Viagra Concession Ends Strike

Transit workers in Philadelphia, threatening to continue their strike for a raise in more than their salaries, have won a battle with the Southern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority to have most of their health care costs covered, including full-month prescriptions for Viagra and similar prescription medicines to treat erectile dysfunction (ED).

The leader of the transit workers, Jeff Laccid, explained it like this “look, if the train ain’t got enough power, how’s it gonna make in and out of the tunnel, ya know?” He continued, “Not that there’s anything wrong with me, but I got guys coming to me saying that they can blow through the ten-pill-a-month allowance in a long weekend. They’re telling me this is hard on their wives and girlfriends. The number of transit workers threatening to beat it if they don’t get their pills has swelled since the insurance plan took its hard stance.

The official healthcare provider for the transit authority, Dr. Ed Wiener, says that this was a perfect storm waiting to happen due to:

* More and more transit workers coming up on retirement age or crossing into retirement.
*Salaries and retirement accounts taking a huge financial hit, creating a load of stress.
*Most of the older workers taking other prescription drugs for diabetes and high blood pressure that affect their male performance.

“What this amounts to is a bulging population of men who have come to depend on that little blue pill, and who were initially told to make do with what they had. Some claimed it just wasn’t enough.”

The Transit Authority, though, wasn’t buying it. There are a few younger guys out there who were taking advantage of the program by forging prescriptions for the little blue pill--affectionately known in transit circles as the “pocket train,”--and then turning around and selling it at a much higher price to their senior co-workers who were too embarrassed to discuss their condition with their own doctors. “Let’s just say that there was more than bus passes and train tickets being sold out of the terminals,” said one insurance company spokesperson.

What does this newest concession say about the success of union negotiators in the public transit system? I’ll tell you,” said Laccid, “all that dickering back and forth paid off in a huge way. It’s not like we want to stick it to anyone, we just want a bigger package for our guys.”

Editor at Washington Post Claims "Charticle" is Last Straw

All hell broke loose over at the Washington Post last Friday when features editor, Henry Allen, shoved and punched one of the Post’s Style writers, who called him a very naughty name that rhymes with rockpucker.

Allen was less than pleased with a piece of journalism presented at the weekly meeting held between the writers and the editors of the Style section of the Post. Following the meeting, Allen got “all up in” Style writer, Monica Hesse’s face over an article he described as a “charticle,” forcing Hesse’s co-writer, Manuel Roig-Franzia, to come to her defense. He did so by alling-cay Allen-ay an ocksucker-cay. By the way, a charticle is described as an article that fuses text and graphics, and a journalistic style (no pun intended) that is frowned upon in the journalism business. In addition to the style faux pas, the charticle contained several errors that pissed Allen off to no end.

The fight (actually, Allen punched Roig-Franzia and Roig-Franzia took it like a Style magazine journalist) occurred in front of the office of Executive Editor ,Marcus Brauchli, and in fact, Brauchli was one of the people in the room who helped pull Allen off Roig-Franzia.

Immediately following the incident, Allen was called into Brauchli’s office and appropriately read the riot act, which appears each week in the editorial section of the newspaper. In addition, Allen was barred from the newsroom for the remainder of his career, which just happens to be a few days from now, as he has already announced his retirement effective November 20, 2009.

So, with Allen out of the picture, Roig-Franzia is up for Allen’s job and claims that if he becomes the features editor, there will be more of the same type of journalism where “charticles” come from. Here’s a tentative list that he’s come up with:

Particle – Fuses half the story with lots of pictures.
Grapharticle – Fuses useless graphs with lots of text (not to be confused with charticle).
Pharticle – Fuses photos with really clever captions.
Emoticle – Fuses happy news with smiley faces.
Antarticle – Fuses cold hard facts with cold hard graphics.
OMGarticle – Fuses text messages with graphic graphics.
Politicle – Confuses politics with text.
Errarticle – Fuses glaring errors with photos that don’t match.
Freeforarticle – Fuses face with fist.
Satarticle – What you just read on Glossy News.

2003 Photo of Cheney May Explain Plame ID Outing

Since 2003, many groups have claimed that Dick Cheney was the person at the forefront of leaking the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame to the media, thereby blowing her cover and forcing her to end a long and successful career with the CIA. Although Cheney denies this claim, a recently surfaced photo may explain Cheney’s inability to recall certain events leading up to the outing of Plame’s name.

