NEWSCAST
with Jennifer Hampster, 2/18/00

Jennifer: OK, I guess it's news time. I'm Jennifer Hampster.
A new study from the Center for the Study of Unlikely Occurrences predicts that within ten years, political campaigns will cost more than the country can afford.
The study's director, Dr. Frank Blunt, says by the year 2010, if every man, woman and child gives all their money to political candidates, it still won't be enough.

Dr. Blunt: You've got administration costs, you've got travel. There are photo ops to be planned and many, many polls to be taken. Just on the polls alone we found that the general public will go broke paying other people to ask them what they, the general public, think.
And then there's the cost of the TV time to tell the public that Candidate X thinks what they think ... soon we won't be able to afford to tell them what they already know!

Jennifer: Television history was made this week when HQN, the High Quality Network, broadcast a personal relationship from start to finish in one three hour program.
The show - Who Cares About Courtship? - featured fifty female contestants trying to catch the eye of multi millionaire Randy Ross and marry him, file for divorce and seek a big settlement ... all in one night.
Fiona Long, the winner of the contest, was represented in the show's final segment by her attorney, Betsy Mulligan. Mulligan told the judge it would be wrong to send Long home home empty handed.

Betsy: Your honor, my client provided emotional support and companionship to the defendant from the moment she caught his eye just after the first bunch of commercials ... all the way through the wedding in the second hour of show, right up to the station break at the beginning of the third hour when she found him in the dressing room with five of the losing contestants!
In the short time she knew him, he went from being just another guy with a lot of money to America's most widely known hunky multi-millionaire lecherous cheat. That's a reputation that will earn him many millions more in the future. My client deserves her share of that. And the home version of the game.

Jennifer: The judge sided with Long and also awarded her a made for TV movie, to be broadcast next fall.
Space scientists are still exulting over the rendezvous this week between an unmanned spacecraft and an asteroid called Eros. Eros is said to be as big as Manhattan, and might potentially some day pose a collision threat to Earth. Project director Tim Beowulf says the likelihood of a collision is slim, but the superstitious scientists want to be safe.

Beowulf: We wanna get a real good look at it. Cause you know, they say you never see the one that hits ya. So ... the more we know, and the more pictures we take, the less we have to worry. About this one.

Jennifer: Beowulf says if life on Earth is someday destroyed by a rock named Eros, it would be highly ironic.
Oil prices have hit a nine year high. This development means there will be no reduction in gasoline prices anytime soon, a discouraging prospect for owners of thirsty SUV's. One hobbyist group, the Enormous Car Owner's Association of America, has issued a plea to drivers of smaller, more economical vehicles. Their president is Joseph Turbo.

Turbo: All I'm saying is ... if we have to drive over a lot of little cars to get where we're going, our miles per gallon really suffers. It's like driving over a really bumpy road ... or off road all together. We can't afford that right now. Nobody can, so stay out of the way, OK? .

Jennifer: Joseph Turbo of ECOAOA
A study of cheating on college campuses shows that fewer students cheat if the institution makes a big fuss about honesty, and very few cheat if the college requires that students sign an "honor code." Pandering College sophomores Lois Harper and Ben Peering endorsed the study's findings.

Lois: If ... like ... you take somebody else's answers and use them for your own, that's really not OK 'cause you're not thinking for yourself.

Ben: Yup. That's right. You're not thinking for yourself..

Lois: And even if you just repeat somebody else's ideas ... that's such a no brainer, you know? It's not intellectually honest.

Ben: Uh huh. Absolutely. Not intellectually honest. I agree with her.

Jennifer: High level meetings at the White House this week dealt with the topic of hacker attacks on Internet sites. Experts from government and industry discussed creating a sophisticated warning system that would alert vulnerable Internet sites to the possibility of an attack, without also letting the hackers know they've been detected or creating too much panic.
Presidential spokesman Pete Poindexter explained how it might work.

Poindexter: When it appears there's going to be a hacker attack, we here at the White House will issue a statement saying "The brown cow has lovely eyes." That should be sufficient to spread the alarm.

Reporter 1: Is this a code, then, Pete?

Poindexter: Yes, this is a code. If we know the identity of the target of the attack, we'll say something like "The brown cow moos at ... Yahoo." Or "The brown cow moos at CNN." Yes, Helen?

Reporter 2: Is this code supposed to be secret?

Poindexter: Yes, we'd like it to be secret. Stan?

Reporter 3: Why are you telling us?

Poindexter: You can talk about it. Just don't tell any hackers.

Jennifer: Presidential spokesman Pete Poindexter.
And that's the news. I'm Jennifer Hampster.

Dale Connelly Reporting Home