Ben Hibben  wrote Tues 3/26/13 @15:27 EDT,  in reply to last week's
tabloid question "Is nonbelief in the God of Moses and Jesus the logical
or moral equivalent of denial of global warning?" – in light of the church
slogan "Eternity is a long time to be wrong":

Absolutely NOT.  There's actual evidence for global warming /
climate change, after all.  There's no reason that if there were a
god it'd be the god of Moses  as  opposed  to one of the several
hundred other gods that humans have been known  to  worship.
This is a modification of Pascal's (failed) Wager, which rests on
the logical fallacy of reducing the choices from the full set of po-
tential gods/goddesses/etc. to a simple binary  between  two  op-
tions.

and Stephen Yates wrote Sun 3/24/13 @13:43 CDT:

It is the people who believe in the GOD of Moses and Jesus that
deny global warming.  Belief in the GOD of Moses and Jesus has
caused more bloodshed on this planet than the nonbelief of the
GOD of Moses and Jesus. The moral equivalent of the denial of
global warming is the belief in the GOD of Moses and Jesus be-
cause both cause massive loss of life!

We  appreciate  your logic and passion,  but  we  (and  Pascal)  were
talking about mere prudence (not to be confused with Dear Prudence
– or to be confused with her,  if you will).  The argument made to the
deniers of global warming is,  "We have evidence" (you have a point,
Mr. Hibben), "and if you don't take steps to stop global warming – e-
ven if you don't believe us – your world could be gone" (for eternity).

The Christians, too, claim to have evidence, even if their principal re-
liance is on faith.  Miracles do happen.  The Mets did win the World
Series in 1969 (as their late fiery relief pitcher Tug McGraw chanted,
"Ya gotta believe!").

You might make a convincing argument that the  climatologists'  evi-
dence is more persuasive, or even stronger;  but, wouldn't it be a lot
safer, in light of the length of eternity, to run down to your local Bap-
tist meeting hall this Wednesday evening and get saved,  even if you
don't believe?

This raises another tabloid question,  of course:  Do you really think
you could fool God? (if  "He" exists, and so on and so on, of course,
etc., etc. . . . – Baptists only please reply).

                                                                                           The Editor

J. Ewing wrote Sun 2/17/13 @10:37 EST (continued from last week):

Aeroflot  for  the  fourth  fucking  time – increasing my chances of a fiery
plane crash – to Leningrad.  Catherine the Great built a marvelous palace.
Marble stairways so wide you could drive four semitrailers up them side
Priceless paintings hung carelessly on the walls, which could be touched
by anyone, because the old Soviet woman assigned to the job of watch-
ing things didn't give a rat's ass, as she was going to get paid no matter
what, because that was how communism worked.   The paintings were
stacked one above the other up the walls, with no sense of display - and
bright sunlight streaming in the tall windows.  Artwork worth gazillions dis-
played in ways to attract degradation and destruction.

One of the younger nurses stood up too suddenly from her Aeroflot seat,
suffered a  concussion  when her head hit the compartments above,  and
went into a coma.  Her equally young friends left her there.  Unconscious.
In the Soviet Union.

Finally back on FinnfuckingAir,  to  Helsinki.  Reindeer washed down by
vodka tasted great.  And vegetables!  We found that vegetables still exist-
ed, and we devoured them.

We visited a bunch of Soviet hospitals too.  The equipment we saw was
of 1930's vintage.  The nurses wore pastry-chef hats.

Summary:

• There was no unemployment; yet no one was working.  (True. "Sales" clerks just sat around and didn't get up to help you, because they still got paid if they helped you or not.)
• No one was working; yet factory quotas were fulfilled.  (Aim low and you'll hit the target.)
• Factory quotas were fulfilled; yet the stores had nothing to sell.  (Literally.  Nothing to sell.  What was for sale was crap. You found the same crap no matter which store you went to. The exception was the "Dollar Stores" - not the "Dollar Generals" of today's America.  They were the special stores that took only U.S. dollars, either from tourists or from Russians with privileges.)
• The stores had nothing to sell; yet people's homes were full of stuff.  (True. No one threw anything away, and the black market thrived.)
• People's homes were full of stuff; yet no one was happy.  (It was the most depressing place on the planet. Everything was gray:  The sky, the sidewalks, the buildings, the food, the people.)
• No one was happy; yet the voting was always unanimous.  ("Let's see, do I want to vote for the guy my party director tells me to vote for, because he is going to check my ballot, or do I want to spend the next decade in a Gulag?  OK!  Ivan the Terrible it is!)

