VISUAL FLIGHT RULES NOT OK?

Doesn't it strike you odd the amount of furor caused by the potential of full body scans as an invasion of privacy while entering an airport, yet no one so much as bats an eye at taking off their shoes, belt, etc. and getting patted down any more?

BTW, the picture above shows why we need everyone to go through the scanner....the person here was concealing (or at least attempting to conceal) a handgun.

Let's face it folks, an airport screener will be bored to tears looking at the outlines (and pantie lines) of the sea of humanity going through the screening lines each day. Like the average airport terminal doesn't look like the before pictures of a Jenny Craig commercial anyway.......

T.W.A.K. 2009 DOUCHEBAG OF THE YEAR

Plenty to pick from this year for the coveted douche bag of the year award....liars, crooks, thieves, morons. Partisan politicians wishing bad will on the country, calling the President a liar, and traveling thousands of miles in order to cheat on his wife. Talk show hosts sleeping with his employees and cheaters abound.

But one has elevated himself to a very lofty status. Working in tandem with his P.R. firm to create a public persona of a straight laced, principled man...a family man, devoted to his mom, and desperately missing his father. Strong, driven, devoted newlywed and new father, dedicated in his off time to various charities, including the one he himself founded (photo op...photo op...photo op).

It isn't just that he cheated on his wife, it isn't just his reality so opposite the perception he worked so hard to maintain. It was the manner with which he sought, the manner in which he stalked, the manner in which he used whatever porn star, waitress and bar hag he could find to suit his fancy. He was and is a sexual predator of the lowest order.

Sources closest to him have intimated he thought these trashy women were just part of the perks of his profession, existing only to gratify him sexually as long as he chose to consume them, an appalling capacity for arrogance.

When he was finally caught, when his sexual house of cards finally crumbled down, he did what a little boy does...cower in fear and said nothing. Remains hidden away in his shell to this day, instead of meeting his problems head-on, such as David Letterman had, or as expected from the son of no less than a Green Beret. Of course we now know he is a mere fraction of the man his father was.

Add to this the knowledge that this was not an isolated slip-up or two dalliances, but apparently a pattern of behavior that extended throughout his marriage, and during his engagement as well.....and you have another record for him to put in his trophy case, for slime. And left in the wake of his backwash is a loving family; an ex-model who gave him two lovely children, a charitable foundation completely lacking in credibility, corporations who spent untold millions of dollars hiring him as their spokesmen now back peddling through a public relations fiasco, and an elderly mother held hostage of a rabid press seeking every morsel of his sordid affairs.

For all of this, and probably more which is as yet undiscovered, I nominate for the 2009 Douche bag of the year......Eldrick "Tiger" Woods.

THE CONGRESS IS OUT OF ORDER

Say what you want about the health care bill, it certainly is not perfect, and should be corrected once they merge the Senate and House bills, but as you watch the videos, one has to wonder what on earth is happening to the professionalism of our Congress floor?

The video below is enough to make ones skin crawl....Joe Lieberman, veteran public servant getting slammed for an extra minute of cloture by Saturday Night Lives Al Franken.


Which prompts John McCain responding to the objection (remember Lieberman is a long time friend of McCain, and bunk mate on the McCain for President campaign). according to McCain, he has never seen an objection such as this on the Senate floor.



Which of course fires up the tape library at MSNBC, who knew immediately that McCain not only had heard of objections such as this, but made them himself in the past.....

Here is McCain again with a diatribe about the number of lobbyists slime-ing up the Senate building, and basically the entire manner in which the health care bill process has taken shape.

I could show video after video of Congressmen going after each other during this debate, and before. Let me say that I am not trying to slam John McCain here. His actions were somewhat provoked, to be sure. I will save you the ten minutes of the McCain Baucus heavyweight fight, which is conducted in much the same manner. And these are indicative of the general tenor of Congress today.

My point is, where is the civility that used to be shown each other (at least publically on the floor)? For gawd sakes, this is the highest legislative body in the land. This is the same floor where Lincoln, Douglas and Henry Clay debated. This is supposed to be this countries shining example of how democracy works. These Senate hearings are supposed to be conducted in a dignified, parliamentary manner. And it just isn't this latest row over health care...this has been happening over the past decade.....so much so, one Congressman actually heckled the President during the State of the Union speech (remember...."You lie!!").

