This edition: Maine in 2000... 2000 in general... OJ Simpson, Good Samaritan... Microsoft sucks... Stupidity in the Wisconsin state government...

Maine is having some problems with the 2000 date rollover already. With any luck this will represent the absolute bottom -- the very worst thing that can happen in this country.

Speaking of the 2000 rollover -- are you tired of hearing about it yet? You're not alone.

OJ called 911 because (so the original story goes) he was worried about his girlfriend. Later it came to light that he was trying to get help for one of her friends. Even when he's trying to be honest and help (as opposed to committing a double murder), it seems, he can't tell a consistent story.

I'm worried about his girlfriend too, since this woman he's dating is clearly the most stupid human being that ever lived. She must not be allowed to breed, especially using this man's seed -- the resulting children would be pathological liars without conscience or intelligence. Perfect elected official material, in other words.

I wonder if she's taken her boyfriend home to meet the family yet?

These $200 PCs may be on the shelves in first quarter 2000. And they don't use any Microsoft software at all.

We're up to Service Pack 5 on Windows NT, and MS's premier, flagship product is still not 2000 compliant.

Not that it matters, since the security-hole-riddled Microsoft platform has yielded yet another severe flaw with its Java Virtual Machine. This means, if you are using IE, that you're at risk. This is probably not news to you.

Of course you could always use Netscape instead and circumvent that.

Here in Wausau there was recently discussion of what to do about Interstate 39, which in this part of the state also is state highway 51.

It's a pretty respectable ribbon of tarmac, four lanes, and frequently gets congested in given locations, especially during holidays, and even more so in the warmer months when every cretin from Illinois (which is, as far as I can tell, all of them) feels a need to run up to the Northwoods region.

Well apparently the state's plan to relieve the congestion -- mind you, this is just a suggestion right now -- is to spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars to widen the highway to six lanes and nuke some of the exits cutting through the Wausau area, which would seriously affect traffic flow through some business districts, require the relocation of an elementary school and a cemetery, and of course send property values in some neighborhoods right down the ol' cesspit.

Now before you think I'm just whining for the sake of it, let me make one thing perfectly clear. I do not live in any of the parts of town which will be affected by these proposed changes.

There's a big problem with the idea, though, one which I don't think the state has considered, really, and one which makes the entire plan completely stupid.

It's said of this part of the world that we have two seasons: Winter and Construction. That's correct -- when the world's not frozen solid around us, there's an awful lot of road work to be seen.

Well here in Wisconsin the highway department has a nasty habit of blocking off the entire segment to be repaired, and keeping it blocked off for months, even though it is perfectly driveable, and even when no construction work is being done. Parts of the road which will not see any work done on them for weeks remain unusable to traffic.

There are stretches of road, in other words, miles in length, which are blocked off for no good reason whatsoever.

It seems to me that the most reasonable way to deal with this is not to spend stacks of money on widening the roads, but rather to change the methods the road crews use to block off construction zones.

What is truly amazing about this is that the legislature in this state is largely Republican -- traditionally the ones not in favor of wasting tax dollars whenever it's avoidable...