I ran across an item in the local paper today that I think will interest young slashdotters who haven't yet finished with college. My US Senator, Dick Durbin, has authored the "College Textbook Affordability Act".

The paper says major provisions of the act were "included in the higher education reauthorization signed into law on Aug. 14."

Springfield, home of Ward 2 alderman Gail Simpson, is a wierd town. Its newspaper has some wierd stories, like Man robbed of cold 12-pack of beer.

But there is a very geekworthy item in today's paper: 'Green' invention just needs attention.

Democrats
What is wrong with these people? Our next President will be either a doddering old fool or a young idiot.

WGN Radio up in Chicago apparently has a right wing wacko that is trying to swiftboat Obama. Now, if I were Obama I'd ignore the dufus.

I saw a sig today that said something to the effect of "Bush is the Republicans' Jimmy Carter". I never thought I'd ever see a worse President than Carter, but Bush proved me wrong. But he's not Carter, he's Coolige.

I fear that whichever of the two candidates I'll be voting against this November wins, our next President will be Herbert Hoover, because those who refuse to study history are indeed destined to repeat it.

I laughed out loud at the AP headline: "Paris Hilton issues tart rebuttal to McCain ad"

TART rebuttal! Ok, I like puns, so sue me.

Paris Hilton, the blonde, doe-eyed celebrity thrust into the presidential campaign in an ad by Republican candidate John McCain, issued a tart rebuttal Tuesday... in a scantily clad, tongue-in-cheek kind of way

So I'm at Yahoo News and every damned page displays the urgent warning "Your current security settings prohibit running Active-X controls on this page. As a result, the page may not display correctly".

I haven't been reading Yahoo news at work much lately for this very reason; we have IE as our browsers, and Active-X is of course disabled. The IT guys are no fools.

Slashdot has covered the case of Megan Meier, a teenager who was stricken with clinical depression who hung herself after a grown woman, Lori Drew, created a MySpace account and pretended to be a teenaged boy, then after gaining the teenager's affection, wrote to her "The world would be a better place without you".

Historically, slashdot has wisely limited the number of posts that a reader who isn't logged in can make in a certain time period. Allowing unlimited anonymous posts invites spam and trolling (link to the wiki included because a lot of slashdotters, even slashdot moderators, have funny ideas of what "trolls" are).

"One whom crosses Duke Nukem is comparable to one whom is dead."
~ Oscar Wilde on Duke Nukem

"Come get some!"
~ Duke Nukem on opening a new McDonald's restaurant

"If that don't teach you a lesson, might show you his Smith and Wesson"
~ Foreigner (Headknocker)

According to the uncyclopedia, Duke Nukem was 2nd on the Rolling Stones "500 Baddest Motherfuckers of all time" following Chuck Norris.

Slashdot's moderation system is seriously broken. In China Wants US-Owned Hotels to Censor Internet, the summary states ""The Chinese government is demanding that US-owned hotels there filter Internet service during the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, US Senator Sam Brownback has alleged." I responded

Sam Brownback doesn't exist. If he did, there would be an uncyclopedia article about him.

I sent this to the Illinois Times yesterday, but I think I'll have more of a chance to get my questions answered here at slashdot.

Dear editor:
I had a detached retina, and subsequently had to suffer vitrectomy surgery. When it came time to go to the drug store to get a prescription for Vigamox filled, I called around to all the pharmacies to get the best price - drugs are expensive these days, and I'm not Donald Trump or Bill Gates.