Pfizer Corp. announced today that VIAGRA will soon be available in

liquid form and will be marketed by Pepsi Cola as a power beverage?

suitable for use as a mixer.?



It will now be possible for a man to literally pour himself a stiff one.??

Obviously we can no longer call this a soft drink, and

it gives new meaning to the names of "cocktails", "highballs" and just a

good old fashioned "stiff drink".??



Pepsi will market the new concoction by the name of: "MOUNT & DO."

Light Bulb

Two bone weary public servants were working their little hearts and souls out. Their department was just too busy for staff to be able to take flex. But there had to be a way........



One of the two public servants suddenly lifted his head. "I know how to get some time off work," the man whispered.



"How?" hissed the blonde at the next workstation.



Instead of answering, the man quickly looked around. No sign of his Director. He jumped up on his desk, kicked out a couple of ceiling tiles and hoisted himself up. "Look!" he hissed, then swinging his legs over a metal pipe, hung upside down.



Within seconds, the Director emerged from the Branch Head's office at the far end of the floor. He saw the worker hanging from the ceiling, and asked him what on earth he thought he was doing.



"I'm a light bulb," answered the public servant.



"I think you need some time off," barked the Director. "Get out of here -that's an order - and I don't want to see you back here for at least another two days! You understand me?"



"Yes sir," the public servant answered meekly, then jumped down, logged off his computer and left.



The blonde was hot on his heels.



"Where do you think you're going?" the boss asked.



"Home," she said lightly. "I can't work in the dark."

God continues to stay on our side apparently

The Village Voice: Nation: Mondo Washington: Rummy's Kids by James Ridgeway: "Attending a National Prayer Breakfast, General Boykin described 'a demonic presence in [Mogadishu, Somalia] that God revealed to me as the enemy,' reports The Washington Post. Speaking of Somali warlord Osman Ato, Boykin said, 'He went on CNN and he laughed at us, and he said, 'They'll never get me because Allah will protect me. Allah will protect me.' Well, you know what, I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.' "

The Good Samaritan



As a trucker stops for a red light, a blonde catches up. She jumps out of her car, runs up to his truck, and knocks on the door. The trucker lowers the window, and she says "Hi, my name is Heather and you are losing some of your load."



The trucker ignores her and proceeds down the street. When the truck stops for another red light, the girl catches up again. She jumps out of her car, runs up and knocks on the door. Again, the trucker lowers the window. As if they've never spoken, the blonde says brightly, "Hi my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!"



Shaking his head, the trucker ignores her again and continues down the street. At the third red light, the same thing happens again. All out of breath, the blonde gets out of her car, runs up, knocks on the truck door. The trucker lowers the window.



Again she says "Hi, my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!"



When the light turns green the trucker revs up and races to the next light. When he stops this time, he hurriedly gets out of the truck, and runs back to the blonde.



He knocks on her window, and as she lowers it, he says."Hi, my name is Kevin, it's winter in Wisconsin, and I'm driving the damn SALT TRUCK!

What I am reading - pure trash but it is a fun read

Amazon.com: Books: Santa Fe Rules: "You're a rich, successful Hollywood producer who awakens the morning before Thanksgiving in your Santa Fe home with no memory of the previous night. Ignoring your dog's attempts to get you to visit the guest wing of the house, you leave and fly your private plane to Los Angeles. But you never get there: a breakdown forces you to spend the holiday isolated in a small airport town. When you finally see the newspaper the next day, you read that the bodies of your wife, your business partner and a third man--assumed to be you--have been found in the guest room of the Santa Fe residence. Further, you learn that your wife is not who you thought she was and has a most sleazy past. You don't know what's going on--or even whether you committed the murders yourself. That's the premise of Woods's ( Palindrome ) newest thriller. Wolf Willett decides to stay 'dead' for a while and finish work on his new film, then hires a top defense attorney and turns himself in. Things keep moving thereafter at the same mad pace, with ever more improbable plot twists pushing the reader's suspension of disbelief to the limit--if not beyond. Willett may be the dumbest protagonist any writer will create this year. Woods is a master of this sort of thing, however, and unfolds his tale in an easy style that will keep readers engrossed and probably put his name on the bestseller lists again. 75,000 first printing; $125,000 ad/promo; Doubleday Book Club and Mystery Guild selections; Literary Guild alternate; author tour. "

Only in Texas

Yahoo! News - Ben Sargent

Yahoo! News - Study Finds No Link Between Vaccines, Autism

Yahoo! News - Study Finds No Link Between Vaccines, Autism: "But public health activists, including those who work with autism sufferers, said that neurological disorders had been found at significantly high rates in the original analysis of the study in 2000, but had been watered down in the final version. "

Do they ever have my number

Salon.com Technology | Hackers on Atkins: "Geeks who go low-carb see it as more than just taking off pounds -- they're reengineering the human organism, overclocking their own bodies."

