December 25, 2011:    Things you would never know if you did
not browse the tabloids while waiting for your wife at the counter
in the supermarket – this week's headlines:


Is GOD is DEAD?
        Kentucky church displays
        body bag in Nativity scene


                 

                 

                                                                    [Tabloid Headlines photos, Christmas Eve, 2011]


'Tsk, tsk, what, now?'

        

A judge exempted Bowling Green's two largest casinos – the Am-
erican Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars halls – from the city's
prohibition of smoking "in public places."

                                                    [courtesy Park City Daily News]

An autistic fourth-grade boy was stuffed in a  duffel  bag  with the
drawstring pulled and left in the hall at a school in Mercer County.

                                                          [courtesy Associated Press]

The Federal Aviation Administration at the last minute exempted car-
go airlines from its new rule requiring minimal rest for pilots between
flights after United Parcel Service, headquartered in Louisville, com-
plained that the rule would cost it more than a billion dollars over the
decade – and then the UPS pilots' union sued the FAA. . . .

Jack Abramoff will get $5,000 for a lecture on legislative ethics at the
Kentucky General Assembly's opening session in January . . . .

 

Fans welcome Lady Gag-a to Louisville.

                                                             [courtesy Courier-Journal]

A judge ordered the state's top elections officer, Charlie White,
removed from office for fraud in his own election as  Secretary
of State. . . .

From the Department of Unintended Consequences: The state's
new school voucher program, which already has spurred enroll-
ment in private and parochial schools, now is causing an exodus
of pupils whose parents had been paying full tuition – in order to
qualify them, too, for vouchers. . . .

White Castle was testing beer and wine sales at a diner in Lafay-
ette.
                                                                             [courtesy AP]

Indianapolis' Conseco Fieldhouse was renamed Bankers Life
Fieldhouse (Conseco went bankrupt in 2002, when it became
the  CNO Financial Group,  which holds the naming rights for
seven more years).
                                                  [courtesy Indianapolis Star]

"I have always found atheists to be interesting people because they just may be the
 world's smallest minority group,  one that gets smaller still as the members pass on
 and meet God face to face."
                                                                            – Cal Thomas, syndicated columnist, in
                                                                               his obituary of Christopher Hitchens

"Passing of renowned writer is sad news, but now he must know God does exist."

                                           – Park City (Ky.) Daily News headline over aforesaid column

"And when they say, 'I want my lawyer,’ you tell them, 'Shut up. You don't
  get a lawyer'."
                                  – Senator Lindsey Graham, supporting the passage of a law auth-
                                     orizing detention of terrorism suspects indefinitely, without trial

"I can keep both hands on the steering wheel and just look down my nose and read in 10-
 second intervals.  I'm actually doing that right now."
                                                                                        – Junior Woods, driving through Arkansas

Our e-mail program calls it "spell check."  It flagged Michele Bachmann's
surname as misspelled, suggesting Eichmann as a replacement.

Rickey Henderson, 53
Karl Rove, 61
Sissy Spacechick, 62
Barbara Mandrell, 63
Merry Clayton, 63
Larry Csonka, 65
Jimmy Buffett, 65
Ken Stabler, 66
Jesus, 2,011 (or thereabout)

Other birthdays in the last week: Jane Fonda, 74   –––> Cicely Tyson, 78 Dave Baker, 80 Joe Paterno, 87

Residents  of  Fallujah  celebrated  the U.S. exit from Iraq by
burning American flags. . . . A mall Santa in Logan City, Aus-
tralia, asked two boys with autism if they wanted a jail cell for
Christmas. . . . Fashion Police co-star  Kelly  Osbourne  frac-
tured her left hand falling out of bed. . . . A man who attacked
customers with a Star Wars light saber at a Toys R US in Port-
land,  Oregon,  was tasered by police. .  .  . Cans  of  reindeer
paté  were a hot item at Harvey Nichols stores in the UK until
Vegetarians International Voice for Animals (VIVA) protested.
.  .  . The FBI suspected Southern California's "Geezer Bandit"
of being a younger man in a costume.  . . .  A motorist who hit
a deer near Rochester, New York,  drove the animal to a hos-
pital (the deer was DOA in the trunk of the car, and the driver
was DUI). . . . Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) a-
pologized to Michelle Obama for a remark he made about her
"big butt."  . . .  A 52-year-old man ordered a beer at a bar in
Port Richey,  Florida,  left  to rob a bank,  and returned to the
bar 30 minutes later to finish his beer.  . . . The Air Force was
not amused by a Facebook photo of personnel at Lackland in
Texas gathered around an open casket in which a soldier play-
ed  dead  with  a noose around his neck  and chains across his
body, captioned, "Da Dumpt, Da Dumpt ..... Sucks 2 Be U."



