The fossils in question are about 350 miles (560 kilometers) northwest of Las Vegas, in Nevada’s Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park—a seafloor at the time the bones were deposited, some 200 million years ago.

The fossils are circular vertebral discs, or backbones, that once belonged to Shonisaurus popularis, a species of dinosaur-age marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs.

Based on the sizes of the bones, scientists estimate the ichthyosaurs grew to lengths of 49 feet (15 meters) or longer.

Kraken Self-Portrait?

During a recent family trip to the fossil site, Mark McMenamin, a paleontologist at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, noticed that some of the vertebrate fossils appeared to be neatly lined up into double rows.

Struck by the orderly arrangement of the bones, McMenamin came up with a remarkable idea for how they came to be that way, which he presented at a Geological Society of America meeting in Minnesota on Monday.

McMenamin’s hypothesis: that a giant squid or octopus hunted and preyed on the ichthyosaurs and then arranged their bones in double-line patterns to purposely resemble the pattern of sucker discs on the predator’s tentacles.

According to a press release detailing McMenamin’s hypothesis—titled “Giant Kraken Lair Discovered”— “the vertebral disc ‘pavement’ seen at the state park may represent the earliest known self portrait.”

“I think that these things were captured by the kraken and taken to the midden and the cephalopod would take them apart,” McMenamin—who didn’t respond to a request for an interview Tuesday—said in the statement.

The kraken, he said, “was either drowning [the ichythosaurs] or breaking their necks.”

Explanation Doesn’t Require an Artistic Kraken?

Paul “P.Z.” Myers is an evolutionary biologist at the University of Minnesota Morris and the author of the Pharyngula science blog. (Pharyngula is part of ScienceBlogs, a network partially funded by the National Geographic Society, which owns National Geographic News.)

Myers called McMenamin’s hypothesis a “bizarre and miraculous story” and said his evidence is “weirdly circumstantial.”

The fossil arrangement “is not surprising,” Myers said. “It doesn’t take an artist octopus to do it.”

One could imagine, Myers said, that as ichthyosaurs died and their bodies rotted, their vertebral discs fell apart.

The bones “are taller than they are wide, so they’re just going to flop over to one side or the other and can just happen to fall into two parallel rows,” which then get preserved as fossils, he said.

Kraken “Fun to Think About”

McMenamin’s kraken ideas have received widespread media attention partly because they were presented at a scientific conference, but that’s no sign that a hypothesis is widely accepted or considered scientifically plausible, Myers added.

Scientific meetings “are where scientists go to talk with their peers and discuss preliminary data, so they naturally have fairly lax standards,” Myers said.

Ryosuke Motani, a paleontologist at the University of California, Davis, who has also conducted research at Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park, was equally skeptical of McMenamin’s idea.

“It’s fun to think about,” Motani said, “but I think it’s very implausible.”

Motani proposed an alternative hypothesis for how the bones came to be arranged the way they are.

“These bones are disc-shaped, so when they’re disarticulated after rotting, they lay flat on the seafloor and can get gathered up and packed together by ocean currents,” he said.

“This particular specimen [that McMenamin focused on] has two rows. But I’ve seen others that have three rows. … It’s natural that the bones get arranged like that.”

Oh sure Mr. Smarty Pants Super Professor Person, go ahead and use logic and facts on me, see if I care. I bet you could ruin a free night at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waacof2saZw&w=480&h=360]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!

This is a repost from April 22, 2011 from NudeHippo.com (currently under construction). It recently was reviewed by, award winning author and NASA astrophysicist, David Brin, who called it “Fun and informative” and then went on to note how much the ancient aliens crowd irritated him as well. Since it seems to have taken on a life of its own since the original posting I figured I’d toss it back up and let those who missed it give it a gander.

