STEVEN- oh dear you're going to start thinking the package contains a lottery win! Didn't mean to go on about it, we just thought it would be nice to send something over on the "real" mail! Happy 500th as well by the way, I need to catch up with you a bit I think! Hope your day is going well. Mine was ok, but very tiring and quite difficult at times. Still tomorrow is another day! (and the holidays are less than 2 weeks away I keep telling myself!)

ESTRELA- Hi, sorry to hear about your bad day at work, sometimes though it helps to clear the air?! I feel like having a row with my boss (if you could ever find her when you want her!!!) Good idea putting on Joe when you got in, actually the first thing I did today when I got home a little while back was listen to Sandy Denny singing, nice and calm!!!

ZINC MASTER & JELLYMAN- so who's gonna get to the 1000th post first out of you two? LOL!

Michelle, Cheese101, Bahduh, Alexandre, Jazzzzzzzy, 962, Mowlie, PFields and everyone out there- have a good evening!

Steven Wilde

Suzie2000

Prostitute Sees Sex Trade Hope for Jobless

BERLIN Jan 31 (Reuters) - A celebrated Berlin prostitute said Monday that German job center advisers shouldn't shy away from offering jobs in the sex industry to the long-term unemployed.

Molly Luft, who sold her famous Berlin brothel two months ago and now runs a bar in the city's lively Kreuzberg district, said the sex industry was always looking for new recruits.

"Why shouldn't they send the unemployed to work in the sex industry? Before it was a gray zone, but now employees are insured and receive benefits," Luft told Reuters. "People would no longer be unemployed and could earn themselves a living."

Most business sectors in Germany are shedding workers, and unemployment is expected to exceed five million, nearly 11 percent of the workforce, in January for the first time since reunification in 1990.

German sex workers have been on a par with any other employee since the government legalized prostitution in 2001. They are entitled to social security benefits and pay taxes.

Registered brothel keepers also believe they have a right to seek new staff through job centers and have been scouring job seekers' databases for suitable matches.

"I was always looking for workers over 30 years in the trade. People aren't willing to work very much but they expect to earn a lot of money," Luft said.

A spokesman for the Federal Labor Office said that if job seekers said they were prepared to work as, for example, dancers in strip bars, advisers could put them in touch with any suitable employers, but vacancies would not be displayed in job centers.

He also stressed job centers would not look for prostitutes on behalf of brothels, nor offer sex industry jobs to people who hadn't specifically mentioned it as an area of interest.

Speculation has grown over recent weeks that Germany's new welfare reforms, obliging the long-term unemployed to take any available job or risk losing their benefits, could lead to women being offered jobs in the sex industry.

For those of you across the big pond . . .

Homeowners Can Even Kill Intruders - Guidelines

LONDON (Reuters) - Homeowners in Britain will not be imprisoned for using "reasonable force" to fight off intruders even if they kill, under guidelines published Tuesday by the state prosecution service.

Britain's opposition Conservative Party has been calling for a change in the wording of the law after a series of high profile attacks so that people are only prosecuted if they use "grossly disproportionate" force

But Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) said a change was unnecessary.

"What the Crown Prosecution Service and the police are saying is we don't actually need to change the law, what we need is for people to understand they are perfectly entitled to defend themselves against burglars in their own home,'" he told GMTV television.

But the new London police chief, Sir Ian Blair, appeared to disagree.

"I'm not sure the wording does go far enough ..," he told BBC radio before he had seen the new guidelines.

"'Reasonableness' is quite a difficult concept at 4 o'clock in the morning in your kitchen ..,"

The Crown Prosecution Service issued the new guidelines to try to clarify the law after increased public concern.

Farmer Tony Martin was jailed for manslaughter after he shot dead a teenage burglar in his remote farm in 1999. Two months ago, intruders killed a 49-year-old financier in his home off London's fashionable Kings Road and a few weeks earlier rock star Ozzy Osbourne had fought with burglars at his mansion just outside the capital.

"You are not expected to make fine judgments over the level of force you use in the heat of the moment," the guidelines said, "so long as you only do what you honestly and instinctively believe is necessary in the heat of the moment ... This is still the case if you use something to hand as a weapon."

They add that even if the intruder is killed, the homeowner can claim to have acted within the law so long as reasonable self-defense is proved.

The Cop Without a Clue...

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Swedish police officer has confessed he robbed a bank and later investigated the crime himself, telling reporters at the time police had no clues.

A court in the central town of Bollnas Monday officially charged the 36-year-old for the armed robbery on Dec. 17, court documents said Tuesday, adding he had pleaded guilty.

The amount of money stolen was not disclosed but was described as sizeable. An hour after the crime the police officer returned to the bank as a leading police investigator handling the case.

Colleagues became suspicious when he bought a new car in mid-January, paying 219,000 Swedish crowns ($31,400) in cash using banknotes from the robbery, the court said.

Now when we are older, the government will make sure we are still UP

Medicare Benefit Will Cover Viagra

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sexual performance drugs like Viagra will be covered by Medicare's new prescription benefit beginning next year, along with medications for other conditions like high blood pressure and heart disease, Health and Human Services (news - web sites) officials said Tuesday.

And like those other drugs, prescriptions for Pfizer Inc.'s Viagra will be tightly controlled. The law, which takes effect Jan. 1 at a cost of more than $500 billion over a decade, says Viagra can be prescribed only when medically necessary, and in limited quantities.

"The law says if it's an (Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites))-approved drug and it is medically necessary, it has to be covered," said Gary Karr, spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the health insurance program for older Americans.

Since it was approved by the FDA (news - web sites) in 1998, about 16 million men have tried Viagra, according to Pfizer.

Suzie2000

Cyber bubblies - if I spill it on my keyboard, is it wrecked?

All-time leading rusher to retire

FOXSports.com - Emmitt Smith, the NFL's all-time leading rusher, is expected to announce his retirement Tuesday, according to an ESPN report.

If you are a die-hard fan . . .

Motley Crue released their Red, White & Cruedouble CD today.

I got it at Meijer for $12.98 this morning.

It is another greatest hits album with 3 new tracks.

Suzie2000

death cube k,

Has anyone asked the question, how many total tracks, and how long the CD is...80 minutes? Is there a minimum amount of tracks needed?

Album cover design + Name? If you need any help with anything on this project, I'd be more than happy to offer any assistance possible! Copywriting submitted by?

Joe has given T2J members his blessing on this?

Steven Wilde

Someday I will make it to California. I have been to Oregon and Washington out west, but not to California.

When I was in Portland, Oregon, I was surprised as to now clean, neat and nice the city and people were. I was not allowed to J-Walk, even at 2 in the morning. People are very law obeying there.