FGDean@aol.com wrote Thurs 3/28/13 @09:06 PDT:

LOL! (as we say these days).  This is an intriguing serial.
Karl Marx was right?  NOT!

A high school mathematics teacher in Hammond was arrested for convincing four
girls to "text" nude photos of themselves to him.
                                                                                    [courtesy Gary Post-Tribune]

A 41-year-old man thought he was luring a 16-year-old Noblesville girl on Clutterbook
Facebook, but actually she was enticing him – to a robbery.  The girl and her friends –
another girl and six boys, one of whom held a gun – took his 2013 Lexus, his cell phone
and his wallet and credit cards.
                                                                                              [courtesy Indianapolis Star]

Monserrate Shirley’s boy friend Mark Leonard was charged with plotting the murder
of a witness in the Southport home explosion murder case.
                                                                                               [courtesy Associated Press]

April Royalty, a waitress in Madison, was convicted of 23 counts of inflating tips.

                                                                                      [courtesy Madison Courier]

The "ag gag" bill moved up in the General Assembly.
                                                                                          [courtesy Indianapolis Star]

Sorry, there are only repeat offenders in this week's list of "Lexington's most want-
ed" in the Herald-Leader (you've already seen them all, and can again by searching
our archives);  so for your soft porn fix this week we bring you the following from
the Louisville Courier-Journal:

The lucious lesbians of Louisville congregate at the 60 West Bistro and Martini bar in St. Matthews every third Friday

     

             

                         

             


 
 See the photo gallery titled "3rd Friday at 60 West" for a tasty slice of the lesbian
 night life in Louisville.  The bar is named for U.S. Route 60,  which follows Shel-
 byville Road through St. Matthews,  an enurb of Louisville – and it's on the north
 side of the street,  hence the  "West,"  as traffic proceeds to the west in  the north
 lane.  (St. Matthews, surrounded on all sides by Louisville, is the 20th largest city
 in Kentucky, with a population of 17,472.   More famous Midwestern enurbs are
 Hamtramck, Michigan,  of Detroit,  pop. 22,423,  and Speedway, Indiana,  of In-
 dianapolis,  pop. 11,812.  What's your favorite enurb?) . . .

The Rev. Bojangles Blanchard and Dominique James were charged with trespas-
sing for remaining in the Jefferson County Clerk's office past closing after being
denied a wedding license;  and on the day the Supreme Court heard the DOMA
and Proposition 8  arguments,  their prosecutor filed a motion  to  suppress  any
mention of gay marriage at their trial.
                                                                                    [courtesy Courier-Journal]

Ashley Judd decided not to run for the Senate.
                                                                                      [courtesy Herald-Leader]

"Gringo, return to your country."
                                                         – sign held by Palestinians protesting Obama's visit

"Oh, yes, and I'm Napoleon."
                                                   – a Vatican receptionist taking a call from the
                                                      new Pope, when he said he was the Pope

Lady Gag-a, 27
Jennifer Capriati, 37
Lucy Lawless, 45
Quentin Tarantino, 50
Reba McEntire, 58
Astrud Gilberto, 73
Shirley Jones, 79
Leonard Nimoy, 82
John McLaughlin, 86 (not that John McLaughlin, this John McLaughlin)
Jethro Tull (1674-1741 – not that Jethro Tull, this Jethro Tull)

John D. Loudermilk, 79
Rudolf Rocker (1873-1958)

A pregnant woman pulled a stun gun from her brassiere and
attacked a bicycle messenger in Seattle, Washington. . . . A
bill was passed in Montana authorizing police to issue  road
kill  salvage permits for elk, deer, antelope, and moose. . . .
A philanthropist bought a house across the street from Fred
Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka,  Kansas,  and
had it painted rainbow gay. .  .  . Charges were dropped a-
gainst a woman in Warwick,  Rhode Island,  whose cocka-
too cussed out a neighbor. . . . Governor Rick Scott scold-
ed Florida Atlantic University for a lesson in an intercultur-
al communications class  in which students were instructed
to write "Jesus" on a piece of paper and stomp on it. . . . A
dog  knocked out a pedestrian  when it put a parked car in
gear in West York, Pennsylvania. . . . A greater percentage
of adults than teen-agers "text" and e-mail while driving, an
AT&T survey found. . . .  Biologists nicknamed a new spe-
cies of ant found in New York City  the  Manhattant.  .  .  .
Victoria Beckham has retired as  Posh  Spice,  and the re-
maining Spice Girls  are contemplating a TV "reality" show
to replace her  (the news value of this item,  it seems to us,
is that there is still such a thing as the Spice Girls).

