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We all look for the tiny things to make sense of the larger things. Whether it be numerology or counting lines on the palm of your hands we all hang on to the nonsensical to explain the world. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, it has happened since the Sumerians first described what we call Babylon. Our problem with the supernatural arises when our trust is violated, as it often it is. Some people guarantee that bones thrown, entrails burned or sacrifices named are all we need to be better in the eyes of some god. These people have been universally proven wrong, but that has not even remotely slowed them. What we know has never been hindered by what we believe.

In Maryland people are stunned that a charity tool was not real and their money designated for AIDS research and spent it was to build a strip club.

A convicted drug dealer is being sued for allegedly erecting a strip club with funds that were supposed to help HIV and AIDS patients find work.

Cornell Jones, of Miracle Hands, allegedly used a quarter of a million dollars of the organization’s money to build The Stadium Club, a strip club in Northeast Washington, WUSA9.com reports. According to Washington, DC Attorney General Irv Nathan, Jones received the money back in 2006, which was slated to build a job training center for people with AIDS.

The current club owner, James Redding, said he bought the property from Jones 18 months and that Jones has not been involved in the strip club in any way, the news outlet reported.

On the plus side, using money to nail a stripper isn’t a bad goal.

But what about the people who use the Internet to be the modern equivalent of gypsies? Well caveat emptor bitch. AOL says there are morons who are buying wooden i-Pads.

No, I am not making this up.

There’s plenty of cheap iPad scams out there, but two con artists in South Carolina really added some flair to their fraud.

Ashley McDowell, a 22-year-old South Carolina woman, found herself holding a creatively decorated piece of wood (seen above) after scammers took her for $180, claiming they were selling her a bargain-rate iPad, according to The Smoking Gun. Police are currently looking for the suspects, who were initially trying to get $300 from McDowell. (The actual minimum retail price of an iPad is $499.)

According to the police report, two men approached McDowell in the parking lot of a McDonald’s with the deal, claiming they bought the iPads in bulk. The supposed iPad sold to McDowell was packaged in a FedEx box, not the standard Apple packaging, according to CBS.

McDowell learned she was ripped off when she opened the package on her way home in her car.

The suspects behind the rip-off were driving a Chevy Impala with no rims, reads the officer’s report. One of the suspects was described as having a gold tooth.

While this scam seems pretty avoidable, it’s not the first time the “brick-in-a-box” con has claimed a victim. In 2009, the Consumerist reported that a Texas man claimed that Best Buy sold him a real brick instead of a MacBook Pro and refused to exchange it.

Earlier this year, CNN reported on a separate Best Buy incident, in which a customer bought a fake iPad that looked real at first glance and came packaged in a seemingly genuine iPad box.

Greedy people make greedy errors. That is why scammers make money.

But what if all your problems could be ameliorated by knowing where Pluto, no longer a planet, is? Well, you’d be reading this crap.

I want to pay attention. I want to keep up. I want to be able to contribute intelligent conversation at dinner. I want to participate in the process. But oh, brother. A bottle full of diet pills can’t keep me awake when I try to listen to the yowling TV politicians and pundits, kicking each other’s head around like a football. Anybody’s opinion is certainly as valid as anybody else’s, but they all appear as knowledgeable and iffy as weather people predicting the path of a hurricane.

Astrologers are no better at figuring out who will end up in the White House, but at least astrology provides a sense of greater perspective on the turmoil that is facing not only Washington D.C., but the entire planet.

As far as the United States is concerned, so many people are struggling to perpetuate an image of past glory as embarrassing as Mae West’s at the end.

Who the hell is Mae West?

A great and sexy movie star from the old days who was a bold and iconoclastic image for women in her younger days. Then she turned eighty and pretended she wasn’t.

