My next blog -- a gift from God

I was having trouble picking a topic I wanted to blog on next. The frustration was reaching a crescendo when God directed my attention to an article. Steve Johnson, a wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills, dropped a game winning pass, in sudden death overtime, in the end zone, against the hated Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers went on to win the game. Crestfallen, Johnson later went on Twitter with this comment:

 "I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO..."

I guess God must be from Pittsburgh.

You've all seen it. The batter goes up to the plate and just before taking position, he crosses himself or says a little silent prayer. The running back scores a touchdown and touches his lips and blows a kiss to God. The basketball player makes a religious sign just before shooting the free throw. I'm going to give the majority of these athletes the benefit of the doubt. I'm thinking many of them are just giving thanks for their health and abilities that allow them to be in this position. But you know a good number of them actually think like Johnson. That is, that God somehow takes time from his busy day of being the Lord to make decisions about the plays and outcomes of ball games.

I don't think so.

But just in case, I waited until there were no ballgames on before I asked him to help me pick out a topic!

"I was against this celebration before I was for it"

In one of the most incredible displays of hubris in recent memory, your favorite "almost President" and mine, John Kerry, has surpassed even his most ardent supporter's expectations.

In an article from BostonHerald.com, it was revealed that Mr. Kerry has rented out the 2000 seat Boston Symphony hall for $85,000 from his campaign cache. He is throwing a party to celebrate his 25 years in the senate and 45 years of public service. The cost of attending this ranges from $70 per ticket to $4800. No, that's not a misprint.

This is unbelievable  on so many levels I'm not sure where to start. But here goes.

Call me dumb but when a person reaches a milestone in their career, doesn't somebody else usually throw them a party to honor them? To have to arrange your own celebration and use money from your campaign contributions should give you pause shouldn't it? I guess getting beaten by "W", who everyone supposedly thought was a dolt and the worst President ever didn't provide any clues, huh?

Also, isn't it a little insensitive to choose this time of year to solicit money? The holidays is when many charities campaign for donations for their worthwhile causes. Folks are in a more giving spirit and more likely to help at this time of year. Kerry is the richest Senator in the country with individual net worth at around 239 million. He has 2.7 million in his campaign war chest even though his next reelection bid is still four years away. But being the clever politician that he is, he sees this as a good chance to "get part of the action".

Of course, many of entertainment's elites will be in attendance. I can think of a few other more deserving causes that they could lend their fame and fortune to. Aren't they the ones who rail at the rich Republicans in America who don't care about the poor and don't pay enough taxes.? So what do they do? They have a little $4800 a plate get together to help Kerry raise money to pay the taxes on his yacht. Do you think that maybe this was why Kerry didn't connect with the little guy in 2004?

Phil Johnston, former Massachusetts Democratic Party leader is helping to organize this Dec 13th gala. In a statement he said, and I quote, "It’s a measure of John Kerry's strength among Democrats that this event should be hugely successful." That kind of says it all about liberal Democrats doesn't it.

In 2010's understatement of the year, Boston University political professor Thomas Whalen said the extravagant blowout "could be a turnoff to struggling Bay Staters." Guess that's why you're a professor, Tom.
For those of you who were wondering if Kerry could fill the shoes of arrogance and entitlement of the late Teddy Kennedy, wonder no more.

"Johnny, we hardly know ye". And that's good.

"They did what?" awards Vol I -3rd Edition

1. The "if she sinks to the bottom she must be a witch" award to the evangelists in Ghana who tortured a witch "confession" out of a 72 year old grandmother and then proceeded to burn her alive. The leader of the group, a pastor, claims it was just an exorcism gone wrong. Religious fanaticism again in one of its finest hours.

2. The "did you want nuts with that?" award to the producers of the new whipped cream product that also contains about 18% alcohol. Not surprisingly, it has become a big hit on college campuses where our youth go to learn how to deal with life's many challenges.

3. The "where was Al Gore when we really needed him?" award to Sergey Zimov, director of the internationally funded Northeast Science Station. According to Zimov, even though the global warming event of 10,000 years ago was significantly worse than today's alleged event, it was still man that was responsible for the extinction of the woolly mammoth. Contrary to the long held belief that perhaps the warming event and extinction was caused by either solar activity or a slight shift in the earth's orbit, Zimov is sure that early man's "over-hunting" of the great creature was the real culprit. Not to mention, Mr. Zimov, if only man had left these beautiful beasts alone and starved or frozen to death, none of us would be here today burning all these fossil fuels.