HuffPost, MSNBC, AP]

NASCAR has teamed up with Univision to pro-
duce a sitcom designed to get Latinos interested
in stock car racing.

J. Ewing wrote Sun 2/17/13 @10:37 EST (continued from last week):

On to Yerevan, by bus – that broke down in a desolate Arab graveyard
before we were rescued.  I drank 10 cups of dynamite Turkish coffee in
a row – and I hate coffee – prepared in long handled pots that were roll-
ed over in warmed sand until the rich, dark coffee began to boil, then ad-
ded to the demitasse cups along with a liquified sugar concoction. It was
so good.  I was wired.  That shit was awesome!

You had to bring your own toilet paper to the USSR as, if you were lucky,
you got handed only one rough sheet off the roll when you went to a public
restroom – one of which had Turkish toilets that  you  straddled  while still
standing,  on concrete rails,  hoping you didn't fall in or soil your clothes as
you tried discreetly to lean past them,  holding up your bunched pants with
one hand to keep them out of  the  cesspool  below.  The final trick was a
gazelle leap out of the stall,  turning back to face it  and reaching just far e-
nough to grab the flush chain  and  pull,  while running like hell backwards
to avoid the geyser now coming from the dark hole you just peed in.

OMG Aeroflot again, to Baku.  The Libyan oil minister's son hit on me in
the bar.  He's the one who pointed out the KGB agents hitting on the oth-
er nurses in the tour.  He hated the KGB, who were following him around
all over the place.   He told me to get the other increasingly drunk girls a-
way from the KGB.  I herded them to the elevator.  Both the oil minister's
son and the KGB agents followed. The KGB agents were trying to get on
the elevator.  Angry words were exchanged  in  foreign  languages.  I was
trying to keep the drunk girls from passing out as the elevator doors closed
on the fist fight outside. Maybe I should try to call that phone number on the
cocktail napkin one of these days?  Never mind;  can't read the name.  He
might even be a well known Libyan terrorist now.

Aeroflot No. 3, to Kiev.  We saw little girls goose-stepping as they guarded
a significant monument. I can't remember what it was for, but it was big. The
little girls had Kleenex pompons stuck over their ears,  that vibrated as they
did their paces.

I stole an Olympic towel there too just because we were sternly told not to
take things.  Oh, yeah?  Watch this, asshole!  Kiev and way too much Sovi-
et authoritarianism had by this time made a thief of me. . . .  (to be continued)

Netta wrote Mon 3/18/13 @10:27 CDT re J. Ewing's USSR serial:

            That's not enough!

o    Are Kutcher and Kunis dating?

Well, probably, but – who are Kutcher and Kunis?

o    Is Nicki Minaj quitting "Idol"?

Maybe, but – who is Nicki Minaj?  What is "Idol"?

o    What kind of investment is right for you?

The kind that pays off.

o    What's the average cost of an engagement ring?

$5,200.

o    Is the Pope Francis?

No.  He's Jorge.

o    Is the Pope Polish?

No.  He's Argentine.

o    Is the Pope Catholic?

Probably.

o    What is Jennifer Lawrence's hush-hush obsession?

Who cares?

o    Sign at the Brownsville (Ky.) Missionary Baptist Church:

Eternity is a long time to be wrong

      So, is nonbelief in the God of Moses and Jesus the logical or moral
      equivalent of denial of global warning?

[You answer this one.  Best answer gets an engraved, gold-plated
 copy of the Bible  – or a Blu-ray disk of An Inconvenient Truth
 (winner's choice).]
                                                                            – The Editors

A high school in Gary was locked down when a securi-
ty guard reported he had misplaced his gun  –  then re-
opened 20 minutes later after he remembered  he  had
left it at home.
                                            [courtesy Associated Press]

A sexual predator on a skateboard was rolling up to co-
eds on the Purdue University campus in West Lafayette
and feeling them up.
                                           [courtesy Fox59 WXIN-TV]

State excise police arrested 80 minors,  some  as young
as 13, having a drunken party at the Pancake House on
North Michigan Road in Indianapolis,  including (police
said) loud music, dancing, and scantily clad girls. . . .

"Tea  Party"  activists were opposing a proposed refer-
endum on expanded mass transit for Marion and Ham-
ilton counties (with a later opt-in for eight other central
Indiana counties).
                                          [courtesy Indianapolis Star]

Hoagy Carmichael's house caught fire in Bloomington.

