'Titanic' tugs at emotions

(CNN) -- I'll be perfectly honest.  Going in, the main reason 
I was happy to finally be seeing "Titanic," director James 
Cameron's much-ballyhooed $200 million epic, was because it 
meant that I wouldn't have to watch that damn trailer 
anymore.  When two studios get together and make a movie that 
costs more than their own privately funded South American 
guerrilla war, you have to figure they're going to make dead 
certain that the world feels it has to attend when 
they're done blowing all that dough.  So, obviously, the 
first question that needs to be answered is, is the end 
result really worth all that money?

The answer is a resounding "yes," but with philosophical 
qualifiers.  The money, as they say, is on the screen, but, 
happily, there's a lot more to it than that.  Quite 
surprisingly, when you consider that he's usually more 
concerned with The Terminator theatrically pulling drunken 
bikers' arms out of their sockets, Cameron has devised a 
tender love story between Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio 
that serves as the main focus of "Titanic's" storyline, and 
it works beautifully.

I've been saying since the day that I heard Cameron was going 
to film the story that it was doomed to failure because the 
only thing anybody is interested in concerning the Titanic is 
that it took a dive.  Incredibly, though, I got so caught up 
in his star-crossed lovers while watching the movie, I was 
actually surprised when that iceberg approached out of the 
darkness.  This is the equivalent of watching "Star Wars" and 
getting immersed in the Han Solo/Princess Leia story while 
forgetting all about the Death Star.

The film opens with a brief prologue in which Bill Paxton, as 
a modern-day treasure hunter, explores the wreckage of the 
real-life Titanic far beneath the Atlantic Ocean.  Cameron 
actually took his camera 2 1/2 miles down to see the real 
thing, and the results are hauntingly impressive, with 
decaying railings and smashed bedframes reminding us that 
this was an actual tragedy, not a figment of some 
screenwriter's imagination.  Paxton's character is looking 
for a huge diamond that was supposed to have been stored 
onboard the ship when it went down.  His exploits are 
reported on television, and this brings him into contact with 
a 100-year-old woman (nicely played by 87-year-old 
whippersnapper Gloria Stuart) who claims to have been on the 
ship and in possession of the diamond at the time of the 
disaster.

As Stuart tells her story, a shot of the rotting wreckage 
morphs back in time to 1912 and the movie-proper begins.  
Rose is now a beautiful 17-year-old played by Kate Winslet, 
who isn't 17 but has the beautiful part down cold.  She's 
boarding the ship for its maiden (and, of course, only) 
voyage with her super-wealthy, uber-snooty fianc&#233;e, Cal 
Hockley.  Hockley is played by Billy Zane, and he's easily 
the weak link in the film.  Cal is the only character that's 
poorly written, and Zane telegraphs his villainous line 
readings (and wiggles his eyebrows) like he's about to tie 
Tom Mix's girlfriend to the railroad tracks.  

DiCaprio plays Jack, a free-spirited young artist who's so 
suddenly won a ticket on the voyage in a card game that he 
hops onboard with just minutes to spare.  It doesn't take 
long before DiCaprio (understandably) starts salivating over 
the heavenly Winslet, and a Romeo and Juliet-type love story 
ensues.  Except that Juliet is a rich dame with ritzy 
cross-Atlantic digs.  Romeo is down below with the riffraff, 
but he's cute as a shiny new dime and his hair hangs in his 
eyes when he draws pictures.  Doncha just want 'em to kiss?

Well, yes, you do.  There's an honest sweetness to the love 
story.  This is no scoop, but the two leads make for an 
attractive couple, and, though their dialogue is sometimes a 
little too junior high school love diary to be completely 
effective, Winslet and DiCaprio display a great deal of 
gee-whiz chemistry.  For once, DiCaprio's boyishness works in 
his favor.  Jack is less cocky than he is fun-loving.  He 
revels in the elegance and spontaneity of his journey back 
home to the States, and the splendor of production designer 
Peter Lamont's letter-perfect sets is enough to turn 
anybody's head.  The production as a whole is exquisite, a 
seamless re-creation of what was, until now, a 
once-in-a-lifetime journey.

