Every day my inbox is jammed with advice on the next stock set to take off like a rocket, countless deals on retail merchandise that I simply can’t live without, notifications that I may already have won my weight in gold or a lovely consolation prize like a plastic water bottle that fits on your belt when you jog (like that’s gonna happen), numerous comments from BigFrick.com readers from around the world, some of whom think I am witty and remarkably smart and others who think I may in fact be Satan’s spawn. And jokes. Lot’s and lot of jokes.

Many of the jokes are retreads; some of which may date back to World War II. A lot of them are worth a snicker if only for nostalgic reminiscence. I occasionally will copy and paste one of the better jokes and send it off to a close circle of friends. Most I read and delete, knowing full well that I will likely get the same joke sent to me by a flurry of other folks.

But on rare occasions I get a real belly laugher. Today was such a day.

I had planned to write today’s piece on the absurd ObamaCare health insurance plan working its way through the hall of Congress. But the joke I received today was better, at least in my opinion, than anything I could have written.

I salute whoever came up with this idea and take no credit for this fine piece of parody. I apologize to those faithful readers who are from outside America and have not seen the television commercial this joke parodies. Attempting to explain the joke or the television commercial would be useless. Suffice it to say this is a commercial from an insurance company named AFLAC. It takes place in a barber shop and stars Yogi Berra and his inimitable vocabulary.

I have been asked that question on more than one occasion. My usual answer is that I have papers from board certified professionals unequivocally stating that I am not. But the reality is that I probably am to some degree and that’s OK because it allows me to live in a pretty nutty world.

The question regarding mental stability, or actually the lack thereof, is currently on the lips and minds of almost every pundit in the Midwest and nationally regarding Illinois Governor Throbbing Rod Blagojevich. Poor Rod has followed in the footsteps of four of the last eight Illinois Governors as he will soon become an alumnus of a federal gray bar hotel.

He was caught by the Feds on audio tape trying to swing a sweet deal for himself and his wife in the auctioning off of the Illinois U.S. Senate seat vacated by He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken. According to the transcripts he had five or six potential candidates vying for his appointment. At least some of them must have been less appalled than others when considering the possibility of donating large sums of untraceable cash to the Governor and his wife or there would have been no need for the investigation. It was a pretty stupid thing to do but I don’t see any way that this greedy self-centered desire makes him completely crazy or even a little unbalanced.

The Chicago and national news media are bursting at the seams with mental health professionals that are all too willing to make a snap diagnosis of some psychological or emotional disorder from which the Governor is most assuredly suffering. The only problem with these drive thru docs is that any professional willing to make a diagnosis without ever actually speaking to the patient is, well, nuts.

I recall a couple of decades ago I had an encounter with a psychiatrist regarding some depression issues I was dealing with. After spending about an hour together in discussion this doctor told me that I was indeed depressed, but that it could be explained as I had a number of very depressing things going in my life. He said that it would be something to worry about if I hadn’t been depressed. Questions answered, quandary solved. I was acting depressed because I was depressed and I was depressed because I had depressing things happening.

While the mental stability of the discredited Governor may come into play in the future court proceedings he is in fact no more psychologically unsound than the rest of the world. He was acting exactly as his personal nature dictated he should act. If you elect a greedy ego maniac you can’t be surprised when he is caught acting avaricious and self-centered.

Big Rod was merely acting like a crook would act. He knew what he had was valuable and he tried to find the one person who would give him the most money for it. What he did was illegal not crazy. The reason he did it was not due to some delusional fit of grandeur but rather a remarkable display of just how stupid he thinks the rest of us are. His stated intent was to set himself and his wife up with a package that would pay the bills for the next few years while he reinvented himself. He honestly thought that with the right PR he could put himself into a position to run for president.

He was elected as the CEO of Illinois having run his campaign on a mantra of change. He was going to create jobs, build infrastructure, increase services and balance the budget. He said he could pay for it all by cutting out the government waste. He claimed the Republicans led by the now convicted George Ryan were corrupt and he would bring the necessary change and high moral standards needed to Springfield. People in Illinois are questioning his mental state in thinking he could actually become a serious candidate for president of the United States. I say all he had to do was use his old speeches and just change Springfield to Washington and Illinois to the United States.