Yahoo! News - Americans Flock to Get on NRA Blacklist

Yahoo! News - Americans Flock to Get on NRA Blacklist: "Most blacklists are designed to intimidate. But thousands of Americans are clamoring to join one drawn up by the National Rifle Association (NRA)."

Boy, I hope this is the beginning of something

BW Online | October 27, 2003 | The Hidden Costs of IT Outsourcing: "While moving software development and tech support offshore is all the rage, many companies find the overall savings aren't that great "

WorkingForChange-This Modern World: Like father, like son

WorkingForChange-This Modern World: Like father, like son

WorkingForChange-This Modern World: Interesting Things We Have Learned From Republicans Lately

WorkingForChange-This Modern World: Interesting Things We Have Learned From Republicans Lately:

This is good news, I started the Atkins diet 11 days ago.

Yahoo! News - Low-Carb Diets Are Working, Study Says: "The dietary establishment has long argued it's impossible, but a new study offers intriguing evidence for the idea that people on low-carbohydrate diets can actually eat more than folks on standard lowfat plans and still lose weight. "

After Sunday service the minister was passing a group of young teens laying on the church lawn and stopped to ask what they were doing.



"Nothing much, Pastor," replied one boy. "We were just seeing who can tell the biggest lie about their sex life."



"Boys, boys, boys!" he scolded. "I'm shocked. When I was your age, I never even thought about sex."



In unison they all replied, "You win!"

Dolphin Stress Test

Dolphin Stress Test: "It's a simple test designed to indicate whether people have too much stress in their life. "

Response to Austism post on Salon.com

[Read "Planet Autism," by Scot Sea.]

I suspect this is small comfort to Scott Sea, but the ability to write so gorgeously about such a mysteriously tragic reality -- his daughter's severe autism -- says something breathtaking about human life.

The article was a gift to your readers; yet in resonance with the author's experience, it's impossible to describe precisely what that gift was. I remain forever grateful that there are people who can do this.

-- Barbara Regenspan

Scot Sea's "Planet Autism" is heart-wrenching, vivid and the most "real" account of the daily lives of families with challenged children I have read. As a pediatric nurse I counseled parents on strategies and helped them manage their children when they were in the office or the hospital.

I always knew and respected the fact that these parents were the experts, the soldiers in the trench. I have long admired the way many parents of these children hold their heads up and accept what the day brings, which is usually a predictable kind of unpredictability that most of us would not accept for an hour.

Few of us know what it's like to make cleaning feces and other body fluids off everyday objects part of our routine, or to suffer from the lack of a shower or a trip to the store on our own. There is not a comment I can make to comfort a family member in this situation. I hope that people read the article and understand that the world is a completely different shape in some households.

-- Teresa Courtney

I found the article on autism both fascinating and heartbreaking.

In a civilized world, governments would exist for one reason only: to take care of their people, to help them with the necessities of life that they can't provide for themselves. Food, shelter, healthcare (no matter how specialized) and education are every human being's right. These things should not be subject to "free market" whims, political expediency or, God forbid, insurance industry regulations.

Lack of money is the most common excuse for the existence of human suffering. In a country that can afford trillions of dollars for vanity wars, foreign aid to despots, and boondoggle/pork barrel projects, this is obviously a fallacy. Lack of vision, compassion and will is the reason behind this story and millions of others like it.

-- Joseph Thomas

Tell Scot he is not alone. I understand exactly what he is talking about, having a 15-year-old daughter with PDD-NOS and OCD who gets violent. Our family has been destroyed through police calls, moving everywhere to find a decent spot for her, to running out on the rent as all the money went to care for her ever-growing needs.

We are bankrupt, living with family, and are numb with exhaustion. I cannot work full time as her high school calls daily about whatever she has done lately that they will not handle.

There was also a grandmother in Sacramento who shot her adult granddaughter rather than watch her daughter go through moving the granddaughter to yet another school, another disaster. I nodded grimly at the news, knowing what drove the grandmother to that extreme. I wonder what will happen when I finally cannot take any more?