Then everything smacks into a bunch of ice and sinks.  I 
really can't believe it came to this, but (for about 15 
minutes, anyway) the movie actually slows down when 
the ship starts filling up with water.  It's ironic that the 
actual Titanic went down on April 15, considering how taxing 
Cameron's depiction of the event gets in its early stages.  
Zane's character, who's been doing an Edgar Kennedy slow-burn 
while his (previously miserable) fiancée happily cavorts 
around the ship with Mr. Cutie-Pie, goes through all kinds of 
histrionics trying to pry the two apart while the entire set 
gradually starts to tilt.  This display includes handcuffing 
DiCaprio to a heating pipe, which forces Winslet to make like 
an action movie heroine, running through waist-deep water 
while waving an ax.  Her lipstick never smudges, though, and 
her eyes remain blue.

However, once the compartments start exploding with H2O and 
everyone commences to clawing their way into the few 
lifeboats that were available, things pick up considerably.  
The sight of this magnificent vessel pointing several stories 
up in the night air and splitting in half is truly 
staggering.  Cameron pauses periodically to insert moments of 
real poetry during the ordeal, most memorably when he dwells 
on a beautiful woman who's diaphanous gown swirls in the 
water above her after she's drowned. The hull's final moments 
as it slides into the water are astounding.  There's also a 
magnificent shot of several hundred passengers floating in 
the icy ocean after the ship has made its final descent.  
It's a peerless intermingling of believable terror and movie 
spectacle.

Now for those philosophical qualifiers.  I don't think it's 
even open to debate as to whether there are better things to 
do with $200 million than to make one movie.  By 
that, I don't mean that the studios need to be spending their 
bucks on medical research.  The industry is painting itself 
into a corner by upping the ante every time an effects 
director like Cameron steps behind the camera, and, since 
"Titanic" looks like it's going to be a hit, the end is not 
yet in sight.  There are a lot of young directors out there 
struggling to make their voices heard above the mutli-zillion 
dollar glub-glub, and it won't be long before each and every 
one of them will have to abandon ship for the more forgiving 
waters of independent filmmaking.  

"Titanic" is an unbelievable voyage, but not all big-bucks 
gambles pay off like this one has, with a formidable piece of 
popular art.  Artistically and financially "Titanic" will 
probably win in the final tally, but (if the movies of the 
past several years teach us anything) it's a "Waterworld" 
after all.  To have to be re-taught that at even one dollar, 
more than 200 million will be a hard lesson indeed.

Remember how much you liked the first "Rocky" movie, how 
delicate, exciting, and ultimately inspiring it was?  
Allowing for inflation, that movie today would cost 5 million 
bucks.

"Titanic" is one swell ride.  The gradually building 
intensity of the plunge could scare young children, although 
my 9-year-old nephew who watched the movie with me loved it.  
Surprisingly, considering its rating, Winslet's bare breasts 
are in full view as DiCaprio sketches her.  There's a 
God-awful Celine Dion song over the end credits for those of 
you who like that kind of thing.  Everyone else will be 
forced to make a face.  PG-13.  207 minutes, but they zip by.

                                                                              
 How to remove a dead whale                                                     
                                                                                
 The Farside comes to life in Oregon.                                           
                                                                                
 I am absolutely not making this incident up; in fact I have it all on          
 videotape.  The tape is from a local TV news show in Oregon, which sent        
 a reporter out to cover the removal of a 45-foot, eight-ton dead whale that    
 washed up on the beach.  The responsibility for getting rid of the carcass     
 was placed on the Oregon State Highway Division, apparently on the theory      
 that highways and whales are very similar in the sense of being large objects. 
 So anyway, the highway engineers hit upon the plan--remember, I am not making  
 this up--of blowing up the whale with dynamite. The thinking is that the       
 whale would be blown into small pieces, which would be eaten by seagulls,      
 and that would be that.  A textbook whale removal.                             
                                                                                
 So they moved the spectators back up the beach, put a half-ton of dynamite     
 next to the whale and set it off.  I am probably not guilty of                 
 understatement when I say that what follows, on the videotape, is the most     
 wonderful event in the history of the universe. First you see the whale        
 carcass disappear in a huge blast of smoke and flame. Then you hear the happy  
 spectators shouting "Yayy!" and "Whee!" Then, suddenly, the crowd's tone       
 changes. You hear a new sound like "splud."  You hear a woman's voice          
 shouting "Here come pieces of...MY GOD!" Something smears the camera lens.     
                                                                                
