For weeks, "Miss Scarlet" has been promising a turkey that is "going to be delicious". She has told me how she does it numerous times and with each telling, I would still reserve some doubt since the turkey wasn't fried-the was I like them. Our whole experience began at the Wal-Mart on Princess Anne Road in Virginia Beach last week among the hoards of other pre-holiday shoppers. I knew this was going to be a good experience because I got a GREAT parking spot, right by the front door of the food-side of the store.

Now, I'd seen Wal-Marts in the Chicago area mobbed, but they didn't have anything on this location. You know, there are some Wal-Mart stores that do over a million dollars of business in a single weekend and I don't suppose that "black friday" would make a difference to many of them-they stay busy ALL the time.

So we head into the store and get one of the few remaining shopping carts to begin our shopping experience. As Miss Scarlet dove for the bread aisle, I remained outside the lane as "high cover"-I had one of the most important jobs that any man cold ever be entrusted with-forget the President's nuclear "football" suitcase, I was charged with "watching the purse". As we made our way through the store, I noticed other men who were given the same responsibility I had been assigned, but unlike me, I don't think they took it as seriously. You see, I take the "brat-strap", the little seat-belt for children and latch it through the straps of the purse for an added measure of security. Miss Scarlet was quite impressed with my forward-thinking in regard to the security of her most sacred purse-the black one with red lipstick prints all over it. Another woman saw it and complimented me on "having a nice purse", to which I gave her my best gay-like lisp and thanked her, making up some story about where I got it, how much I paid and how much I just luuuuuuuuved it!.

As we negotiated our way through the store, I noticed that sometimes, Miss Scarlet get's a little too involved in shopping to remember that other folks are shopping, too. Not unlike some who leave their carts parked in the middle of the aisle or others who meet friends and strike up a conversation at a "choke point", forcing others shoppers to stack up, sometimes Miss Scarlet will make a turn or stop and not turn her head to look for oncoming traffic.

Remind me to install a few extra mirrors on her car.

Once we had all that we came for, I made a poor choice for a checkout line-these have been problematic ever since the advent of "self checkout" which I tend to stay away from.

The people who were checking out in front of us were buying several items among them, two bed comforter/bedsheet/pillow case sets. When the items scanned, the lady said "Those are supposed to be only $7.00!" Which meant that the whole line was stopped while someone was sent to verify the price and determine the reason why this particular customer thought the item was "only $7.00". As we couldn't help but overhear, I turned to Miss Scarlet and we shared the same thought with a deliberate sigh-there's no way these comforter sets are $7.00. So while the investigation was carried out, we used this opportunity to place the majority of our items on the belt for speedy checkout.

When the investigation was finished, aparently someone had found a sign was turned the wrong way to reflect the items in the double-sided bin were reversed, the $7.00 items were displayed as over $20.00 and the $27.00 items were displayed as $7.00. When the mistake was revealed the lady said, "well then we don't want them!" and proceeded to lecture an overworked and underpaid cashier about the finer points of running a department store. I'm sure the cashier took all of this information in and will bring it up at the next Wal-Mart Board meeting, but her relief arrived and I woulding be at all surprized if she used her break to go and inject heroine into her brain with a turkey baster. This poor lady looked stressed and honestly, who could blame her.

Once we had the groceries unloaded and stored, Miss Scarlet began doing whatever she does in the kitchen-most of which I do not understand although anyone can appreciate the results. Her first salvo was a batch of chocolate-chip cookies that were to die for.

Full Disclosure: I'm a 300+ pound trucker, if anyone could be an authority on the subject of good food, it'd be me. If you are ever confronted with the choice of taking a food reccommendation from a skinny person or a fat person, trust the fat person-we might not be pleasent to look at, but by God we know where good food is and how to get it.

During the days leadning up to Thanksgiving, Miss Scarlet was a whirlwind of activity and my power meter was grabbing gears. Wonderful smells began drifting through the house which hadn't really happened since I began living here-my ex-wife never did too much in the way of holiday cooking, preferring instead to go to a Chinese resturant or, waiting for an invitation from somewhere else to arrive-sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't but I could count on my ex-wife  not doing much  to make a holiday  meal or so much as a good cup of coffee.

