LAUGH LINES : PUNCHLINES

In the news: The federal government has shut down once again, but not completely:

* Alan Ray says offices that provide essential red tape will stay open.

* Bob Mills says that this time, Mt. Rushmore will keep open one nostril per president.

* Stan Kaplan predicts these signs of the times:

1995--Closed Temporarily.

1996--Under New Management.

Argus Hamilton says Ross Perot is disgusted that Congress and the White House can’t get together on a budget. When Perot’s grandson asked for a Mickey Mouse outfit for Christmas, Gramps bought him the U.S. government.

The White House even called in a Little Drummer Boy to try to drum up support for its budget proposal, but Jenny Church says that so far the only result is Leon Panetta’s chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

*

A pair of pants once owned by Doors singer Jim Morrison sold for $43,700 at an auction. Alex Pearlstein says that when folks at the Pentagon heard, they called their pants supplier to complain about being overcharged.

To lose weight, Kaplan says, a 400-pound man had surgery to get Jenny Craig off his back.

At the Whitewater hearings the other day, says Mills, Sen. Alfonse D’Amato claimed he had a dream in which he saw the words “Rose Law Firm” printed on a sled.

After that South Carolina judge ordered a delinquent teenager shackled to her mother for a month, Ray says, the mom denounced the sentence as cruel and unusual: “No parent deserves this!”

About all those speed limit signs being changed from 55 to 65, Church says, “One lonely government employee was busily covering up old numbers with new ones. But enough about Enid Waldholtz.”

Russ Myers says that if the Virgin Mary were to give birth in a manger today, she’d probably get an angry letter from PETA accusing her of abusive animal dislocation.

Risque 1991 photos have surfaced of L.A. Councilman Nate Holden surrounded by scantily clad women dancing on tables. Tony Peyser says Holden insists he wasn’t goofing off--he was just auditioning secretaries.

*

The next generation: Microsoft honcho Bill Gates and his wife are expecting a baby in the spring. Premiere Morning Sickness reports that they plan to name the child Version 1.0. Ray adds that the happy couple has already picked the baby’s room: Wyoming.

No takers yet to Madonna’s announcement that she’s looking for a man to father her child. Hamilton says Evel Knievel’s insurance company told him he’d be safer jumping the Grand Canyon.

*

When Laird Hayes of Newport Beach returned from officiating the Dolphins-Jets football game in Miami, his 4 1/2-year-old son, Andy, asked:

“How was the game in Your-ami?”