America is smack in the middle of a double planetary return: Saturn and Pluto. When planets come back to the places they occupied back at their “birth” (this goes for people, corporations and countries), you get reminded of who you are and who you are not. You get another chance to do it over. Do it better. Act with greater consciousness based on the experiences you’ve gained and the lessons you’ve learned up to the present moment. If you get the joke, understand the message, grow up and move forward with greater wisdom, prudence and openness, the path to the future is clearer. Not always easier. But clearer.

The United States is having a Saturn return right now. In the sign of Libra. People (or countries) born with Saturn in Libra want relationships. They need relationships. They are not supposed to try to go it all alone. Their lesson is cooperation and partnerships. Only problem is, they can’t stand being controlled by their own need for relationships. So they do everything they can to control the other person (or nation or leader), maintain the upper hand in the relationship. They often try to get close to people who are not available and are sometimes more responsive when they are at a disadvantage and attempting to win over the other person’s love.

The United States is now seeing once again that it doesn’t have all the aces in the global poker game. It never will. That’s the secret to Saturn in Libra. No matter what you do to gain control, you still have to acknowledge that to function best, like it or not, you have to share resources.

No matter what sort of four alarm chili sauce rhetoric they are spooning out to their constituents, all the Republican wannabees know they will have to make giant concession to the Democrats once they get into power. And all those poor once starry-eyed but disillusioned Democrats who now vomit every time Obama opens his mouth, have come to see that the Republicans had a helluva lot more to do with Obama’s election than they ever dreamed.

Saturn in Libra is the inexorable demand to share control. We see it in Washington. We see it in the oil rich lands around the world. We hate our dependence. But we can’t get away from it. We see it in our own lives.

Anybody born with Saturn in Libra (1923-24, 51-53, 81-83/4) knows that.

That happens once every two hundred and fifty years. When did it begin? It all started when the colonists hassled the Indians and didn’t want to pay for the land. They found themselves in the middle of a political battle for control between themselves, the Natives and the British Parliament. It was all about who was going to run things in the New World. The life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness thing was also involved, but America is a Sun, Venus, Jupiter country. It was also about money and land.

And it still is.

Just consider the banks and foreclosures.

Where it is all heading? To a complete transformation (revolution), changes in the Constitution, and a complete overhaul of the System. When is it going to happen?

It IS already happening, but will go into high gear toward the end of the two thousand teens.

So don’t get naked and run screaming through the streets ringing doorbells. It’s the Pluto return. Go with it.

Oh, go ahead and get and get naked and run through the streets. It’ll probably make you feel better and it will certainly give me something interesting to write about.

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

You looked at the title of today’s blog and immediately assumed that something bad had happened to my brain. I can understand that. I kind of felt the same way when I realized what I was going to write about. After all, it’s so hot outside that your sweat is sweating. It’s so hot that you’ve been re-reading my Nakee Posts just to pretend you’re not bogged down with sweat laden clothes and smelling a little funky.

I know that this is supposed to be a blog dedicated to exciting events in the world around us but, sometimes, it does the soul good to step back from it all and enjoy something silly. I could write about the nice Texas lady who, in an effort to cure her boyfriend’s fear of heights, threw him off a 150 ft. high bungee tower. While the rope snagged and forced the couple to be stranded 75 ft. in the air for three hours, it worked out all right. He’ll never go anywhere near stuff like this again and they’re getting married.

Or I could take a look at the darker side of life and write about the McDonald’s manager in Georgia who punched out a woman for having a service dog for her autistic children. That worked out okay too since he was fired and then jailed.

But neither story presented me with anything really happy to write about.

Then, last night, on TV I saw a story about the World Santa Claus Congress in Denmark. What could be better for reminding us that snow is on the way than a healthy dose of Ho Ho Hos? The funny thing is that when I searched American web sites for the story, all I got were blurbs and a couple of pics. I had to go all the way to Beijing to get the complete story. Mo Hong’e seems to think that the mutant Santa Olympics are of real interest in China.

Santas from all over the world gathered at the World Santa Congress in the Danish capital Copenhagen on Wednesday.