I certainly think I "traded up". Note to self: Make an honest woman out of Miss Scarlet in the near future.

My very dear friends, Linda and Larry Johnson were our guests for Thanksgiving dinner and they were pleased to meet all 20 of our cats. Several nights ago, Virginia Beach Animal Control Officer Jane Cason stopped by our home for coffee and some of Miss Scarlet's chocolate chip cookies and said that she "couldn't smell one cat" and complimented us on the level of care we provide our animals. We were very flattered indeed, but the honor belongs to Miss Scarlett or as I like to call her, "Suzy homemaker". I showed her how to care for so many animals, but she executes the program flawlessly.

Everything from the turkey to the pumpkin pie was prepared flawlessly. I don't recall having such a good holiday meal since my Mother took ill and was no longer able to cook. In many instances, I have had to apologize to my Mother's spirit for giving credit to Miss Scarlet for surpassing my Mother's cooking.

After the meal was over, Larry looked at my outdoor electric socket that has failed and pointed out the "reset" button, which brought it back online providing a source of electric power for my soon to be installed Christmas lights-yes, I'm going to decorate this year only because Miss Scarlet has asked me to.

These electrical devices are quite vexing and since I'm terrified of anything "electric", I always defer to someone who can cite building codes to me from memory and that'd be Larry. So now, not only can we run our Christmas lights, we can also have our path-lights back and Miss Scarlet likes a well-lit home.

All credit belongs to Miss Scarlet-having her in my life has not only given me a newfound purpose to redirect my life away from begin an Over-the-Road driver, she has taken my humble little house and turned it into a home, full of love, understanding and a lot of good things to eat-her southern roots and style would cause her cooking to be called "comfort food", but I call it "home".

That's what I'm most thankful for this holiday season.

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I've been hearing about the federal bailout of these banks, insurance companies and other financial giants. I heard somewhere that if the government were to simply send the 75 billion dollars to the taxpayers, we'd all get something like $130,000.00.

I did it simply by dividing the 75 billion into the 300 million Americans and coming up with $25,000 each. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, but suffice it to say that if the Feds had given the people the money-you know, the ones who actually went out and did something to earn it, we'd probably spend it better for the most part. Regardless if it's $130,000.00 or as "little" as $25,000.00, I think the reason that the government wants to make the "money available to lend" rather than simply giving it to the people is simple-if they gave it to us, they couldn't use it to control us as well as they could if it was loaned to us and we had to work to pay it back.

You see, I have my own dashboard theroy about economics-I think that the government wants you to own a home and banks or other financial institutions to lend you money so that you can't be entirely free. Think about it.

If the government did something really outragous (which is happening a lot lately), many people can't take the time required to go protest anywhere because they have these things called "jobs" that they need to pay these things called "bills". Many people can't afford to take the time off or allow themselves to be thrown in jail because if they did have a job, they'd probably lose it and once that happens, they lose their car, their home in short, everything they've worked for. I also think that this is another reason why the Democrats didn't want any part of Social Security privatized because although the market is down right now, it's probably going to go back up in excess of 20,000 at some point in the future and provide a better return on the private portion of the taxpayers Social Security "contribution" than the actual benefit-that's the part that the taxpayer would own that the government couldn't touch-and that makes the Democrats nuts.

There's also a movement afoot to seize the over four trillion dollars tied up in 401k's that workers own, the government would then "deposit" that into your Social Security account and pay you the princely sum of 3% interest on the money they just stole from you.

However, if you die before you retire, your family would get only half of what the government stole whereas before, they (Your family) would have gotten it all.

This is why I think the entire bailout is just smoke and mirrors-sure, they claim that now "We the people" are in a shotgun marriage with these financial institutions and when they pay us back, "We the people" will make money, but I doubt that the congress would ever have enough common sense to pay the return to the people who actually earned it-they'll just waste it on something else.

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I've been facinated with the Chevy HHR. I liked the Dodge PT Crusier, but the HHR get's my vote even though I'm a "Ford man".

