[What happened in Usenet News on April Fools' Day 1995...] Article 28646 of news.admin.policy: Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,news.groups Path: martha.utk.edu!cs.utk.edu!news.msfc.nasa.gov!bcm!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!news.moneng.mei.com!uwm.edu!news.alpha.net!solaris.cc.vt.edu!uunet!in1.uu.net!ten.uu.net!tale From: tale@ten.uu.net (David Lawrence) Subject: Announcement: I am resigning as news.announce.newgroups moderator Message-ID: Organization: Date: Sat, 1 Apr 1995 12:45:22 EST Lines: 25 Xref: martha.utk.edu news.admin.policy:28646 news.groups:107863 In order to quell the rumors flying around about what the "secret" behind-the-scenes reorganization of news.announce.newgroups is, I've decided to announce the most major change right away rather than two weeks from now. I will be resigning as moderator of the newsgroup news.announce.newgroups as of the first of May. My immediate replacement will be Richard Sexton, who has been a fine and upstanding Usenet citizen for many years and has contributed quite a bit to Usenet's stable growth. We also will be holding a Usenet "constitutional convention" via a mailing list to discuss a long-term revision of the guidelines. The first proposal put to the list will be the elimination of no votes in favor of a Usenet Name Committee who will have veto authority over newsgroup names. The mailing list will be open to anyone willing to behave reasonably well (a "three serious flames and you're out" policy will be in effect). My appologies for the confusion that has occurred, but obviously this is a fairly major change and it has been some time in coming. I am looking forwards to returning to some semblance of a normal lifestyle after these several years of moderating n.a.ng . Thank you, -tale Article 5795 of news.future: Path: martha.utk.edu!cs.utk.edu!cssun.mathcs.emory.edu!emory!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!news1.digex.net!news3.digex.net!digex.net!not-for-mail From: president@whitehouse.gov (Al Gore) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.future,alt.religion.kibology,alt.discordia Subject: Network Access Reform Date: 1 Apr 1995 17:46:47 -0500 Organization: Express Access Public Access UNIX, Greenbelt, Maryland USA Lines: 78 Sender: kfl@access3.digex.net Distribution: inet Message-ID: <3lkl4n$dju@access3.digex.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: access3.digex.net Xref: martha.utk.edu comp.org.eff.talk:47298 news.future:5795 alt.religion.kibology:68361 Greetings. I'll leave it to others to carry on the important work former president Clinton started in health care reform after discovering that 37 million Americans have no health insurance. Now that Clinton has magnanimously stepped down, rather than embroil the US in lengthy Whitewater hearings, and I'm president, I plan to make it my top priority to deal with a really serious problem. As horrifying and unthinkable as it is in this day and age, 212 million Americans don't have network access. The current network situation is an intolerable and inefficient hodgepodge of private, university, and government access providers. People in different parts of the country pay different amounts for network access. Different providers give different levels of service. There's no excuse for this. Access to the net -- *equal* access to the net -- is a fundamental human right. Tipper and I have developed a program which will guarantee equal access to the information superhighway to all Americans, tall or poor, rich or thin, white or non-smokers. All access to the net will be through one's employer. Employers will deal only with large centralized network access providers. There will be only one provider in each area of the country, cutting down on wasteful duplication. All providers will be heavily regulated, and will be required to offer the exact same services for the exact same prices. All employers will be required to participate, and to pay the full costs. Unemployed people's access will be paid for by the government. This is not expected to require any tax increase. At least, not a very large tax increase. At least, not before the next election. Since individuals will not be charged for the services, some may be tempted to abuse the privilege. Especially because many newsgroups are known to be highly addictive. To prevent this, newsgroup access will be available only by prescription. For instance, if someone wants access to alt.sex, they would schedule an appointment with their Primary Network Consultant. In a few weeks, when the appointment comes up, they'd come in at 8 am and get to speak briefly with their Consultant at some time that day or evening. The Consultant would refer them to a sex consulatant or other specialist, as appropriate. After a few weeks, they'd have a similar appointment with the specialist, who would then prescribe alt.sex or some other newsgroup as appropriate. They would take the prescription to their Network Access Provider to get the prescribed newsgroup added to their .newsrc. To prevent fraud and corruption, all prescriptions will be carefully tracked by the government in large databases, closely secured against everyone who doesn't have the carefully guarded top secret phone number for modem access (202-456-1414). Also, all prescriptions automatically expire after 30 days. They can be renewed only after another appointment with one's Primary Network Consultant and the specialist he refers one to. FTP, IRC, Gopher, WAIS, World Wide Web, Archie, telnet, rlogin, finger, and e-mail, may also be made available by prescription, if they are approved by the Federal Data Administration (FDA). For reasons of public safety, network services and newsgroups not approved by the FDA will be strictly banned. Anyone caught owning, using, producing, providing, or advocating unapproved services, mailing lists, or newsgroups, will be subject to zero tolerance -- everything they own will be forfeited to the government, without a trial. Also, anyone who rents an apartment or gives a job to a suspected network abuser will be subject to zero tolerance. Of course, this being a free country, nobody will actually be sent to prison without a fair trial. Since nobody who's accused will be able to afford an attorney, the government will provide them with an attorney of our choice without charge. And anyone guilty of three offenses will serve a mandatory life sentence without parole. Similarly with anyone who writes, posesses, distributes, manufactures, sells, uses, posts, backs up, saves, promulgates, perpetrates, forwards, or laughs at, a spoof that makes official government policies or proposals look ridiculous. -- Al Gore president@whitehouse.gov