Two items

[George at Orwellian.Org]

(via Wired)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/15982.html
#    
#    German police in Napster child porn probe By: Linda Harrison 
#    in New York Posted: 10/01/2001 at 21:14 GMT
#    
#    German police have launched a probe into whether Napster is being 
#    used to swap child porn on the Net.
#    
#    The investigation will also delve into other online file-swapping 
#    services such as Gnutella and MyNapster, and hopes to determine 
#    whether users have stored illegal material on their computers.

----

[ugh, comic relief]

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/11/nyregion/11STAT.html
#    
#    January 11, 2001 [snipped; NYS sued for more education funds for NYC]
#    
#    The New York State will soon require every graduate to pass
#    college preparatory Regents exams in English, math, social studies
#    and science.
#    
#    The Court of Appeals had earlier defined New York's constitutional
#    right to a "sound basic education" as learning the competence
#    to vote and serve on a jury.
#    
#    The plaintiffs, the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, argued that new
#    Regents standards do include the cognitive skills to analyze 
#    complex ballot propositions and weigh statistical and other 
#    technical evidence in jury trials.
#    
#    But, the Campaign showed, the state does not appropriate enough
#    money to meet those standards.
#    
#    The state's witnesses, paradoxically, denied that the state's
#    own Regents standards were needed.
#    
#    After all, they said, jurors with trouble weighing complex
#    evidence can always ask other jurors for help.
#    
#    Voters with only eighth-grade literacy can make up their minds
#    by watching television advertisements.
#    
#    One state witness implied that New York City voters might be
#    constitutionally entitled to less education than others, because
#    the city has so many television outlets to inform the less
#    literate.

Yabba-Dabba-Doo!