My girlfriend didn't have a clue what I was talking about when I brought up the HHR in a recent conversation so on our way home last night, we stopped in at RK Chevrolet and I showed her the HHR. As you might imagine, we were approached almost at once by a salesperson. As much as I hated to tell her, I told the salesperson right away that we were not in a position to buy a new car nor would we be for the foreseeable future, we were just looking. We drove past the Corvettes and I drooled, we drove by a white Silvarado pickup and I drooled some more. Having said that, I can't see the logic in buying a car by taking out a load with interest on a product that is only going to lose it's value the moment you drive it off the lot. When you calculate the costs of ownership and what a repair might cost you, it makes a lot more sense to just buy a $1500.00 beater that get's you there and back-when it breaks down, it'd cost less to replace the car than to have it fixed.

But I think now more than ever, any car dealer would really appreciate any business they could get.

It's sad to see what has happened to the American auto industry but I think it'd be dishonest to say they don't have any of the responsibility in the matter and the United Auto Workers union have led their greed translate into a sense of entitlement for many of their employees and labor costs that are leaving the American nameplates unable to compete.  There was even a strike because the autoworkers were caterwauling about their health benefits co-pays for medications were "too high" SOURCE

The increase was from $5.00 to a maximum of $40.00

These quotes are pretty funny in retrospect:

"We are willing to give some relief on health care costs, but we can't go as far as they are pushing," said Dan Donnellon, UAW shop chairman at the Warren plant and a worker there for 17 years. "I think we are fighting over exactly what the Big Three will be dealing with later this year. A lot of other locals have been supportive of us, knowing that."

"We've got a lot of older guys here who built this plant. We are willing to work with the company, but they are gouging us. If health care isn't the No. 1 issue for our union yet, it's going to be," said Frank Stuglin, a UAW servicing representative.

It seems to me that these attitudes were pretty short sighted-I mean given the fact that the big three automakers are all but on life-support and Congress is debating if they should pull the plug or not. I mean, if your not willing to make any sacrafice at all to help the company compete and survive, maybe you'd better think about a career opportunity at Wal-Mart or Burger King because as much as I hate to say it, "the company" doesn't "owe you" a thing and if your labor and benefit costs are so high the company can't compete, it's going to go down and leave you with nothing.

Now, if these companies go out of business the burden of the retired workers will probably fall on-you guessed it-the taxpayers and you know what? As a taxpayer, I don't like the idea of being told to pay more in what I earn to provide benefits to those with the arrogant sense of entitlement that some autoworkers have been noted for.

I also find this "they owe us" attitude pretty offensive in light of the fact that I know many people, and I'm sure you do too, who don't make anywhere near what your average auto worker makes, had no benefits whatsoever for themselves or their children and work just as hard each and every day. These workers are made to work on holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas without time and a half or even a small git card of any kind from their employer.

I remember several years ago, UPS drivers were on strike. I was at the T/A truckstop in Ontario, California talking to several other "long haulers" at the lunch counter and we all agreed-it the UPS drivers didn't want their jobs, all of us sitting at the counter would be more than happy to take them-good pay and benefits already and being home every night?

Sign me up!

So, I'm sure that HHR is still sitting up at RK Chevrolet and it'll probably stay there for a while. I'm not saying that the UAW are the only ones to blame-I mean, it takes a special kind of idiot to arrive in Washington aboard a private, corporate jet and ask for billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to bail out a mis-managed company. If I were the CEO of a major automaker, I think I would have driven one of my own products to Washington, sold all the private jets (if I could find a buyer), sent down an edict that everyone in the company who needs to go anywhere in a 400 mile range drives, everyone going over 400 miles will fly coach and we'd do a lot more cost cutting to get our products costs down. We'd start at the top. No more expensive anything until the crisis has passed and asking the production employees to give up anything would be the last option.

However, if the cars aren't moving off the lot into the hands of the people who wold buy them, it won't be long before the plants would have to be set at idle until demand picked back up.

I hope that they can survive-but I'm not sure if we've passed the point of no return.

