Go away, Tiger. Just go away.

First off, let me admit to a bias here ,,, I couldn't care less about golf. My personal attempts at mastering pasture pool have been pitiable and the experience leaves me perpetually mystifies as to why anyone would choose to ruin a perfectly lovely summer afternoon in pursuit of an uncooperative white ball. And if I care little for golf on a personal level, my interest in golf as a spectator sport is even less. Televised golf is far beyond my comprehension ... alternating shots of sky and lawn accompanied by muffled applause and mumbled commentary ... it's the Home and Garden Network without fertilizer rates.

And if I don't care about professional golf, I certainly don't care about the personal life of professional golfers ... even when they're playing the role of penitent porn star.

There's a momentary ballyhoo this morning about Tiger Woods' latest public coming-out party. After getting caught with his pants down, the former squeaky clean media darling is trying to recoup lost fortunes -- understandable enough. I just don't know why anybody who doesn't know Tiger -- either in the platonic or the biblical sense -- ought to care.

He's just a man who plays with his putter in public --and we'll pay to see that -- anything beyond that I don't want to see, I don't want to hear about, is none of my, yours, our business.

So until it's tee time, Tiger, just go away. Leave us alone.

And how was your Presidents' (or is that President's) Day?

Y'know, in the great scheme of things, I could really do without President's (Presidents'?) Day. It's a pretty lame holiday when the only thing I have to look forward to is not getting any bills in the mail -- because they're not delivering the mail.

Truth is, we don't even know for certain what the day is supposed to commemorate. Is it to honor the presidency (President's)? Or the august individuals who have held the office (Presidents')? If it is the former, shouldn't we also look into commemorating other positions of significance with their own day of postal abstinence (e.g. Supreme Court Justice's Day, Speaker of the House's Day) in good regard to the Constitutional principle of checks and balances -- perhaps tossing in a Governor's Day as a nod to federalism as well.

If it's meant to honor the occupants of the office -- then I fear the basis for the holiday becomes a bit more dicey. How much honor do we really want to heap onto James Buchanan, John Tyler, Warren Harding and, everyones favorite, Dick Nixon? With that rogue's gallery as a reference -- I'm really not certain just what it is we're celebrating.

I doubt if the situation would have arisen if George Washington and Abe Lincoln had had the foresight to be born in separate months. Taking a day off for both of their birthdays was a bit much in a month that's short on days to start with -- so Congress, back in the day when compromise wasn't a dirty word -- split the difference and made two holidays into one. A good thing for colleciton agencies and junk mailers, but no real plus for the rest of us.

So once again, I failed to put up my President's' Day tree, send out my President's' Day cards, rent a President's' Day costume and go to midnight President's' Day Mass. I didn't have a big President's' Day dinner or set off President's' Day fireworks.

I just looked into my empty mailbox and said, "Oh yeah...President's' Day..."

Anyway, I hope your's was a happy one.

A modest proposal

It's good to see folks can learn from experience ... even if they are members of the Minnesota Legislature.

A couple of DFLers -- Rep. Lyndon Carlson and Sen. Richard Cohen are introducing a bill that will keep future governors -- Republican, Democrat or just plain crazy -- from repeating T-Paw's unallotment performance from last session.

According to a piece in this morning's Strib the proposal would "limit the governor's unallotment power in three ways:

"Governors could unallot only from the part of a projected budget deficit that was not known at the completion of the last legislative session.

"Payment to programs affected by unallotment would have to be reduced proportionately, and formulas or eligibility standards could not be changed.

"The governor could not unallot mor than 2 percent of the general fund budget and could not unallot more than 10 percent of a single general fund appropriation."

In other words, no future governor would be able to take a meat axe to a budget the legislature passed and he signed to satisfy the political whim of the moment while preserving executive flexibility to deal with unanticipated fluctuations in the state economy.

Of course, T-Paw -- continuing to play his favored role as Dr. No -- has promised to veto any bill limiting his authority.

Bad for business?

No matter what T-Paw and the T-Party boys say, it looks like paying taxes isn't the only thing that's bad for business in Minnesota ... and it's not a bunch of lefty DFLer types saying it either. Here's the pertinent snippet from Tuesday's Strib:

"Moody's Investors Service lowered its ratings outlook on Minnesota to negative from stable, citing the state's ongoing financial and economic weakness.

The ratings agency also noted the state government's depletion of reserves and a heavy reliance on one-time resources to balance its budget."

It seems like Wall Street likes honest books and an adequate steady income -- and that doesn't come by playing politics with the balance sheet.

Here we go again

Well, the Minnesota legislature called itself to disorder right on schedule and we're all set for a show that should rival an all-star Three Stooges revival -- featuring Larry, Maggie and Tim.

I just draw no great confidence from observing that we have a governor who wants to be president, a Speaker of the House who wants to be governor and a Senate Majority Leader who is certain he ought to be governor. I'd feel a lot better if the whole of the state's political leadership didn't go into the session with their resume's out.

Meanwhile there's the small matter of the state budget coming up $1.5 billiion short with another $5 billion worth of red ink on the next go-round ... but who wants to bet they'll spend more time on a new stadium for the Vikings?

And so it goes...