Have a happy April 15--From 1989 to 1998, the top 1 percent of taxpaying moneybags saw their income swell eight times faster than the bottom 90 percent of taxpayers. Meanwhile the taxes paid by the rich continue to shrink.

Try gas masks--"LOS ANGELES--Air inside the big yellow buses used to shuttle children to and from school can contain up to 8.5 times more diesel exhaust than people typically breathe in smoggy California.

They do need training, and/or glasses--A German trainee fighter plane crew fired seven rounds from a cannon before they realized they had mistaken a Dutch air force control tower for their practice target. Apparently they didn't see well enough to hit their "target" and no one was hurt.

Speak sister--In London, Olive Byrne, 65, lay on a gurney in the corridor of a hospital emergency and accident ward for 98 hours. She was bustled into a ward the night before an inspection tour by the health minister. Byrne charged "a massive cover-up." Patients were being "bundled into wards" to keep the corridors clear.

Imprecise headline, bum news--From the Times of London headline--"Civilians to interview police suspects"--we thought civilians were going to start questioning cops. Nope. In a pilot project, the Wiltshire police are recruiting members of the public to interview people suspected of crimes. This, they say, will give the cops more time on the beat.

No 'zero tolerance' here--There was the case of the Arkansas boy, 8, who was suspended for three days for violating the school's "zero tolerance" code. He had pointed a lunchtime chicken leg at the teacher and said, "Pow, pow." Then we read that in 1999 drug companies had sold 20.5 million pounds of antibiotics for use on poultry, cattle, etc. They claimed that most of it was to prevent or treat disease, not to enhance growth.  
 
 
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