The FBI interviewed Cheney in 2004 regarding his involvement in the matter. After filing a lawsuit to get the FBI interview summary released, the watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, has finally received a copy of the summary in which it is revealed that Cheney’s memory was sketchy, at best, on whether he discussed Valerie Plame with his Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, who ultimately was charged with leaking Plame’s name to political columnist, Robert Novak. Cheney could also not remember whether or not he discussed Plame or her husband, Joe Wilson, with Bush.

A recent photo of Cheney, Circa 2003, has surfaced showing Cheney wearing mismatched shoes. According to Dr. Leu Singha Grip, an expert in the study of dementia in senior citizens, this quite possibly could indicate that Cheney is suffering from early onset dementia which may be affecting his memory. Dr. Grip believes that Cheney may very well believe he was telling the truth when he said he did not recall if he told Libby about Wilson’s wife and her employment at the CIA.

Although, in reality, during Libby’s criminal trial, evidence was submitted that showed Cheney did tell Libby about Wilson’s wife in 2003; the fact that Cheney could say one thing one day and turn around and say something completely opposite another day is a pretty clear sign that some form of memory loss may exist.

Cheney’s wife, Lynn, confirmed the fact that Cheney’s memory has been slipping for the past decade. “Yes, it’s become a real problem in the Cheney household,” she said. That mismatched shoe photo is just the tip of the iceberg. It started simply enough with him forgetting where he put the keys to the car, to not remembering to pick up eggs and butter from the grocery store on his way home from the Oval office. But it has gotten progressively worse.

“Especially in the bedroom, while holding me at night” Lynn continued, “he sometimes calls me by another woman’s name. It's getting to be so common that we just laugh when he calls me ‘Destiny’ or ‘Roxy’.

She said that it happens most though when Dick is reading the newspaper in the morning over coffee and starts a sentence and then just forgets what he was going to say. “We call them brain farts and these days, Dick is having lots of brain farts.” She said smiling. “It’s just a part of getting old, I guess.”

Dr. Grip agrees that Cheney's brain farts could explain a lot.

Toy Shop Owner Faces Bankruptcy Over "Cursing" Doll Mix-Up

New York, NY - A Hoboken toy shop owner is suing a Chinese doll manufacturer for unspecified damages claiming that the “cursing” dolls he ordered “don’t even f**king talk.”

Hoping to cash in on the annual round of innocent dolls, i.e. Elmo, Jr., bought by parents that, when taken out of the packaging, are found to be hot-wired to say something off-color, and thereby adding to the doll’s value, Hal Hapless saw an ad in a doll trade magazine for “cursing” dolls made by a Chinese manufacturer and quickly ordered 10,000 of the dolls.

“I ordered 10,000 of the cutest little “Wanga Dolls,” he said. I figured with a name like wanga, well, I was hoping they’d say something at least bad enough to make a few indignant mommas cry foul, return the dolls to me, contact their local television stations and voila! It wouldn’t be long before I was making the circuit on morning news shows and raking in a huge profit on those trash talkin’ barbies.”

But Hapless’ plan went horribly awry. “When I got the boxes, I was so elated. I couldn’t wait to hear what the dolls said.” Turns out, the “cursing” dolls were really voodoo dolls meant to be used in voodoo rituals. They weren’t talking dolls at all.

Hapless’ calls to the Chinese manufacturer have so far met with futility. “What the hell am I supposed to do with 10,000 f**king cursing dolls that don’t f**king curse? This is so f**king unbelievable, I just cant f**ing believe it.

It's Time to Take From the Rich

The White House has leaked what costumes the Obamas will be wearing at the annual White House Halloween Ball. The President has chosen to be Robin Hood, and Mrs. President will become Maid Marian. The theme for the ball this year will be “Sherwood Be Nice to Make Everyone Happy.”

Following the President’s lead, Eric Holder has agreed to come dressed as the Sheriff of Nottingham; Carey Cash will be attending as Friar Tuck; and Rahm Emmanuel has reluctantly signed on as Little John. The rest of the Merry Men will include Barney Frank, Max Baucus and Nancy Pelosi.

Breaking from the crowd will be Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and her husband, President Clinton. They will attend the party as Fabio and the Secretary of State. Joe Biden? Yep, Town Crier. That’s a foregone conclusion.

“It’s gonna be wicked great,” said Michelle Obama. “We’ve got a really great party planner who is going to transform Camp David into Sherwood Forest for the evening and wait until you see my man in those green tights!” Yes, that will be something to see, half of Washington in green tights.

