NEW YORK – Crisscrossing the country in corporate jets may no longer fly in Detroit after car executives got a dressing down from Congress. But on Wall Street, the coveted executive perk has hardly been grounded.

Six financial firms that received billions in bailout dollars still own and operate fleets of jets to carry executives to company events and sometimes personal trips, according to an Associated Press review.

Read more: Wall Street still not downgrading to first class

And here are my troubling results:

If you’re any good at simple math, you can see right away that I’m well on my way to crossing the border between “normal” and autistic. On the one hand: F***!!!. On the other hand: whatever, dude. At this point, I’ve probably accumulated half the diagnoses in the DSM-IV (not that 302.3 one though, I swear!). So what’s another one, right?

Pictured on the left is retired Navy Adm. Dennis Blair, Obama’s choice to head up national intelligence. Look at him! I mean, is it just me, or was the guy genetically engineered for the job? If you had to imagine someone in charge of the CIA, would this guy’s exact image not pop into your head?

Come on, really look at him. He doesn’t just have a square jaw, his head is a perfect rectangle. Super-high forehead literally translates to “brainiac”. Straight eyebrows means laser-like focus. Very long, very straight nose, somewhat flared? That’s almost too easy: sense of superiority, ruthlessness, and cunning. Wide, straight mouth, relaxed closed smile – means calm, cool, collected confidence. This guy never breaks a sweat.

They say that after many years, people sometimes start resembling their dogs. Or their spouses. Maybe in this case, it’s their jobs.

“This project is so important that we can’t let things that are more important interfere with it.” (Advertising/Marketing Manager, United Parcel Service)

Of course, ever the value-conscious consumer, when I’m actually at the register I always feel a momentary pang of regret over not having that card that might save me a buck or two. I figure there’s gotta be others like me out there, which is where I got the idea.

My observations:

1) Retailers want consumers to participate in these reward programs: partly for loyalty, and also to get detailed marketing information.

2) Consumers want to participate for the discounts. But all those freakin’ cards, man!

A dismal scenario. Shopper A sadly says no to Store B’s rewards card, already wistfully regretting a bleak future of lost discounts, while Store B hangs his head in shame, wondering where he went wrong.

Enter Third Party Marketing Company C, a.k.a. “RewardCo”, on his gallant white steed. He surveys a bunch of consumers and finds that they would be more than happy to use a rewards card at not only Store B, but also Stores A, C, D, E, and F, all the way up to and including Store Z, if they could all be consolidated into just one rewards card for convenience purposes. RewardCo then approaches Stores A through Z and makes them an offer they can’t refuse:

“We can quadruple your rewards card consumer base.

Furthermore, we can provide you with not only the demographics and shopping habits of your customers at your store, but also a detailed report of what they buy at all the retailers in the network.

Last but not least, you’ll no longer have to do any of this in house – you can outsource it to us and we can do a better job of it – we’re doing it for every participating major retailer in the U.S., it’s the only thing we do, so it’s what we do best – your customers will be thrilled.

Oh, and did we mention all the other major participating retailers? You don’t want to be the odd man out and lose all those sales, do you?

It’s a win/win/win: shoppers are happy, the retailers are happy, and Third Party Marketing Company C, a.k.a. RewardCo is busting a gut all the way to the bailed out bank of its choice. Someone, please, steal this idea and make it happen.

Since the election and all the ensuing Obamania however, I’ve been looking for a good way to bookmark Obama news. Something that would allow me to track everything he does in office, editorials, timelines, and articles. Maybe even an online scrapbook of some sort, for posterity. And I’d also need a news feed aggregator to bring the items to me.

Well, the good folks at Sunlight Foundation must have been reading my mind, because today they have made available My Political Notebook, which allows you to save all kinds of content – links, vidoes, blog posts, and files via bookmarklet. Plus you can add notes and tags.

To see it in action, check out Donny Shaw’s Political Notebook.