Before I get into this mess today, there are a couple of things that need to be dealt with first. Let’s start with the Ancient Aliens crowd. They believe that humanity could not have developed much beyond the wheel and fire, and they have doubts about that, without guidance from an advanced culture. To hear them tell it, and they do every freaking day on the History Channel – which should be renamed the Crackpot Theories Channel – all of the Hindu gods were really aliens and that’s why they look so different. Moreover, these people claim that said aliens dropped atomic bombs in India and on Sodom and Gomorrah. Because, well – you know, there’s a reason in there somewhere. Ignoring logic and facts for a moment, what’s their motivation? If the idea of a couple of isolated atomic strikes was to cow us into submission, then why didn’t they come down and force us to submit? If the idea was to show us that they hold a very high moral code, then why not bomb Egypt or Greece? In their day they made the antics of Sodom seem like a pre-school. And, since both were major powers, people would have paid attention to that little message. There are those who argue that the aliens are being subtle. To which I ask; what the heck’s so subtle about an atomic bomb?

Despite specious evidence and wild conjecture, these people continue on with their varied, for lack of a better term, hypotheses as though they were written in stone instead of water.

“Aha,” they cry when they realize you’re not buying any of this, “what about batteries?” What about them? Crude batteries were manufactured in Egypt almost 3,000 years ago. The devices could store, and then retransmit, an electrical charge. Egypt housed some of the finest minds in the world in its hey day and those minds would have been curious about many things, including conductivity (see lightning strikes for reason #1). If it was a gift from aliens, it was a truly worthless one. Without an electrical infrastructure there was no use for the contraption. It quickly faded as a novelty and never saw wide use. Later cultures, including the Greeks at their peak, made the same discovery with the same results. It wasn’t until Ben Franklin rediscovered the concept of the battery that it began to make headway into public use. And, even then, it took more than a century for it to have widespread practical value.

Then there’s the story of Thomas Fowler, who invented a terrnary computer in 1840. Well, then, it was called a calculating machine and not a computer and there were tons of those around. It was also built out of wood and not any alien metals. Even so, it would be a quantum leap above anything we have now. Instead of a circuit being either on or off, it would allow the circuit to also be both on AND off. Instead of a binary system, it would use trinary. Right now, due to existing infrastructure, it’s still just a novelty but does that mean that Tom had alien professors?

Doubtful. Even college students would notice something like that.

For the moment let’s follow the prudent course and quote Bertrand Russell. He offered what he called “a form of Occam’s Razor” which was “Whenever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities.” Do that and your ancient alien activities turn to mist.

Simply put, I feel safe in dismissing these people and their wild eyed hunches in the aggregate and moving on to the fun stories that have been falling out of the FBI’s secret vault. Well, it’s not really a secret since it’s been open to the public since 1970 and it’s not much of a vault either. But it sounds cooler to say it is so I’ll play along.

For all the voluminous UFO related documents that have come to the fore, they are all based on one simple statement; between 1935 and 1941, 3 UFOs crashed on Earth. Specifically in Germany, the United States and in Russia. Allegedly all 3 were 50 feet in diameter and each contained 3 dead aliens.

Before we go any further, let’s talk about those ships. About 15% of the ship could be usable space, and I’m being generous with that assessment. Anything in the spinning part of the disk would be crushed by gravity. Remember that the disk has to spin fast enough to counter gravity. It would be like living in a centrifuge. So, in the tiny remainder of the ship, a space about 7 1/2 feet in diameter, there’s the engines, living quarters, pilot’s area and some form of on-board computer. Unless those aliens are about 6 inches tall, that’s going to be hopelessly cramped.

Now, let’s take a look at the crashes. The first one supposedly occurred in Germany. When you consider that, the rest become irrelevant.

Adolph Hitler’s rise to power surrounded him with some very driven people. Xenophobes, racists, psychopaths and so on, all wishing for power and control over the world. Hitler’s great claim to power, the famous Beer Hall Putsch, was actually a dismal failure. It was deemed a success when Hitler’s cronies hastily reformed the facts to fit their needs. This was PR spin on an epic scale. In other words, when reality didn’t fit their needs, they lied. That would be an ongoing theme for the Nazi Party.