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I have had a tradition for at least five years-I don't decorate the interior or the exterior of my home for the holidays. This year, I saw no reason not to extend that streak nor could I justify any reason to give Virginia Power a Merry Christmas through a higher electric bill.

Note to Virginia Power: Quit patting yourself on the back for your "energy share" program and stop sending me solicitations to contribute. You'd shut off your own mothers electric service, so don't ask me to help you do what you could afford to do on your own.

However, my Girlfriend decided to play one of her aces and said in that southern drawl of hers, "Awwww baaybee, I haven't got to decorate in so long and this is our first Christmas together, I want it to be so special, so let's (read you) decorate the house". This led to climbing up in the attic and pulling down Christmas lights and finding that I have a roof that needs to be replaced-Happy Holidays, huh?

This all started when my girlfriend saw what my neighbors did for Halloween-they had all kinds of decorations, lights, blow-up dolls and other assorted decorations that made me realize that now in what has proven to be a very chilly fall, I'm going to be out stringing up Christmas lights. I have one neighbor who "goes Grizwald" every year and puts up a Christmas display that must set his power meter to spinning like Linda Blairs head in the Exorcist. I'm serious, he puts up so many lights his power meter must be grabbing gears every time he lights up the neighborhood!

Everybody tells me, "Oh, it's for the kids! We decorate for the kids!, we want them to have a memorable holiday with all the pretty lights".

Yea, whatever.

I don't have any kids, so forgive me if I'm not very worried about providing Christmas memories to anyone else's. In fact, the only Christmas memory I look forward to creating is that if "there really is a Santa Claus", there really is a Scrooge and ever since the real one wimped out, someone needs to step up and carry on the tradition. In fact, I'm all in favor of sending a shoulder-launched Stinger surface to air missle after a flying sleigh.

The worst part of being "the Jolly fat guy" I am throughout the year is, as fall begins to become winter, my phone starts ringing becasue somebody needs a Santa. I'm booked right up to the end of the year since the "Pet Pictures with Santa" has become so popular. I've been St. Nick for human children and don't have any touching stories to tell about that experience, although I could share some stories where I caught a few of them lying through their teeth and a few who needed to learn how to care for aforementioned teeth.

Let me tell you what, those Santa suits are more than enough to keep you warm and with all the headgear, the beard, the wig and the hat, your head will sweat like you were in Death Valley. Last year, I was sitting there and removed it to let my head cool off and one older lady walked by and said with the appropriate level of sarcasim, "Well, he should keep that on in case any children see him!" I hope every one of the real Santa's reindeer leave her a present on her roof.

So, we put a lighted angel in the front yard and I was hoping that this would be enough to make my Girlfriend happy and I'd get off easy-no such luck. I'm going to be fighting with Christmas lights all next weekend and a few weeks afterward, I'll get to take them down in what will probably be much colder weather, put them away and pay Virginia Power more than I'd like. I'll have every weekend booked, dressed up like Santa dealing with pets who are scared to death of this person in the strange suit with all the scents of other animals on it and don't understand why they should look happy. For the 8th or 9th straight year, I'll be at the Judeo-Christian Outreach center in the wee hours of Christmas morning, frying God-knows how many turkeys in the freezing cold for the less fortunate among us and wondering like I do every year if I'll have enough time to fry them all-I usually do but I worry anyway.

HO HO  (Explative Omittted) HO, and I wouldn't have my Christmas season any other way.

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I got a little bit of a shock when I read this story

It seems as though a woman was trying to buy a house a few doors down from her mother's home where she currently lives, the deal fell through and everything went south from there-and the former owner of the house might be heading south soon, too.

You see, the owner of the house is an illegal alien and apparently used his daughters Social Security number to obtain bank financing and deed the house. After the deal on the house fell through, the prospective buyer was ticked off at the seller, so she started raising a stink over the fact that he's here illegally. He's lost his job and ICE has paid him a visit with their fashionable chrome bracelets.

Now, if I'm driving across I-8 in California or Arizona, I'm not too far from the Mexican border and I've seen the illegals running from ICE agents. What do I do if I encounter one on the side of the road in distress? If I take them to a hospital or to some other form of help within the United States, I could be guilty of a crime. Source

So would someone please tell me how it is that a real estate agent or a bank can assist an illegal alien in buying a home and not be subjected to arrest for helping an illegal alien "further their crime" of staying in the United States?

