Viagra is a gift from heaven. For men, for women. Thank goodness we live now, rather than any time in the past. Viagra-induced erections + an Age of Aquarius attitude toward sex have blessed us.

Please stow polite abstract speculation. Mature men know. We thank the lord for Viagra. And we pity our fathers.

Last night was a pretty calm episode, intense but calm, coming to a boil. We must wait two weeks for the next (to last) episode.

I believe that next episode will start with explosions and murders, and horror. And it will just accelerate into hell and Armaggedon. Unlike many of you, I believe almost everybody must die.

Then the last episode will be infinitely bleak, a quiet tour of the smoking ruins, a wept-out ghost of a finale.

At the end of "The Great Escape," they show a few lucky soldiers quietly getting away, after everybody else is dead or recaptured. And Steve McQueen gets caught, but still gets his baseball glove in The Cooler.

The Soprano end will be that way. Fiery, bloody deaths for most everyone, and a few lucky goombahs sneaking away, but no Steve McQueen.

...And now, I believe we can keep it until hydrogen becomes a reality. Until last week, I thought we deserved a new Jaguar, but now I believe that would be a sucker car.

We will see how it goes. And we are in no rush.

And Poster Brightstar is cuckoo.

Brightstar, please hold your tongue until you age a little further. In your future there is a Brightstar who can't get it up, and it will have nothing to do with your attitude or your politics.

Then, my friend, you will appreciate Viagra. Just call your doctor and get it. Do not seek a philisophical cure. Ain't no such thing.

In the future, Americans will be like Germans. Bush will be exposed fully, and Americans will say that they and their moms and dads ALWAYS opposed him. Just as Germans used to tell you that their own families never, ever were Nazis.

And the secret pride of having been a G.W. Bush supporter will fester, but finally it will die beneath the surface, beneath contempt. Just as the great pride of having been an elite SS officer had to hide and wither and die in Germany.

This process will take fifty years.

I still am on McCain's e-mail list, but it has been several months since he left the USA behind, and I left him behind.

Michael Scherer is correct when he writes that e-mail and www are much more than just faster snail mail, and that only a few candidates understand this truth.

McCain, at least, does NOT understand yet. Probably he never will understand. Almost certainly, he never will be President of the United States of America.

1. Rush Limbaugh may be correct on this issue, but that does not mean he deserves any credit whatsoever. Duh! My Beagle has the same analysis.

2. The concept of "A Secure Border" is flawed. In the whole world, in the whole of history, no peaceful border ever has been secure. Every border leaks. I live on the US/Canada border. I am afraid that these idiots will send trigger-happy Lance Corporals to my back yard.

3. These same idiots welcome well-educated, high-earning foreigners. My wife works in with MANY Indian and Pakistani and Chinese Software Engineers, right here in Motown USA.

This is not an abstract issue. Please do not listen to these foolish Presidential Candidtates. Do you know any foreigners? What do you think of them? Please make up you own mind!

This woman is a grown-up. Has she never had anybody try to kiss her before? If she says not, I do not believe her.

This guy maybe was sort of in love with her.

Let us maybe say his interest was a compliment to her.(?) Is her standing at school in jeapordy? Probably not, since he has apologized in writing.

BETTER COURSE OF ACTION: Go talk to the guy, and tell him to cool it.

This shows the limits of the www.

I replied late last night, came back late tonight. Great responses, all sorts of great takes, even a response to what I wrote...

But too many responses! I have to go to bed, go to work, and so on.

Cary, ask for a raise because you provoke so much great respnse. Great job. Letter Writer and Young Lady "Victim," read ALL these responses, and make up your own minds.

1. Taking your kid out to the store, and buying your own kid the first baseball glove. Then going home, showing how to put it on, how to stand sideways to throw, and rubbing baby oil on the glove, and wrapping it with rubber bands with a baseball inside.

2. Having your dad or mom take you out to the store to buy your first baseball glove, and as above.

[This is the only part of Norman Rockwell/Leave It To Beaver America which is really true, really good, never out of date.]

As Poster Mgottlieb told us, Frist abandoned his presidential aspirations and quit the US Senate to avoid scrutiny and criticism over his insider stock trading. He got away with the sort of thing Martha Stewart went to prison for.

This story will come out immediately. It already is coming out. Frist is a non-starter.

Two final points:

1. Frist did this fraud with his own family's company stock. He did not even have loyalty to his own family.

2. Frist is in the running for Least Original, Most Boring American of All Time. Many of us had high hopes when he first came on the political scene. He had plenty of chances, but he never, ever, not once did or said anything worthwhile.

Are they still a couple? Have they broken up over this? Inquiring noses want to know.