Fast forward to 1935 when Germany was supposed to have discovered the downed UFO. Germany was bound by the onerous Treaty of Versailles. Their military and their economy were both gutted by it. In retrospect, it was about as short sighted as a treaty could be. Germany was trying frantically to get out from under its many oppressions. Hitler had the military working in secret and was aided by the fact that the terms of the treaty were being enforced by a buffoon. Neville Chamberlain was more interested in being popular than being good at his job. For example, when the Nazis claimed to be honoring the treaty by keeping the total tonnage of their navy less than that of Britain’s even if they had many more ships, he agreed. That allowed Germany to build many more boats which were faster and deadlier than anything in the British navy. The ships in the British fleet were mammoth. The German navy was built on speed and killing power. It was a mistake that could easily have been avoided had he done something wild like, I don’t know, gone and seen for himself.

Hitler also did something else that no one else in the world was doing. He poured all of his available resources into military and scientific research. Scientists were given free reign to look into any possibility, no matter how irrational, if it could be used to increase Germany’s strength. And that’s exactly what they did.

Rocket technology, despite claims contrariwise from UFO enthusiasts, had existed in basic form for almost 3,000 years. It was invented by the Chinese to make fireworks and some crude weapons. Theoretical advances in different propulsion systems had been made around the turn of the 20th century. Hitler’s scientists started with those and, thanks to unlimited funding and manpower, made tremendous leaps forward.

Jet engines, far from being super secret high tech whims of fancy, had been invented prior to 1930 by Dr. Hans von Ohain and Sir Frank Whittle. Neither knew of the other’s work and Sir Whittle applied for a patent in 1930 when his research was complete.

So much for aliens. All Hitler did was steal existing, human, technology and throw a lot of resources at it.

Anyway, back to our crashed UFO in Germany.

Just FYI, these must be the most incompetent space-farers in the universe to have crashed into the same planet three times in such a short span.

Nevertheless, it’s well known that Hitler was fascinated by the unexplained, he even hired psychics to guide him, and he was surrounded by excellent liars and sycophants. Add in the fact that he was being pestered by the WWI allies (excluding Chamberlain who seemed content to watch cricket and sip tea) to explain where all this tech was coming from, as the rest of the world was fighting through a depression, and you have a recipe for what followed.

Hitler and his scientists obviously hashed out a rough idea of what an alien space ship would look like and created forged documents to claim they’d found one. Of course, super secret documents that would scare the pants off of high ranking officials the world over are useless unless they aren’t all that secret. So, SURPRISE! SURPRISE!, these highly classified documents quickly ended up in the hands of western spies.

Within 5 years American and Russian documents made their way back to Germany showing that these countries had, amazingly enough, captured their own downed UFOs. Unfortunately they did so without the advantage of garnering any new technologies. Both the American and Russian armies were built with conventional weapons and tactics.

But, HEY!, somewhere somehow they still held to their claim that they each had a shiny UFO.

Oy vey.

After that, the rest is obvious. Since no side could admit the fallacy, and no side had any true advantage, the ruse continued on. Yes, the Nazi military was the best in the world in its time and, yes, they probably would have won the war had not Hitler been a military moron. But none of those facts require alien technology to be explained. A simple combination of resources and hubris covers all the bases.

Does all of this mean that aliens don’t exist? Of course not. The odds are overwhelmingly in favor of there being life on other planets. But does that mean that our backwoods planet is the crossroad of the universe? Not bloody likely.

So, when you hear people like Professor Bill Wickersham calling for a Congressional study of UFO phenomena, feel free to send him this link.

It’ll save the world a lot of time and money.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Friday morning around 9:10!.