Now, I can be pretty diabolical and downright evil when my hackles get raised, but this chick Nicole Griffin who was trying to buy the house and when she couldn't, decided to make the owners life miserable is not someone I'd want to have an an enemy. I can' t help but wonder if her reasons are as patriotic as she'd have other believe or, is this just a fine example of spite? They say that "hell hath no fury as a woman scorend"-read the story and you decide.

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I've been reading in the Virginian Pilot and on Hampton Roads.com about some of the goings on around the neighbords that surround ODU. Sure, druken and disorderly college students are a pain, but not impossible to deal with. I'd gladly exchange them for the one neighbor I had who was dealing drugs from their home just a few doors down from mine. Nothing quite like hearing the bangs, thuds and shouts of a police raid late at night. I've got another neighbor who has suspicious late-night visitors who always seem to favor coming to the back of the house, usually stay in their car while she comes out to see them and they drive away-they don't even stay for coffee.

Several years ago, I was loading up in Georgia to bring a load to my then-home terminal in Emporia and take the holidays off. I had the misfortune hooking up with another driver out of my terminal who ran on a different fleet and was "shadowed" all the way to the truckstop in Carinesville, Ga.

We agreed to get an early start so we could be north of Charlotte, NC by the end of the morning rush hour and head in to the terminal, we agree'd to be on the road by 4:30am.

I awoke at 03:45, pre-tripped my truck, even checked and adjusted the air pressure in all 18 wheels and at 4:15, went over to my buddies truck to check on his status-Dude wasn't even awake and we had to be on the road in fifteen minutes. So I started drumming on the side of his sleeper.

He got out of his bunk, climbed down out of the truck, scratched his butt, urinated in the parking lot (bathrooms were nearby) and had to "go get coffee".

We didn't leave until sometime after 5:30 and I was a little more than irked.

No sooner had we crossed the South Carolina state line traffic came to a stop-a dead stop. This piece of I-85 is a dangerous piece of road and holiday travelers can add to the likelyhood you'll end up in a body bag. As we were being pushed off the exit, I leaned out the window and asked the state trooper "how many this time?" to which he held up two fingers.

Since we sit up higher than most, I could see over the wreckage and sure enough, there were two bodies sprawled out on the highway waiting for the medical examiner to come and give an official pronouncement to what anyone could have told you.

It was a God-awful mess and decorum prevents me from giving a description of exactly what I saw.

That behind us, my friend and I motored up the highway, late, hitting traffic and the sun coming up all the while being subjected to his incessant whining over the CB radio. Apparently he was upset that although I was carrying a ton more product, my truck was pulling the hills better. Well, my truck was newer and his probably needed an in-frame overhaul. Then it was the pay, then it was the traffic, then it was the way the company did this and it wasn't fair, then the way the company did that and that wasn't fair, either, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Hint: If anyone told you life was fair, they're lying.

I finally said, "Look, all you're complaining about is how this isn't fair, that isn't fair and so on, so why don't you go back to South Carolina and tell those two poor, dead (explative omitted) splattered dead on the highway three days before Christmas and see what they have to say?"

I think that drove the point home because he saw exactly the same gory mess that I did, it wasn't pretty and I'm glad neither of us had breakfast before we left. At least we made it home.

This is exactly why I have a difficult time feeling sympathy for folks who complain about minor annoyances such as loud music, I deal with it to but to credit my own efforts, I have developed an "understanding" with  my neighbor who plays her thumpty-thumpty music so loud that I can feel my own floor vibrate that 9:30 is the cutoff time, because either I or the police will be over at 9:31. I have F-18's roaring over my house from time to time and often have to wait until they pass to finish a statement. Isn't it ironic how nobody complained about those jets roaring skyward with live ordinance in the days after September 11th, flown by young men and women who were looking forward to using those weapons?