As usual, there were plenty of games to be played included throwing sacks of presents and firing canon balls. Now, let’s go to Bakken amusement park outside the Danish capital for Christmas in July.

Two teams of Santas – one from Denmark and the other from the United States, Sweden, Russia, Germany and other countries – competed for the coveted trophy of Best Santa Team.

The Danish Santas won, and team captain Niels Preus vowed that his Santas would come back and defend their title next year.

Niels Preus, captain of Danish Santa team, said, “Today we won the international championship, and we are having it for the whole year, until the next world Santa Congress next year.”

Aside from throwing presents, Santas also had to master a Christmas obstacle course, ride bumper cars and compete in a horse race game.

Kris Kringle, Santa from USA, said, “Nobody lost, Santa Claus won. That’s the important thing, Santa won! Maybe it was a Danish Santa, maybe it was an American Santa, whatever, but Santa always wins!”

The World Santa Claus Congress was created in 1957 and gathers around 150 Santas from around the world, including both female and male Christmas pixies and elves.

Activities in the three-day program include a Christmas parade down Copenhagen’s main pedestrian street and a dip in the harbor for the annual saltwater footbath.

The round-bellied participants also debate and exchange views on Christmas-related issues such as how yuletide greetings are done in different parts of the world.

The conference was created by Professor Tribini, Bakken’s legendary entertainer, who refused to accept the idea that Christmas is only celebrated once a year.

And as the Santas are usually very busy in December, the professor decided to create “Christmas in July.”

Santa won …**sniff**… could there be a nicer sentiment?

With Christmas in July becoming a semi-official holiday thanks, in no small part, to these Santas it seems appropriate to look at the true meaning of Christmas and see if it gets involved in the fun.

I’m very pleased to report that it does. MilPitas Patch, a California based web site run by Adelaide Chen, is reporting that giving without asking for anything in return is alive and well in, of all godforsaken places, San Francisco.

Sending care packages to troops overseas are not new, but it was less than five years ago that the Girl Scouts of Northern California began teaming up with a San Jose-based nonprofit to do just that.

About 33,600 boxes of the Girl Scout cookies were distributed from Moffett Field last Thursday to military families. Before that, another ten pallets were delivered to a warehouse for Operation: Care and Comfort to ship overseas.

Last year, the cookies were dropped off, from Coast Guard Island in Alameda to Camp Parks in Dublin. This year, due to the volume of the cookies plus donated items collected by Old Navy, they asked the bases to send trucks.

“It was just easier to do it that way,” said the organization’s Co-founder and President Julie DeMaria.

Each cookie season, through the Gift of Caring program, customers have the option of donating a box to a food bank or to military troops.

In the beginning of the partnership, there were just a few cases here and there, she said. This season, troops from the Girl Scouts of Northern California altogether collected about 107,000 boxes of cookies, split in half between food banks and Operation Care and Comfort, according to spokeswoman Dana Allen.

In Milpitas, Girl Scouts collected about 635 boxes. That’s a pretty average number, said Allen.

But at the last minute, when five Girl Scouts were given the opportunity to help distribute the cookies at Moffett Field, it was Milpitas’ Troop 60596 that responded to the call.

They were Girl Scouts Allison Eacret, Megan Brobst, Anna Chiang, Jennifer Bunnell, Megan Farley along with leaders Michelle Eacret, Stacy Brobst and Elaine Farley.

“We have certain [Girl Scout] troops that are on standby that we know if we have a quck request for a parade, city council…” said Allen referring to them as a “go-to troop”.

“They’re always ready and very, very active,” she said.

After a few hours, the Girl Scouts had loaded about three-fourths of the cookies that were distributed that day onto military vehicles as far as Oxnard and Fresno.

The main distribution that Operation: Care and Comfort handles is ship packages overseas once a month to about 150 units deployed oversees. The number goes up to about 200 during the holiday season.