As regular readers of this humble blog know, my home was broken into 6 times before the thieves were finally caught. During their reign of terror they managed to steal several thousand dollars worth of computers, cell phones, cash, etc. None of which was ever found. So, my opinion of people who prey on others might be just a hair slanted. Mostly I think they are useless parasites. They offer nothing to the world around them and accomplish less. I have bacteria in my lower intestine that are more useful than them. In fact, you do too. So when my super secret, Nude Hippo approved, web-bot brought in today’s news and the top four stories were all about thieves, I figured I had an easy theme. Then, as I was typing this (here at my local branch of the Chicago Public library), a young lady attempted to plug in her laptop. A task which seemed to require her to get on her hands and knees, crawl between my legs and fumble around with the plug until she was able to utter a contented moan.

What the hell were we talking about?

Oh, yeah, thieves.

Don’t like them.

Not even a little bit.

Anyway, since this is a blog about stories and those stories are supposed to entertain you, let’s get this party started. A man in Port St. Lucie, Florida was arrested for the 100th time, his mom must be SOOOO proud, after cops caught him stealing underwear.

A man accused of stealing socks and underwear led police on a foot chase before he was caught hiding behind a trash bin, then arrested for the 100th time.

Joseph Wilson, who turned 50 this year, reached the dubious milestone Thursday in Port St. Lucie.

According to an arrest affidavit, Wilson walked out of the Bealls department store at 10135 U.S. Highway 1 with the merchandise under his clothing. When a loss-prevention officer tried to confront Wilson, he jumped into a waiting minivan and ordered the driver to “take off,” the report said.

Wilson’s friend didn’t take off, so the suspect hustled out of the other side of the vehicle and ran away, according to the affidavit. The officer lost him, but a witness called police a short time later to say Wilson was in the bushes in a Wendy’s parking lot just down the road.

When two officers arrived and found Wilson, the sweaty suspect first said he was out for a jog and just trying to cool off behind the trash bin. Eventually, he cited “hard times” and was taken into custody without any further struggle, the report said.

The merchandise Wilson is accused of stealing was worth $174.

Prior to Thursday, Wilson had a record that included 37 felony arrests, 47 misdemeanors and 15 others. In all, he’s been convicted in 35 of those incidents.

Good thing Florida doesn’t have a 3 strikes law, isn’t it?

Of course, in Tennessee one guy wasn’t going to let a little thing like his ongoing trial for burglary stop him from picking up a little extra cash.

A crime caper has everyone in Franklin, Tenn., buzzing. A man is accused of ripping off a jewelry store during a lunch break in his trial for robbery.

“This is one of those compelling stories that leaves you scratching your head, and as you’re walking away asking yourself, ‘Did that really just happen?'” Franklin police Sgt. Charles Warner said.

Police say Mark Burgen reached over the counter at Walton’s Antique Jewelry and helped himself to pockets full of diamond bracelets, about $30,000 worth.

As he was leaving the store, employee Julie Walton caught him with a stolen Rolex watch in hand. He handed it over, apologized, then fled, she said.

“Just had no common sense whatsoever is pretty much what it boils down to,” Walton said.

Burgen had somewhere else to be at the time — in court. He was on trial for an armed robbery he allegedly committed in 2009.

Jewelry store owner Mike Walton can barely stand to see the surveillance tape.

“You would think he would be on his best behavior, but this guy I guess just can’t contain himself,” Walton said.

When Burgen returned to court for the rest of his hearing, Warner says he hid the loot in the bushes outside the courthouse, so as not to set off the building’s metal detectors.

Officers quickly tracked Burgen down and arrested him for his latest stunt mere seconds after a jury found him guilty of his first.

Walton got most of his jewelry back and says he has since changed his showroom policies and hired a security guard and is now being extra vigilant about keeping all of his cabinets closed and locked.

Franklin police recently began a walking patrol program, and it was one of those officers who just happened to be in the right place at the right time to catch Burgen.