It looks like the Feds have a pretty big case file assembled with which they plan to go to court. This could get the Gov a fairly lengthy prison term. Perhaps he could use that time to write a few autobiographies. Then he might actually be ready for higher office. It seems to be all it takes anymore.

Now that’s nuts!

Wall Street and the financial community are still looking for their piece of their $700 billion bailout. This money will continue to be doled out slowly as the political advantage dictates and used as it was recently in Illinois as a instrument of blackmail.

In Illinois union members want the government to step in and force banks to give loans to companies that don’t have any possible way of paying it back. In California the state government is looking to Washington to keep them solvent. And all over the country faithful Democrat voters are looking for everything from mortgage assistance to a car loan subsidies. My wants and desires are somewhat simple compared to these history altering cash infusions. I want some salt.

Actually I don’t want some salt, I need some salt. As happens every 12 months in the greater Northern Midwest we are gripped in the early stages of winter. Al Gore and the other global warming kooks aside, it looks like it will be another normal bone chilling, water freezing winter. The bone chilling part I can deal with because thankfully I do not have to make my living outside in the elements. It’s the water freezing part that has me in a state of mild, though ever increasing, panic.

Because of the latest “shortage” the price of ice melting sodium chloride has skyrocketed. Much like the freezing rain and snow this should come as no surprise as it also happens every year. But with budget the constraints most of the suburban Chicago area is facing most of the suburban city counsels find themselves now short of the only commodity that allows for death spin free driving.

The current justification for not using salt on frozen roadways is that it may be needed for later in the water freezing season. This makes about as much sense as not washing the dishes because somebody is just going to eat off them again. Suburban towns and villages are rationing the ice melter like a World War 2 sack of sugar. Major intersections are being treated enough to avoid anything over an eight car pileup. Side streets are completely sans salt and most other roadways are hit and miss at best, with the emphasis on trying to miss that which is sliding to hit you.

I am completely unable to accept any of the myriad of excuses being proposed by the incompetent elected politico’s. Most towns are left at this early stage of winter with just enough salt to coat the rim of three margarita glasses. Did these folks in whom we invest our trust and tax dollars think that global warming was real? All the jobs programs in the world to help get unemployed people working will make no difference if these new employees are unable to traverse the frozen tundra which used to be Main Street.

The federal government has instituted subsidies for peanuts, wooden arrows and fish oil. There are programs for sugar beets, soybeans, ethanol and left handed crab claws, but nothing for salt. Now don’t get me wrong, I like me a good PBJ, take fish oil daily, use sweetener from sugar beets, drive my car with a gas ethanol mixture and love shooting left handed crabs with wooden arrows, but I would gladly self-impose complete abstinence of all these things if I could be assured of driving my car over the next four months on something other than the Ice Capades main stage.

How is it possible that the town where I live spent copious capital on flowers and landscaping this past spring and summer, $50,000 on a report explaining why most residents hate the police department, hired lawyers and consultants to investigate creating a homeless shelter and then importing some homeless to be sheltered, but have no money to salt the damn streets?

Regardless of what the feds are spending on union autoworkers jobs or Wall Street investment bankers all politics is local. Not having any salt to allow for a fatal free driving experience is certainly a “change” from years past. I wonder if He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken will send us poor saps in his home state a shaker or two of peace of mind. Or maybe Jesse Jackson Junior would chip in the $500,000 he was going to give to Governor Throbbing Rob Blagojevich to buy the “Chosen One’s” senate seat?

Or Santa, if your listening………………………………………

It’s a Governor. It’s a mother. It’s Super Palin.

Weeks after failing to secure the loneliest job in Washington D.C. Sarah Palin is still scaring the living laxative out of the alleged news media. In a recent “news story” covered by the aptly named The Swamp section of Chicago Tribune writer Frank James (probably not Jesse’s brother) was granted column space to alert readers to the fact that Governor Palin wears ladies underpants. Stop the freaking presses!!!

The breaking news of Pantygate was brought to the public’s attention by Jeanne Cummings of Politico.com. and regurgitated by Mr. James. Old Frank had better work on getting better stealth sources if he wasn’t able to crack this blockbuster himself. Ms. Cummings is credited as being the first to write about the $150,000 spent by the Republican National Committee on Governor Palin’s campaign wardrobe. Ms. Cummings is now reporting that an additional $30,000 was spent at such stores as Dicks Sporting Goods and Victoria’s Secret.