-- Michelle Eventide

As the proud parent of a wonderful 14-year-old young man who is severely autistic, I obviously strongly empathize with the author and his wife and daughter.

Simply put, parenting a large, physically powerful and nonverbal young man such as my son is an incredibly challenging and stressful experience that could not be comprehended by anyone who had not been through the experience themselves. I myself have found my strength stretched to its absolute limit.

That being said, at no point in the article did I detect any love for Sea's daughter or enjoyment of her company. Those are the two things that allow me to cope with my son and make him the best thing that has ever happened to me.

-- Steven L. Fine

As an older sibling of an autistic man, I take great offense to Scot Sea's article, "Planet Autism." Mr. Sea would like to categorize the autistic as either savants or savages. My brother, Jeffrey, was diagnosed in the early '70s. He went on to attend two of the best schools for special needs in New York State, Pre-Schooler's Workshop and Rosemary Kennedy School.

Because of this strong educational background and loving family support, my brother has a job and an active social life. I don't "feel" for the man who killed his child and himself. Did he exhaust every opportunity for his child's development?

Families with an autistic child are obligated to provide the best educational and social opportunities, just like any other family. But we just have to work a little harder so we can avoid resentment and tragedy.

-- Karen Christina Jones

Thank you, Scott Sea, for writing this article. It is the most truthful account I have ever read of what it is like to be the parent of a severely disabled child. My 23-year-old son has severe cerebral palsy, frequent seizures, and is mentally retarded.

The issues are different than for your daughter. But the sense of living on another planet, surrounded by clueless neighbors and store clerks, enduring unimaginable inconvenience at home: All this I recognize. Thank you for speaking the truth.

-- Jan Gallant

I know that man (who killed his autistic child), and I know the author. I am living their lives. I love my son with all my heart, but when my husband and I are gone or when we become too ill to handle him, what will happen to my son? I would not wish this on anyone.

-- Suzanne Leonard

As the mother of a 15-year-old child with tuberous sclerosis who has many autistic-type symptoms as a result, I could really relate to the chaos, embarrassment and frustration expressed. Especially when it comes to the clueless and stupid attitudes, comments and delusions comfortably nurtured by those who don't have to live through something like this.

Burdens like these "blessings" are a nice place to visit, but nowhere anyone would want to live, and as character-building experiences they are highly overrated. More like character-deteriorating through the continual stress. It never stops. It never changes. It never goes away or gets better. Or worse, it seems to for a time and then returns with a vengeance.

I wish the world could really see what it's like through the eyes of this article but unfortunately, I don't have the faith in human nature required to believe it will really happen.

-- Name Withheld

Scot Sea's piece on autism is, without a doubt, one of the most courageously written articles I've ever read. Courage is not often associated with writing anymore, but to make people try to see or feel the reality of an (un)certain situation is admirable.

The phrase "She is atomic" is a masterstroke. I don't know when, or if, that quote will ever leave my head.

-- Michael Deme

Please convey my gratitude to Scot Sea for vividly telling the truth about life with an autistic child. While I am only an occasional visitor to their planet, I've had a glimpse of what life is like there for my sisters and their families (one has two autistic daughters, and one has a son with Asperger's syndrome).

On behalf of them, I'd like to thank Mr. Sea for sharing what daily life is really like for the parents of "special needs" children, and for including the full range of emotions that the necessary yet relentless, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second, monitoring of these children can elicit.

-- Cynthia Winters

Many thanks to Scot Sea for writing that excellent slice-of-autistic-life piece, and to Salon for publishing it. For me it couldn't have been more perfectly timed as I dragged myself into work after getting up at 4 a.m. to tend to my 11-year-old daughter giggling and running naked around our backyard.

Since we learned of our daughter's condition, my wife has been a stay-at-home mom. She slid reluctantly into the role of advocate, therapist and caretaker and gave up her career as a software developer.

Sometimes it's hard to decide if you should try and lead a normal life or not. Is it bad to pretend that everything's fine? "Let's go the mall!" you say on a fine fall morning. Two hours later you leave the store with your child screaming, with everyone looking at you like you're an abusive parent. But sometimes it works. Sometimes no one knows but you that it could all fall apart in a few seconds.

And sometimes she laughs at her private joke, and her face shines as she sings her current favorite song, and you hug her and kiss her beautiful face and you find you can get through another day.

