(2002-11-22) — Microsoft Corp. today disclosed another security flaw of ‘critical’ severity in most versions of its popular Windows operating system.
In its 66th security bulletin of the year, Microsoft urged users to download a software patch from the company’s Web site.

The latest flaw could allow the owner of a PC to control his own computer. It might also prevent access by a hacker to the user’s hard drive.
“In some ways, this is the most shocking flaw we’ve discovered,” said Microsoft founder Bill Gates. “Without this patch, a Windows user will lose that traditional feeling that someone else is in control. It’s always been a comfort to our users to know that a highly-intelligent being was out there, knowing what you’re thinking, feeling and doing. We want our Windows customers to know that even when you’re all alone with your computer, you are never really alone.”

(2002-11-22) — Inspired by columnist Paul Krugman’s criticism of America’s inherited wealth and status system, New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., today altered his legal will. His share of the vast Times empire and fortune will now be inherited by the senior class of a Harlem, NY, high school.
“I read Paul’s column,” said Mr. Sulzberger, “and I agreed that my offspring shouldn’t inherit my wealth, and the reins of the Times, just because they had the dumb luck to be born in my family. What about all those other kids who weren’t fortunate enough to have me as their father?”
Under the terms of the new will, after Mr. Sulzberger’s death, his share of the New York Times Company will belong to the Harlem high school’s current senior class collectively, and the class president will be the publisher.
According to Mr. Krugman, all children from wealthy families who rise to positions of power or influence do so only because of the social status of their parents, not due to their own abilities, nor to the skills they learned from their parents.
The New York Times has been run by members of Mr. Sulzberger’s family since 1896.

(2002-11-21) — A grassroots campaign has been launched to solve the Palestinian suicide bomber epidemic in Israel, just in time for the holidays.
The effort, called ‘Razor Blades for Jenin’, is an attempt to collect thousands of ordinary razor blades which will be shipped to the Jenin refugee camp and other Palestinian towns. The blades will be distributed to disenchanted Muslim youth who want to kill themselves.
“In America, we have disenchanted kids as well,” said one organizer of the charity, “but here, if a teen feels he’s oppressed and has no future, he quietly kills himself in his bathroom. When we heard about these suicide bombers, our hearts were moved. Thanks to ‘Razor Blades for Jenin,’ from now on when a Muslim kid snuffs out his life on a city bus, he goes alone, and quietly into that dark night.”
Organizers will also accept monetary gifts. A mere $22 can provide one razor blade to every depressed young person in an average-sized Palestinian village.

(2002-11-21) — Poets around the world have deluged news organizations with anti-Semitic screeds in hopes of emulating the success of their colleague Tom Paulin.
The Irish Poet captured headlines in The New York Times and elsewhere when he was disinvited to speak at Harvard University due to anti-Semitic remarks he once made to a reporter.
In April, Mr. Paulin was quoted in a Egyptian newspaper as saying Brooklyn-born Jews who had settled in the West Bank “should be shot dead,” adding, “I think they are Nazis, racists; I feel nothing but hatred for them.”
Harvard’s on-again, off-again, invitation to Mr. Paulin sparked news stories and spiked sales of his books, which had generally languished under a patina of bookstore dust next to the tiresome tomes of even lesser-known poets destined for the “blowout sale” table .
Other poets hope to copy Mr. Paulin’s success formula.
“I have a reading scheduled at the Barnes & Noble next month,” said an unnamed poet from Berwick, Pennsylvania. “If I can just convince them that I hate the Jews, maybe they’ll cancel the gig and the local paper will do a story. You can’t buy ads on the front page, you know.”
“This is a dream come true,” said another young poet in Danbury, Connecticut. “I used spend hours agonizing over a line of verse that would lay bare the coils of my soul. Now, I’m just emailing newsrooms with hateful limericks about Jews.”
Mr. Paulin has since been re-invited to speak at Harvard, which he described as “a crushing blow, both personally and professionally. This could undo all I have worked so hard to achieve.”

