| Zero tolerance: Bears must win or leave us be
As a guy just out of the hospital, I could try the perspective speech -- what doesn't kill you makes you stronger -- but you've heard that bunk before. Like last year, when Steve Smith slid down the south goalpost like a stripper. And five winters ago, when native son Donovan McNabb dunked the ball over the other crossbar. Truth be told, if the Bears lose today, it just might kill all the hope and emotion you have built up over 21 seasons of acid indigestion since ''The Super Bowl Shuffle'' stopped. There is no consolation this time. You have endured Dave Wannstedt's bad mustache and Dick Jauron's monotone. You have sat through Cade McNown, Henry Burris, Jonathan Quinn and too many other men unfit to be pro quarterbacks. You have smelled Rashaan Salaam's second-hand pot smoke, dealt with Curtis Enis' party-animal-to-Jesus mood swings and wondered if David Terrell would accumulate more parking tickets than drops.
Home And Away - Romances
"You know we belong together. You and I forever and ever!" Given that every single episode of Home And Away since the very first one has begun with that line, it's fair to say, like most soap operas, there has been so very much more than a smattering of romance in it. Unfortunately, with an ever-changing cast list - only Kate Ritchie and Ray Meagher have been there from the very beginning - the producers would have us believe that the course of true love never runs smoothly. Granted that this may have something to do with the need to keep ratings high but it would appear that the meeting of boy and girl in Summer Bay is but the first step to stalking, adultery, death, car accidents, paralysis and madness. And some very uncomfortable looks across a windblown bit of scrubland outside of Sydney.
Big Pharma's bitter pill
Pfizer and AstraZeneca are shedding thousands of jobs as expiring patents and generic competition are knocking the industry for six, writes Sylvia Pfeifer 'There are no longer any sacred cows," insisted Jeff Kindler. "Incremental evolution is not enough. Fundamental change is imperative and it must start happening now." The bold words from the chief executive of Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceuticals group, accompanied an equally bold action plan: the company said it was cutting 10,000 jobs, a tenth of its workforce, and closing up to five research centres and several manufacturing sites. .
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