4. The "that will  be 150,000,000,000 pesos for one hour please" award to Angeles Duran of Spain. Duran has registered the Sun with a local notary public as being her property.She took the step in September after reading about an American man who had registered himself as the owner of the moon and most planets in our solar system. Duran plans to charge everyone for use of the Sun and give the proceeds to charities while keeping only a paltry 10% for herself. Oddly, there is an international agreement that prohibits nations from claiming ownership of planets or stars but says nothing about individuals claiming ownership. Talk about your world class loopholes!

5. The "I didn't kill her, I killed the demon inside her" award to Michael Brea. Brea, a part time actor on the canceled "Ugly Betty" TV series, actually said that after he hacked his mother to death because he thought she was possessed. Brea is currently residing in a rubber room in Bellevue hospital where he receives daily visits from God.

6. The "one too many friend requests" award to the woman in Toledo, Ohio who stabbed a man over a Facebook posting. The last we heard, the man defriended her on his homepage.

 And the winner of this Edition's awards:

7. The "who could have predicted it?" award to a mall in Cerritos, California (where else?). The mall food court was closed Friday morning when a fight broke out amongst the patrons. The mall was having a midnight madness event to get a jump on Black Friday shopping. The fight broke out around 2:30 AM. Seems there were a few intoxicated shoppers who don't subscribe to California's "can't we all just get along" philosophy. Go figure.

TSA - "the good hands people"

Once again the powers that be have heeded my latest blog (11/21/2010). In stunning news, the Obama administration announced that they have brokered a deal between the TSA and AMA. The two groups have agreed in principle to a solution for the grievances of the air traveling public.

In a joint announcement, the principals said they are using a "two birds with one stone" approach to this troubling situation. Beginning on the first of the new year, interns and first year residents will take over some of the duties currently performed by the TSA agents. It will work like this: if you opt out of the x-ray scanner you will be sent to private cubicle where you will receive an abbreviated annual physical. The men will be asked to "turn and cough" and then have a prostate exam while the ladies will have the breast and gynecologic exam performed. Assuming the doctors find no cancerous tumors or  C4 explosives, you will be allowed to board your flight. The cost of this will be covered by Obamacare. Of course, as also dictated by the Obamacare legislation, you will be fined if it is determined that you did not previously purchase flight insurance.

The administration was quick to note that this agreement with the AMA was only temporary. A spokesman stated: "we are presently working on reprogramming the military's bomb disposal robots to do the physical exam. When we bring these non gender specific automatons on line it should calm the public's fears about being groped by gay TSA agents."

In related news, Al Gore has petitioned the TSA to allow him to set up carbon credit kiosks in the exam rooms. Reasoned the world's biggest producer of CO2, "as long as you're willing to let us take away your last shred of dignity, why not your last dollar too?"

Halt!......your privacy or your life!

OK. I admit it. I have been dodging this issue for a couple of weeks now. The TSA versus the air traveling public. It's a tough one for sure. I am all for the security aspect and a firm believer that it is the government's job to protect it's citizens from all enemies foreign and domestic. I guess it's all in how it's accomplished.

Do you remember the scene in the satirical movie "Airplane" from the 70's? The bad guys were moving right through the security checkpoint with ammunition belts, guns and bazookas but as soon as an innocent 80-year old grandma came through she was grabbed and thrown up against the wall to be strip searched. Pretty funny at the time. Who could have imagined that it would actually come to that? (The grandma part, not the gun toting guys part)

There appears to be no doubt that the current system had become way too intrusive. The scanner system is just an excuse for a group of  government employees to enjoy some free porn pics while getting get paid for it. The heck of it is, it just might catch a person hiding explosives too. And the TSA's assurances that these images are not saved or stored is laughable. That's not even considering whether the radiation produced by these things is harmful. Again the TSA  says no problem. They'll be the first to apologize when we all start showing up at emergency rooms. Here's hoping you haven't already been fined for not buying insurance.

The pat downs are nothing short of legalized sexual assault. That's bad in itself but when little children are treated like convicted criminals during a cell search, it's way past unacceptable. As one weary mother stated recently, "it's bad enough that I was just groped and fondled, but I do not want my three year old daughter to grow up thinking that it is fine for complete strangers to touch her inappropriately."