                           [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal]

Despite not making the National Collegiate Athletic As-
sociation basketball tournament a year after winning the
national  championship,  and  losing in the first round of
this year's National Invitational Tournament at Coraopo-
lis,  Pennsylvania,  University of Kentucky  coach  John
Calipari  was found to be the most  influential  person in
Lexington in a poll conducted by the Herald-Leader. . . .

Abigail Frazier,  18,  of Sellersburg,  Indiana,  wanted in
connection with a shooting in Louisville, Kentucky, was
charged with bribery of a public official  when she offer-
ed herself to a policeman to get him to give her a citation
instead of arresting her.
                                                                         
[courtesy Courier-Journal]

"That's because they're gay."
                                                – Jeanetta Girard, re the American Academy
                                                   of Pediatrics' endorsement of gay marriage

"Do you know what an Indiana Hoosier is?"
                                                                        – I.U. basketball star Victor Oladipo to a reporter,
                                                                           whose questions about James Madison had just
                                                                           been answered by Oladipo   (the  reporter  didn't
                                                                           know, and neither does anyone else – but we do
                                                                           know that "Indiana Hoosier" is redundant)

"It's as if the board of directors of Coke owned
  stock only in Pepsi."
                                      – public schools activist Steven White re a New York school board made
                                         up mostly of Orthodox Jews who send their children to private schools

"It's Greek to me."
                                       – Giorgos Katidis

Molly Luz Dean-Polacheck, 14
Queen Latifah, 43
Holly Hunter, 55
Spike Lee, 56
Chaka Khan, 60
Sirhan Sirhan, 69
Charley Pride, 75
Ursula Andress, 77
William Shatner, 82
Roger Bannister, 84
Carl Reiner, 91
Marian McPartland, 95

Travis Pritchett (of Travis and Bob), 74

Lindsay  Lohan  copped a plea for 90 days in rehab.  . . .
Jesus was seen on a drop cloth in Saugus, Massachusetts.
. . .   An 8-year-old boy married a 61-year-old woman in
South Africa.  .  .  . Twin sisters Louise and Martine Fok-
kens, 70, retired from prostitution in Amsterdam. . . . Sa-
udia Arabia pondered  exchanging  beheading  for execu-
tion by  firing  squad  in a shortage of skilled swordsmen.
. . . County Kerry, Ireland, was issuing DUI permits to i-
solated seniors  (five of the yes votes in the county coun-
cil came from pub owners).  .  .  .  A man going to pay a
traffic ticket at the courthouse in Springfield,  Massachu-
setts,  got in the wrong line  and wound up on a jury that
convicted a man of assault as the seated sixth juror wan-
dered off to the wrong room  (the  judge  granted a new
trial). . . . In Livingston, Scotland, a member of the pub-
lic took a seat in the jury box  when the real juror show-
ed up late for a murder trial (a mistrial was granted). . . .
The 12th century  St.  Peter's  Church  in Seaford, East
Sussex, England, renowned for eerie quite, was market-
ing a 30-minute CD of silence. . . .  A 67-year-old Bel-
gian woman took off for the train station in Brussels and
wound up in Croatia, blaming her car's GPS.... A drunk
driver drove into the yard of a founder of Alcoholics A-
nonymous in Dorset, Vermont, mistaking it for a parking
lot. . . . An 18-year-old being sentenced in Chardon, O-
hio, for shooting six other students at a school cafeteria a
year ago, killing three of them,  faced the victims' families,
cussed them out, gave them the finger, and unbuttoned his
shirt to reveal a T-shirt inscribed "KILLER." . . . A sword
was found in a passenger's cane at Dulles Airport in Wash-
ington,  D.C.  (the woman said she had bought the cane at
an antique store and didn't know it was loaded).... Snakes
were reported to be making a comeback in Ireland.

Athens midfielder Giorgos Katidis was banned from the
Greek national soccer team for life for giving a Nazi sa-
lute in celebration of a goal he scored. . . .
 
Jennifer Capriati punched out her former boy friend in a
gym and got a ticket for stalking and battery. . . .

Two broadcast sports analysts got into fisticuffs over an
official's call in a National Basketball Association game.

Ted Fiskevold wrote Sun 3/10/13 @12:14 CST, re Clive Palmer's
quotation of the week "Anything will sink if you put a hole in it":

Even a sinkhole?

 

J. Ewing wrote Sun 2/17/13 @10:37 EST (continued from last week):

I dressed up in a fancy white blouse and black skirt the night we
went  to  the  Bolshoi.  I was decidedly out of place as everyone
else was wearing jeans and sweatshirts. I hadn't gotten the memo
about Russians not dressing up for the Bolshoi.   I was then stop-
ped back at the hotel, where I was mistaken for a call girl.