Sure, someone might have whacked your car and didn't leave a note, it's happened to me and set my back about $800.00. I was pretty upset over that, but I'm sure the parents of the two teens who lost their daughters to the drunk illegal alien a year or so ago or the parents who lost their sons last week in a Virginia Beach traffic crash would be glad to trade a smashed fender or headlight if it means they don't have to bury their own children this coming week.

Certainly, the fact that my years on the road has left many things in and around my house that were neglected then are demanding my time and resources now, but I bet the folks who were featured in todays Pilot who are being evicted from their homes just in time for the holidays would gladly trade places with me.

I guess my point is as we enter the holiday season, I think some of us need to take a moment to count the things that we are fortunate enough to have and the blessings we tend to overlook-sure, you might be upset about your neighbors but I'll meet some people at a homeless shelter on Christmas day who would like to at least have some neighbors to complain about.....

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One thing you never want to do-kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

I remember when we had a Ford plant in Norfolk. Word among my fellow high school students was, unless you know someone who works there, don't even bother to apply. If you could get on over there at Ford, you had a ticket to easy street. The work was hard, but the pay and perks were worth it.

I never applied.

Many years later, I had to job of delivering to the Ford plant and could only wonder how it was that anyone could work this slowly and hope to keep their jobs. I took in a load of shipping racks and sat there for six hours waiting to get them unloaded. That was six hours of my time that could have been spent on the road, wheels turning and earning, but thanks to the obvious opinion that my time was worthless, I am of the opinion that these hacks robbed me of six hours of my own earning potential.

I haven't had much sympathy for autoworkers since.

Now we are faced with the possibility of either bailing out the US automakers, or watching the auto industry implode under the weight of competition from overseas and their bloated payrolls.

Here's what I don't understand:

Your average autoworker makes about $27.00 per hour, that's straight time. Overtime get's them about $40.00 per hour. Not to mention the generous benefits that autoworkers are given for things like health insurance. It's even a fact that GM has spend 17 million dollars to purchase Viagra for their employees under their health plan. Source

If I'm buying a car, I personally don't care about the bedroom activities of a UAW employee or auto company executive and I don't see any reason why their sex life should be factored into the price of the car I'm considering. I am of the mind that if you want to deal with the problems that Viagra is prescribed to deal with, that should be done on your own dime, not mine.

Back when the Ford plant use to have their strikes, many would stand out in the street holding signs that claimed Ford was "unfair", however I'd be willing to bet that a lot of people who drove by that plant felt as I did and asked themselves, "What's unfair about what they're paid?" I know a lot of folks who would have been more than happy to take their place had the opportunity presented itself. It might have taken some time to get the new folks up to speed on how to build the trucks they once produced there, but given the fact that some of the Fords my dad bought that were built there gave him nothing but headaches, maybe new production employees might have been an improvement.

So I hope you'll forgive me if I don't think that the pay and benefits of todays autoworkers are unfair at all. In fact, I think they're downright generous and no, I don't feel that a company is beholden to the employees financial security for the rest of their natural life after they retire. I don't have a lot of sympathy for a retired autoworker who has to pay more for their health insurance or medications.

Here's the reason why:

I know a lot of people who work just as hard each and every day as any autoworker and don't make anywhere near half of what the average autoworker makes per hour. Many of these people have no health benefits, don't get a day off with pay to go and vote and aren't able to save much, if anything for their retirement. This is exactly the reason why I don't see any reason that the tax dollars of those who don't have the generous benefits afforded to autoworkers should even be considered as a source for bailing out the "big three" auto makers poor business decisions. How can anyone justify telling someone working at a 7-11 for $8.00 per hour that they should be happy to surrender more of their earnings to make sure that someone making almost four times their own wages can continue to enjoy their generous pay and benefits package?

How can you make a rational argument that the person stocking shelves or putting their life on the line driving a taxicab should have to work harder just to keep up with a rising tax bill that making sure the "big three" staying in business is in their best interest and the million-dollar compensation packages they are perfectly justified?

How can you tell a senior citizen that they have to do without because the government is keeping the pensions and benefits of retired autoworkers afloat?

How can you present a higher tax bill to someone who lost their job because we're going to make sure the UAW employees can keep their job?