If you had any doubt before where I stand on homeland security, you will not after this. Here's the dilemma as I see it. We're a bunch of politically correct wienies. It's about common sense again folks. There are certain people that by their appearance tend to raise suspicion. I am not talking skin color or religious preference here. I'm talking about unusual appearance, attitude, demeanor, types of carry on baggage etc. By the same token, it's pretty obvious that some folks are not a threat. You could pick them out easily and you haven't had the top notch training of a TSA employee. If a wand exam or metal detector walk-through does not change that perception then why all the extra security exams on these folks? As for the "suspicious" types they can be pulled out for further security measures.

Is this profiling? Damn right it is! I think we all agree that the whole point of this is to keep an airliner with hundreds of people on it from being blown up. I think we all also agree that according to our Constitution, no one should be denied their rights due to race, creed , religion, sexual preference etc. etc. etc. Well, if you look or act like you have a desire to harm your fellow travelers, you will be inconvenienced for a short while, but assuming you are clean after the extra security check, your rights will not be abrogated in the least. You can get on the flight. If it's all right for a "no fly" list to exist, how is it not OK for a security officer to pull aside a person he or she thinks is suspicious for further checking.

Given the advanced state of technology in this country I can't believe there is not a better, less invasive system being developed. Until that comes along we will have this system. But to subject everyone to it, even if it is randomly, does not make sense. Random, smandom. You may recall there were thousands of people "randomly" vaporized on 9/11/01. It will be interesting to see if the Thanksgiving boycott of these security measures produces any improvement in reason or whether it will just jam up travel to the point of gridlock. Wait a minute. Here's a thought. Let's send Janet Napolitano and Barack Obama through the x-ray machine and pat down. That might help them to decide what changes might be necessary. There's no possibility their "junk" would show up on You Tube, right?

To my way of thinking, the more vulnerable area of air travel is luggage and freight. They are so much easier to conceal destructive devices in and there is so much more of it. I don't know this for a fact but my feeling from reading is that there is a lot less security in these areas than in human travel. Plots have been thwarted recently and Al Qaeda readily admits that it is now concentrating on easier cargo type targets that will not have the same impact as great loss of life, but will cripple the American economy and instill fear. And besides, they claim they are cheaper to finance. At least someone believes in Capitalism.

In the meantime, don't forget, the Constitution does not deny you the right to travel by other means. Ain't it a great document?

"They did what?" Awards Volume I- 2nd Edition

1. The "can I eat it until I need glasses" award to The Cheesecake Factory for their dish Pasta Carbonara  -- described as spaghettini with smoked bacon, green peas and a garlic-parmesan cream sauce --and loaded with 2,500 calories and 60 grams of saturated fat. It was dubbed "food porn" by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.


2. The "take two buckets of water and call us in the morning" award to Mayor Bloomberg and the NYC council for closing several fire stations during night hours as a budget cut measure.


3. The "one sarsaparilla coming up old timer!" award to the Japanese vending machine company who has marketed a vending machine which, using facial recognition, recommends a canned beverage for you based on your age and gender.


4. The "if it's Tuesday this must be Belgium" award to RyanAir Airlines for landing over 100 passengers in Liege, Belgium who were scheduled to land near Paris, France. They were told that due to the late departure of the flight from Morocco the airport in Beauvais, France had closed for the evening. What is most unusual about this is that the passengers refused to disembark for buses. The flight crew left and the passengers remained in total darkness.


5. The "he ruled/she ruled" award to the citizens of Alameda County in California (where else) who elected the nation's first transgendered judge to the county court. 

And in first place for this Edition:

6. The "Al Gore made me do it" award to rocker Neil Young. A warehouse blaze that  destroyed $1.1 million worth of Young's music equipment and memorabilia broke out in his custom hybrid 1959 Lincoln Continental a fire official said. Young's pride and joy, which he calls LincVolt and which runs on electric batteries and a biodiesel-powered generator, caught fire in the garage and the flames spread to the warehouse. The problem appears to have occurred in the charging system. Mr. Gore was unavailable for comment.

"They did what?" Awards Volume I - 1st Edition

1. The "when you absolutely, positively have to get there in a hurry" award -- To the sex shop in Alabama that opened up a drive through window.

2. The "nothing says I don't love you like self-immolation" award -- To the women who tried to set herself on fire at the G-20 summit.

3. The "Constitution? What Constitution?" award -- To the school in Sacramento, California (where else?) that made a boy take the American flag off his bicycle because it might cause "racial tension".

4. The "don't do as I do, do as I say" award -- To Obama's committee for overseeing waste in the stimulus plan for having their meeting at the Ritz-Carlton in Phoenix.

5. The "go ahead, jump" award --to the web cam viewers who encouraged the Japanese man to commit suicide on the internet. Honorable mention to the deceased for not disappointing his adoring audience.