Some in Washington believe that this Halloween ball is the precursor for very real events to take place over the next few months whereby President Obama is finally going to mandate a real taking from the planned year-end bonuses of the banks and insurance companies’ Chairmen and CEOs and giving to the small businesses and homeowners who are on the verge of losing everything.

Says Michelle, “You know, I think it is going to be really hard to get Barack to take off that costume come November 1st, but then again, he doesn’t need green tights to take the green back.” No he doesn’t Michelle, no he doesn’t.

Brazil Steals Oktoberfest from Germans

Blumenau, SC, Brazil – In what can only be called the biggest beer coup of the decade, the town of Blumenau, Brazil has stolen yet another world’s biggest party, this time from the Germans. When it comes to hedonism, Brazilians have the corner on the market.

In recent years, Brazilians have stolen a couple of really big parties from the Americans, such as Mardi Gras, now much more famous in it’s Carnaval incarnations, the largest of which are in Salvador, Sao Paulo and Rio; and they’ve stolen New Year’s Eve away from New York’s Time Square to stage the biggest party in the world on Copacabana Beach in Rio on December 31st. And now, they’ve stolen Oktoberfest.

Herr Herman Munschter is a longtime resident of Blumenau, Brazil and when asked if he thought it was a better party than he’s witnessed in Germany in the past, he answered “Ja, ischt gut,” as he stumbled across the street to find his polka partner, Zilda.

The statistics of just how big this annual party in Blumenau is are staggering, for instance:

***There are more attendees than there is street space to hold them, so many walk around holding their friends on their shoulders.

***Blumenau had to build a special dam to release the waters of the Itajai River during Oktoberfest because of the high volume of urination taking place from all the beer drinking. Without the dam, river levels would have become dangerously high.

***Beer is free to everyone. You don’t have to pay for any beer, none of it. (Actually, this is only partially true.) There is a bierwagen that goes through town dispensing free beer every night until it’s gone. But not to worry, there is plenty of cheap beer on sale when the free beer runs out, and to accompany that beer you’ll find some of the best wurst in the world, such as knockwurst, liverwurst and bratwurst.

***During this festival, the cities of Berlin and Munich, Germany offer special travel deals to lure their citizens back to their Oktoberfest parties, without much success.

***The German women in Brazil are much hotter.

***Even the Germans are beginning to call the Brazilian version “Oktoberbest.”

This is a non-stop, beer drinker’s dream destination. Visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO6BKnTEatc for a taste of Oktoberfest the Brazilian way.

America's Health Insurance Companies Blow Millions on High Priced Hook

Just when you thought America’s health insurance companies couldn’t kick us any harder in the collective ass, comes the news that the insurance industry has paid coo-coo bucks for a study which says that if the present proposed health care bill is passed through legislation, it will be the cause for existing insurance premiums to rise. Oh this is gooder than good.

They claim that if they are required to cover “sick” people, they will lose money because they’ll actually be required to pay out on a claim. It is the denial of coverage on which the health insurance business bases its bottom line and the government wants to erode that security. They are so sure that they can pull this off that they are putting some insane money behind this latest attempt to quash the proposed legislation.

Ok, so if we read this right, this means that in order for premiums to stay the same for the folks lucky enough to have health insurance, the government better back off and let the insurance companies conduct business as usual. That means no one but the rich and healthy can be covered, and the rest of us are SOL. Sounds like we’re back to square one.

If they spent as much money coming up with a fair insurance plan for all as they did on million dollar industry standard studies and high-priced lobbyists, well, you get the picture.

Speaking of which--you gotta hand it to those high-priced lobbyist whores who don’t mind dishing a few lies for the big bucks in Washington. Beats running for office on the Repungent ticket these days. And don’t ask how they can sleep at night. They do pretty well with their Charlotte Thomas Bespoke bed linens, which are made from the finest merino wool, backed with a thousand count Egyptian cotton, and sewn together with 22 carat gold. Sweet dreams indeed.

Ok, then, you ask, how do they look themselves in the mirror? Easy, they can keep track of themselves and the news of their latest Capitol coup by installing a beautiful Seura mirror that comes equipped with an LCD television embedded inside. When they aren’t putting on their “up yours” face, they can keep abreast of what’s going on with the rest of the world, if they care, of course, which they don’t.

So, what’s the going rate for selling your soul to the devil these days? Actually, most lobbyists will tell you that there are so many of them willing to deal right now that the prices on soul selling have dropped considerably, which leaves them lobbying for the insurance companies.