    [courtesy Harper's Weekly, Daily Snopes, MSNBC.com, AP]

What qualifies you to give people advice?
                                                                     Audrey

           They ask me for advice (what an Aud question).

                              

  [courtesy National Enquirer]

FGDean@aol.com wrote Mon 12/12/11 @11:12 PST
re the Globe's mystery headline about which first ladies
had been bedded by Frank Sinatra:

Aside from, maybe, Jackie O, who would want to know whom?

Dusty Hopkins wrote Tues 12/13/11:

I know this is late, but I cannot respond in "real time" from a Tex-
as prison;   and I would like to submit the following additional en-
tries in the "potato chips" rhyme contest:

        rotating hips
        Gladys Knight & the Pips

The city council was resisting a proposal that would ban smoking in
most bars in Indianapolis before the Super Bowl there this January. . . .

A woman called police from the state of Washington  to report that a
man in Fort Wayne had posted on Facebook that he had shot himself
and two others to death.  Sure enough, the cops found three bodies.

                                                            [courtesy Associated Press]

The Hart County school superintendent complained to state education
officials that a test treats evolution as fact instead of theory.

                                                                                    [courtesy AP]

A "foundation" affiliated with Southern Indiana's Horseshoe Casino,  which
has been gasping for its financial breath  since a bridge over the Ohio River
from Louisville was closed for safety, put up $1 million to speed up repairs.

                                                                        [courtesy Courier-Journal]

"If someone writes the phrase 'party of swindlers and thieves' on a blog,
 he is just a fuckface."
                                              – Konstantin Rykov,  webmaster,  on
                                                 Dmitri Medvedev's Twitter account

"We are black people. We are not white."
                                                                    – Zakari Mohammed, Nigerian legislator,
                                                                       explaining a bill to ban marriage and
                                                                       other public displays of gay affection

"HA!  Yeah!  And I'm 19!!!  BOOBS GROW, PEOPLE!"

                        – Miley Cyrus, on Twitter, responding to rumors she had had a boob job

"The data is then fed into a modern instrument . . . ."
                                                                                    – Scott Simon, National Public Radio

"The data does show . . . ."
                                                – John D. Minton Jr., Chief Justice of Kentucky

"As President of the United States, pro-lifers will never again be sent to stand against the wall."

                                                                                                                – Michele Bachmann

• Submitting detailed accident information
• Personal Info
• Accident Info
• Vehicle Info
• Insurance Info
• Attaching Photos
• Recording Witness Statements
• Call 911 / Call a Taxi / Call a Tow Truck / Locate the nearest hospital
• Call your attorney, email your attorney, locate an office and view our website
• Stay connected via Facebook, Twitter & YouTube

J. Marshall Hughes, Attorney at Law

Benny Andersson, 65
Lesley Stahl, 70
Liv Ullman, 73
Morris Dees, 75
A Shon Nene Morales, 119
Jane Austen (1775-1817)
Beethoven (1770-1827)
Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536)

Patty Duke, 65
Dionne Warwick, 71
Connie Francis, 74
Moose Skowron, 81
Dick Van Dyke, 86
The South Pole, 100

