Thanks to modern technology and gadgetry, I'm sitting here in my seat on an airplane waiting to take off for the New York City area.  Literally as I type these words, an irate woman is yelling at a flight attendant because we've been sitting on the runway here for over an hour.

It's a pretty amazing scene:  the flight attendants are huddled together up in the front, trying to figure out what to do with the angry woman.  Since we're being held due to weather conditions in the New York area, we're sitting out on the Dallas/Ft Worth tarmac somewhere and I don't really know what they can do about her.  I suppose if she REALLY gets out of control, we'll have to be delayed even longer while they put shackles and handcuffs on her and haul her away to airport jail.

I don't mean to make light of someone carrying on like the village idiot on an airplane.  It sure isn't the flight attendants' fault, nor is it any of us.  I don't think we can blame the pilot since they're being told what to do by the control tower.

But airplane rage is slowly replacing road rage as the thing that many people seem to be doing.

Listen, it's not easy to travel by air.  Take off your shoes, pull out your laptop, put your gels in a baggie, blah, blah, blah.  And I'm sure the airline industry has plenty of problems being as efficient as it could be.

But to scream at a flight attendant because there are high winds in New York and that has delayed all incoming flights there?  I think it's time for some people to take some anger management courses...or doses of medicine.

Incidentally, we've just been told we're about to take off so I need to turn off my laptop.  The lady has stopped screaming about the delay.  Now she's upset that there won't be a meal on the flight.

Next time I'm having a bad day, I'll remind myself that I could be this poor creature's husband......

Growing up, how many times did we hear "well, son, life's not fair" from Mom or Dad?

There are a number of stories today that seem to fall into that category.   Like Barack Obama calling the thousands of Americans soldiers who died fighting for their country "wasted" lives -- and getting away with it (how many articles or stories on the evening news have you seen about THIS particular insult?).   Don't believe he said it?   Do a quick google search.  He said it -- and quickly backtracked -- Sunday evening in Iowa.

But here's the one that really feels like we woke up in a "Twilight Zone" episode:  the Wall Street Journal reports this morning that Bank of America is getting ready to roll out a national program of giving credit cards to illegal immigrants.   I kid you not.  Bank of America has been quietly offering credit cards in Los Angeles to people without a social security number or a credit history (namely, illegals).   Now, they're getting ready to roll this program out nationally.

Just wonderful, eh?  Even been turned down for a loan because your credit wasn't strong enough?  Remember what it feels like to have the bank officer tell you that your credit just doesn't quite cut it?   So now, Bank of America customers, just sneak across the border, spend a few months here with a checking account at Bank of America without any overdrafts, and presto!  You, too, can achieve the American dream:  a shiny new credit card.

What will it take for the madness surrounding illegal immigration in America to end?

You know the old expression that when someone says "it's not really about the money" it's ALWAYS about the money?

I keep hearing from the Barack Obama camp that his campaign won't really be about race.  You know what's coming, right?

The first telling sign about how the Illinois senator wants to make sure his campaign is definitely about race came during last night's "60 Minutes" love letter.  Both Sen. Obama and his wife made almost passing references to racial issues that a careful listener would have caught.

First off, Obama was asked something about being "black enough."  He made a brief reference to how difficult it is for him to catch a taxicab when he tries to hail one. 

Secondly, Mrs. Obama was asked about the risks her husband faces to his safety by running for president since he's black.  She replied that "as a black man" any time he goes to the store, he risks getting shot.

First off, any of us who take cabs on a regular basis have a deep cynicism that a man wearing a two thousand dollar camel-haired coat and carrying a briefcase would have a tough time hailing a cab, black or white.

And secondly, I'm not sure if Mrs. Obama has ever researched whether or not a black man runs a bigger risk of getting shot while simply "going to the store" than a non-black.

In both cases, the Obamas used gratituous examples of race, indicating that we'd better be ready for a racially-charged campaign.

In other words, when the Obama people say "this campaign won't be about race", we need to remember that that's up the candidate -- and his wife.

I find it amazingly creepy that when I heard the news on the radio today that Anna Nicole Smith had suddenly died at the age of 39, it didn't surprise me one bit.

There seemed to be so much tragedy and drama and heartache associated with the former Playboy centerfold that an abrupt end to her life really didn't seem to come out of the blue.

I know I'm really in the minority here, but I've always felt sorry for Anna Nicole.  She was who she was, a former topless dancer who was plucked out of relative obscurity by an 80-something year old oil billionaire who had the hots for her (and all of her, um, attributes).