-- Charlie Evett

The Outing of a CIA Employee Is a Predictable Move in the Bush Government's Attack on Constitutional Rights

The Village Voice: Nation: Mondo Washington: Spy Scam by James Ridgeway: "WASHINGTON, D.C.—Outing Ambassador Wilson's wife as a covered CIA employee is another predictable step in the Bush government crude witch hunt politics.
Washington is crawling with covered and uncovered CIA employees as well as spooks from other agencies, such as the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. Many people cooperate with and/or are employed by the spy agencies. In the past they have included prestigious university professors along with any number of journalists. Ramparts Magazine rose to fame in the 1960s with its revelation of various student organizations used as CIA fronts. Ivy League universities recruited spies. Publishing companies have been financed and directed by the intelligence services.
So, it is inconceivable that Ambassador Wilson's wife was identified without everyone involved—from reporters to editors to lawyers to newspaper owners—knowing perfectly well that placing her name amid such an incendiary case in a major newspaper would lead to her ruin. And as a warning to everyone else in or around the spook community to shut up on the Iraq war or stand ready to be taken down. As Wilson told Reuters back in August: 'The reason for it was not to smear me or to even smear my wife,' Wilson said. 'The reason was to intimidate others from coming forward.'
Wilson himself is a whistleblower. And the Bush administration, with cooperation of the Congress, has successfully sought to curb what modest laws exist to protect whistleblowers. No one within the government—Democrat or Republican—has ever seriously tried to promote whistleblowing. This government, perhaps more so than the others, thrives on secrecy. "

As I Mature

I've learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in.



I've learned that no matter how much I care, some people are just assholes.



I've learned that it takes years to build up trust, and it only takes suspicion, not proof, to destroy it.



I've learned that you can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes. After that, you'd better have a big willy or huge boobs.



I've learned that you shouldn't compare yourself to others - they are more screwed up than you think.



I've learned that you can keep vomiting long after you think you're finished.



I've learned that we are responsible for what we do, unless we are celebrities.



I've learned that regardless of how hot and steamy a relationship is at first, the passion fades, and there had better be a lot of money to take its place!



I've learned that 99% of the time when something isn't working in your house, one of your kids did it



I've learned that the people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon and all the less important ones just never go away.

Repulican Family Values?

Women say Arnold groped, humiliated them: "One woman who says she was deeply offended by Schwarzenegger's words was a waitress at the Bicycle Shop cafe on Wilshire Boulevard in West Los Angeles, where the actor used to hang out with about half a dozen pals on Sunday mornings in the late 1980s.

'They always sat in my section,' she said. The group was friendly and chatty with her, and always took their lead from Schwarzenegger. They tipped well, too. 'There was definitely harmless flirtation with all of them,' said the woman, who also worked sporadically as a TV actress.

One Sunday, she said, she was pouring coffee at the table when Schwarzenegger beckoned her.

'I bent down to listen to him,' she recalled. 'He said, a little louder than a whisper, 'I want you to do a favor for me.' I thought, OK, maybe he wanted more bread. And he said, 'I want you to go in the bathroom, stick your finger in your (vagina), and bring it out to me.' '

She stood upright. 'I was thoroughly disgusted' but said nothing to Schwarzenegger, she recalled. 'There was drama in the silence of it,' she said. 'He looked up, and it looked like I was threatening (him) with the coffee pot.'

Everyone at the table then glanced over at the restaurant owner, Andre Driollet. He wagged his finger at the waitress, she said, apparently fearful that she was going to dump the coffee on Schwarzenegger.

'I was so appalled, and when Andre looked at me (as if) to say you better not, I immediately went to him to tell him what happened,' she recounted. What Schwarzenegger had said 'was above and beyond what was acceptable. I think he should have had hot coffee poured in his lap.'

Driollet, who according to a relative is living on a boat in the Caribbean, could "

Salon.com | Matt Drudge, GOP scourge?: "Liberals, Bush-haters, disillusioned right wingers: Meet your new journalistic hero, your muckraking defender of the everyman, your razor-sharp slasher of the Bush White House and Arnold Schwarzenegger's drive to take over California for the GOP.
Meet Matt Drudge.
OK, don't sign him up for a Salon Premium subscription just yet. But as unlikely as it seems, the online bottom feeder, who made his mark in the '90s spreading allegations that Bill Clinton got Oval Office nookie (true) and his aide Sidney Blumenthal beat his wife (false), is now going after the Bush White House with similar gusto. "