 Later, the reporter explains: "The humor of the entire situation suddenly gave 
 way to a run for survival as huge chunks of whale blubber fell everywhere."    
 One piece caved in the roof of a car parked more than a quarter of a mile      
 away. Remaining on the beach were several rotting whale sectors the size of    
 condominium units.  There was no sign of the seagulls who had no doubt         
 permanently relocated to Brazil.                                               
                                                                                
 This is a very sobering videotape.  Here at the institute we watch it often,   
 especially at parties. But this is no time for gaiety.  This is a time to      
 get hold of the folks at the Oregon State Highway Division and ask them,       
 when they get done cleaning up the beaches, to give us an estimate on the      
 US Capitol.                                                                    
               

    DAVE BARRY ON COLLEGE

 Many of you young persons out there are seriously thinking about going
 to college.  (That is, of course, a lie.)  College is basically a
 bunch of rooms where you sit for roughly two thousand hours and try to
 memorize things.  The two thousand hours are spread out over four
 years; you spend the rest of the time sleeping and trying to get
 dates.

 Basically, you learn two kinds of things in college:

         1.  Things you will need to know in later life (two hours).
         2.  Things you will not need to know in later life (1,998
 hours).  These are the things you learn in classes whose names end in
 -ology, - -osophy, -istry, -ics, and so on.  The idea is, you memorize
 these things, then write them down in little exam books, then forget
 them.  If you fail to forget them, you become a professor and have to
 stay in college for the rest of your life.

 It's very difficult to forget everything.  For example, when I was in
 college, I had to memorize -- don't ask me why -- the names of three
 metaphysical poets other than John Donne.  I have managed to forget
 one of them, but I still remember that the other two were named
 Vaughan and Crashaw.  Sometimes, when I'm trying to remember something
 important like whether my wife told me to get tuna packed in oil or
 tuna packed in water, Vaughan and Crashaw just pop up in my mind,
 right there in the supermarket.  It's a terrible waste of brain cells.

 After you've been in college for a year or so, you're supposed to
 choose a major, which is the subject you intend to memorize and forget
 the most things about.  Here is a very important piece of advice: Be
 sure to choose a major that does not involve Known Facts and Right
 Answers.  This means you must not major in mathematics, physics,
 biology, or chemistry, because these subjects involve actual facts.
 If, for example, you major in mathematics, you're going to wander into
 class one day and the professor will say: "Define the cosine integer
 of the quadrant of a rhomboid binary axis, and extrapolate your result
 to five significant vertices." If you don't come up with exactly the
 answer the professor has in mind, you fail.  The same is true of
 chemistry: if you write in your exam book that carbon and hydrogen
 combine to form oak, your professor will flunk you.  He wants you to
 come up with the same answer he and all the other chemists have agreed
 on.  Scientists are extremely snotty about this.

 So you should major in subjects like English, philosophy, psychology,
 and sociology -- subjects in which nobody really understands what
 anybody else is talking about, and which involve virtually no actual
 facts.  I attended classes in all these subjects, so I'll give you a
 quick overview of each:

 ENGLISH: This involves writing papers about long books you have read
 little snippets of just before class.  Here is a tip on how to get
 good grades on your English papers: Never say anything about a book
 that anybody with any common sense would say.  For example, suppose
 you are studying Moby-Dick.  Anybody with any common sense would say
 that Moby-Dick is a big white whale, since the characters in the book
 refer to it as a big white whale roughly eleven thousand times.  So in
 your paper, you say Moby-Dick is actually the Republic of Ireland.
 Your professor, who is sick to death of reading papers and never liked
 Moby-Dick anyway, will think you are enormously creative.  If you can
 regularly come up with lunatic interpretations of simple stories, you
 should major in English.

 PHILOSOPHY: Basically, this involves sitting in a room and deciding
 there is no such thing as reality and then going to lunch.  You should
 major in philosophy if you plan to take a lot of drugs.

