Albuquerque Journal subscribers woke up Christmas Eve morning, stepped outside and scooped up their daily papers. The headline on the bottom left-hand corner of the front page stated, simply, “Animal Shelters Are Empty.” That title was, at best, misleading.

Who was one Albuquerque homeowner trying to scare off with his shotgun? The Senate killed the domestic partnership bill, but what would it have done? What did legislators find at the Governor's Office after passing the budget? New Mexico Democrats are fudging which rules to speed up ballot counting?

On Jan. 31, I woke up to hear a man named Robert Baca on the 94 Rock Morning Show claiming to talk to the dead. He did readings for TJ Trout and the 94 Rock crew and their callers, offering what sometimes seemed to be “amazingly accurate” information from beyond the grave, such as telling subjects that they owned a deceased loved one’s ring or that the subject had a “father figure” whose name has a “B” and who died suddenly.

On Jan. 31, 2008, I woke up bleary-eyed. My beauty sleep had already been interrupted several hours earlier by my aborted appearance on a live radio morning show in Kingston, Jamaica, which had been scheduled at the unfortunate hour of 4:30 a.m. Albuquerque time. I won’t go into the details, but the point is I was kind of fuzzy-headed when my radio alarm woke me up at 7:30 that Thursday morning and I heard 94 Rock’s TJ Trout talking about how he would soon be having a guest in the studio who could talk to the dead.

The snowflakes came down fast, Council President Brad Winter talked even faster, and city councilors cleared the Feb. 4 agenda in two hours, including maximum yak time from the usual clutch of public speakers. Councilor Sally Mayer was excused.

What are delegates?

For most of 2007, former City Councilor Martin Heinrich had the Democratic field in replacing Heather Wilson in Congress virtually to himself. But the first poll showing him faring poorly against Sheriff Darren White, the probable Republican nominee, brought out real challengers. With them has come a word we’re hearing more in Democratic circles: electability.

New Mexicans for Science and Reasoning racks up enemies. The group’s infuriated creationists, ticked off psychics and has alien believers convinced it's part of a vast government conspiracy. NMSR makes no apologies, but angering people isn't the goal.

Thank you for running Beth Moore-Love's fascinating and thought-provoking letter in last week's issue [“Temporary Insanity,” Feb. 7-13]. The vast majority of the criminally insane are free and running our streets. We need look no further than the Whitehouse and our society that supports this outlaw fratboy regime. Maybe those of us who expect something better are forgetting that this country was founded by Europe's undesirables, criminals, religious weirdos and mentally challenged. Don Shrader may be mighty eccentric, but he is as American as apple pie.

Dateline: England--A British businessman is offering motorists the opportunity to get even with England’s much-hated speed cameras--by running over them in a 17-ton tank. Bill Bailey, who runs a paintball business in southwest England, said the off-road experience would allow drivers to get behind the wheel of his Abbot 433 Self-Propelling Gun and take it for a spin around an abandoned rock quarry with a driving instructor. The climax of the experience will let drivers use the caterpillar-tracked vehicle to mow down a mocked-up speed camera. “It will cost about 100 pounds ($224) for an hour in the tank, with an extra charge of 60 pounds ($134) to crush the speed camera.” Bailey is also working on an option of blowing up a copy of the ubiquitous Gatsometer brand traffic safety cameras seen on British roads. “The gun only fires blanks,” Bailey told reporters. “But we can simulate an explosion at the other end with pyrotechnics.”