Hey barkeep, don't flag the Senator This case should be fun to watch. In Austin, Rebekah Lear sued the bar that fired her after she refused to bring state Senator John Whitmire another drink because he appeared intoxicated.

The Senator took it with the customary grace and dignity of the overprivileged Texas politician. As in 'not well'...

Lear said she served Whitmire a J&B and water, but when he asked for another scotch, she gave him a glass of water instead, telling him she couldn't serve him another drink because he was intoxicated.

Things went downhill from there, Lear said: She claims Whitmire threatened to call the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and have her fired, saying he "would have her job" if she didn't bring him another drink. Lear reportedly told Whitmire she would call the police if he didn't simmer down, and she said Whitmire "responded that the police would not come because all he would have to do was to make a phone call."

The Senator's sycophants are accusing Rebekah of making up the whole thing. Someone tell me again why term limits in government are a bad idea?

L.A. eats $95,000 payout to fire Gloria Jeff The ex-transit chief won't get her job back. The city council won't get to talk about the five-digit check she's getting to just go the hell away. Judging by this comment about her management style, it sounds like her former co-workers would rather be stuck in the path of the wildfires south of L.A. than have to work for her again...

So much was so wrong on so many levels, from an apparent lack of foresight on the part of Villaraigosa and his staff (Hiring 102: check references), to the fact that many on the City Council and those who worked below Jeff chafed repeatedly at her brusque manner. In short, there were few if any team-building lunches at the Olive Garden. Seems Jeff had the social skills of the Joker from "Batman" (sorry, that's not a very nice thing to say about the Joker).

For those of you who were doing more constructive things, like getting investment banking jobs, instead of reading Batman or Detective Comics, the Joker is a psychopathic murderer who used to kill people with a poison that froze their faces into grinning death masks.

I know a lot of people have had crap bosses, and I've had a few of these inhumans as supervisors too, but I feel pretty safe in saying none of them ever killed half the office with toxic Krispy Kremes. Or seemed real likely to do it, though there's one I can think of who wouldn't surprise me with a front page appearance in Brutal Crimes Monthly.

The thought probably didn't occur to them at the time. Gloria's ex-underlings must be breathing easier.

FEMA faker Philbin fired Fun Monday for Pat Philbin, he of the phony FEMA news conference from what's left of smokin' Southern California. He was slated for a nice job change working for Mike McConnell, the National Intelligence Director.

Not so fast, Peppermint Patty. No one's buying the last minute press conference excuse for putting employees in as reporters. Not even Mr. Safety...

The head of homeland security also has blasted the fake news briefing and said those behind it showed "extraordinarily poor judgment."

"I think it was one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I've ever seen since I've been in government," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Saturday.

Mikey's agency houses the same dopes who thought firing ex-cons from railroad jobs in Chicago would make America safer. It only took Homeland Security five years after 9/11 to realize tanker cars carry nasty chemicals up and down the country.

Anyway, Peppermint Patty got pushed under some railroad cars himself, except CNN said that Pat's old boss said that Pat sent in an email, and said it was all his fault and he's taking full responsibility and he's resigning his FEMA job and he's not taking the Intelligence job either.

So there. No more phony press conferences from FEMA. They're too busy waiting to stand down when the next Katrina hits and wait for either the governor or the President to tell them to get their asses in gear.

Diplomats oddly wary of Iraq postings I'm completely shocked that State Department diplomats would rather be in Washington so they can enjoy their Redskins season tickets instead of lining up for a chance to dodge mortar fire and other assassination attempts in downtown Baghdad.

But that's the situation in Foggy Bottom, as volunteers for a one year visit to one of the most dangerous places on the planet simply haven't materialized. One diplomat even broke away from the nuanced language of diplomacy, calling a trip to Iraq "a death sentence."

State Department's kinda pissed about this, especially since it's a minority of diplomats making a stink and getting picked up by a media that hates the Bushies. They're threatening to fire people who won't go and lack a good excuse. One of their diplomats currently in Iraq ripped the whiners a new one...

We all know that few FSOs will REALLY be forced to come to Iraq anyway. Our system really does not work like that. This sound and fury at Foggy Bottom truly signifies nothing. Get over it! I do not think many Americans feel sorry for us and it is embarrassing for people with our privileges to paint ourselves as victims.

Come on, diplomats. Just pack some SPF 70 sunblock and an armored vest. You've got Marines guarding you. Besides, it's been nearly 30 years since anyone tried taking over an American embassy in the Middle East. What's the problem?

