More comedy from the lovely halls of government and elsewhere.

On the subject of banned books, a school board in California has apparently banned _Fahrenheit 451_ because it's "disrespectful to authority". Speculation on wether laws will be passed allowing people to burn any copies they find is left for better, more ironic people.

In other news, the "Kasparov vs. the World" on-line chess tournament run by MSN has, in a move that should shock absolutely nobody who's heard anything at all about Microsoft ever, is revealed to be so full of holes you could float the Titanic through it. Multiple successful examples of stuffing the vote over which move the world would take, MSN closing down access to the thing for non-windows users, and generally being cheeky bastards about the whole deal marred what could have been a righteous ass-kicking of Mr. Kasparov. MSN has, naturally, denied everything. In the most shocking event of this story, at least one person, a three year old boy in Gary, Indiana, actually believed the denial. "We're stunned," the boy's parents stated in a release the press, which descended on the Indiana town within a few picoseconds of the story breaking, "I mean, we tried to raise him right, but now he... he... believes the Microsoft PR department. It's just horrible!"

More on this crisis as it develops.

In other Microsoft news, the company is vigorously attempting to exploit the concept of investing in the future by buying as many Congressmen as it can. No more solid investment is known than lining your over-coat pockets with loveable, idiotic Congressmen, willing to do your corporate bidding in such areas as crushing the budget of any branch of government that dares oppose you. When called on this, Microsoft spokesthings responded with a "Yes, and? What'choo gonna do about it, punk?"

In television related news, MTV released a 'hacker special' in a desperate attempt to be cool. It's only now been revealed that the show did not, in fact, have any actual hackers on it. One of them, a fellow by the handle of Shamrock, revealed that he was on the show, and that he did not, in fact, have any record of doing anything horrificly criminal in the hacker area, because he had not, in fact, done anything other than make the whole thing up to get on MTV. Well, duh. If he'd been a real hacker, he'd have had a handle better than 'Shamrock'. Even if he'd just been a script kiddie, he would have had a name like 'Sh@mr0ck'. But, then, this is the kind of tripe we've come to expect from MTV (motto: "We play music videos. Honest. Stop asking us that question!")


Dragonball Z:

We begin with... stock footage. No, it's not enough that things are being drawn out, now we have to run down the budget by using stock footage of Goku drawing power again. Woo haw. Be still, my impressed brain.

Piccolo decides to delay Frieza so Goku can accumulate Yet More Power (as if charging for the previous two episodes wasn't enough). Frieza dishes out some whup-ass on Piccolo, and thankfully neither of them say too much.

Meanwhile, in the Next Dimension, the Ginyu Force, those wild and crazy guys who just won't give up and go away, engage in a vicious, brutal battle with Our Three Dead Heroes. It seems about even, really, with both sides dishing up large helpings of whup-ass on each other. This continues for a while.

Back in reality, Piccolo is finally beaten to a pulp and hurled to the ground, where Frieza decides to finally kill him. But, wait, Gohan and Krillan smack Frieza, pinning him between two energy blasts. Frieza, finally realizing that he's been wasting our time, says to heck with it, and decides to simply end things by detonating the whole planet. Yay!

But wait! Goku's finally got the Spirit Bomb charged to a point he's happy with, and hurls it at Frieza. Frieza, meanwhile, doesn't even try to get out of the way, despite the fact that the Spirit Bomb moves real slowly. No, instead he just stands there like a moron and tries to catch it. This thing's several hundred meters across! It is not a baseball! Do not try to catch it!

Much exploding happens, in a giant boom that can be seen from orbit. A boom large enough to suck all the color out of the picture (actually, the shot from orbit shows the boom being large enough to waste, say, Europe, which can't be right). Everyone gets hurled around a lot. Eventually, Gohan and Krillan crawl out of the ocean and look around at the blasted landscape, as well as the oceans rushing into the huge, steaming crater the size of Detroit that marks where the boom boomed.

In the Next Dimension, King Kaiou, having not learned a thing from watching this whole campaign, pronounces Frieza dead. Yeah, right. We've got at least another few dozen episodes of Frieza.

Next Episode: More fighting. Duh.


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