Sometimes they just make it easy don’t they?

When the cops caught the guys who were pestering me there was some question as to whether I could make a positive ID. That was rendered moot when one of them pointed out that I didn’t look so scary without my giant knife.

Anyway, this next story is sad. Yes, cops caught the bad guys, but it is the way they committed their crime that just irks me in ways you can’t imagine. A fake psychic (isn’t that redundant?) scared a young girl into robbing her family’s jewels.

A woman who claimed to be a psychic persuaded a 12-year-old girl to steal jewelry from her family and throw it into a cauldron to lift a curse and appease evil spirits, authorities said Friday.

Jackeline Lopez, 42, of Palmdale was arrested last month for investigation of extortion. She has since posted bond and is scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 18.

Lopez did not return a message left on an answering machine at her home.

The girl, a classmate of Lopez’s daughter, stole more than $10,000 worth of unique jewelry from her home before her parents realized something was going on and questioned their children, sheriff’s Detective Luan Dang said.

“The girl was scared and came out with the truth and that’s when we were called,” Dang said.

Three pieces of the jewelry were recovered at a pawn shop, and authorities were looking for a man who claimed some other pieces from the shop, said Deputy Aaron St. George.

The girl met four or five times with Lopez in her garage filled with the cauldron, candles, chalk outlines, beads, dolls and replicas of human skulls, authorities said.

“She had it set up Hollywood-style,” St. George said.

Dang said he couldn’t disclose if the curse involved death, harm or bad luck, but he did say it targeted the girl and there was a deadline involved.

The girl was frightened into stealing the jewelry and isn’t considered a suspect, he said.

Lopez, her husband and three children live in a middle-class neighborhood in Palmdale, 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

There were no signs visible from the street advertising a psychic or palm reader, St. George said.

When Lopez was arrested in September, she was on probation after pleading no contest to petty theft, the Antelope Valley Press said.

Deputies want to know if there were other possible victims in the psychic case. Pawn shops in the area have been alerted to watch out for other items.

Remember my thoughts on people who should be beaten with hammers? Mrs. Lopez should be included in any such discussion.

But, for all the crap above at least those thefts make some sort of sense. New Castle, Pennsylvania cops are trying to figure out how, and why, someone stole their bridge.

A 50-foot-long bridge in western Pennsylvania has been stolen, and its owners say they’re baffled by the crime and have no idea who took it.

New Castle Development spokesman Gary Bruce said Friday that he “couldn’t believe it when they told me it was gone.”

A state police report says the 20-foot-wide span in North Beaver Township went missing between Sept. 27 and Wednesday.

The bridge was made out of corrugated steel and valued at about $100,000. Thieves used a blowtorch to cut it apart, presumably to sell it for scrap metal.

The bridge was used occasionally as a back entrance to the company property. It’s in the woods along a railroad line about 60 miles north of Pittsburgh.

Bruce says he doubts the company can replace the bridge.

How much time do you need to steal a bridge and where the heck do you pawn something like that? It isn’t like no one’s going to notice that it’s missing. Even scrap buyers, who rank below used car salesmen and pimps – but just above psychics – in the ethics’ category, would have a hard time ignoring this.

And, more importantly, what do you use to carry it away in? You can’t exactly toss a fifty foot bridge on your bicycle and speed off into the dark.

Actually, now that I think about it, I really don’t want to know.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeAgLIaHj0M&w=480&h=360]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!

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We live on an odd world. As the Internet allows more and more cultures to clash – ahem, sorry – learn about each other it seems that more and more people are becoming more and more insular. You need groceries? There are several, web based, services that will bring them to you. You need your house cleaned? There are several, web based, services that will provide you with whatever you need. You need someone to do the horizontal mambo with you? There are services for that as well. For ladies who don’t want the entanglement of actually talking to a guy, there are services for that as well. No, I will not post links. You have Google just like everybody else, go use it.

