For the dad who loves to blame the dog, the kid, the ducks.... Perfect gift for Father's Day!


1. It's the first of April, do you play April Fool's jokes on anyone? a couple years ago I told all the members on my forum that I was closing it down. It took them half the day to figure out what day it was.
2. Do you like to eat sardines?no, do you?
3. Have you ever played racketball? Thats with a racket, right? I think we played it in phy ed once.
4. If eating at a fast food joint that has a dollar menu, do you order a bunch of different dollar items or just go ahead and get a regular meal? dollar menu baby... but we still walk out $20 poorer
5. Have you ever taken a brand new pencil and sharpened it in an electric sharper until it was almost gone just because you were bored? can't say that I have... I don't even know if I've ever used an electric one.
6. Do you have any old broken computers still sitting around your home? a closet full of them, but I talked the husband out of the 2 monitors in there - garage sale!
7. Ricky Martin came out this week stating he is gay. Were you shocked, had a feeling, "who?" or just didn't care? huh?
8. If marijuana is legalized, do you think it should have a luxury tax added onto it? I think there will anyway... this is the US afterall. Any country that can put a tax on tanning will be tax on anything.
9. What's the oddest thing you have sitting on your computer desk right now or where ever it is you may be sitting with a laptop (you could be sitting at a Starbucks with an alien from Mars for all we know)? oddest? um.... an empty jolly rancher wrapper that nobody threw away
10. Have you ever bumped into a former lover and found out they were now gay or straight depending on your relationship with them? um... no.
11. Have you ever held a tarantula? yes. And I was ok with it until it's leg moved
12. Shower- curtain, door, walk-in, or do you just roll around in the dirt to get the stink off? What the sam hell are you talking about Kimberella? I shower in the yard with the garden hose.
One in four U.S. parents believes some vaccines cause autism in healthy children, but even many of those worried about vaccine risks think their children should be vaccinated.
Most parents continue to follow the advice of their children's doctors, according to a study based on a survey of 1,552 parents. Extensive research has found no connection between autism and vaccines.
"Nine out of 10 parents believe that vaccination is a good way to prevent diseases for their children," said lead author Dr. Gary Freed of the University of Michigan. "Luckily their concerns don't outweigh their decision to get vaccines so their children can be protected from life-threatening illnesses."
In 2008, unvaccinated school-age children contributed to measles outbreaks inCalifornia ,Illinois , Washington,Arizona and New York, said Dr. MelindaWharton of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Thirteen percent of the 140 who got sick that year were hospitalized.
"It's fortunate that everybody recovered," Wharton said, noting that measles can be deadly. "If we don't vaccinate, these diseases will come back."
Fear of a vaccine-autism connection stems from a flawed and speculative 1998 study that recently was retracted by a British medical journal. The retraction came after a council that regulates Britain's doctors ruled the study's author acted dishonestly and unethically.
The new study is based on aUniversity of Michigan survey of parents a year ago, long before the retraction of the 1998 study. However, much has been written about research that has failed to find a link between vaccines and autism. Mainstream advocacy groups like Autism Speaks strongly encourage parents to vaccinate their children.
"Now that it's been shown to be an outright fraud, maybe it will convince more parents that this should not be a concern," said Freed, whose study appears in the April issue of Pediatrics, released Monday.
Some doctors are taking a tough stand, asking vaccine-refusing parents to find other doctors and calling such parents "selfish."
A statement from a group practice nearPhiladelphia outlines its doctors' adamant support for government recommended vaccines and their belief that "vaccines do not cause autism or other developmental disabilities."
"Furthermore, by not vaccinating your child you are taking selfish advantage of thousands of other who do vaccinate their children ... We feel such an attitude to be self-centered and unacceptable," the statement says, urging those who "absolutely refuse" vaccines to find another physician.
"We call it the manifesto," said Dr. Bradley Dyer of All Star Pediatrics in Lionville, Pa.
Dozens of doctors have asked to distribute the statement, Dyer said, and only a handful of parents have taken their children elsewhere.
"Parents have said, 'Thank you for saying that. We feel much better about it,'" Dyer said.
The new study is based on an online survey of parents with children 17 and younger. It used a sample from a randomly selected pool of nationally representative participants. Households were givenInternet access if they didn't already have it to make sure families of all incomes were included. Vaccines weren't mentioned in the survey invitation and vaccine questions were among others on unrelated topics.
Twenty-five percent of the parents said they agreed "some vaccines cause autism in healthy children." Among mothers, 29 percent agreed with that statement; among fathers, it was 17 percent.
Nearly 12 percent of the parents said they'd refused a vaccine for their children that a doctor recommended. Of those, 56 percent said they'd refused the relatively new vaccine against human papillomavirus, or HPV, which can cause cervical cancer. Others refused vaccines against meningococcal disease (32 percent), chickenpox (32 percent) and measles-mumps-rubella (18 percent).
Parents who refused theHPV vaccine , recommended for girls since 2006, cited various reasons.
Parents who refused theMMR vaccine , the shot most feared for its spurious autism link, said they'd read or heard about problems with it or felt its risks were too great.
The findings will help doctors craft better ways to talk with parents, said Dr. Gary S. Marshall of theUniversity of Louisville School of Medicine and author of a vaccine handbook for doctors.
"For our children's sake, we have to think like scientists," said Marshall, who was not involved in the new study. "We need to do a better job presenting the data so parents understand how scientists have reached this conclusion that vaccines don't cause autism."
Frances Reid has passed at 93, Reid played Alice Horton on Days of Our Lives, a role she played from November 1965 to December 26 2007 .Reid starred on broadway in the 1930's in Where's There A Will at the John Golden Theatre, She begin tv soaps, joining As the World Turns as Grace Baker in the 1950s, then went on to Days of Our Lives.As a long time Days fan I am saddened to hear this news this morning. We all knew it was coming... she hasn't been seen on the show for a long time, but there was always that bit of hope that she would be at the Horton Christmas or a wedding....