So what if he was a million years her senior?  From all accounts, she made him happy.  Like it or not, she was his wife.  So when he died, she probably deserved his money.  But one of his sons fought -- and fought hard -- for the money.  And that son dropped dead last year, the prime example of not being able to "take it with you."

Of course, there was her son's mysterious death at age 20, just a few days after she gave birth to a daughter.  And then, a nasty debate about who the father of the little girl was, the sleazy lawyer named Stern or some other lover.

Her life was a mess.  She often slurred her words, stumbling around and falling down and appearing to all the world as a woman with a bigtime substance abuse problem.

And now, her body lies in a freezer in a hospital morgue, awaiting the autopsy that will undoubtedly reveal her ingestion of something she probably shouldn't have ingested.

I just felt sorry for her.

I'm sitting here in my radio studios with a sense of dread.

I'm minutes away from going on the air, hosting a radio show that's heard by millions of weekly listeners.  Like all of us, I continue to shake my head and wonder how a world-class astronaut could don a pair of diapers and bring a steel mallet with her during her trip from Houston to Orlando to confront her romantic rival.

And I just know what I'm going to say that's going to get me in a heap of trouble:  she's a woman.

How many of us men can say that the women in our lives have all had a "meltdown moment?"  Let's face it, call it PMS, hormones, whatever, there is a point in a woman's life where all logic and reasoning goes out the window and she turns into a raging, crazy monster.

With that in mind, is it really smart to consider a woman for president?

I know I probably shouldn't say this kind of stuff, but admit it:  aren't you thinking it?

Wish me luck.  I might be joining Kevin Federline at the burger joint by the end of the week....

I was listening to my colleague Hugh Hewitt's radio show the other when he was interviewing Republican Sen. Norm Coleman from Minnesota.   It was nice to hear Sen. Coleman's apparent disdain for the idiotic, meaningless, non-binding Senate resolution complaining about the President's troop surge plan.  In fact, here's what Sen. Coleman said to Hugh:

[Bottom line is I voted against the resolution that I think is…I’m going to be very blunt…is a pull-out resolution. This isn’t an abandon Iraq resolution. The words don’t exactly say that, but I listened to John Murtha testify, and I listened to the reaction of my colleagues across the aisle, that’s their position. They talk about redeployment, and redeployment really means get out, regardless of the consequences. I have concerns about a portion of the President’s plan, I have articulated those concerns, but I’m not ready to give up on victory or success in Iraq, Hugh.]

Sen. Coleman was referring to his vote against the resolution in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which approved the resolution 12-9.

But when the resolution came before the full Senate vote yesterday, Coleman was the only Republican (Susan Collins of Maine isn't really a Republican, she's the textbook RINO -- Republican in Name Only) to stand with the Democrats and vote for the resolution.

So what happened, Sen. Coleman?  What made you change your mind?

Surely, Al Franken's announcement that he plans to run for your Senate seat isn't what made you cozy up to the Democrats in complaining about a troop "surge", right?    You wouldn't be that politically transparent, would you, Sen. Coleman?

I'm starting to think that there is no honor or integrity or character left in Washington -- even from normally reliable Republicans like Norm Coleman. 

It's just all a political game to these folks.

I never mind eating my words when it's appropriate to do so.   None of us who make our living espousing conservative views and opinions at a place like townhall.com or on talk radio have any reluctance to point out the liberal bias in today's news media.

So when one of the big boys at one of the big four networks does a great job in exposing the hypocrisy of a liberal Democrat like John Edwards, we should offer some kudos.

I hope every American who is struggling with the ongoing debate between Democrats and most Republicans over the war in Iraq had a chance to watch Tim Russert of NBC's 'Meet the Press' hammer the former North Carolina Senator and would-be presidential candidate Sunday morning.

Russert did a masterful job of pointing out the real challenge that an anti-war voice like Edwards has to deal with:  how to explain his support of the war, both while he was a sitting U.S. senator and as recently as October of 2004, and then completely contradicting himself (just as he gets ready to start his presidential campaign) and suddenly advocating an immediate withdrawal of thousands and thousands of troops.

John Edwards is a phony.  Tim Russert did a superb job in proving that phoniness and political opportunism on 'Meet the Press' yesterday.

Perhaps the most compelling revelation during Russert's show was showing what Barack Obama, a then-state senator in 2002, had to say about invading Iraq.  It seems that Obama is one of the only Democrats who predicted failure in Iraq as early as 2002 and he did so in eerie detail which mirrors today's anti-war voices of the Democratic Party.

As I keep saying, if the 2008 presidential election will largely be about the war, there's only one Democrat who has consistently opposed it:  Barack Obama.

That could prove to be a big problem for Hillary and John Edwards.