This edition: We were never imperialist... JonBenet still garners commentary... Tobacco walloped in Florida... We'll actually miss you, Liddy... Tony Blair likes Chinese... Free to sue! ... Columbine,. shootings, violence in schools, witch hunts and parental neglect... AOL supports ant-gay violence... No, you don't actually own your pets... Poisonous LA... A cure for rape... Colorado's still full of loonies... It wasn't the killer's fault... Isn't it blasphemous to cancel the Madonna? ... Wild and woolly in Siberia... Shocking radiation/cancer link... Encyclopedia Titanica... Warm, fuzzy Al... Pat's still insane... Unripe sucker-pluckers... Bush (W) hacked... Wal-Mart, stay here...

The US scattered nukes in 27 nations during the Cold War.

But, of course, we were the good guys.

Someone wrote a message on JonBenet Ramsey's grave. It might be true, but still, come on, folks. Let the dead take care of their own -- we have some murderers to rein in.

The tobacco companies lost bigtime in Florida. They may have to pay out five hundred billion dollars to class action plaintiffs, none of whom are apparently willing to take responsibility for their own actions or their health.

As an ex-smoker this publisher finds that kind of behavior unforgivable. Each morning, when I was short of breath because of the effort involved in getting out of bed, I didn't blame anyone but myself, because I knew that it was by my own free will that I stuck those darn cancer sticks in my mouth to begin with.

And when I quit it was by the same mechanism that I started -- free choice.

Don't tell me those scum in Florida didn't start just the same way. I have zero sympathy for them. They just saw an opportunity to suck money out of a corporation, and took it.

Liddy Dole dropped out of the Repiglican race for President. This leaves us with yet another of the Bush clan, Steve Forbes, and John McCain, who this publisher believes should get the bid, as he is clearly the best man to emerge from that party since... well, since before Reagan, that's for certain.

Tony Blair thinks China needs to focus more on human rights.

Come on, be fair, Blair. They still crack down on religion and baby girls over there. One thing at a time! The good news is that trade agreements with the UK are apparently not contingent upon China relaxing its collective sphincter. Hey, if the US can do it, so can the UK!

A man who was wrongfully jailed and held on death row for 15 years -- he was innocent -- is suing those responsible for his jailing. This publisher sincerely hopes he wins.

Whether he meant to carry through or not, a 17-year-old senior at Columbine High School has been arrested and held on a half-million dollar bond for, evidently, making the comment that he'd like to finish the job started by Harris and Klebold last year.

No one really seems interested in why this kid would say that in the first place. It's obvious he needs help. But it doesn't seem likely he's going to get it any time soon, and meanwhile the witch hunt rages on in US public schools. Any kid who says anything that may sound even vaguely threatening is possibly subject to arrest, expulsion and other niceties, with all civil rights suspended, naturally.

I don't know about you, but this hysteria's really starting to irk me.

Bill Clinton has urged students to keep schools safe.

Funny, I thought that was up to the schools' adults. Isn't that what in loco parentis means?

And what about parents? Why aren't they being taken to task for not doing their part? If a child doesn't receive the love and attention needed at home, violence is going to be a natural offshoot.

The "not my fault" boomers have found yet another way to wriggle out of accepting personal responsibility for something while simultaneously maintaining overweening arrogance and self-absorbtion.

Sure enough the litigiousness of boomers which refuse to take personal responsibility for their actions has reared its head again, as though that's news. Parents of kids who were in the Columbine disaster are suing everyone, including each other.

Just more attempts to pin the responsibility on some other jackass, it seems.

In some countries, murderous children are quite in vogue.

AOL likes gay bashers.

If you have a pet, likely you think, as I do, that you are its owner. Well, not according to some loonies in -- surprise! -- San Francisco.

In spite of the fact it's sitting on a field known to emit toxic gas, Los Angeles will complete construction on a new high school.

This will probably not result in any lawsuits, though, since the kids attending will probably be the children of poor minorities, not rich, spoiled white boomer brats.

Four girls, from Wisconsin as it happens, were raped repeatedly over two weeks in Michigan, and then, because they're material witnesses, held in the same detention facility as their assailants. that last part, at least, has changed.

The Mulsim punishment for rape is castration. Might seem a bit cruel, but it guarantees no recidivism. And it's got to be a hell of a deterrent.

An eleven-year-old Swiss boy, whose parents aren't US citizens, is in deep trouble in Coloroado. A busybody neighbor claims he fondled his 5-year-old sister.