Cookies containing chocolate are a big no-no during the summer, but they go out once fall starts, said DeMaria.

The care packages often get thank you emails and Facebook messages from the recipients, and some curiosity too.

“They’re always really surprised that this is happening from the San Francisco Bay Area,” said Co-founder and President Julie DeMaria.

“They’re really surprised because they don’t think the Bay Area is very supportive of them,” she said of the anti-war sentiment.

An email from Andrew J. from Santa Clara read:

… it was a nice surprise to see the generous and kind gesture of support from the folks. It made me proud to be from the valley when I was able to break out the goods for all the soldiers (most of them are from Michigan and the mid-west) and show them your letters of support.

Outside of the seasonal cookie distribution, the organization sends out toiletries and necessary items such as razors and sunscreen.

For military families, they re-distribute tickets to events, knowing that some may be unable to afford them.

“As a former military kid [of a family of five] we could never afford it,” said DeJesus. But she said she knew one family who took their son to his first hockey game.

“It’s very expensive living in the Bay Area,” she said. “They don’t have extra money to do anything like that.”

To learn more about the program, visit www.occ-usa.org.

While I admit that it bugs me that we can’t provide our service men and women with necessary toiletries I’ll leave that rant for another day. What matters here today is that even unlikely people can do good. That even includes you.

So, in the spirit of the season, I hope you’ll take 10 minutes out of your miserable day and do something nice for someone. You’ll be amazed at how much cooler you’ll feel.

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

Like most of you, I woke up this morning. Unlike most of you, I anxiously accessed my robot to see what glorious news awaited my dissemination. There was a lot of sex today. More than you might imagine. From prostitution rings being run by septuagenarian professors to men removing their genitalia with handguns, there was a ton of stuff to choose from. While, individually, some were interesting, taken in the aggregate they were a bit too much. And since any one of them could be summed up in a sentence or two, I would have had to use them all if I wanted to fill this page. Then, just as everything was looking hopeless, I ran across a story from the Netherlands. It had everything a Nude Hippo reader could ever desire.

Cows? Check.

Flatulence? Check.

Massive fire damage? Double check.

So let’s start there.

A Dutch veterinarian was fined 600 guilders (about $240) for causing a fire that destroyed a farm in Lichten Vourde, the Netherlands. The vet had been trying to convince a farmer that his cow was passing flatulent gas; to demonstrate, the vet ignited the gas, but the cow became a “four-legged flame-thrower” and ran wild, setting fire to bales of hay. Damage to the farm was assessed at $80,000. The cow was unharmed. AP

I bet the first thing they put in the new barn is no smoking sign.

But what do you do if you want to rob a WalMart and don’t have a flame throwing cow to distract the customers and staff? According to police in Garrisonville, Virginia, you don a cow suit and raid the milk department.

Authorities in Virginia said a man in a cow suit stole 26 gallons of milk from a Walmart and handed the jugs to passersby outside.

Stafford County sheriff’s spokesman Bill Kennedy said the man stole the milk from the Walmart in Garrisonville about 10:35 p.m. Tuesday, the Manassas News and Messenger reported Thursday.

Kennedy said witnesses reported seeing the man distributing the milk to passersby outside the store.

It was unclear Thursday how the man was able to get 26 gallons of milk outside.

Deputies said they responded a short time later to a call about a disturbance at a nearby McDonald’s and spotted an 18-year-old man who matched the description of the suspect. The man, whose name was not released, was found to have a cow suit in his car.

“Your Honor, I was mooooved by my mooods to to remoooove the milky moooolah ….”

“Shut up.”

However, had this young man taken lessons from a real cow he might have gotten away with it. Police in Media, Pennsylvania report that a cow busted out of the joint and made a run for freedom.

Police in Pennsylvania said a cow headed for slaughter escaped while being moved from its cage and spent about an hour on the run.

