Two days into the second month of the year — the dead of winter, in other words — and we're back to tank tops and flip-flops. El Nino's publicity team is either very good or very evil.

So Iowa happened last night. Clinton reportedly edged out Sanders, Cruz reportedly topped Trump (this after Trump encouraged his supporters to beat the shit out of any protestors they might see at his events), O'Malley and Huckabee reportedly dropped out, and nobody can figure out exactly how any of this happened, and those of us who say we can are lying, because the Iowa Caucuses are insane and weird and complex. Better get to the bottom of a simpler problem, like that bag of Funyuns.

A Tampa man was arrested after a raid on the apartment he was renting turned up multiple homemade pipe bombs and assorted other weapons. Authorities said the man didn't have a particular target in mind when he built the bombs, which, I dunno — is making bombs "just in case" even scarier than making bombs because you're mad at a particular institution? I tend to think so, yes.

A Pasco woman arrested for walking out of a Publix with $199 worth of groceries without paying claimed she did so "because she had defecated in her pants." Trying to get out of an embarrassing situation by making an even more humiliating excuse is always a pretty good indicator of a healthy sense of self-worth.

And finally, famous groundhog and subject of extremely weird American tradition Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow. I don't need a groundhog to tell me shit when it's February 1 and I'm sweating in shorts in the back yard, OK?

(Image by Alessandro M. via Creative Commons licensing.)

This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 3, 2016.