To "buy" anything in Russia, you had to stand in three lines:  (1) to
point out what you wanted (and to make sure it was available), (2)
to pay for it, and (3) to go back to the first line with your receipt to
get it.

The water machines in the streets were to avoid.  One slot opening
vending machines. You put in your coin. You lifted the one drinking
glass that was upside down on the drainage grate.  You put it under
the water dispenser.   You pressed a button to fill the glass with the
giardia-infested water you'd just paid for.  You  drank  your  water.
You pressed another button to rinse the glass  with  another  stream
of polluted water. You put the glass back, upside down on the grate,
for the next victim. That's when I decided that rural Kentucky was a
place of high culture.

Back on Aeroflot, for a ride to Tiblisi.  My Hispanic seatmate was a
white knuckle flyer who kept grabbing me each time a new noise ap-
peared, even before takeoff.  She was in a panic by the time we were
ready for the vertical ascent. I rested my head on the back of my seat,
moving only to swat the shit flies swarming inside the plane.  My seat-
mate was getting hysterical.  All the purses of nurses opened wide to
belch forth every pharmaceutical known to mankind. At least 15 dif-
ferent, assorted sedatives were offered; and I suggested that she take
them all.   She calmed down until we were airborne, when the plane's
wheels were folded back directly beneath us,  making  enough  noise
and violent shaking to wake the dead.  It woke the sedated Hispanic
girl.  She grabbed me again and screamed, "WHAT'S THAT?"  I told
her it was the sound planes make right before they crash. She snorted
another handful of unidentified mixed narcotics, and I sighed when she
started snoring. . . .                                                  (to be continued)

More than four teen-agers in a group has been defined as a "mob" at
the Castleton Mall north of Indianapolis. . . .

Johnson County commissioners voted 3-0 for an ordinance ordering the
Sheriff to ignore and block any "federal infringement on the right to keep
and bear arms."
                                                                    [courtesy Indianapolis Star]

A woman sued St. John's Parish in North Vernon  for refusing to al-
low the stone she bought for her husband's grave, which has images
of a deer and a dog and color logos of NASCAR and the Indianap-
olis Colts but no religious icons.

                                                [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal]

A 54-year-old homeless man wearing scrubs and a surgical mask
was caught using a doctor's computer  at  a  hospital  in Louisville
(and it was determined he'd spent the night in a patient bed). . . .

The legislature made the high school dropout age a matter of local
option.
                                                            [courtesy Courier-Journal]

A pedestrian crossing the street legally in downtown Lexington was
run over and killed by a fire truck. . . .

Senator Mitch McConnell, up for re-election in only 20 months and
scared of Ashley Judd, begins his TV ad campaign this week. . . .

     

Lexington's most wanted: Samantha McKinney, WF, 31, 5'5", 160 lbs

"You guys are crack addicts."
                                                  – Jeb Bush, on Meet the Press

"No doubt Hugo Chávez will return alongside Jesus Christ."
                                                                                                – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

"She was just plain fat."
                                            – Bolshoi ballet teacher Marina Kondratyeva, regar-
                                               ding the male dancer's girl friend not cast by the
                                               director assaulted on contract by the male dancer

"This is not Indiana, where you go to Indianapolis and then say where else
 are we going to go? Gary?"
                                                       – Ohio Governor John Kasich, in a speech in Cincinnati

Ma'Lik Richmond, 16, and Trent Mays, 17, the "Steubenville 2,"
are on trial for "digitally penetrating" a West Virginia girl, accord-
ing to the Associated Press.  Uh.  Er.  Does this have something
to do with e-mail sex taken to extremes?

Lazy Husband, developed by a 12-year-old boy, provides stock
answers  for husbands and children  ("You look fine,"  "No,  you
don't look fat,"  "Yes,  I've done my homework,"  etc.).

Mia Hamm, 41
Neil Sedaka, 74
George Stamatoyannopoulos, 79
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 80
Jerry Lewis, 87
Casey Jones (1863-1900)
Roswell Sabine Ripley (Confederate general, 1823-1887)
Teresa of the Two Sicilies (Empress of Brazil, 1822-1889)
Catharinus Putnam Buckingham (Union general, 1808-188)

