Delta had a viral hit with their Deltalino safety video, and Ryan Air published naked calendars of their skyhags in hopes of boosting sales. Air New Zealand is the latest to jump on the 'Who the frick came up with this one?' marketing bandwagon in their new "bare essentials of safety" video - featuring crew members dressed only in body paint. Which begs to ask - what self-respecting pilot would ever agree to be wear body paint, short of a private hookup with a 10? The good news is they left out the old fleshy, hairy, endomorphic captain...

 

Col. Kenneth L. Reusser, the U.S. Marine Corps' most decorated pilot ever, passed away recently at age 89. Reusser flew 253 combat missions spanning WWII, Korea and Vietnam, earning 59 medals including 2 Navy Crosses, 2 Legion of Merits and 4 Purple hearts.

His earned his first Cross in 1945. As the Pacific war drew to a close, he stripped down his F-4-U Corsair in order to get up to altitude to intercept a Japanese observation plane flying over Okinawa. When his guns froze at altitude, he rejoined on the target and used his propeller to slice the tail off the aircraft - hey, a kill's a kill right? He joined the famed Black Sheep squadron during the Korean War and earned another Cross during a low-level attack on a tank farm in Inchon. After suffering significant BDA, he RTB'd for repairs and refueling, then returned to Inchon to give the Commies a bigger piece of him - this time taking out a fuel storage facility in the midst of significant AAA. He flew choppers during Vietnam, where he suffered 3rd degree burns over 1/3 of his body after being shot down for the 5th time. Talk about balls!

You would think this hero's obituary would mean more to this country than that pedophile MJ...RIP Colonel.

Jon Stewart described SC Gov Mark Sanford as "just another conservative mind with a liberal penis", while Sanford's 'spiritual adviser' says the whole affair is simply a case of Sanford being caught up by "the power of darkness." The deaths of MJ, Farrah and Billy Mays knocked the scandal from the front page, but anxiously awaited photos of 'that other woman' surfaced over the weekend. Yesterday the spiritual adviser, Warren "Cubby" Culbertson, was flapping his gums about what a really good Christian Sanford really is.

Cubby was the group leader of a bible study group known as the Round Table, which offers a "boot camp" for couples undergoing marital strain. Sanford and his wife signed up for this back in January - right after his wife busted him with emails professing his undying love for his Argentinian hose bag. Apparently after several sessions his wife Jenny saw through the bullshit and booted him out of the house...

Which brings up one of Spike's undeniable corollaries to human behavior: Show me a born-again Christian and I'll show you some guy who can't handle his booze,  got caught cheating on his wife...or both!

The recent coup in Honduras had been brewing for quite a while. As President Manuel Zelaya approached the end of his term, he sought a public referendum to amend the constitution to allow multiple terms and pave the way for even more socialist reforms in the country. The problem was that Zelaya - a big fan of that rude, chubby little bastard Chavez - dismissed a ruling from his own supreme court that declared such referenda illegal under the Honduran constitution. Bingo, presto - you're outta there! Military coups in Central America are nothing new - hell, Chiquita Banana's parent company United Fruit orchestrated a CIA-backed coup in Guatemala back in 1954 - so why should we care?

Honduras is a poor nation that is stuck in the third-world rut. In its favor are some of the best cigars, coffee, scuba diving and beaches anywhere - along with some of the nicest folks you'll ever meet.  Hoping to even the huge economic divide between classes, they foolishly elected a socialist president in 2006 who (like Chavez), wanted to become a dictator for life by changing the constitution for his own benefit. Sound familiar?

The military did what I hope our own military would do someday if this country reaches the point of putting one man above our laws and Constitution - they marched in, arrested the guy, and then handed power back over to the congress. This is not your father's Latin American coup by any stretch - if anything, it's a prime example of how a military should act in a democracy when despots seek to abridge the law.

Chavez has threatened military action to restore Zelaya to his burgeoning throne, and since he's spent billions buying Russian arms the last few years, it probably wouldn't take long for Venezuela to beat the snot out of the Honduran military. That of course would set a really bad precedent and do away with what's left of the Monroe Doctrine should Obama fail to act. The Monroe Doctrine was invoked to keep European powers out of our back yard - powers precisely like Russia who through proxy would have a foothold in the one country in which I'm seriously considering retiring!

 A brief historical note:  I had an uncle named after this guy, (no kidding), I guess my Grandfather liked his style...  So do I.

Rock