My point.....are they looking over these tapes over their holiday break and seeing the errors of their ways, and do they know...really know how completely disenchanted and ashamed the American people are with them over the course of the past decade? Entertaining drama aside, this simply cannot go on. They must make up there mind who they want to be....the highest legislative body in the land, a bad Belushi frat house movie, or worthy of an hour long Jerry Springer special?

Say what you want about our recent Presidents, it is our Congress that is the biggest failure, no matter who is the majority party...they spend like drunken sailors, they pull completely partisan games (there barely is anything held to an up or down vote), they stick unrelated pieces of pork onto everything, and they are a swear word away from a Korean congress type brawl on the Senate floor. Hopefully they all will receive a copy of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington for Christmas this year.....

And just when you think things can't get any worse......here comes Speaker Reid to prove us wrong......who surmises that if you are against the health care (which by the way is NOT the Obama health care bill anymore since about ten committees have picked over its dead carcass), you are in fact, A RACIST. See the video below....

HEALTH CARE BILL : A TRIP TO THE SAUSAGE FACTORY

"There are two things you don't want to see being made...

sausage and legislation"

This morning the Senate got what President Obama desperately wanted, 60 filibuster breaking votes on the Senate's version of the health care proposal. Hailed as a success for the President, who achieved what could not be achieved in over 6 decades (any health care reform legislation), and the leadership of Senate speaker Harry Reid, once thought to be an oxymoron.

The bill passed is a behemoth 2,700 pages, which is estimated to cost nearly $871 billion over 10 years, starting in 2014. It will benefit 31 million uninsured Americans, half through an expansion of Medicaid and S-chip programs. It will be paid through a combination of payroll tax increases for our richest Americans, a tax on premium health insurance policies, and cuts in medicare growth in the future. Proponents say the measure will actually begin to reduce the deficit in 2011.

Of course, to get a bill this size through required negotiations, and some "pay for play" vote acquisitions....and not with the opposition party....amongst the Democratic party itself. Nebraska's Ben Nelson got additional medicaid for his state and tighter rules on abortion coverage, additional funds going to Vermont (for Bernie Sanders, an Independent), Connecticut's Lieberman flipped flopped his way to an elimination of the public option to the senate bill, and Baucus of Montana got asbestos coverage for his residents, a victim of working in Montana's mines.

These considerations to maintain the 60 vote margin draw its share of animosity on the Senate floor. Lindsey Graham, never at a loss for words said they reminded him of "seedy Chicago politics" OUCH. Oklahoma's Tom Coburn said "what the American people should pray for is that somebody can't make the vote." How God was supposed to make that happen...car crash, blizzard, heart attack...wasn't specified, but so much for the power of prayer...everybody showed.

To reach these levels of animosity on the senate floor, you would have to go back to the civil war era. Over 100 filibusters, the reading of a proposal which took the senate floor nearly all day, and objections to unanimous consent requests for additional meetings to floor debate times.

"...if the Republicans want to exercise every single right they have under the rules,

they can keep us until Christmas eve, no doubt about it.

But to what end, I ask? To what end?

We're going to have the vote at 1am that requires 60 votes, and then why stay here until Christmas eve to do what they know we are going to do?"

a little Iowa common sense from Tom Harkin

What is left in the Senate bill is not 100% approved by anyone, as substantial changes had to be made. Ted Kennedy's widow described it perfectly, when she was quoted as saying her late husband knew..."a half a loaf is better than no bread at all."

Now that the senate version has achieved the last important vote requiring 60 votes, it will be merged with the major differences in the House version, then will require simple majorities in both Houses, and the Democrats have those votes virtually sewn up. What it will end up looking like is any ones guess, but clearly, like sausage, it will contain components distasteful to some, and sickening to others. Public options, market place competitions, real tort reform, freedom to shop for health insurance policies out of state, even how it will be paid for is all on the table. One thing for sure, the Republicans will not go down without a fight....should be very interesting, indeed.