6. The "they said it couldn't be done" award -- to Celebrity Cruise Lines for coming up with a cruise where all the passengers actually lost weight.

 And the top winner for this edition of "they did what?"

7. The "I'll keep doing this until the stupid voters get it right" award -- to Nancy Pelosi for her decision to keeping "leading" the democrats in Congress.

OK, open your wallets, here it comes (reference my blog of 8/27/2010)

 This news article from Breitbart: 

"A top UN panel on Friday called for increased taxes on carbon emissions and air and sea transport to raise 100 billion dollars a year for poor nations to combat climate change.

The group led by the prime ministers of Norway and Ethiopia also proposed a tax on international financial transactions for a UN fund aiming to be ready by 2020. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called the proposals "financially feasible and politically viable." Environment pressure groups said governments are duty-bound to follow the proposal". - 11/07/2010

As Ronald Reagan might have said to these climate demagogues, "there you go again, taking a false premise and making policy decisions on it".

It will take some time but someday we will all be wearing halter monitors that will measure our CO2 output when we breathe. We'll be taxed accordingly. The attached warning label will read like an airplane restroom: "any effort to tamper with or disconnect this device will result in severe criminal penalties". Think George Orwell's "1984".

You're probably saying Big Al has finally gone off the deep end, but you have to admit that with today's science anything is possible. H.G. Wells was a visionary author whose "wild imaginings" about the future have either already come to pass or the technology now exists for them.

And while I'm at it, this same article is an example of how America will be treated if we abdicate our sovereignty and become just another member of the so-called global community. With countries like Ethiopia and Norway calling the shots how can we go wrong? After all, Scandinavia decided to give Obama the Nobel peace prize just for being elected. A little liberal-leaning maybe? The UN and Western Europe would like nothing better than for us to just be "one of the socialist guys" (reference my blog of 9/23/2010).

The UN does a lot of good work around the world. It's there after natural disasters and it continually advocates for the underprivileged countries and people in the world. Therein lies it's abundant worth to mankind. But when it tries to intervene in politics and dictate world policy it shows it's ineptitude. 

If  there's anything we are "duty-bound" to do it's to expose this power and money grab for what it is.

School marm to town marshall: "Who was that masked man anyway"?

By now you have all heard about the Asian youth who boarded a flight from Hong Kong to Vancouver disguised as a very old Caucasian man. (see above) Using a bogus boarding pass he passed through all security stations without anyone catching on. About two hours into the flight he got up, went to the lavatory, removed the disguise and quietly came back to his seat. A flight attendant alerted the pilot who radioed ahead and the youth was arrested on arrival in Vancouver. He immediately applied for asylum in Canada. The why of this is yet to be revealed.

Aside from all the obvious Benjamin Button jokes, this bizarre episode of news of the weird begs several questions:

First, if you can morph into someone and not a soul recognizes you, why would you have to go to another country for asylum? Couldn't you just live there undetected for as long as you like?

Secondly, if you're going to travel incognito, why not pick a disguise the chicks would go for?

Thirdly, is airport security just there to inconvenience the innocent travelers? Get a grip folks, this guy had a mask and an incorrect boarding pass.

Lastly, I've heard that Vancouver has some of the world's best Chinese restaurants, but are they worth this?

A caution for your future airline travels guys. That lovely, vivacious blond sitting next to you.....I'd wait until she has to use the restroom before I'd make any moves.

The morning after -- A Limerick

There once was a man named Barack
The head of a liberal flock
He'd spend and he'd spend
Like cash had no end
Now the country's completely in hock.

He sold us on hope and on change
But his version of that is real strange
It means take what you've got
Put it all in a pot
So the wealth he can just rearrange

Companies now live in fear
Sure that he'll soon commandeer
Their plants and their stocks
Til they're all on the rocks
And well in the government sphere

Barack thinks we have too much pride
So our country he tends to deride
He goes overseas
Just to appease
That's not something we need to abide

The electorate soon became tense
All they wanted was some common sense
So they went to the polls
And now the bell tolls
All at the incumbents' expense

The chickens have come home to roost
The election has given a boost
To the way things should be
Now Obama can see
That the country's no longer seduced

Congress he'll evade even more
As he asks "what's the hating for"?
Well, I'll clear up the doubt
Because as it turns out
You're not who we've been waiting for!

There's more politicians to shelve
As into this mess we still delve
And "The One" who must go
Won't be running the show
Not after two thousand and twelve!