1 Booze over business

While many cab and limo companies ring in the New Year with healthy profits from partygoers and club owners, Kahuna Party Buses of Des Moines took a more personal approach to the start of 2006. As co-owner Steve Blades put it, the company simply closed its door because, "this year, we decided to go out and party ourselves."

2 Return to sender

A bout of postage confusion did little to bolster the reputation of gubernatorial-hopeful Bob Vander Plaats when the Republican's Christmas cards arrived in time for the holidays ... with postage due. Seems someone in the organization slapped the standard 37-cent fare on the season's greetings, leaving recipients to chip in 12 cents to get the cards out of hock. Not exactly the stamp of a professional organization.

3 Moral minority

Taking the holier-than-thou ethic to an absurd extreme, Douglas Sadler, a self-proclaimed leader of a Charles City Klu Klux Klan enclave, announced last week that he will protest at the Iowa Supreme Court regarding a recently filed gay-marriage lawsuit. But, while the hooded fanatic explained that "we don't believe God's law should be perverted anymore than it already has been," he failed to mention which divine statute appointed pompous racists to the moral majority.

4 A place in the sun

With his film "Viscera" already featured at festivals from France to San Francisco, University of Iowa professor Leighton Pierce stepped into the international spotlight last week when his experimental piece was selected from a pool of 4,000 to be screened at the Sundance Film Festival this month.

5 In the mix in 2006

Seeking to raise its profile in the New Year, the Iowa Commission on the Status of African-Americans announced last week that, not only will it publish a sizable guide to black-owned business and organizations, but also take steps in 2006 to create a black think tank, a statewide black-business council, and a non-profit group to help raise money to make up for the inexcusable shortage in state funds for commission programs.

6 When it rains, it pours

Perhaps enough to turn leading insurers into climate-change believers, the financial havoc caused by hurricane's Katrina, Rita and Wilma will reportedly add up to as much as $58 billion in claims, more than double the previous annual record.

7 Told you so

Two week after a parliamentary election in Iraq was instantly dubbed a success by the Bush Administration, a top U.N. official declared last week that the vote was indeed "transparent, credible and good." Which might come as a surprise to local officials still combing through 1,500 complaints of voting irregularities and thousands of civilians who have taken to the streets to protest vote returns that, in some locations, were dubious at best.

8 Dear Story County sheriff

Proving that it's not just drug companies engaging in research and development, Ames police discovered a mailed package last week containing a letter written on handmade stationary doused with a hearty measure of liquid methamphetamine. Officials noted that it may be the first letter of its kind.

9 Up in arms

While Uncle Sam is finally paying up for the staggering health toll of years of secret nuclear testing at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, some former workers and relatives last week called the program "discriminatory," citing millions of dollars flowing to the affected area, but little predictability as to whose suffering will meet the bureaucrats' standards for compensation.

10 Seeing red

With the fourth administrator in six years resigning last month after the organization was said to have bungled Hurricane Katrina relief, the American Red Cross received a pointed letter from Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley last week, questioning the organization's effectiveness and demanding information about its governance structure, executive pay and spending on public relations.CV

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