"Klotz" As In "Blood"

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…….

Someone stole a baby Jesus doll Wednesday night from a Nativity scene in front of the Wellington Community Center in Palm Beach County.

But village leaders were wise: They knew about a similar theft from Bal Harbour earlier this month, so they equipped their figurine with a GPS tracking device.

The device led sheriff’s deputies to a nearby home, where they recovered the stolen item Thursday morning. — Miami Hurled

An 18 year old girl confessed to the deed. “I thought it would be good for my career, reputation, and social status,” she told police. “I mean, like who wouldn’t want to be close to a teenager who steals religious icons from community centers? Besides, my boyfriend likes the way I look in handcuffs.”

Never ignore a subpoena. You get one, you obey.
Unlike your teeth, if you ignore them, they WON’T go away.

Alright. I’ll leave the poetry to Miami Harold. Besides, I’m exaggerating. It’s not a subpoena, it’s an invitation. Nevertheless, it’s an offer I can’t refuse.

I have one sibling on earth, an older brother. At age 60, he’s getting married for the first time. On New Year’s Day. So Guido and I are heading to frozen Philadelphia — the City of Bodily Harm, where we were all born and some remain — to bear witness.

Why New Year’s Day? Why force people to curtail their New Year’s Eve celebration so they must function sufficiently next morning to clean up, dress up, abandon their afternoon of football, leave their warm houses, and drive all over creation to attend a ceremony? Why cause friends and loved ones to travel great distances on a crowded, hectic weekend?

These issues were explored in depth by numerous parties, whose conclusions, I suspect, are obvious even to casual observers. (My brother and I were at odds quite a bit for many, many years.)

Anyway, we’re heading out. My mother, who will be 90 in February, awaits with open arms, if disbelieving soul. Like most of the family, she was astonished when her younger son, Mr. Confirmed Bachelor, tied the knot at age 38. At 60, her other son’s vows are unfathomable. But as Aristotle noted, What is Actual is Possible.

The socks, undergarments, hats, gloves, overcoats, and assorted heavy fabrics are out of storage. Exorbitant plane tickets, rental car, staying-with-friends arrangements all set. Two bottles of tequila for warmth (backup: Jack Daniels). I want a cheesesteak out of this, or at least some scrapple, and ideally a pizza.

We’re out Sunday, back Wednesday.

Happy New Year!

Authorities said the death appeared accidental. — Miami Hurled

Anybody who purposely plays in the snow deserves to lose fingers and toes. Or other digits. My feeling is, if god wanted us to ski or ice skate he’d have given us not only blades on our hooves, but plenty more fur.

Yes, I know. I live in south Florida, and the number of fur-intensive human beings walking around (upright, no less) is a bit off-putting at times. But we’re talking wild walagora furry, not just hairy backs and knuckles.

So I’m neutral in THIS dispute:

The Mount Washington Cog Railway, which chugs up the side of New England’s tallest peak, has been called the Railway to the Moon. Some people have been taking that title a bit too literally.

The White Mountain National Forest, most of which is in New Hampshire, has acted against hikers who drop their pants and moon the cog railway. Eight people were cited by undercover officers for public nudity or disorderly conduct during a sting operation in August and September after some passengers complained that they had seen more on the mountain than they had bargained for.

“Mooning the cog” is something of a tradition, especially for people hiking the Appalachian Trail. Its origins are unclear. Some theorize it started as a way for hikers to protest the noise and smoke coming from the train, while others say it started as, and continues to be, nothing but a joke– NY Times

Turns out it’s a Federal offense, too. With all the hysteria over “porous borders,” we pay agents to pinch bare-assed mooners.

On the one hand, if your idea of a good time is taking a train up a frozen mountain to gawk at snowy rocks, you probably deserve to see butts as well as buttes.

But if your idea of a good time is to drop trou and let the winter wind tickle your testicles, you’ve earned your frostbitten foreskin. It’s treatable surgically: physicians can even scrape off the smegma to spice your hot cocoa.

Cold makes people crazy. I do my best to stay away. I didn’t move here for the culture, friendly people, employment opportunities, or intellectual challenges, I came to get and stay warmer all winter. I prefer the sweating maniacs here to the nipply numbskulls up there.

So have a blast time doing what you do in Ice City, just keep your cold away from me and I won’t say a another word. Deal?

Like most Americans, I spend all my leisure time in strip clubs enjoying the sight of plastic surgery victims half my age vulgarly display their flesh attempting to get people like myself sufficiently hormonally impaired to hand them money. So this study from the the University of New Mexico by Geoffrey Miller and Brent Jordan, is interesting:

While ovulating — and therefore the most fertile — strippers made an average of $30 per hour more than menstruating women and $15 per hour more than women elsewhere in their cycles. Women on the pill — who typically don’t ovulate — made significantly less than naturally cycling women overall and had no “estrus earning peak.” – NY Times

So THAT’S the secret! They’re “egging” us on, aren’t they.

The study suggests that when it comes to sexual arousal, human beings function on about the same level as alley cats. A female cat in heat attracts toms from miles away. They sense it — the smell, the sound, the vibe of energy. It’s stronger than gravity, as addictive as pure heroin. As one of my own male cats once explained it to me years ago, “It’s not just pussy, it’s pussy pussy.”

“The findings that estrus impacts earnings could have implications for women selling cars or giving big presentations as C.E.O.’s,’’ Miller says. ‘‘Should women schedule big job interviews during certain weeks of the month? We don’t know. But maybe.”

Gentlemen: we’re cooked.

The rabid hunger for change, it turns out, has made the very idea of experience as toxic as every other attribute of the Bush White House. The once-heralded notion of a C.E.O. presidency, overstocked with “tested” Washington and Fortune 500 executives like Cheney and Rumsfeld, is now in the toilet with Larry Craig. — Frank Rich, NY Times

“I don’t mind Baptists. I just wish they’d keep ‘em under water a little longer.” — Kinky Friedman, as Kinky Friedman.

Bal Harbour, FL – A baby Jesus statue is getting a Global Positioning System for Christmas. The statue, part of a nativity scene, will be equipped with the device after the previous statue went missing, even though it had been bolted down.

“I don’t anticipate this will ever happen again,” said Dina Cellini, who oversees the display, “but we may need to rely on technology to save our savior.”

The Mary and Joseph statues will also be fitted with GPS devices, she said. — SFS-S

“I say it as calmly as I can—the Church should have had the elementary decency to let the earth lie lightly on this troubled and miserable lady, and not to invoke her long anguish to recruit the credulous to a blind faith in which she herself had long ceased to believe.” — Christopher Hitchens, on Mother Teresa’s proposed beatification.

Hitchens, a columnist for Vanity Fair, is the author of “The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice” and most recently, “God Is Not Great.”

Dear Democrats: For those of you who for 7 years have been blaming Ralph Nader, the Green Party, and me personally for making possible Monkey Boy’s presidency, I offer this observation from David Broder:

And then to top it off came Sen. Joe Lieberman, Al Gore’s Democratic running mate for vice president in 2000, now newly minted as McCain’s endorser. And Al From, the head of the Democratic Leadership Council and longtime defender of all things Lieberman, said he was “very saddened” that his man would endorse a — gulp — Republican. That’s like Roy Rogers saying he was “saddened” to discover that Trigger was a mule. — sacbee.com

Jowels Lieberman is garbage, dumped by his own party, and pretty well reviled for excellent reasons you may discover for yourselves. Gore made me gag, but Lieberman just wouldn’t stay down. My only point in bringing this up is that if you’re gonna blame us for defeating Ozone Gore in 2000, you should thank us for keeping Lieberman off the White House furniture, too.