Canadian nuclear watchdog nuked Those wacky Northerners, eh? All bent out of shape because a 50 year old nuclear reactor used for making medical isotopes stayed closed down after maintenance in November because, get this, Linda Keen didn't think it was safe to turn it back on.

I for one am comforted that politicians north of the border can be as petty as our homegrown double talking self-interested ones...

If they held auditions on Parliament Hill for a hot-tempered bully and his thuggish sidekick, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn would be shoo-ins.

Nice. There's plenty of blame to go around throughout the Canadian government over their little nuclear problem too...

Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives should have been surprised last month when the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the agency mandated to protect Canadians from radioactive leaks and spills, ordered the Chalk River reactor to remain closed until it had completed mandatory safety upgrades. They were supposed to have been done two years ago.

What's more, neither party can feign innocence about the chronic money and management problems that have plagued AECL. The auditor general has flagged health and safety concerns year after year. The nuclear safety commission has sounded the alarm repeatedly.

Fix the problem, no. Fix the blame on Linda? Oh yeah. She got fired because, the politicos say, keeping Chalk River offline endangered everyone who needed isotopes.

It sounds more like Linda tried to protect people from being exposed to a whole lot of isotopes. the politicians didn't exactly give her a glowing sendoff.

DC workers fired over porn at the office Maybe the nine people booted out of DC city government had a short walk to the unemployment office, unless getting fired for watching naughty people do naughtier things on the taxpayer's dollar falls under "gross misconduct."

It doesn't sound like the Naughty Nine happened upon a popup or two by accident while looking for ways to cut crime rates and improve city services, by what the Washington City Paper said...

One fired employee, according to figures released at the press conference, racked up 48,002 hits on allegedly pornographic sites during 2007. That works out to about 200 hits per business day. Besides the nine fired, 32 more were reprimanded in a more than a dozen other agencies, including the police department, the D.C. Public Schools, and the Executive Office of the Mayor.

Tangherlini said thresholds were determined as to how many hits warranted termination versus other forms of punishment. About 20,000 hits for the year was considered sufficient grounds for immediate firing, which represents about 100 hits per working day. “That seemed to be a logical cutoff,� he said. Anything over 20 hits a day, he says, represented “something that’s no longer possibly accidental� and required a lesser sanction.

Guess what the biggest surprise was? Not all the fired employees were guys, but the report doesn't say how many of each there were. Bummer. Here I thought the biggest scandal that could come out of DC this week would be if they hired Jim Fassel to coach the Redskins.

Harsh. Medical sweetleaf will get you fired It doesn't matter if you have some type of painful, debilitating illness that only backs down when you smoke medicinal marijuana. No one cares about your track record at work or what kind of agony you have to shut off mentally each day.

In California, if your sweetleaf prescription makes your pee cloudy during a work-mandated drug test, say goodbye to your job and your dignity...

The court majority upheld the firing of Gary Ross, an Air Force veteran whose doctor recommended he use marijuana for chronic back pain and whose disability qualified him for government benefits.

Ross, 45, was hired by Raging Wire Telecommunications Inc. in 2001 as an administrator. Before taking a required drug test, Ross provided a copy of his physician's recommendation for marijuana. The company fired him a week after he started the job because of his marijuana use.

Ganja Gary's lawyer wasn't surprised by the California Supreme Court decision, because of "political realities." Are those the same "political realities" that say federal funding of stem cell research is bad, and to hell with chronically ill people who probably aren't anyone the Bush Administration knows personally anyway? One more quote from the LA Times...

"The court is claiming that California voters intended to permit medical use of marijuana, but only if you're willing to be unemployed and on welfare," Mirken said. "That is ridiculous on its face, as well as cruel."

Welcome to War On Drugsville. Population: You.

Giuliani and Edwards fired by voters Time for a rousing chorus of na na na na, hey hey, goodbye, for a couple of Presidential wanna-bes.

John Edwards finally realized no one knows or cares that he ran for Vice-President a few years ago...

"It's time for me to step aside so that history can blaze its path," Edwards said. "We do not know who will take the final steps to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. What we do know is that our Democratic party will make history."

Just not with him. Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani was busy getting schooled by McCain and Romney in Florida. America's Mayor won't be America's President...

The flesh and blood of Giuliani never seemed in sync with the mood of voters. He harped on Sept. 11and the fear of terrorism, even as polls showed that people were more concerned with the economy. He talked about victory in Iraq, even when the news from Baghdad moved off the front page.

It helps to talk about the stuff people think about every day, like getting forcibly serviced by the oil industry in an impolite way at the gas pump, seeing the price of groceries going up in every aisle while every big employer in the country sends all the middle class jobs to industrial parks in Mexico or China.