 PSYCHOLOGY: This involves talking about rats and dreams.
 Psychologists are obsessed with rats and dreams.  I once spent an
 entire semester training a rat to punch little buttons in a certain
 sequence, then training my roommate to do the same thing.  The rat
 learned much faster.  My roommate is now a doctor.  If you like rats
 or dreams, and above all if you dream about rats, you should major in
 psychology.

 SOCIOLOGY: For sheer lack of intelligibility, sociology is far and
 away the number one subject.  I sat through hundreds of hours of
 sociology courses, and read gobs of sociology writing, and I never
 once heard or read a coherent statement.  This is because sociologists
 want to be considered scientists, so they spend most of their time
 translating simple, obvious observations into scientific-sounding
 code.  If you plan to major in sociology, you'll have to learn to do
 the same thing.  For example, suppose you have observed that children
 cry when they fall down.  You should write: "Methodological
 observation of the sociometrical behavior tendencies of prematurated
 isolates indicates that a casual relationship exists between
 groundward tropism and lachrimatory, or 'crying,' behavior forms." If
 you can keep this up for fifty or sixty pages, you will get a large
 government grant.
 

Relationships (by Dave Barry)
 
CONTRARY to what many women believe, it's fairly easy to develop a long-term, stable, intimate, and mutually fulfilling relationship with a guy. Of course this guy has to be a Labrador retriever. With human guys, it's extremely difficult. This is because guys don't really grasp what women mean by the term relationship.
 
Let's say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing
anybody else.
 
And then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: ''Do you realize that, as of tonight, we've been seeing each other for exactly six months?''
 
And then there is silence in the car. To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: Geez, I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he's been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I'm trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn't want, or isn't sure of.
 
And Roger is thinking: Gosh. Six months.
 
And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I'm not so sure I want this kind of relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I'd have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we
are, moving steadily toward . . . I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to
keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading  toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?
 
And Roger is thinking: . . . so that means it was . . . let's see . .
. 
February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer's, which means . . . lemme check the odometer . . . Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.
 
And Elaine is thinking: He's upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed --even before I sensed it -- that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that's it. That's why he's so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He's afraid of being rejected.
 
And Roger is thinking: And I'm gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It's 87 degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a goddamn garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.
 
And Elaine is thinking: He's angry. And I don't blame him. I'd be angry, too.
God, I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can't help the way I feel. I'm just not sure.
 
And Roger is thinking: They'll probably say it's only a 90-day warranty. That's exactly what they're gonna say, the scumballs.
 
And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly
do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.
 
And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I'll give them a goddamn warranty. I'll take their warranty and stick it right up their . . .
 
''Roger,'' Elaine says aloud.
 
''What?'' says Roger, startled.
 
''Please don't torture yourself like this,'' she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. ''Maybe I should never have . . . Oh God, I feel so. . . ''
 
(She breaks down, sobbing.)
 
''What?'' says Roger.
 
''I'm such a fool,'' Elaine sobs. ''I mean, I know there's no knight.  I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight, and there's no horse.''
 
''There's no horse?'' says Roger.
 
''You think I'm a fool, don't you?'' Elaine says.
 
''No!'' says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.
 
''It's just that . . . It's that I . . . I need some time,'' Elaine
says.
 
(There is a 15-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work.)
 
''Yes,'' he says.
 
(Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.)
 
''Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?'' she says.
 
''What way?'' says Roger.
 
''That way about time,'' says Elaine.
 
''Oh,'' says Roger. ''Yes.''
 
(Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.)
 
''Thank you, Roger,'' she says.
 
''Thank you,'' says Roger.
 
Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Rogger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he never heardof. A
tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it's better if he
doesn't think about it. (This is also Roger's policy regarding world hunger.)
 
The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it, either.
 
Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine's, will pause just before serving, frown, and say:
 
''Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?''
 


 December 7, 1997, in the Miami Herald
 Decaf Poopacino
 BY DAVE BARRY

 I have exciting news for anybody who would like to pay a lot of money for coffee
 that has passed all the way through an animal's digestive tract.