A 28-year-old woman was arrested in Ada, Oklahoma, with
a loaded  5-shot  .22 revolver  concealed in her vagina  (and
several baggies of meth up her butt). . . . A school bus crash-
ed into a house in West Des Moines,  Iowa. .  .  . Seven gift-
wrapped skulls were left at consulates and Mormon temples
in Sao Paolo,  Brazil. .  .  . New CIA director John Brennan
took the oath of office on a  draft  of the Constitution written
four years before the adoption of the Bill of Rights. . . .A wo-
man stole a police car in Camden, New Jersey,  and crashed
it  in Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania,  where she stole another po-
lice car as her male companion was being arrested. . . . A lion
attacked a couple  "doing it"  in Zimbabwe,  killing the woman
(the man escaped wearing only a condom). . . . A court in En-
gland sentenced a college boy to 120 hours of community ser-
vice for frying his roommate's hamster, and ordered him not to
own a pet for eight years. . . . A dumpster full of unopened fan
mail to Taylor Swift was found in Nashville,  Tennessee. . . . A
golfer fell into an 18-foot sinkhole on a course in  southern  Illi-
nois, near St. Louis, Missouri, and was helped out on a rope).
. . . Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was scolded by senior Irani cler-
ics for hugging Hugo Chávez' mother.

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

  

Kentucky Sweet 16 high school basketball hotties: Kyvin Goodin-Rogers, Marion County; Mikayla Berry, Owensboro Catholic; Louisville Manual Lady Crimsons

Jim Funk University of Kentucky Add Friend

Nancy Lee Kelly CEO & President at SELF EMPLOYED/ACTRESS/SINGER/SONGWRITER Add Friend

Cardinal conclave white smoke: Another old white guy (Marc Murphy, Courier-Journal)

Editor's note:  We need some good Pope Jorge jokes.  Please e-mail them to:
Tabloid Headlines    Borf_Books@borfents.com    (We've already heard that
the new Pope lay low during Argentina's "Dirty War" of the 1970's.  The only
decent joke we've heard yet is:  "Argentine?  It's another Nazi, coming out of
hiding.")

Tony Dean wrote Mon 3/4/13 12:27 CST re last week's "roots & grafts":

A  podcast  is a recording in a file format compatible with the play-
back app on an iPod.  Does an iPod play .wav files?  I don't know.
It's like the difference between recording and cassette tape.

Yeah, well, you can play a "podcast" on a PC or a VAIO laptop,  or on a
TRS-80, too, for all we know. ".wav"s, ".mp3"s, ".mpu"s, all of the above.
Dept. of Distinction Without a Difference.  Here's the deal:

"Ya wanna hear the latest broadcast of Prairie Home Companion?  Go
to  http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/   It's  recorded.  All you have to to is
listen. You can save the recording, if you like, as a computer file, or record
it on your own device (Polderbits, acetate,  reel-to-reel,  8-track,  cassette,
cylinder)."

Just because there are new ways to use old things  does not mean we have
to come up with new words for them.  There are 171,476 words in the Ox-
ford English Dictionary.  That ought to be enough.
                                                                                                    – Editor

Greg Torpey wrote Fri 3/8/13 to the Editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal:

I think that Rand Paul's statement that he will talk until he cannot speak
any more is a wonderful idea.

J. Ewing wrote Sun 2/17/13 @10:37 EST (continued from last week):

Everyone was in uniform at the Moscow airport and had a deadly
weapon at his side.  The armed soldier in the check-in booth look-
ed at you,  looked at your passport photo, looked at you,  looked
at your passport photo, times 15.  I managed to keep from making
faces at him.  Too early in the trip to risk Siberia.

One of our tour members was detained overnight, thought – a fundy
who had brought in a load of Bibles to pass out. Mutterings arose in
the bus as we waited for her to show up – which she didn't do. Our
American tour guide warned us to not say one word of the incident
until we had left Soviet territory – right before she asked us all to sur-
render our passports and assured us that they were only going to be
locked in the hotel safe for our own good.

We were addressed as "Dear Guests" at the beginning of each speech
by our Russian tour guide. That was even printed on a strip of paper
placed over our hotel room toilets.

Looking outside our windows, we noticed that current construction of
the ever gray building was already beginning to crumble. The USSR
was simply becoming a pile of rubble.

One tour member opened the wrong door at the hotel, only to see the
banks of tape recorders that were picking up all the conversations in
our rooms.   Our American tour guide had warned us not to say any-
thing controversial,  ever,  in our rooms or anywhere else.  I was told
not to mention that I worked at the Veterans Administration Hospital
or mention that it was government-run. "Just say you work in a 'hos-
pital,' no more detail." . . .                                     (to be continued)

Police in Kokomo were planning horseback patrol.

                                                                [courtesy Associated Press]

As the world "springs forward" today, legislators have resumed arguing
over what time zone Indiana should be in.

