'Stimulus' + 'hands' = bad mojo

OK, there are some words and word pairs that when you are on a newspaper desk you just always pay attention to, especially in headlines.

"Probe" is one of them where the odds that things will turn out badly are high.

"Stimulus" is another. And "hands" is one of those words you always want to be worried about if it comes anywhere within viewing range of "stimulus."

(Yeah, you can say I have the mind of a 14-year-old, but there are a lot of folks out there with the same thoughts. Now, maybe you want people to snicker when they read your stories. Good times all. Me, I'd prefer to keep the yucks to the stories where I'm trying to generate yucks.)

So ponder this headline from a weekend paper (and keeping in mind that people do skip the small type, things like headers and decks):


Hmmmm ....

Maybe a rewrite like this, just to triage? (It is a bit ambiguous - is the court having the dispute?) But I'll take it over the first. Your thoughts?

Stimulus
dispute
at state's
top court