THE FALL FROM GRACE

"Wake up with a stranger, it's not something you plan,

One night in a world of pain, and you finally understand,

Not all the kings horses, not all the kings men,

Could put it back together again"

Stevie Nicks Fall from Grace

Tiger Woods, the prodigal son, the intensely loyal son and family man. Strong in habit, strong in will, standard bearer for self-discipline, Tiger Woods. What a character corporate America built. The King of endorsements and America's champion.

But what we did not see was what was lurking behind the tears shed over the loss of his father and the pride he displayed over his wife and two newborns. What we didn't see was a secret life allegedly so sordid, so against the grain of the mainstream, that the fall from the top he is enduring may take weeks in a slow motion free fall unlike any other American icon.

If one is to believe the daily reports from the parade of wanton women and porn star prostitutes, in addition to his personal mea culpas, Tiger Woods began his philandering before and throughout his marriage. Where it begins and where it has ended is anybodies guess; the latest report being sex parties on his boat with 10 to 15 women at a time. What transpired in the privacy of his multi-million dollar yacht will be speculated for years to come. My guess is, anything goes...sex, drugs, alcohol, whatever. My speculation is, the worse is yet to come.

So what now? He has broken no law, only the hearts of millions who idolized him, and the game he so dominated. Needless to say, many of the reports, if true cannot be ignored, and quite possibly never forgiven. His penance began almost immediately with legions of press dogging his every move, and television coverage 24/7, which has yet to recede three weeks later.

For the record, I cannot place the blame for his predicament on anyone but Tiger himself, but I can tell you one thing....on the professional golf tour there are bags of temptation only equaled by the bags of money you can make. Temptation and boredom is a killer combination. Add to this legions of predators waiting to get their hooks into him, and it spelled disaster from day one.

Temptation any man would be weakened by, let alone a boy struggling to become a man. A boy coddled and propped up on a pedestal by his father, and his every action quietly controlled. And when the controls were lifted, he succumbed to (apparently) every temptation available to him. The prodigal son has fallen from grace, and with everyday of his gutless silence, his reputation and stature falls a little more towards the depths.

Strange and ironic, this self imposed exile from the public that loved him and lifted him to the lofty status of an icon. For someone next in lineage of a full blown Green Beret to meekly hide behind his web site as his sole source of communication is as ignorant as it is yellow. The American public....YOUR American public deserves much more from you, Mr. Woods. This is as good a time as any to become a man, sir. And a man stands up and faces the music...it's what you father would have done. Of course you are a mere sliver of a man your father was. Your post accident actions (or inaction) proves that you have indeed betrayed everyone in your life; your wife, your children, your family, and with your gutless hiding, the very public you will soon want so despirately to forgive and forget.

Everyone makes mistakes, but a man owns up to them. It's called character, look it up. For unlike golf, in the game of life, not many get mulligans.

HONESTY IN POLITICS

HAS THE WORKFORCE STABILIZED?

As you can see from the chart above, unemployment, although unacceptably high, seems to have stablized, and for the first time in over the two years of recession, we have attained a level of stability in the workforce. As was the case in October, the leading positive was in the temporary help sector, which nonetheless indicates a need to increase workforce levels based on demand. Needless to say, retail with the holidays nearing have played its part as well.

President Obama has held a forum on economic growth with the nation's top business leaders focusing on job creation, which is the next step to a full recovery. But can or will jobs be created if the banks are hesitant to loan capital?

Say what you want about President Obama (and I have said plenty), we do seem to be weathering the storm under his leadership, whether a result of his efforts, or despite them. With elections fast approaching, and his opposition hoping for his failure, I would say he is doing about as well as can be, or could be expected. He was put into a situation unlike no other President in recent history, and little historical success stories to draw examples from. For now, FOR NOW, I vow to leave him alone and let him keep on with his agenda. I think we all should reserve judgement until at least the second quarter and see if he can spark some economic growth.

Let's be fair about this....he was thrown headfirst into an economic quaqmire for which many would not have been quite as successful as he has. For his (nearly) first year, I would rate him a solid C+