To be fair to Mr. James and his crack group of covert sources it appears that there was no “Deep Thong” disseminating this most privileged inside information. Ms. Cummings has apparently gotten a copy of the RNC’s expense report and was given ample time to review it line by line. She gleefully reports that $350 was spent at a New York Skin Care and Day Spa. $350? In New York? I’ve never been to a day spa in New York, or anywhere else for that matter, but I’m guessing $350 didn’t get Governor Palin much more than a new coat of nail polish and a shoulder rub.

Along with Dick’s and Vickie’s her “report” goes on to list purchases at The Limited, Foot Locker, Wal-Mart and Toy’s R Us. This is the type of cutting edge reporting the country has been yearning for. No longer will we be kept in the dark about where an unsuccessful Vice Presidential candidate buys her underpants and crew socks. It further goes on to detail money spent on hairdressers and a fashion consultant. So I guess what they are reporting is that the Alaska Governor did not have a traveling hair team and may have needed some fashion guidance so as to prevent her from showing up at the United Nations to meet world leaders wearing a florescent orange hunting coat and an Elmer Fudd hat.

I would expect this level of hard hitting news coverage from the National Enquirer rather than the Chicago Tribune. Except that the National Enquirer may have standards that are a bit higher when it comes to reporting that is so blatantly sexist. All throughout the campaign Sarah Palin’s wardrobe was compared to the other candidate’s wives. The Governor of Alaska and Vice Presidential candidate was being judged on what she wore compared to other women not other candidates. She was scrutinized, analyzed and evaluated on every stereotypical level, from her clothes to her ability to be a caring mother. In comparison, the racially stereotypical overtones were blatantly obvious by their omission in that nobody said a word regarding the fact that He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken was playing basketball more often than he was debating John McCain. Nor do I recall anyone asking him why he removed the price tag from his baseball cap, or if he smoked menthols, drank malt liquor, or was going to have custom rims put on the presidential limo. But yet at every turn what Sarah Palin was wearing, how her hair was done, what kind of jewelry she was wearing, the height of the heel’s on her shoes, how she carried her baby and dealt with her children was covered at great length. Through it all the nationally recognized stalwarts of gender equality, both individually and as a group, remained as quiet as the women in the kitchen while the men are having their brandy in the study. Even now in this rehashing of the same old same old there is no mention of where Joe Biden buys his boxers or if he himself has ever been to a day spa.

The information contained in this alleged news story does nothing but reaffirm everything there is to admire about Sarah Palin. It confirms that she does indeed have small town home spun values in that she needed assistance in preparing her look for the big stage. It confirms that she is personally fiscally responsible and did not own the necessary wardrobe or bejeweled accessories so as to be prepared to have her picture snapped millions of times and printed in every newspaper around the world. It confirms that she is not a self-biographing millionaire and needed some assistance paying for all this high priced costuming. None of these things are news, she admitted to all of them early on. More importantly none of these things are negatives unless you twist it by reporting only the price tags and not the story behind it, which is exactly what the Tribune has done.

Frank James and Jeanne Cummings covered everything from what was spent on hairdressers to where Sarah got her underclothes. Not a word was said about any of the custom tailored suits, silk ties or starched shirts for either of the Democrat candidates. Or even where any of the now one billion dollars of campaign contributions came from for the Democrat ticket. Imagine that, one billion with a B in donations to the Democrats and nobody questions where it came from much less how that is even possible, but let Sarah Palin buy a pair of Victoria’s Secret fancy pants and the Tribune has their Washington Bureau news hounds sniffing around for a story.

This constant muck raking and lambasting make it apparent that many in the liberal leaning media are still pretty worried about the future of one Sarah Palin. They remain offensively offensive in their sexist attacks of her, rehammering and reshaping old news in an effort to damage her politically. Not for the here and now as the Governor of Alaska but for the future and what she might become.

This piece of news drivel by Mr. James ended with the line “That’s one expensive hockey mom. You betcha.” Perhaps the “expensive” he was referring to was that Sarah Palin is causing some additional expense in the shorts cleaning of these liberal hacks.

Are they scared?

You betcha.