The boy, who has been shackled in other courtroom appearances in this case, has continued to proclaim his innocence. His parents fled to Switzerland amid social worker threats that their other children could be taken from them and placed in foster care.

What the hell is wrong with these idiots in Colorado?

Liam Youens, obsessed with Amy Boyer, published his intentions to kill her on the Net for a couple years before he did it.

Rather than blame the perpetrator, though, her family -- some of them anyway -- are holding the net at least partly responsible.

In another attempt to blur the distinction between government and church -- specifically a very narrow Christian perspective -- the US Postal Service has released another madonna stamp, and we don't mean the aging singer.

Scientists aren't sure yet what to do with their new toy, a woolly mammoth airlifted from Siberia. There is talk of cloning it, using a modern elephant as a surrogate mamm -- uh, mommy.

A new book will surely be written soon, explaining this process to children, named Heather Has Two Mammoths.

Whether this would be an ethical action or not hasn't yet been discussed at length. Probably PETA will have a comment, but not until they figure out what to say in the first place. "Animals are not ours to use for entertainment, clothing, or food... or to resurrect from complete extinction" perhaps? If that's so they really can't argue in favor of saving California condors or giant Pandas... And of course they are complete hypocrites if they don't believe the smallpox virus should be set free to roam the human population at will once more, as Nature and/or God intended.

Guess what? Radiation causes cancer!

The Encyclopedia Britannica has gone online for free. Their server choked under the load, preventing unimaginitive and underintelligent schoolchildren the world over from copying article content and pasting it directly into school assignments. Surely some outraged boomer parent will sue because of this.

Al Gore, apparently trying to put up a front of having emotions, wants deadbeat dads to be targeted more thoroughly for prosecution.

Of course money can't make up for the gaping emotional void a missing father leaves in a child's life, but at least it can make the therapy sessions more affordable.

This publisher believes that any parent which abandons his children should be sterilized. But then again I support castration for rapists too, so what do I know?

Pat Buchanan seriously thinks he could win the election if he's permitted to get into a debate with the Reptilian and Hypocrat nominees.

Where's the popcorn? This should be pretty funny...

Capitulating once again to rampant commercialism, the FTC is permitting companies to ask personal questions about young -- preteen -- net users, the idea being that they can then get important marketing information.

Seems to me the only thing these businesses need to know is that, in a sane and rational society, children do not make the purchasing decisions in the home; they use whatever products their parents feel they need to have. Teen Spirit should not be one of them.

George "Coke Fiend" Bush's web page was hacked. Bet it was running on an MS server.

I do not ever want to hear a small business complain about big chain stores running them out of business again.

A little while back I was half out of my mind trying to locate, at the "extra-late" hour of 5:30 PM, a very simple, very standard and rather common component for my PC, a 25- to 9-pin COM port adapter.

The reason I was seeking this component, for the record, is that I had to have the adapter to plug in my new toy, a digital camera, becuae the system I have is not USB compatible, and because my first COM port is being used by my mouse. Since the second port's a 25-pin, well, I needed the adapter.

My first thought was to be a small-town loyalist and go to the local hack shacks to get the component. I began my search, as mentioned, at 5:30 PM, by which time all the local shops I visited had been closed for at least a half hour, and one since three.

I ended up making the purchase, but not at a locally-owned store, and in the process realized what it was that's been bugging me, for years, about small businesses' complaints that the big companies, like Wal-Mart or Best Buy, have been squeezing them out.

See, I don't mind paying a little more for something, if I'm keeping a local business going and a local group of folks fed, and if I'm getting good personal service in return, and if I can actually get to the items I need, when I need them, within reason.

Now to me, 5:30 PM on a weekday is "within reason". Before 3 PM is not, not by a long shot.

This is not a level of service I consider to be worthy of preservation. I don't think I am alone in being more or less tied to a real job for 5 and 40, which sort of keeps me from gallavanting about town on a lark just so I can get to small businesses that don't have the courtesy to stay open a little late in the evenings.

Oh, I know, lunch. So I'm supposed to sacrifice my lunch hour to spend my money in a business that won't try to accomodate my schedule?

Please. Those of you who own small businesses, unless you are willing to put in a little extra time and stay open late -- you could begin your day later, you know, to make up for it, say ten till six or ten till seven each day -- stop your damnable whining about the corporate giants.

Many of us go to them because they're the only things open when we can do our shopping.

Oh, I ended up getting my part at Radio Shack, which was the very last place I expected to be able to find it.