Argus Hamilton's column for 1-29-08

OKMULGEE--Happy Tuesday, and how's everybody?

The Monte Carlo hotel in Las Vegas erupted in a spectacular fire on its top floor Friday which fire marshals blamed on an air conditioning duct. It raised a red flag. Everybody wants to know how al-Qaeda was able to hijack an air conditioning duct.

Egypt protested Tuesday when Palestinians dynamited holes in their border wall in Gaza. Tens of thousands of Palestinians flooded through the openings to go shopping in Egypt for needed goods. Mexico aired it live on the Fine Living channel.

Heath Ledger's masseuse told New York cops she called Mary-Kate Olsen when she found his body. Tabloids are asking if he had a drug problem. If Mary-Kate Olsen is the first person you call, he had a drug problem; if you call Ashley Olsen, he died of starvation.

Shaquille O'Neal released his living expenses in divorce papers Friday showing he spends two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year on gasoline. How conspicuous is that? It's so much gasoline that President Bush wants to know if we can invade him.

President Bush gave his State of the Union speech to Congress Monday. The Vice President, the Cabinet, and the Joint Chiefs were there. John Daly was kept away in a secret location so that in case of catastrophe we would have continuity of government.

Saddam Hussein's FBI interrogator, George Piro, was interviewed Sunday on CBS' 60 Minutes. He said the jailed dictator was charming and funny and was always trying to flirt with his nurses. Bill Clinton didn't overthrow him out of professional courtesy.

Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Coll has a new book coming out this week about Osama bin Laden's family. It reveals that his dad died in a plane crash and his sister survived crashing a Cessna in Florida on her first solo flight. The World Trade Center might still be standing if Osama bin Laden had alcoholism run in his family like everybody else.

Congressman Steve Wexler collected two hundred thousand signatures Friday calling for impeachment hearings. It's too late. We engaged in pre-emptive war, torture, kidnapping and illegal wiretapping, and history will show the only one who went to jail was Kiefer Sutherland.

Tiger Woods won Sunday at the Torrey Pines Golf Club in La Jolla, where Wall Street brokerage firms had corporate tents on the course. It was the wrong weekend to have stockbrokers standing on a steep cliff above the ocean. The golf announcers could only pretend they were hang gliders until they were out of camera view.

Mitt Romney's poll numbers went up in Florida polls last week when he adopted Barack Obama's call for change. Now everyone's doing it. Even stockbrokers are asking for change, usually while sitting on the sidewalk in front of the 7-Eleven.

Bill Clinton's critics said Sunday if Hillary's elected president, he would hog the media spotlight. It's a selling point. Elect the Clintons and the next time the tabloids have space for Britney Spears or Paris Hilton, they'll be forty-five years old.

Southern California was lashed by driving rain and snowstorms in the mountains Friday as high winds and flooding hit the valleys. Mudslides and avalanches followed the next day. Living in California is like being married to a beautiful woman who's always sick.

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer proposed legislation Friday to tax cocaine sales. Street dealers would have to buy two-hundred-dollar tax stamps from the government and then affix a tax stamp to each packet of product sold. The idea was first proposed two hundred forty years ago and King George figured it couldn't hurt.



Copyright 2008 Argus Hamilton
All rights reserved.
Material may be quoted with attribution.

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Comedian and nationally syndicated columnist Argus Hamilton entertains at corporate events and meetings around the country. When home in Los Angeles, he can be seen live onstage at The Comedy Store in Hollywood. Contact Argus@ArgusHamilton.com for more information. Argus Hamilton's bio