Be careful in there

Hosting a holiday gathering? Have a great time, and don't let concern that you're risking jail or a fat law suit slow you down. It's all laid out on Lawyers.com, in a 2004 Harris poll:

One in five (20 percent) adults will host or co-host a holiday party at which alcohol will be served.

Nearly one in four (24 percent) adults don't know that a host who serves alcohol to a clearly drunk guest may be legally responsible if the drunk goes on to hurt or kill someone in a car accident.

Twenty-nine percent of adults have experienced or observed sexual advances between people who work together at such gatherings. Observed sexual advances are legally actionable.

So what's a poor host to do, short of calling off the party and shuttering the house? No problem, says Lawyers.com. Just collect all car keys and return them only to sober drivers. Also, simply tell everyone upfront what behavior is prohibited -- including anything flirtatious or sexual. (We would like to include bad jokes and political rants.)

On the other hand . . .

From the AP
• Man Buys Smoker, Finds Human Leg Inside • Coach Stops Runaway Horse by Biting Ear • Man Allegedly Tries to Use 'Blurry' $100 • Police Break Up Brawl at Chuck E. Cheese • Suggestive Card Ruffles Farmer's Feathers • Nerds to Auction Themselves to Women • Toilet to Tap? San Jose Probes Plan • Seattle to Allow Pygmy Goats As Pets • Yankees Rookies Dress Up in Oz Costumes

This all sounds very festive. ("Earl and Mabel, welcome. I'll take your car keys in case you get loaded, and, Earl, keep your hands to yourself and watch your mouth.") But Dahlia Lithwick, a senior editor at slate.com, believes Lawyers.com doesn't go far enough:

"It seemed to us that this is only the tip of the civil-liability iceberg. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself what happens if one of your holiday guests chokes on the cheese log? Or a guest loses an eye to the mistletoe? And what if one of your colleagues suffers social anxiety or embarrassment at the hands of a cruel workmate? Or an atheist guest 'accidentally' bumps into someone wearing a Santa sweater? May as well declare bankruptcy now. At Slate, our motto for every holiday get-together is: 'You can never be too careful or too joyless . . .'"

Another assault on fruitcake

Speaking of never being too careful, we give you fruitcake by the numbers:

47 percent. People who'd toss a holiday fruitcake in the trash without delay.

11 percent. People who say they would regift a fruitcake.

1:1. The ratio of the density of a fruitcake to the density of mahogany.

25. Number of years that fruitcakes can age and still be enjoyed (if that's the right word), as long as they have the right preservatives and are stored in tightly closed tins.

2,952. Pounds of fruitcake delivered to U.S. troops in Iraq for the holidays, presumably from friendly sources.

(From The Christian Science Monitor)

The kid's clean

A screener watching the monitor at Los Angeles International Airport early Saturday noticed the outline of a baby and immediately pulled the bin backward on the conveyor belt. It seems the infant had failed to remove his booties . . . No, that last sentence was an attempt at humor. But it is true that a 56-year-old woman put her month-old grandson into a bin intended for carry-on items. Officials called it an innocent mistake by an inexperienced traveler who understands little English.

The flight was the bigger risk

The baby was exposed to less radiation than a passenger on a long flight, so it turns out the worst was yet to come for the tyke. The Los Angeles Times provided radiation exposures in millirems:

Luggage screener: 1

Cross-country flight: 5

Chest X-ray: 10

Mammogram: 30

Vatican fallible

We carried an item Tuesday about the Vatican fielding a pro soccer team (The Vatican Cardinals?). Scratch that. Turns out the man who said it, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Pope Benedict XVI's right-hand man, is a kidder. Agence France Presse took it seriously, and so did we, only to have the Cardinal ruin everything by taking it back. We're willing to forget the whole thing if the Cardinal says three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys and goes to three Pirates games as penance.