
RAH News Magazine
by Greg Borek

Our lead story tonight: Mrs. Edna Greenbaum of Passaic, New Jersey
has quietly become the richest woman in the world.  Demonstrating
keen business acumen and a perverse love of peanut butter, Mrs.
Greenbaum quietly obtained the patent for the computer keyboard.
From now on anyone using a computer keyboard to input information
into a computer now owes Mrs. Greenbaum 25 cents per keystroke.  When
questioned what possessed her to make such a bold and insightful
financial maneuver, Mrs. Greenbaum claimed that she was actually
trying to obtain a patent for a new lawnmower that operates by
burning off some of the immense amount of sugar in peanut butter, but
filled the form out wrong.  Lawyers are preparing to sue. 

Spot the Wonder Dog was unfortunately shot and killed by Secret
Service agents today while at an award ceremony in his honor at the
White House.  Spot TWD was at the White House to receive an award
from the First Cat for conspicuous bravery and "just plain smarts"
not usually found in a canine.  Spot TWD's award was for having
reprogrammed the onboard computers and then landing a crippled
airplane that had inadvertently run into a flock of vultures (without
permission) that now inhabit the environs of Dulles airport.  (The
vultures are endangered so now airplanes are as well.)  Apparently,
as Spot TWD was preparing to read from a prepared statement he forgot
where he was and pooped on the carpet before attempting to "tree" the
First Cat.  Approximately 150 of the warning shots fired by the
Secret Service hit Spot TWD, and he died two hours later at DC 
General.  Lawyers for the SPCA are planning to sue.

Joseph J. Henderson won an 3 day, 7 night all-expense paid trip for
two to the Bahamas for winning a computer programming contest
sponsored by IBM.  Mr. Henderson, a retired milkman who only has a
rough familiarity with the BASIC programming language, won the
contest by producing the smallest, fastest program that would
"produce a sorted list of numbers in ascending order".  Mr.
Henderson's rudimentary BASIC program was only 20 bytes in size and
did indeed produce a sorted list of numbers as output, provided,
however, the input was also sorted in ascending order.  When notified
by IBM that although he had fulfilled the letter of the instructions
he had not complied with the spirit of the contest and was therefore
not being considered eligible for a prize, Mr. Henderson called "a
lawyer guy with nice hair I saw on the boob tube" and was eventually
awarded the first prize.

No one in the computer industry was surprised or really that
interested in a "kind-of" announcement "unofficially" made by 
Microsoft about some software it might produce eventually.
Apparently the computer media is tired of being played like a cheap 
violin and is now waiting until Microsoft actually produces something
before evaluating it.  A spokesman for people said, "Well, it's about
time."  Intel is planning to sue for service mark infringement:
obviously Microsoft is trying to mimic Intel's "string'em along but
only produce something when you really have to" marketing strategy
and business plan.

The newly created Ministry of Thought Police ruled today that it is
now a felony to make any sort of pun about the "information
superhighway."  They are concerned that these puns are trivializing
Mr. Gore's importance and make him look more and more and more and
more like Dan Quayle every day.  The Ministry also executed its first
suspect, a Mr. Fred Rogers of Tempe, AZ.  Mr. Rogers was caught
red-handed wondering in a private e-mail message what business Ms.
Rodham Clinton had attending Cabinet meetings.  Ministry officials
hoped that all heretics could be eliminated as quickly in the
future.

On a positive note, a lawyer committed suicide today by jumping off
of the Empire State Building.  A note found at the scene said the man
was tired of being a detriment to society, forever sponging off the
honest labor of working people without contributing anything.  It
went on to say that lawyers have now made their way into every aspect
of human life, and he felt that honest people should be able to make
major transactions without having to support overpaid whiners.  A
spokesman for lawyers said he wasn't surprised that a thing like this
could happen given the constant harassment lawyers are constantly
subjected to.

As a surprise to absolutely no one, 118 million separate lawsuits are
being filed against the man's estate, the city and state of New York,
the owners of the Empire State Building, the descendants of the
people who constructed the building, anyone who witnessed the event,
the inventor of the hula-hoop, Utah, the Coca-Cola company, the
Colorado Rockies baseball team, and several other people not in any
way connected with the event.                                   {RAH}
--------------
Greg Borek is a C programmer with a "Highway Helper" (OK, "Beltway
Bandit" - but don't tell his boss we told you) in Falls Church, VA.
He has previously been mistaken for a vampire.  Netmail to: Greg
Borek at 1:261/1129.  Internet: greg.borek@rah.clark.net