Oh yeah, then there's the whole healthcare issue, as in where's the single payer system? We can't afford that? How about dumping the Department of Hopeless Security and making the Defense Department handle that whole protecting America thing? Isn't that their job anyway?

Fire DHS and fund a healthcare system with it. Hell, at least provide some kind of catastrophic coverage for people who wake up one morning with Mr. Cancer in their bodies.

Yeah, good luck getting Barack and Hillary to stop sniping at each other long enough to deal with that inconvenient truth.

Hi honey, sorry about your job I think Timmy Moseley probably knows the most comfortable position for sleeping on his couch. Maybe his wife's firing was as much her fault as his, but you know how it goes. It's always the guy's fault.

To keep his job, Timmy needed a tanker certification for his driver's license. The missus may have been of some help here...

After investigators found testing procedures at the state Department of Motor Vehicles office in Peekskill were susceptible to corruption and fraud, the DMV fired employee Crystal Moseley, 39, because she monitored and graded her husband's commercial driver's license test, according to a report released Tuesday by Inspector General Kristine Hamann.

Corruption and fraud in a government office? About as surprising as finding fish tacos at Tacos Baja, I always thought.

Spitzer spritzes away Albany with call girl Everyone's heard of Eliot Spitzer. He's the guy who was the Attorney General for New York. He used to mix it up with everybody, especially the big money people on Wall Street.

The crusade took him all the way to the Governor's job in Albany. There's about a million news stories today that all say the same thing, sort of - this is the last stop in his political career, thanks to his affection for high-priced sexual attention outside the confines of his marriage...

The federal investigation of a New York prostitution ring was triggered by Gov. Eliot Spitzer's suspicious money transfers, initially leading agents to believe Spitzer was hiding bribes, according to federal officials. Photos

It was only months later that the IRS and the FBI determined that Spitzer wasn't hiding bribes but payments to a company called QAT, what prosecutors say is a prostitution operation operating under the name of the Emperors Club.

See, bribery in the name of politics, that's ok. But money paid for sex, well hey, let's break out the scarlet letters and weigh Eliot to see if he weighs more than a duck. The Governor hasn't resigned yet, but come on, do you think the Bush Administration will pass on a chance to bust Eliot's balls after he chased after rich Wall Street Republican patrons?

Eliot Spitzer fires himself No real surprise that the ex-Governor of New York decided to punt on 4th and 53 rather than trying to make a play to save his career. See this picture of the Pay for Luv Guv and his charming wife? These last couple of days must have been a blast for Erotic Eliot.

The guy was totally Mister Law and Order, and probably looking at some real estate in DC on Pennsylvania Avenue in 2012. Big white house, you may have seen it in photographs.

This might be Kristen, the Pay for Luv Guv's play date. Her name's Kristen. She's smoking hot. So hot that Erotic Eliot decided to pay for her out of a traceable bank account.

He busted a few prostitution rings in his time, you'd think he'd stick with cash and prepaid phones when engaging a professional service.

But when you get that much power, you get arrogant. He used a buddy's name as an alias for his banging dates. That guy, George Fox, wasn't real happy about being dragged into the mess. Using a friend's name, that was stupid, since it's one more piece of proof tying the out of work Governor to his buff little brunette.

He'll probably have a talk show in a couple of years. He can use Leno and Letterman as references, since Eliot pretty much wrote their monologues for the next month.

Boss drives chauffeur away with indecent proposal Carlos Estes may be a storyteller trying to make an excuse for his firing in Chicago. He may also have been such an appealing boy toy that his lady boss made a play for him...

Carlos Estes was a new state employee in 2003 when he went to Springfield with his boss to attend training in part on sexual harassment.

It was there when Estes said his boss, Teyonda Wertz, chief of staff in the Illinois Department of Human Services, propositioned him for sex, Estes' lawyer said at the start of a federal trial Monday.

In the sexual harassment lawsuit he filed, Estes alleges he lost his job after refusing his superior's advances.

Charming Carlos picked up his pink slip from Tawdry Teyonda's boss for using a state vehicle to get himself to O'Hare for a vacation trip. Gee, someone from Chicago abusing the taxpayer-paid resources, who'd have thought it, right?

Carlos said lots of people use state vehicles to do personal errands, but those people weren't getting tossed out of $70,000 jobs. I'm thinking he's complaining too much. If he's such a piece of arm candy he shouldn't have any problem finding a sugar mama to take care of him.

Boom chicka bow bow, insert remaining porn soundtrack here.