Manuel  Noriega  went  home. . . .  Sinead O'Connor got mar-
ried at a drive-through chapel in Las Vegas. . . . A high school
in  Rock Hill,  South  Carolina,  was lending belts to boys with
saggy pants. . . . Florida senators,  who two months ago pass-
ed a law allowing concealed firearms to be carried everywhere
in  the  state capitol except legislative chambers and committee
rooms,  had  panic  buttons  installed  on their cell phones. . . .
South Koreans unnerved North Koreans  with Christmas lights
on the DMZ. . . . Firemen in Obion County, Tennessee, watch-
ed a second home  burn  to  the  ground  whose owner had not
paid dues. .  .  .  Another man got stuck in his own chimney,  in
Stockton, California. . . .A young couple who had been making
their way around the U.S. riding freight trains  were found dead
in a load of coal dumped at a power plant in Lakeland, Florida.
.  .  .  Brain-eating amoebae killed a 51-year-old Louisiana wo-
man who had flushed her sinuses with a Neti pot. .  .  .  A cow
running loose and living with deer for six months  was captured
in Calf Pen Meadow,  Connecticut. . . .  A cable repairman en-
countered a bear sleeping in a basement  in  Hopatcong,  New
Jersey. . . . One of two men making a getaway from a theft at a
Target in Madison, Wisconsin, butt-dialed 911 (they got arrest-
ed). .  .  . The  TV  show  America's Got Talent will move from
Los Angeles to New York to accommodate its new judge radio
shock jock Howard Stern. . . .The Better Business Bureau blew
the whistle on P&G for "photoshopping"  Taylor Swift's eyelash-
es in a mascara ad. . . .  A 13-year-old British girl said in a letter
to Santa Claus she would kill him if he didn't bring her Justin Bie-
ber,  and she'd hunt down  his  reindeer  to cook them and serve
them to the homeless on Christmas Day. .  .  . Four students,  in-
cluding three football players, were suspended for "Tebowing" in
the halls at Riverhead High School on Long Island.

[courtesy Harper's Weekly, AP,       Daily Snopes, MSNBC.com]

Barry Bonds was sentenced to 30 days of home incarceration (here's the jail):

My husband and I have been separated  for  three
years.    Things had been going well until he got in-
volved in  an  offbeat  church  and  began  housing
homeless people of different backgrounds. I could
not take it any more and left.

He  recently  took in a 16-year-old foreign girl  who
has a toddler and a year-old infant.  This may sound
like charity, but they are all sleeping in the same bed.
He takes care of them as if they are his actual family.
The way he talks about the girl,  you  would  assume
they are a couple. He takes her to church. She cooks
for him, and he helps her bathe the children. What do
you think of this situation?
                                             Estranged Wife in Kansas

• Her revealing diaries
• Witness heard final cries

*  Or  maybe  not.  We bought them both – the Globe and the Enquirer – and there's
    nothing really new about Natalie Wood.  A lady on another boat reportedly heard
    Wood yelling, "Help me, someone, please, help me, I'm drowning!"  And the diary
    entries merely said that Robert Wagner was jealous. The "sex secret," reported by
    a friend of a friend of a friend,  was that Christopher Walken had a crush on Nata-
    lie (or vice versa).

    You might want to invest in a copy of the Globe, however.   The two "First Ladies"
    bedded by Frank Sinatra were Jackie Kennedy  (12 years after  the  assassination
    of JFK) and Nancy Reagan, and there are pittures – of them dancing.  It is report-
    ed also that Old Blue Eyes got Elizabeth Taylor pregnant, and almost married Mari-
    lyn Monroe.
                                                                                                                – the Editor

Indiana University spent $2,200 for eleven  ".xxx"  world wide
web domain names to avoid being identified with pornography.
Names purchased included  "indianauniversity.xxx,"  "IUPUI.-
xxx," and "hoosiers.xxx."  Purdue and Notre Dame also made
purchases  (Ball State was initially reported to have opted out,
but that wasn't true).  "IndianaGirlsGoneWild.xxx" was among
domain names still available. . . .

A man who stole a tuba from the University of Evansville  was
caught trying to sell it to the store that had sold it to the univer-
sity.
                                                  [courtesy Associated Press]

The  CEO  of the company responsible for an explosion that
killed 29 workers at a coal mine  in  West  Virginia  last year
has formed a mining corporation in Kentucky.

                                    [courtesy Bloomberg BusinessWeek]

A 16-foot Christmas tree was removed from Lexington's City
Hall after the fire department determined it to be a hazard (the
fire chief said this had nothing to do with fire fighters' disagree-
ment with the mayor over pensions).

                                    [courtesy Lexington Herald-Leader]

A burglar on a golf cart was driving off with heating and air con-
ditioning units from homes on Nolin Lake.

                                                    [courtesy Edmonson News]

Michigan accused Wisconsin of "mitten envy."