Taj Burton, 20, an employee of Madina Live Poultry Co. in Upper Darby, said he was moving the 750-pound cow Saturday when it made a break for freedom, the Delaware County Times reported Tuesday.

“I chased it, but it outran me. The cow was on the run for about an hour,” Burton said.

Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said officers chased the cow in their cars.

“Sector 4 cars chased it,” Chitwood said. “I have not trained my officers how to use lassos. They have been trained in a lot of different ways, but not to lasso a cow. We have all kinds of strange things happen in Upper Darby. This was kind of funny.”

Chitwood said police were eventually able to corner the cow with their cars and Madina recaptured it using a lasso made from two dog leashes.

Burton said the cow ran into a car during its time on the loose, but neither the animal nor the driver was injured.

“Hello, Cut Rate Insurance Company with the Cartoon Mascot, how may I direct your call?”

“My car was just attacked by a cow ….”

Click.

Plan on a long day there. Nevertheless, I guess it’s a good thing that the cow didn’t have a cow bell. No telling how much damage it could have caused. Starksville, Mississippi police tell the tawdry tale of a man who tried to beat another man to death with one.

A Mississippi man accused of striking a fellow university student with a cowbell was sentenced to 45 days in jail and a $500 fine.

Brent Vowell, who was initially charged with felony aggravated assault, pleaded guilty Monday in Oktibbeha County Circuit Court to a reduced charge of misdemeanor simple assault, The Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger reported Tuesday.

Vowell, who court documents said will serve his sentence on weekends starting May 13, was accused of striking Matthew Brasher in the head with a cowbell at the Egg Bowl Nov. 28, 2009, when they were both Mississippi State University students.

Brasher said he suffered a 4-inch laceration on his head from the cowbell.

A civil suit filed by Brasher — which names Vowell, the university and the Event Operations Group as defendants — is in the process of discovery.

You can only imagine what events had to line up perfectly for that to have happened. Starting with, “How the heck do you find a cowbell in a football stadium if you’re not in the band?”

But, not all cow related crimes involve people. Some involve KILLER COWS FROM OUTER SPACE!!!!!!

Well, actually Iowa, but that’s alien enough for our purposes.

An Iowa woman died after a being attacked by a cow on a farm in Benton County, officials said.

Killed Saturday was Jean Fee, 60, of Urbana. Her year-old grandson was uninjured.

“It’s pretty unusual for a cow to become aggressive,” Terry Engelken, an associate professor at Iowa State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, told Monday’s Des Moines Register. “We have a few instances of [cow attacks] across the country every year — but it’s uncommon. For it to result in a fatality is very uncommon.”

Matt Fee, the woman’s son, said his parents and nephews often go into a pasture to feed ears of corn to the cows. Jean Fee, her husband and grandson were on such an outing when the incident occurred.

“My dad went back to the house to get my nephew a drink,” Matt Fee said. “The best we can figure is the cow became aggressive, and my mom was protecting my nephew, and the cow hit her with its head and it stopped her heart.”

It took paramedics about 20 minutes to get to the farm and the woman was flown to a Cedar Rapids hospital where she died.

Fee said there were three calves in the pasture when the accident happened.

“It’s common for them to become aggressive if they have a newborn calf,” Engelken said. “We also just see differences in temperament in cows like we see in dogs and cats and people.”

Coming soon on FOX!, “When Cows Attack!”

I guess it’s somewhat reassuring to know that being bludgeoned by a bovine isn’t common.

Yet.

To tie this whole mess together with a nice bow, I offer you a catchy little video that features a break-dancing hippo who likes to Moooove It!