Sorry, call me cold-hearted but I can't see any reason to bail out the "big three" especially at the expense of everyone through tax dollars-I say let them fail and let the chips fall where they may. Sure, it'd be a shock to the system, but I think what would emerge is an American Auto Industry that makes a product that is comparable in price and quality with workers that are fairly compensated-as well as providing an example that the way the auto companies are run now is not the way to operate a company.

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In a recent posting, a very famous someone said the following when speaking about black people and how they voted:

They voted to destroy the constitution that Obama will hopefully uphold against their wishes, by making sure that church and state remain separated. They voted to "uphold the sanctity of marriage" by making a mockery of it. They showed themselves every inch as bigoted and ignorant as their white christian right wing counterpartners who voted for mccain-palin and bush-cheney.

You would be amazed at how fast my entire blog would be deleted from Hampton Roads.com if I said anything like that-but that was written by a member of the oh so tolerant left!

The person who wrote it was none other than a some would say "has been" actress by the name of Rosanne Bar. Source

I guess this is how liberalisim works in the democratic party, when someone doesn't toe the party line in all things, it's okay to call them bigots and ignorant.

I thought that people like Roseanne represented the "tolerant" left, those who are inclusive and free from the hate-thought they always accuse republicans of engaging in.

Nope, this only proves that the Hollywood left is one of the biggest problems the democrats have-people who have more wealth than the law will soon allow who can't hide the hatred and contempt they have for those who don't agree with them.

Makes me glad I'm a republican.

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There are some who claim that those who govern us should be held to a "higher standard" of behavior. I find it irnoic that many of those who make these high-minded claims are among those who were more than willing to give Bill Clinton a pass for committing perjury in order to cover up his "after hours activities" with a White House Intern.

Those with these high moral standards are usually in the media and strangely enough, these standards never apply to themselves.

This is why I took the news of Virginia Beach City Councilman Bill DeSteph wearing what has been called an "inappropriate" costume to a fund-raising Halloween party in Virginia Beach recently with a grain of salt. Related Story 

In this recent report, WAVY reporter Andy Fox took Councilman DeSteph to taks which I thought was pretty funny-especially since it was this same Andy Fox who, in a former role use to chase motorists down in order to take them to task over their driving violations-and then was arrested himself for Driving Under the Influence several years ago.

I would think that WAVY-TV would have the good sense to at least send a reporter without a history of such a glaring double-standard to take a public official to task over a Halloween costume.

Personally, I think a reporter driving drunk presents more of a danger to the public than a City Councilman who makes a dubious choice in a halloween costume. I would certainly put more faith in Councilman DeSteph's judgement regardless of his halloween costume than I would a reporter any day. I like Councilman DeSteph and I think he's served our city well....

I would just like to know when the media who seems to support every kind of filth and smut as "defending free speach" decided to become leaders of the Puritans where it comes to taking public officials to task?

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Oh yes, here's some change we can believe in.

In the not-too-distant past, we lost one of the greatest Americans that was alive in my lifetime, Ronald Regan.

This noble man came along at exactly the right moment in history, put a crushing defeat on then-President Jimmy Carter and ushered a demoralized nation out of the four-year nightmare that was the hallmark of the Carter years.

In his first press conference today, President-Elect Obama stated that he had had conversations with all the previous presidents and then for good measure, insulted Ronald Regan's widow, Nancy Regan. Source

For Mr. Obama's information, it wasn't Nancy Regan that held a seance in the White House, it was another first lady-her name was Hillary Clinton.

Isn't it a shame when the candidate who ran his campaign on the mantra of  "change" and makes a liar out of himself only days afterward? He's engaging in the same insults and disrespect that the democrats have become so noted for during the Bush administration, showing no respect or sympathy for anyone, not even a grieving former first-lady.

And to think I actually felt sympathy for this man when it was announced that his Grandmother had passed away just before his historic election to the highest office in the land. I guess that was pretty misplaced, huh?

It would seem that nothing has really changed at all-Democrats will stop at nothing to smear anyone they oppose, Obama just proved it and earned my contempt in the process.

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