 And you just know there are plenty of people who would. Specialty coffees are
 very popular these days, attracting millions of consumers, every single one of
 whom is standing in line ahead of me whenever I go to the coffee place at the
 airport to grab a quick cup on my way to catch a plane. These consumers are
 always ordering mutant beverages with names like ``mocha-almond-honey-vinaigrette
 lattespressacino,'' beverages that must be made one at a time via a lengthy and
 complex process involving approximately one coffee bean, three quarts of dairy
 products, and what appears to be a small nuclear reactor.

 Meanwhile, back in the line, there is growing impatience among those of us who
 just want a plain old cup of coffee so that our brains will start working and we
 can remember what our full names are and why we are catching an airplane. We want
 to strike the lattespressacino people with our carry-on baggage and scream ``GET
 OUT OF OUR WAY, YOU TREND GEEKS, AND LET US HAVE OUR COFFEE!'' But of course we
 couldn't do anything that active until we've had our coffee.

 It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need
 for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of
 recreational activity. I bet this kind of thing does not happen to heroin
 addicts. I bet that when serious heroin addicts go to purchase their heroin, they
 do not tolerate waiting in line whilesome dilettante in front of them orders a
 hazelnut smack-a-cino with cinnamon sprinkles.

 The reason some of us need coffee is that it contains caffeine, which makes us
 alert. Of course it is very important to remember that caffeine is a drug, and,
 like any drug, it is a lot of fun.

 No! Wait! What I meant to say is: Like any drug, caffeine can have serious side
 effects if we ingest too much. This fact was first noticed in ancient Egypt when
 a group of workers, who were supposed to be making a birdbath, began drinking
 Egyptian coffee, which is very strong, and wound up constructing the pyramids.

 I myself developed the coffee habit in my early 20s, when, as a "cub" reporter
 for the Daily Local News in West Chester, Pa., I had to stay awake while writing
 phenomenally boring stories about municipal government. I got my coffee from a
 vending machine that also sold hot chocolate and chicken-noodle soup; all three
 liquids squirted out of a single tube, and they tasted pretty much the same. But
 I came to need that coffee, and even today I can do nothing useful before I've
 had several cups. (I can't do anything useful afterward, either; that's why I'm a
 columnist.)

 But here's my point: This specialty-coffee craze has gone too far. I say this in
 light of a letter I got recently from alert reader Bo Bishop. He sent me an
 invitation he received from a local company to a "private tasting of the highly
 prized Luwak coffee,'' which "at $300 a pound . . . is one of the most expensive
 drinks in the world.'' The invitation states that this coffee is named for the
 luwak, a "member of the weasel family'' that lives on the Island of Java and eats
 coffee berries; as the berries pass through the luwak, a "natural fermentation"
 takes place, and the berry seeds -- the coffee beans -- come out of the luwak
 intact. The beans are then gathered, washed, roasted, and sold to coffee
 connoisseurs.

 The invitation states: "We wish to pass along this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
 to taste such a rarity.''

 Or, as Bo Bishop put it: "They're selling processed weasel doodoo for $300 a
 pound."

 I first thought this was a clever hoax designed to ridicule the coffee craze.
 Tragically, it is not. There really is a Luwak coffee. I know because I bought
 some from a specialty-coffee company in Atlanta. I paid $37.50 for two ounces of
 beans. I was expecting the beans to look exotic, considering where they'd been,
 but they looked like regular coffee beans. In fact, for a moment I was afraid
 that they were just regular beans, and that I was being ripped off.

 Then I thought: What kind of world is this when you worry that people might be
 ripping you off by selling you coffee that was NOT pooped out by a weasel?

 So anyway, I ground the beans up and brewed the coffee and drank some. You know
 how sometimes, when you're really skeptical about something, but then you finally
 try it, you discover that it's really good, way better than you would have
 thought possible? This is not the case with Luwak coffee. Luwak coffee, in my
 opinion, tastes like somebody washed a dead cat in it.

 But I predict it's going to be popular anyway, because it's expensive. One of
 these days, the people in front of me at the airport coffee place are going to be
 ordering decaf poopacino. I'm thinking of switching to heroin.




                  WHY DO GUYS ACT MACHO?  SMILE WHEN YOU SAY THAT!!
                                 (by Dave Barry)


 Our topic today, in our continuing series on guys, is:  Why Guys Act Macho.