Madagascar: I Like To Move It by Aiuny

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

Before I took over the editorial desk at World News Center, I actually used to live in the world. I’ve been to six of the seven possible continents. If I wanted to count watching a Russian security guard have sex with our African pilot so we could get our plane re-routed out of Antarctica, then I’ve hit all seven, but I try to bury that particular memory at every possible chance. Anyway, as I said, I’ve been around. Not as much as Maria Gomes Valentim, who’s the oldest human on the planet and who ascribes her longevity to smoking three packs a day, drinking straight bourbon and having sex with young sailors. Oh, wait, that was an aunt of mine who passed away in her 90’s. Mrs. Valentim has not commented on her personal lifestyle choices.

Speaking of people who can’t be killed by the usual suspects, some dude in Fon du Lac (where I have many relatives) just ate his 25,000th Big Mac. As Nude Hippo regulars know, McDonald’s sells food that will not die, so I guess it can’t be that bad for you, as long as you don’t mind your 4 year old son developing lactating breasts.

Speaking of food, our crack border agents, forever memorialized for preventing an iguana taco invasion, have now prevented us from being forced to eat sausage that hasn’t been treated with steroids and chemicals.

“But, Uncle Big Bad,” you whine needlessly, “the title says you’re going to talk about Mr. Hitler.”

And I am.

But, first, I have to tell you about Cannes, France. In January they hold the world’s largest music festival called MIDEM which allows attendees to see what labels are going to release months before the public ever even hears a rumor. Four months later they hold their famous film festival. I’ve been to both on several occasions.

It is the film festival which holds my attention today. This is a festival that honored admitted pedophile, Roman Pulanski, with multiple awards and introduced him to many young girls, so it’s no surprise that Lars von Trier would use that platform to announce that he’s a Jew who thinks Hitler was kind of okay.

Von Trier has never been very P.C. and his Cannes press conferences always play like a dark stand-up routine, but at the Melancholia press conference he took it to another level, tossing a grenade into any sense of public decorum. In response to a question about his Germanic roots, Von Trier set off on a long and twisted answer that, if this were America, not Cannes, would have meant career suicide.

“For a long time I thought I was a Jew and I was happy to be a Jew,” he began, “then I met (Danish and Jewish director) Susanne Bier and I wasn’t so happy. But then I found out I was actually a Nazi. My family were German. And that also gave me some pleasure. What can I say? I understand Hitler…I sympathize with him a bit.”

Von Trier qualified that “I don’t mean I’m in favor of World War II and I’m not against Jews, not even Susanne Bier” before digging himself deeper. “In fact I’m very much in favor of them. All Jews. Well, Israel is a pain in the ass but…”

As Melancholia stars Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg, sitting on either side of Von Trier, stared at him agog, the director paused.

“Now how can I get out of this sentence? Ok. I’m a Nazi.”

It was a grandiose performance by European cinema’s premiere enfant terrible as Von Trier managed to shock just about everyone in the room. And also made them laugh with the sort of chuckle that gets caught in the throat.

The Nazi comments came at the end of a sprawling routine in which Von Trier said his new movie “may be crap…there’s quite a big possibility that it might not be worth seeing” and mused that his next project with Dunst and Gainsbourg would be a 3 to 4 hour porn film “with lots of uncomfortable sex.”

Von Trier’s deadpan delivery and cheerful cherub-like smile hinted to the audience that everything was one big joke.

Certainly no one took the director seriously when, asked if he would like to do a film on a larger scale, answered: “Yes. We Nazis like to do things on a big scale. Maybe I could do The Final Solution.”

During Cannes, it was also announced that von Trier and Martin Scorsese are teaming up for a remake of The Five Obstructions, von Trier’s 2003 documentary deconstructing the film making process.

The project, called The Five Obstructions, Trier vs. Scorsese, pre-sold to Poland (Kino Swiat), Romanian (Independenta) and the Czech and Slovak Republics (Aero Films) at the Cannes market.

Just FYI Skippy, Hitler was Austrian, not German and making fun of the death of 60 million people is not really a knee slapper. You may as well as claim that Klaus Strauss-Khan only meant to try an unique way of proffering a tip. Well, I meant that figuratively, not in the literal sense that the poor woman had to deal with.

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