                                                                [courtesy Indianapolis Star]

Forty hikers from LaSalle University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, call-
ed for a rescue from Pine Mountain in Appalachia. . . .

   

Lexington's most wanted (yes! we want her!) Regina Barrick, WF, 36, 5'7", 135 lbs

"The Lord has given us many days of sunshine and light breezes, but also
 times when the Lord seemed to be sleeping."
                                                                                – Pope Benedict

"Guns don't kill people; dogs kill people."
                                                                    – certain homeowners in Lawrence, Massachusetts

"I'm convinced that she is seriously considering a race for the United States Senate in the
 Democratic primary.  I think she can be an effective and formidable candidate."

                             – Kentucky Governor Stevie,  after a conversation with Ashley Judd,  con-
                                cerning her possible campaign against Mitch McConnell (but, who would-
                                n't be a formidable candidate against Senator Toad? – except in Kentucky)

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/03/05/2543044/beshear-says-ashley-judd-would.html#storylink=cpy

"Anything will sink if you put a hole in it."
                                                                        – Blue Star Line owner Clive Palmer,
                                                                           discussing plans for a Titanic II

"It just boggles my mind that we're here sitting in front of you, Judge."
                                                                                                                    – Martha Stewart

Paget Brewster, 44
Barbie the doll, 54
Little Peggy March, 65
Janet Guthrie, 75
Gabriel García Márquez, 86

Bix Beiderbecke (1903-1931)

Chivas workers mistakenly flushed thousands of gallons of
whiskey down the drain in Scotland. . . .  A school mainte-
nance worker shot himself in the leg at concealed weapons
training in Van, Texas. . . . A policeman was suspended af-
ter his  gun  discharged  in the hall of Highland (New York)
High School during class hours. .  .  . A police dog digging
for a handgun in a snow bank in Lawrence, Massachusetts,
fired it into a nearby house. . . . Pledge activities at Colum-
bia University's Pi Kappa Alpha chapter include piggyback
racing on fat girls. . . . A California woman not getting Clut-
terbook Facebook posts  from  her  son  bicycling  through
Peru insisted that the government search for him.  .  .  . We
should be saying "sequestration," not "sequester," according
to the editor of the Oxford  English  Dictionary. . . . Martha
Stewart testified that opening "her own stores within"  J. C.
Penney stores did not violate her contract to sell exclusively
at Macy's. .  .  . The Transportation Security Administration
repealed its ban on small pocket knives  (blade  length  limit
2.36 inches)  on airplanes  (still no box cutters, please). . . .
A 24-year-old intern was swatted and killed by a lion  while
she was talking on a cell phone  in a cage at a "big cat" sanc-
tuary in Fresno County, California.

HuffPost, MSNBC, Frisky, AP]

Kentucky high school students were doing
the  Harlem  Shake  at the state basketball
tournament. . . .

 

More basketball hotties: Missouri guard Kyley Simmons reaches for ball as Vanderbilt's Jasmine Jenkins hovers to pounce in game won by Vanderbilt 53-40 in Southeast Conference college tournament

Ashley Judd.

J. Ewing wrote Sun 2/17/13 @10:37 EST (continued from last week):

. . . And after they tell us absolutely NO photos of the Moscow air-
port, somehow the lens cap on my camera comes loose and it acci-
dentally snaps a bunch of photos – a big "No, No!",  as all Russkie
airports are considered military installations.

And I lift a left-over Russian Olympics towel from my hotel room.
This is before the KGB tries to pick up a few of my fellow nurse
travelers,  while the son of Muammar al-Qaddafi's Oil Minister is
hitting on me and scrawling his phone number on a cocktail napkin.

And,  I did stand in  Red  Square – evidently in the part you were
not supposed to stand in, because I suddenly get my collar scruff-
ed and the barrel of a Kalashnikov up my left nostril – while I was
guided firmly back to the curb I'd dared step down from. I passed
on standing in line to see the waxed corpse of Lenin.

I bought a Russian fur hat and named it "Melvin." I drank LOTS of
VODKA.  It was FUN!  Sorta. . . .                     (to be continued)

The State Senate passed, 32 to 18, a resolution calling for a United States
constitutional convention, in a revolt over the federal government’s alleged
overreach on issues from health care to guns,  and, 30 to 20,  a bill to pro-
hibit video recording at farms and factories (to protect them from selective-
ly edited protest videos on YouTube).

