December 03, 2000 - ROLLA-AREA
SHERIFF SAYS HE'LL CONTINUE DRUG CHECKPOINTS
- Even though the U.S. Supreme Court last week
outlawed roadblocks to check for drugs, the Phelps
County Sheriff's Department in Rolla, Mo., apparently
plans to continue checkpoints on Interstate 44. Sheriff
Don Blankenship said last week in a Rolla newspaper
article that he would continue the checkpoints, which
have been so frequent that critics call him the
"Sheriff of I-44..."
December 06, 2000 - Whose
life is it anyway? - Dateline: A man’s
life ‘ruined’ by a computer glitch, © MSNBC, Scott
Lewis says his life was ruined by a typo in a police
computer linking him to a man facing a murder charge.
Lewis could not get a job when employers were alerted to
the false charge. But even after the mistake was
corrected, Lewis learned the agency that sent out the
erroneous information could not retract it. Since this
story by Dateline’s Rob Stafford aired, Scott Lewis
says he has been offered several jobs and has a
“chance at a new life.”
December 04, 2000 - GOVERNMENT
REACHES INTO YOUR CHILD'S SCHOOL LUNCHBOX - How
would you like to receive a letter from your child's
school informing you that you must meet certain federal
guidelines if you opt to send your child to school with
a lunch you fixed at home? Well, the parents of children
in the Oak Meadow Montessori School received just such a
letter last week. The letter contained some fluff about
Thanksgiving celebrations and dropping your kids off at
school --- then it got around to school lunches. Here is
the pertinent paragraph.
Spelling and punctuation errors
have been left untouched. "As you know, we will
begin providing catered lunches, five days per week,
starting Monday. In last week's Parent Communication
Envelope, we included information regarding the menu for
the week of November 27th through December 1st. The
catered lunches are designed to satisfy the USDA food
program requirement. You may still choose to send in
your child's lunch...
December 26, 2000 - Test
your New World Order I.Q. - In the United States,
neo-isolationism promises to prevent the most powerful
nation on the planet from playing any role in enforcing
the peace system. If we refuse a role, we cannot
expect smaller, weaker, and poorer nations to ensure world
order for us...
December 24, 2000 - Microsoft
Is Dead, Long live its reincarnation - By Steven
J. Vaughan-Nichols, Sm@rt Partner Microsoft is
dead. The company that owned the computing world of the
1990s is as gone as the IBM that controlled computing
during the '60s and '70s. The fire has gone out of the
belly of the corporate giant that once dealt with
potential rivals the same way that the conquistadors
treated the Aztecs. Bill Gates was the driving force,
but when he resigned as CEO last January, despite his
public appearances, Bill really did leave Microsoft's
direction in Steve Ballmer's hands. Steve Ballmer is no
Bill Gates...
December 15, 2000 -
Simple
Minds - Jenny Offill, Feedmag.com, looks at the projected learning curve
for machines, builds her own bots, and takes a ride to the
bleeding edge of Artificial Stupidity. For nearly five
decades, artificial-intelligence researchers have tried to
build robots of human-level intelligence. In 1956, Allan
Newell and Herbert Simon, creators of the first
artificial-intelligence program, predicted that machines
would soon be capable of understanding and translating
spoken language, composing classical music, and inventing
new mathematical theorems. This would happen, they said, by
1970...
December 09, 2000 - Realignment
in American Politics: The Prospects for Liberty -
by
Llewellyn H.
Rockwell, Jr., To restore the ideal of the original
republican system, which allows maximum freedom for
individuals and communities to govern themselves, should be
the sum total of our agenda. I'm convinced that we are in a
better position to succeed at this goal now than at any
point in a century -- from Rockwell's speech before the
Republican Liberty Caucus in Atlanta, Georgia, on December
9, 2000, printed below...
December 03, 2000 - DOWNEY'S
ARREST SHOWS FUTILITY OF SPENDING MORE TO FIGHT DRUGS
- Robert Downey Jr. is described in the Washington
Post as "one of his generation's most brilliant
actors" - a ubiquitous cliche, along with "comic
genius" - and like many "brilliant" people,
his intelligence has failed him in other realms of life.
Having been released in August after a year spent in a tough
California prison for possession and use of drugs, he was
arrested last week at a hotel in Palm Springs. An
anonymous tipster telephoned police to check Downey's room
for drugs and guns, and there the cops found cocaine,
methamphetamines and no guns, but a manifestly zonked-out
Downey. He was handcuffed, transported to jail, and
bailed out the following morning...
