...meanwhile, a paytriotic shlurp--"The hotel and restaurant industries are using their business falloff to try to get back the full tax break for 'three-martini' lunches and other special-interest provisions that effectively provided a federal subsidy for businesses to spend freely on travel and entertainment."--USA Today.

Get with the program--"If you take a trip and invest money in our economy, it's literally an act of modern-day patriotism." Cali-fornia's guv, Gray Davis, announcing an ad blitz to persuade residents to take their vacation within the state.

But their record is reassuring-- "WASHINGTON--The Forest Service is proposing to give its local managers more discretion to skip environmental analysis and public input for small [?] logging and road-building projects in some of the most pristine areas of the national forests."--Associated Press.

A boost for rational education--In Santa Ana, California, high schoolers called on the school officials to scrap sex education programs based on abstinence, Senior student Maricela Sandoval told reporters: "We feel the school board should be concerned. We want them to teach contraception and how to deal with relationships."

The caring society--The West Virginia University school of medicine, located in a coal region, received a token $3.4 million to train more doctors. The university estimates that the region has about nine doctors for every 10,000 residents.

They've got to stash it somewhere--"A million tons of radioactive scrap metal may find a new shelf-life in products ranging from soup cans and wrist watches to automobiles and artificial hips. It would be a mammoth recycling project for a legacy of the Nuclear Age.

"Under a proposal being considered by the Bush administration, the federal government is seeking new uses for lightly [!] contaminated metal as it cleans up its obsolete weapon plants and research labs."--News item.

Just showing they're qualified--London cops are probing a rash of thefts at a police training school. Students' rooms and cars are being broken into and vending machines jimmied open. Investigators believe trainees are responsible for most of the offenses.  
 
 
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