How insular have things become? Well, the perfect woman has certainly been redefined to some men. While I no more cling to the hoary image of a Mrs. Cleaver than anyone else, it does seem that the ideal mate for many leaves much to be desired. Such as being in a room with you.

Other men, taking full advantage of the fact that web geeks love comic books and are permanently horny due to the fact that no woman will touch them, have combined those minuses into an online fetish club for fans of Superman and Captain America. Don’t worry, I didn’t link to any porn so you can view those links at work. But if you expect to see any guys in those traditional costumes you are about to be sorely disappointed.

But not everything is online. Weirdly Odd reports that great advances have been made in creating human form robots.

Computers like humans have generations. The micro-processor computers known as PCs are the 4th generation computers. But the 5th generation is of AI (artificial intelligence). This generation deals with training or you can say programming the computer in such a way that it can process data like a human. But these pictures are the pictures of robots, whose creators took it to another level. They not only tried to give them a brain but also made them look just like you and me.

And they have done a frighteningly good job of it too. Just click the above link to see all the pictures. The development of human form robots has even led to serious debate about how sexbots will effect the economy.

Anyway, if you tie all of the above together you come to only one logical conclusion; Our impending robot overlords want to use our DNA to create a sub species of bio-slaves.

What? You didn’t come to that conclusion?

You’re an idiot. Because it is the only conclusion that justifies Chinese sperm collecting robots.

No, I am not making this up.

Ever since last month’s China International Medical Equipment Fair in Shenzhen, China, a curious video (above) has been spreading across the blogosphere. The gadget in question is apparently an automatic sperm collector, an all-in-one machine into which men can donate sperm (hands-free). The video treats the entire subject in a rather ridiculous manner, raising two questions: How does this gadget actually work? And does anyone actually use them?

Today, there are in fact several companies selling automatic sperm collectors on the internet. Your average sperm-collecting gadget consists of a kiosk with a monitor that provides stimulating visuals (!), complimented by sounds (!!). A little lower is a “semen-collection sheath,” which purportedly simulates the feel and movement of a vagina.On top of visual stimuli, another company says that their gadget uses “infrared heating to simulate the temperature of female vagina [sic],” which consists of two inflatable tire-like structures. Once enveloping a penis, the sheath continues vibrating until the man, er… successfully donates his sperm.

The robotic sperm collector apparently has a “high success rate of 95%.” (I’ll leave it at that.) And it’s touted as ”safe” because the man actually deposits his donation into a condom-like pocket, which a sperm-bank worker can then collect. Using a condom will certainly decrease the likelihood of catching STDs, but still, you have to question whether sticking your member into a machine used by countless other men is really that sanitary.

But wait—there’s more! When you buy the automatic sperm-collecting machine, it also comes with a surprise bonus feature: a “premature ejaculation desensitization training function.” Men apparently undertake a training regimen in which the gadget repeatedly rubs various parts of the penis in order to decrease its nerve sensitivity. According to a company website, the ultimate goal of this training is to “improve ejaculatory threshold.”

Kevin Qiao, a representative of the Jiahua Electronic Instrument Co. in China—one of the companies that sells automatic semen collectors—told me via email that “we have sold more than 600 [units] in the last 3 years” to Chinese sperm banks, urological departments, and birth control centers. It’s apparently becoming “more and more popular in China’s sperm banks.” Something tells me that with the scares about China-made products in recent years, American men won’t be too keen to stick their manhood in anything that says “Made in China.” Plus, at $3,000 USD a pop, why fork over major cash for some fancy machine, when sperm donors are doing just fine with the ol’ magazine-and-cup?

What caught my attention is that it became clear, after actually seeing one of these machines, that Chinese men are not exactly well endowed. The machine’s maximum stroke length is 50mm. Just under 2 inches for those of you who slept through high school.

Of course that may explain why they were having trouble getting women in the first place.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhXJYNWB_ao&w=480&h=360]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!