(2002-11-21) — On the heels of yesterday’s lawsuit claiming that McDonald’s food makes kids fat, lawyers have filed a class action in federal court in Manhattan on behalf of parents claiming McDonald’s destroys their ability to discipline their children or monitor their behavior and whereabouts.
“Ronald McDonald holds sway over the minds of parents like Saddam Hussein controls the Iraqi people,” according to the 234-page filing. “Parents involuntarily transport their children to McDonald’s and give them money to buy Happy Meals. These innocent Moms and Dads often have no idea that their children have gone with friends to Mickey D’s. They are helpless, pitiful victims of McDonald’s nefarious mind-control recipe.”
The lawsuit seeks punitive damages of one dollar for every customer McDonald’s has served.

(2002-11-21) — Consumer groups are calling on the Federal Government to force a recall of the Disney sequel, The Santa Clause 2, because many customers complain of slipping into a trance-like state while viewing the film.
“I loved the first Santa Clause movie, and I love Tim Allen,” said an unnamed viewer who suffered drowsiness, and a general sense of malaise as a result of viewing the film. “Something went horribly wrong within the first minute, and it got worse and worse. I began to lose consciousness. At first I thought someone had gassed the theater. People were passed out everywhere. It was scary.”
An unnamed source, who served as Best Boy Key Dolly Grip Gaffer on the project, said a government recall won’t help.
“There’s really nothing we can do to fix it,” he said. “If we edit it down to the good stuff, we wouldn’t have enough film to make a 30-second commercial.”
Disney responded by announcing plans to release The Santa Clause 3 in time for Christmas 2003.

(2002-11-19) — The New York Times plans a front page story for tomorrow’s edition with the headline: “Dog Fails to Bite Man.” The non-story is part of a new “progressive” approach to journalism, according to editor Howell Raines.
The story comes a day after Mr. Raines told a California audience, “If there’s an absence of debate in the country, if Congress is not standing up to the administration in an adversarial way, that’s a news story.”
Other upcoming Times stories will include detailed accounts of planes which arrive safely at their destinations, photographs of buildings which have never burned down, riveting first-person accounts of people who have not been assaulted, behind-the-music features with bands that have never toured or recorded anything, and a multi-part series on inertia.

(2002-11-19) — Tom Ridge, soon to be Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said the new mega-agency is “not what you think.”
“I know a lot of folks think that we’re going to be spying on Americans,” said Mr. Ridge. “I know that because of all the emails and phone calls from average Americans that we’ve intercepted.”
Mr. Ridge said information from phone and internet “chatter” indicates that Americans are concerned that the government will track web surfing, store information about credit card purchases, take pictures of people in public places, tap phones and even pay ‘friends’ as informants.
“You don’t need to be concerned about those things,” said Mr. Ridge. “I’m not saying we won’t do those things…just that you don’t need to be concerned about something that you can’t control anyway. Relax. We’re from the government, and we’re here to help you.”

(2002-11-19) — Buried in more than 430 pages of Homeland Security legislation is an amendment that effectively merges AOL Time Warner with the new Department of Homeland Security.
Appearing together this evening at a news conference, Tom Ridge, the likely Secretary of Homeland Security, and AOL CEO Steve Case said the deal would offer “robust synergy.”
“AOL Time Warner reaches tens of millions of households with a communication pipeline that can both send and receive,” said Mr. Case. “What better way to keep track of potential terrorists than to monitor their computer usage, and even watch them through their own webcams and TV sets.”
“My old colleague, Gerald Levin, once said he didn’t want AOL Time Warner to be just a company, but an institution for the ages,” said Mr. Case. “Today we have realized this dream, making AOL not just an institution, but part of the biggest bureaucracy on earth.”
Mr. Case will remain as director of the AOL Division of the Department of Homeland Security, “but he’ll have no duties and no accountability,” said Mr. Ridge. “He’ll just have a big fat salary. In other words, his role won’t change.”

(2002-11-19) — Saddam Hussein, president of the Republic of Iraq, confessed at a news conference today that his nation has thousands of nuclear weapons.
The Iraqi leader laughed as he made the announcement: “How do you Americans say it? ‘Whoop, there it is!’
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said Iraq’s revelation did not constitute a violation of U.N. Resolution 1441.
Mr. Hussein said his country may not have a complete list of weapons of mass destruction by December 8, the deadline imposed by U.N. Resolution 1441.
“We have so many weapons of mass destruction, we can hardly begin to count them,” he said. “Hans Blix will be like a kid at one of those American Easter egg hunts. No hunting required, you can just scoop them from the ground by the armload.”