Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

Since the failed terrorist attach on Christmas day, travelers have been bracing themselves for the virtual anal probe that is coming to airport security in the form of full body scanners. On Fox News tonight, Ann Coulter, whose body scan image would likely fetch a fair amount on Ebay and one for which I would join in the bidding, joined ranks with the ACLU in decrying another ineffective government intrusion in the form of safety.

I've long complained about the inane and outright ludicrous security procedures in place at our nation's airports. We sheeple continue to flock to and through security turnstiles on our way to meetings and reunions because we've little alternative when faced with needing to be across our great continent in a short period of time. As TSA officials ogle our nearly nude images, saying they've got us by the short hair is appropriate when discussing our alternatives for transportation.

Instead of focusing on more likely terrorist subjects through profiling, all of us will have our "secrets" laid bare before the almighty agents of national security.

I only wish our leaders in our government's legislative body would be as forthcoming in their transparency. Despite several campaign promises of openness in debate, the health care bill will be finalized in secret, behind doors so thick that no scanner can penetrate.

CSPAN, the network The ONE promised to let host this debate has pledged to provide any resources needed to fully and unbiasedly cover this debate over nearly a quarter of our national expenditures. This pledge has fallen on the deaf, or more likely uncaring, ears cradling the heads of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Not only will the debate be held in secret, these bastions of open debate are looking to suspend long held congressional traditions to protect their fellow party members from having to openly support this travesty.

So as you empty your pockets, take off your shoes and belts and jackets and socks and under-wire bras in order to sit in a too small seat and pay $7 for a beer, you can take solace in the fact your representatives in Washington will be secure, behind closed doors, making deals and hiding pork in thousands of pages of drivel designed to wrench control over the health of our nation.

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Maps, Apps and fine print

If you have been watching television in general or any one of the seemingly thousands of college bowl games specifically, you have most likely seen one of the competing ads for Verizon or AT&T focusing on maps of their coverage, etc. While I find ads from both companies marginally entertaining, I can't help wishing for a pause button to read the fine print that flashes briefly on the screen during the 30 second plea for business.

For, you see, it is in this fine print that the truth is told. We all know it. The FCC dictates the size, length of visualization and content of much of this fine print and it is done in order to protect us, the ignorant consumer, from being taken advantage of by evil corporations. This same regulation has brought us the super fast voice over in radio commercials and the laundry list of potential side effects (nausea, vomiting, anal bleeding, erectile dysfunction, increased ear hair or audible flatulence) for every drug currently marketed on television, radio or in print.

I've often wondered why any drug company would pay for an ad where over half of their media purchased time is spent pointing out potential problems from usage of their product instead of the benefits of the same. Imagine if Pizza Hut had to warn you of weight gain, stained shirts and lactose intolerance in every one of their ads.

The fact most people aren't even aware of the fine print in commercials is yet another example of the ineffectiveness of this type of government intrusion in to capitalist endeavors. Marketers have found ways to minimize their exposure in these disclaimers and ads often make outright fun of them.

So why is it that our lawmakers feel the need to impose regulations that serve little purpose, produce no results and frustrate both the producers and consumers of advertisements? I wish I knew but....I think of this type of ineffectiveness often when considering the increased regulations sure to appear with Health Care reform and new laws around supposed climate change.

Next time you are watching a show from your DVR or, in the old school case, VCR, take a pause from skipping a commercial to pause the commercial and read the fine print. Better yet, take a pause from the boob tube altogether and read the fine print in the health care bill. I think you will find that, instead of protecting us from evil corporations, we should find ways to protect ourselves from evil government instead.

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MMX

The $2 million dollar Waterford Crystal ball above Time's Square in New York hadn't even begun its symbolic New Year's descent from old to new and the 24 hour news stations were deep in to the first scandal of the new year. There's actually two closely related scandals being talked about simultaneously: do we call this new year Two Thousand and Ten or Twenty Ten and is Twenty Ten (I've not made a decision if this should be the moniker of choice but Twenty Ten is easier to type than Two Thousand and Ten) the last year of the first decade of the second millennium or is it the first year of the second decade of the second millennium? This issue is of such phenomenal importance that it supplanted both the Health Care debate and the attempted act of human caused tragedy (see the Obama Administration's official guide for dealing with angry men of Middle Eastern descent for clarification of this reference if you are confused) on Christmas day at the beginning of nearly every news story for several days.

New Years, in addition to providing useless drivel laced stories as fodder for television talking heads, is a time when many people feel the need to change their lives in dramatic fashion in the form of resolutions that are so encompassing that they become unreachable by the end of the second week of the year. I guess the idea of starting anew with a clean slate is more tolerable when your planning is being done on a freshly opened calendar. After six months of "we will start our diet and exercise program over again on Monday" because we had Waffle House breakfasts, McDonalds lunches and Pizza Hut dinners for two days straight, I fail to see what difference a change in digits on the date line of our checks to the health club is going to make in our ability to move our ever increasing butts off the couch and on to a treadmill. But hope springs eternal.

Like the flowers that appear each spring when our supposedly warming globe emerges from a winter's slumber, the Bald Man is back to provide his own personal stench upon the social and political climate in the form of mostly rambling and often disjointed blog posts. It has been a while since I've posted and much has happened. But like water under the proverbial bridge to nowhere, issues will constantly appear to make up for missed opportunity to comment on the death of Michael Jackson, the birth of National Health Care and the continued reign of The One. The well of scandal and idiocy runs deep in our nation's capitol and in the halls of governments from local to international.

I look forward to again sharing my thoughts and opinions and hope your wait for this award winning blogs return was more tolerable than that of Fox television executives anticipating an affirmative utterance from Simon Cowell regarding their latest contract offering.

This weekend is a working one so I'll see you Monday with a cup full of commentary.

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