2007

Dateline 2007
Last Wednesday's episode of Jenna Loves Barbara (#97, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) drew the ire of Rush Limbaugh and a letter of protest from the White House. The controversial episode guest starred Ellen Degeneres as Mary Cheney. Fox has issued an apology and promised not to include the episode in its upcoming boxed DVD set.

Dateline 2007
HR42666 is up for vote. If passed, it will require manufacturers of new scanners and photocopiers to be "analog watermark aware" and not copy any watermarked printed material unless a keycode was typed in to unlock each page. Under the proposed law, current owners of non-watermarked but copyrighted 'legacy' texts would be required to trade them in for free electronic versions with DRM protection or at a nominal fee for watermarked hardcopy versions. Non-copyrighted texts would be exempt, and their owners would be permitted to keep them as long as they filed an inventory of all the non-watermarked texts they owned with the American Book Publisher's Association. Industry spokesmen lauded the bill as "At last protecting America's hard-working authors from the ruthless aggression of cyberspace book-thieves"

MUMBAI (AP) - The Dila, Swatch's version of the plasmachron, has become a hot fad among India's young adults. Information technology professionals favor discreet dime-sized spots that display only a pair of hands. Bollywood idols compete to display the largest and flashiest bands that combine digital displays with bright, pulsating mandalas. As described by the University of the Midwest researchers who developed it, the plasmachron runs on the body heat of the user.

However, Swami Sringeri Ramesh Ananda today issued a condemnation of Dilas, charging that they do not run on body heat but instead drain the wearer's life force. "Our foolish young people! All this measuring of minutes is taking their lives away from them." The University of the Midwest administration refused to comment on rampant campus rumors that several postdoctoral students who worked on plasmachron research have been stricken with a mysterious debilitating disease.

SANTA FE, NM — Judith and George Kimmon's lawn has remained remarkably lush and green while neighbors' lawns are browning after three months of severe water restrictions in the worst drought in decades. The Kimmons say that they merely throw out their leftover coffee on the lawn. Neighbors claim that the retired couple spend two or three days each week brewing more than 100 gallons of extremely weak coffee just so that they can let it cool and sprinkle it on the lawn. City officials are investigating whether the Kimmons have indeed found a loophole in the water restriction ordinance, which specifically prohibits watering lawns but makes no mention of recycling other fluids. "Well, sure, it's a good thing to find a use for leftover coffee, but if you make it just to be leftover, it isn't really left over," said one official who asked not to be named.

LONDON — The Kennel Club UK and Appleton Publishing held a joint press conference to announce publication of The Border Collie Guide to Management. The book, written by a Megatechglobal middle manager who took a sabbatical to become a shepherd in Northumberland, asserts that managers have much to learn from border collies. "Let's face it, lads, our main job is to run circles about a lot of wooly-headed folk and get them into what order we can. Sometimes we have to bark a bit, and there are times I wouldn't have minded nipping a few ankles, I can tell you," said the anonymous author (identified only as I. Shepherd).

Dateline 2007
LONDON (Financial Times) A consortium of international health insurers, Lifetime Medical Assurance, led by the British International Health Insurance and the American Signa announced a new program to provide business and political leaders with a guarantee of the highest quality medical care. Each individual account will be backed by an endowed fund of a least 2 million U.S. dollars; the exact amount of the endowment will be determined by Lloyds TSB based on the age, health and location of the individual.
With participation of many of the world's largest corporations already lined up it is expected that Lifetime Medial Assurance will rapidly become one of the premier health care business. It will begin by investing in clinics in Europe, Asia and North America and by placing a order for three specially modified Airbus Corporate Jetliners to serve a flying hospitals.
It was also announce by Enno Penno, secretary general of the Council for Mature World Leadership that a portion of each endowment will contribute to a research foundation. The Fund for the Extension of Productive Life will fund research aimed a increasing the ability people to remain productively involved in important decision making positions.

Dateline 2007
CLEVELAND (Wall Street Journal) Diebold Corporation announced the availability of an electronic jury tabulator to replace antiquated paper ballots in jury rooms. They stated that the automated system made annonomity much easier to maintain. The corporation has made the devices available to the federal courts for a free pilot.