"The dog has been left behind."
                                                    – Dominick Chilcott, ambassador
                                                       to Iran, recalled to Britain

"I don’t want the next generation to misunderstand history.  I don’t want them to
 believe the Khmer Rouge are bad people."
                                                                        – Nuon Chea, on trial in Phnom Penh

"Life can be a challenge."
                                             – Herman Cain

Birthdays:                  Kim Basinger, 58

The grown-up-boy band Hanson will market a beer called
Mmmhop (to the tune of the hit song "Mmmbop"). . . .The
Geezer Bandit struck again, at a bank in San Luis Obispo,
California. . . . Madonna was signed for the halftime show
at the next Super Bowl.  .  .  .  A 9-year-old boy was sent
home from school in Gastonia,  North Carolina,  for telling
another student his teacher was "cute." .  .  .  Fox Business
Network's  Eric Bolling  accused  the  Muppets  of  liberal
brainwashing  of  children. . . . A Swedish headmistress o-
pened a sex school in Austria. . . . OR-7, a wild wolf, was
tracked in a 730-mile trek across Oregon in a search for a
mate (and a name). . . .Facebook censored an Irishwoman
in Effin, Limerick County,  who tried to boast of  "so many
Effin people around the world." . . . A woman from Bump-
ass, Virginia,  was  arrested  for smashing a bottle over her
date's head.  .  .  .  Saudi academic Kamal Subhi advised a
legislative  council  that allowing women to drive would fos-
ter prostitution, pornography,  homosexuality,  and  divorce
and lead to the end of virginity. . . . A grade school teacher
in Traverse City,  Michigan,  altered the lyrics of "Deck the
Halls" to say "Don we now our bright apparel." . . .  A wo-
man in East Orange,  New Jersey,  was charged with man-
slaughter and practicing medicine without a license  for  the
fatal injection of man's penis with silicone.  . . . Fallen pow-
er lines electrocuted an uncounted number of cows in Ham-
ilton, New York. . . . Jennifer  Aniston  was voted  "hottest
woman  of  all  time"  in an Us Weekly poll (Britney Spears
came in fourth). . . .Donovan was admitted to the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame.

                                   [courtesy the Sun - Weekly World News]

The Boston Cathedral High School  quarterback  who raised his arm for two
strides in a touchdown run was flagged for taunting, costing his team the Mas-
sachusetts state championship;  but  now  his father is saying that the boy was
simply pointing to the sky to thank God. . . .

Major league baseball imposed a dress code on reporters  (no short skirts in
the locker room . . . ). . . .

The National League's "Most Valuable Player," Milwaukee Brewers left field-
er Ryan Braun, tested positive for prohibited performance-enhancing drugs.... 

Central Florida,  Southern Methodist,  Houston,  Boise State  and San Diego
State joined the "Big East" college athletic conference.

Is it OK to "step out" on your wife if she has Alz-
heimer's?
                                                  Sam in Sydney

         Nigel and Helena sport matching invisible Mystic Mayan
         Power Cloaks that they expect will protect them from the
         Apocalypse forecast by Mayans for December 21, 2012.

• He hit on other women,
• Called Kim FAT, and
• Mocked whole Kardashian family
  

Len wrote Mon 11/28/11 @18:17 EST re last week's
headline "Pamela Anderson to play Virgin Mary":

Why not?  That's why they call it acting.

Not that she has much genuine acting ability,  but
she's fun to watch.  She's not so much an actor as
she is a performer.

Publius Leget wrote Sun 11/27/11 @14:45 CST: Your clip-art cartoon last week of the "occupied" outhouse on Wall Street was cute, but what's the point? Thank you for writing – we  just  love  it  when we get to explain our jokes.  The  point  is,  those who would seize the corporate cesspool are still in the street;  and the mo- guls have not left the building.  – Editor

The theft of batteries from two dozen school buses canceled school
for 13,000 pupils in Warren Township, on the east side of Indianap-
olis. . . .

Five persons were arrested  as dozens from Occupy Bloomington and
Occupy I.U. blocked a hallway at Indiana University's business school
to prevent entry into a JPMorgan Chase Bank recruiting event.

                                                            [courtesy Associated Press]

Kentucky's Medal of Honor winner, Dakota Meyer, sued a former em-
ployer for defamation, saying it ridiculed his award, called him mentally
unstable, suggested he had a drinking problem, and cost him a job. . . .

The Bowling Green city web site, http://.bgky.org,  was hacked by the
"Ashiyane Digital Security Team," which posted the message "We love
Iran." . . .