                                                               [courtesy the Indianapolis Star]

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Indianapolis Star have joined
in a "friend of the court brief" in behalf of a Ripley County blogger impris-
oned for rants against his divorce judge – and, wonder of modern journal-
ism, you have to read to the middle of page 4 of this 5-page article to find
out what the man  was  charged  with  (intimidation of a judge, the judge’s
wife and a psychologist, attempted obstruction of justice, and perjury).

                                                                        [stupid, the Indianapolis Star]

A 52-year-old New Castle man wanted on a warrant dialed 911 re-
peatedly for a cheeseburger (he got peanut butter and jelly).

                                                                    [courtesy Muncie Star]

The State House of Representatives passed,  82 to 7,  a  "religious
freedom" bill to allow people and corporations to ignore laws that
violate their religious beliefs. . . .

The State Senate passed,  34 to 3,  a bill to allow the state to ignore
any federally enacted gun control laws. . . .

The serpent-handling sermonizer from Kentucky had to return home
from Tennessee without his snakes.

                                                        [courtesy Lexington Herald-Leader]

A city bus collided with a school bus in Louisville, injuring eight stu-
dents.
                                                          [courtesy Courier-Journal]

A new TV show, The Real Housewives of Butler County, will pre-
miere this evening on the Redneck Weather Channel  (24.3  – you
may not be able to get it where you live).

 

Lexington's most wanted: Ashley Stamper, WF, 27, 5'2", 120 lbs, Lauren Betts, 26, WF, 5'7", 190 lbs

Bruce Mitchell wrote Weds 2/17/13 @23:04 PST We have mean lookin' girls in sunny Southern California, too, but they comb their hair; Laura L. Purviance, 24, is accused of shooting her mother to death in Woodland Hills, California

"He's proud; his country likes him – not like him, love him, love him.  Guess what?  I love him.
 The guy's really awesome.  You have a friend for life."

                                                                                – Dennis Rodman, of, and to, Kim Jong Un

"A sniff is up to snuff."
                                         – Justice Elena Kagan, finding probable cause in a police dog's alert

"God screwed the pitcher."
                                                    – Bobby Knight, countering a baseball player's
                                                       thanking God for helping him hit a home run

"And with me it was never about my voice as much as how can I tell the story
 of this song."
                                                                                             – Emmylou Harris

"That's a train that has already left the tracks."
                                                                               – Karim Sadjadpour, senior associate,
                                                                                  Middle East Program, Carnegie En-
                                                                                  dowment for International Peace

"In America you have the right to be stupid."
                                                                            – John Kerry, in Berlin

Putting one little word after another and, what is the difference
between a "podcast" and a "recording"?

Justin Bieber, 19
Fats Domino, 85

Tempest Storm, 21 (b. 1928)
Bart Stupak, 15 (b. 1952)

OK,  Seth MacFarlane saw your boobs at the Oscars,  but
did you see Anne Hathaway's nipples? Meryl Streep's wed-
gie?  Jennifer Lawrence'  fall up stairs?  (and Irani TV sleev-
ed Michelle Obama's bare arms). . . .  China confronted air
pollution  by  banning  barbecue. . . . Frankenstein  Momin,
Billykid Sangma, Field Marshal Mawphniang and Adolf Lu
Hitler were candidates for the legislature in Meghalaya,  In-
dia. . . . A London jury was dismissed for asking questions
the judge said showed a "fundamental deficit in understand-
ing," including "Can you define what is a reasonable doubt?"
(it  is  "a doubt which is reasonable," the judge wrote)  and,
"Can a juror come to a verdict based on a reason that was
not presented in court and has no facts or evidence to sup-
port it?" . . . Melissa King,  Miss Delaware Teen at 17 last
year, turned in her title after it was revealed that she earned
her way through pageants doing internet pornography.  . . .
A Tennessee school bus driver who stole and sold a school
bus in Knoxville  lost his approval to drive in the school dis-
trict where he worked.  .  .  .  A KFC employee in Johnson
City,  Tennessee,  was fired  after posting a photo of herself
on Clutterbook Facebook licking a boob-shaped mound of
mashed potatoes. . . . The parents of a 6-year-old boy who
thinks he's a girl are locked in a legal battle over which bath-
room he can use at school in Fountain, Colorado. . . .  Hon-
ey Boo Boo's offer to sell Girl Scout cookies was rejected.

Jarod Jahns, senior forward on the Texas A&M University basketball team, has decided to enter the 2013 'penis with ears' lookalkike contest

The New York Yankees blocked a clothing manufacturer's at-
tempt to trademark the phrase "Baseball's Evil Empire." . . .

Curt Schilling's bloody sock from the 2004 World Series sold
at auction for $92,613.

Maebelle Paynesmith

College Dog

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