4 in 10 Americans support annexing Canada: "Should Canada become the 51st American state? Four out of 10 Americans answered 'sure' in a recent poll conducted by Leger Marketing of Montreal. While 38 per cent of respondents said they would be 'in favour of Canada being annexed to the United States,' 49 per cent disagreed. Another 13 per cent said they did not know or refused to answer."

Books for the Asking: "After spending a year trying to sell her book to publishers and receiving 70 rejection letters as a reward, Laurie Notaro, a newspaper columnist in Phoenix, decided to do it herself. Working with iUniverse, one of many companies that offer "print on demand" services, Ms. Notaro paid $99 to have her book designed, laid out, stored as a digital file and printed and bound only as copies were ordered. Several months later she sold the rights to her book, plus the concept for a new one, to a major publisher for a six-figure sum."

Hints, but No Evidence, of Terrorism in Attacks: "The methodical cold-bloodedness of the shootings in the Washington area, the inexplicable targeting of victims and the elusiveness of the gunman have stirred speculation that the killings could be the work of a terrorist. But so far, investigators say there is no evidence that the sniper is motivated by a political grievance or has anything other than intensely personal motives."

Is 'Dell dude' Steven done for? "Dell Computer said its blond-haired surfer dude pitchman 'Steven,' played by actor Ben Curtis, will be taking a break despite helping to increase sales for the company since the campaign went on air two years ago."

Loyd said: "Dane and I have been scouring the net for a solution to our problem of streaming video to a client in San Diego. Finally the idea came to me, Apple. Since we have 2 G4's at work we visited the Apple site and installed Quik Time Streaming Server and Broadcaster. It was simple. Plug in our Sony MiniDV cam and we were broadcasting fairly good quality. A couple of quick tweaks and the quality was acceptable. So, we have a good video stream in a fraction of the time it would have taken us to do it on a W&%$&*()! system. And the final outcome? Dane and I are both thinking, '...Hmmm...maybe it would be nice to have a Mac...' Stay tuned to see if we make the switch."

Loyd said: "Microsoft dumping support for Win9x and 2k isn't an attack on the users of those OS's (me for one), it's an admission that the previous product sucks. I have never had a system run as good as it does on XP. I crash my Win9x computer daily while my wife's system NEVER crashes. For you hold outs out there... UPGRADE! it's worth getting rid of all the frustration."

Philippine blasts kill five: "Five people have been killed and more than 140 injured after two bombs exploded in the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga, police say."

AOL's pop-up sacrifice: "America Online's decision to drop paid pop-up advertisements on its service underscores concerns about the strength of its most valuable asset: subscribers."

America's First War On Terror: "The first time the American flag flew over foreign soil taken in battle came in a war against international terrorists. Unlike today's brigands, they were not driven by ideology or religion, but by a baser and perhaps more honest lust: gold. But terrorists they were, and our war against them was fought long and hard, in somewhat unconventional but still very real ways. And it was long before all of us were born... They were known as the Barbary pirates."

Australians urged to leave Indonesia: "Australia has urged all its citizens still in Indonesia to leave the country, following 'disturbing new threats' in the wake of Saturday's bomb carnage in the holiday resort of Bali. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told parliament the new warning of generic terrorist threats was 'based on intelligence material we received a number of hours ago'."