A  doctor  and three nurses and lab technicians came down with head-
ache, shortness of breath and throat irritation at the hospital emergency
room in London  after treating a family from Jackson County  with  the
same symptoms (a stray dog was sought in the investigation of the mys-
tery disease). . . .

The Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church,  in  Pike  County,  voted to bar
interracial couples from membership after a service in which Ticha Chi-
kuni,  black fiancé of the church secretary's white daughter, Stella Har-
ville,  sang for the congregation  ("Go Down Moses"?  Exactly what he
sang was not reported).
                                                                                       [courtesy AP]

"I am not prejudiced against any race of people, have never in my lifetime spoke evil
 about a race. That’s what this is being portrayed as, but it is not."

                        – Melvin Thompson, former pastor of the Gulnare, Ky., Free Will Baptist
                           Church, who introduced the resolution to bar interracial couples

"He is a very controlled man."
                                                – Mitt Romney's barber, Leon de Magistris

Jaye P. Morgan, 80
Jean-Luc Godard, 81
Julie Harris, 86
Milton DeLugg, 93
Monica Seles, 38
Britney Spears, 30

St. Charles, Missouri's, Sugar Plum Fairy lost her job for flush-
ing the toilet and cussing during her annual drug test. .  .  .  The
mayor of  Huarmey,  Peru,  said that high levels of strontium in
the water were turning men gay. . . . Nothando Dube, 12th of
the current 14 wives of Swazi King Mswati III, kicked out of
the palace for sleeping with the justice minister, pepper-spray-
ed a security guard on her way out. . . .  A woman was sent to
jail  in Devon,  England,  for microwaving a friend's kitten in an
argument. . . .  Seizures  were  reported  among viewers of the
latest "Twilight" film. .  .  .  The Vatican's chief exorcist,  Father
Gabriele Amorth,  warned that yoga can lead to Hinduism. . . .
A 22-year-old man locked out of his own house  in  Lubbock,
Texas, was rescued from the chimney. . . . Two farmers fed up
with bribery dumped three bags of  venomous  snakes  in a tax
office in Lucknow,  India. . . .  A Utah duck hunter was shot in
the butt by his dog. . . . More than a thousand riot police quash-
ed Occupy L.A.,  arresting more than 200 demonstrators  (and
Mayor Villaraigosa said it would take a million dollars  to  clean
up after them).  . . .  A 13-year-old boy was arrested and taken
away in handcuffs for burping in PE class in Albuquerque,  New
Mexico, and a 7-year-old autistic boy was handcuffed to a chair
for acting out in class. . . . A juror in a murder trial in Santa Ana,
California,  was  disqualified  for posting remarks about the case
and photos of other jurors' shoes on Facebook. . . . A Vermont
company called Burnt Impressions was taking orders  for  toast-
ers that burn an  image  of  Jesus  into your breakfast toast  ("So,
what do you say when the toast burns?"  a  TV  reporter  asked:
"Holy smokes?"   "The  Host  is  toast,"  replied the inventor and
entrepreneur, Glen Dively.  Or "Swallow the leader," says Edwin
Kagin,  the legal director of American Atheists Inc.,  speaking of
holy communion as well as of this new product.)

 [courtesy Harper's Weekly, Daily Snopes, MSNBC.com, AP]

The Detroit Lions' defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh
was suspended for two games for stomping an oppo-
sing player,  and  threatened  with anger management
counseling. . . .

Buffalo Bills receiver Stevie Johnson was  fined  $10,-
000 for mimicking shooting himself  in  the  thigh  in  a
touchdown celebration (mocking Plaxico Burress, late
of the New York Giants,  and  now  of the New York
Jets,  who  spent  20 months out of the NFL  in prison
for weapons violations  after shooting himself in the leg
at a night club).

"Sophie" and I broke up three months ago after five
years together – off an on – because of my inability
to commit.  I saw her last month and told her I had
made the mistake of my life letting her go. I guess I
needed a lot of time away from her to  realize  how
important she was to me.   But she told me that she
no longer sees a future for us and asked me to stop
calling.   She said she'd let me know when she was
ready to be friends again.

I want to give her the time she needs, but I'm afraid
if I wait too long I will lose her forever.  Now I real-
ize  that  I want to spend the rest of my life with her.
Should I go after her now,  or wait for her to come
to me?
                                        Sad Sid in Saskatchewan

    A giant weta, reported to be the world's largest insect, gnaws on a carrot in New Zealand.