C.K.L.'S HOTSHEET ^*

1 EUROPEAN BAN ON HUMAN CLONING Thank Ghod! Now we won't have to worry about Luxembourg creating clones of their evil, despotic ruler, Grand Duke Jean.

2 3COM VS. MICROSOFT PalmPilot ... PalmPC ... What's the difference, you ask? The former is a solid, user-approved product untainted by Bill Gates' money-grubbing, cloven hooves. The latter is still vaporware.

3 THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE SONG Oh, yeah, I'm sure this is a good use of the taxpayers' money.

4 THE GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS The big winners: As Good As It Gets, Titanic, and Jack Lemmon, who had a moment of epiphanous religiosity (courtesy of Ving Rhames).

5 JOHN GLENN After thirty-six years, the first man in space will become the oldest man in space. If this works out, I'm sure the American people can select some more senators they'd like to blast off into the void...

6 ER NBC will pay $13 million per episode to keep the hospital drama in the network's "Must-See TV" lineup for three more years -- at 26 episodes per year, that's a grand total of $1.014 billion. In comparison, for a mere $1 billion, Ted Turner will keep the United Nations in the humanitarian aid business through the year 2007. Time-Warner wins in both cases, I guess.

7 TALK, TALK, TALK Karin Weekly worries too much. (She doesn't get out much, either.)

8 A2B MUSIC: CAFFEINE-BASED LIFEFORM Tim Thompson had some technical difficulties when advertising his free music downloads, but I helped him sort out the URLs.

9 AOL SAYS: "D'OH!" On the Internet, no one knows you're homosexual -- unless a clueless customer support rep gets spooked by Navy stripes. Who's sorry now?

10 MSIE 4.x: CRASH AND BURN Does the Justice Department know something we don't?

11 ON-LINE FREE SPEECH The federal government can't abridge your First Amendment rights, but employers will disapprove if you exercise those rights unwisely. The moral of the story (in Latin, natch): Cave quid dicis, et quando, et cui.

12 MONTY PYTHON REUNION How long has it been since you were happy to hear the word "spam"? Too long, I'm sure.

13 FROM IRAN, WITH LOVE So instead of standing in line at the Stanford Bookstore, Chelsea Clinton gets to stand in line at the Stanford Post Office to pick up some CIV books. Oh, the irony.

14 CONSUMERISM 101 Pepsi-Cola wants to give Berkeley High School two new football scoreboards, in exchange for exclusive rights to sell Pepsi on campus. Many public schools already receive corporate dollars in exchange for ad space in lunch menus and TV news programs. What's next -- R.J. Reynolds sponsoring a nineteenth-century American history textbook?