 One recent morning, I was driving in Miami on Interstate 95, which should have
 a sign that says:  WARNING!  HIGH TESTOSTERONE LEVELS NEXT 15 MILES.  In the
 left lane, one behind the other, were two well-dressed middle-age men, both
 driving luxury telephone-equipped German automobiles.  They looked like
 responsible business executives, probably named Roger, with good jobs and nice
 families and male pattern baldness, the kind of guys whose most violent
 physical
 activity, on an average day, is stapling.  They were driving normally, except
 that the guy in front, Roger One, was thoughtlessly going only about 65 miles
 an hour, which in Miami is the speed limit normally observed inside car
 washes.
 So Roger Two pulled up behind until the two cars were approximately one electr
 on apart, and honked his horn.

 Of course, Roger One was not about to stand for THAT. You let a guy honk at
 you,
 and you are basically admitting that he has a bigger stapler.  So Roger One
 stomped on his brakes, forcing Roger Two to swerve onto the shoulder, where,
 showing amazing presence of mind in an emergency, he was able to make obscene
 gestures WITH BOTH HANDS.

 At this point, both Rogers accelerated to approximately 147 miles per hour and
 began weaving violently from lane to lane through dense rush-hour traffic,
 each
 risking numerous lives in an effort to get in front of the other, screaming
 and
 getting spit all over their walnut dashboards.  I quickly lost sight of them,
 but I bet neither one backed down.  Their coworkers probably wondered what
 happened to them.  "Where the heck is Roger?"  they probably said later that
 morning, unaware that even as they spoke, the dueling Rogers, still only
 inches
 apart, were approaching the Canadian border.

 This is not unusual guy behavior.  One time, in a Washington, D.C. traffic
 jam,
 I saw two guys, also driving nice cars, reach a point where their lanes were
 supposed to merge.  But neither one would yield, so they very slowly -- we are
 talking maybe 1 mile an hour -- DROVE INTO EACH OTHER.

 Other examples of pointlessly destructive or hurtful macho guy behavior
 include:

        - Guys at sporting events getting into shoving matches and occasionally
          sustaining fatal heart attacks over such issues as who was next in
          line for pretzels.
        - Guys on the street making mouth noises at women.
        - Boxing.
        - Foreign Policy.

 Why do guys do these things?  One possible explanation is that they believe
 women are impressed.  In fact, however, most women have the opposite reaction
 to macho behavior.  You rarely hear women say things like, "Norm, when that
 vending machine failed to give you a Three Musketeers bar and you punched it
 so hard that you broke your hand and we had to go to the hospital instead of
 to my best friend's daughter's wedding, I became so filled with lust for you
 that I nearly tore off all my clothes right there in the emergency room."  No,
 women are far more likely to say:  "Norm, you have the brains of an Odor
 Eater."

 But the real explanation for macho behavior is not that guys are stupid.  The
 real explanation is that because of complex and subtle hormone-based chemical
 reactions occurring in their brains, guys frequently ACT stupid.  This is true
 throughout the animal kingdom, where you have examples such as male elks, who,
 instead of simply flipping a coin, will bang their heads against each other
 for
 hours to see who gets to mate with the female elk, who is on the sidelines,
 filing her nails and wondering how she ever got hooked up with such a moron
 species, until eventually she gets bored and wanders off to bed.

 Meanwhile, the guy elks keep banging into each other until one of them finally
 "wins", although at this point his brain, which was not exactly a steel trap
 to begin with, is so badly damaged that, in his confusion, he will mate with
 the first object he encounters, including shrubbery, which is why you see so
 few baby elks around.

 Another example of macho animal behavior is guy dogs, who are so dumb they
 make
 elks look like Rhodes scholars.  Every male dog firmly believes that if he
 makes
 wee-wee in enough places, he will be declared Dominant Male Dog of the Entire
 Earth and receive a plaque plus valuable dog prizes, such as a bag of chicken
 heads.  Of course, since there are several billion dogs in the competition,
 everybody is extremely busy trying to stay ahead of everybody else.

 One time I took a hike on a mountain with two male dogs named Rubio and Moo
 Shu.
 Every three minutes Rubio would carefully select a spot and establish his
 dominance over it; then Moo Shu would come sprinting from as far as a mile
 away
 so that, despite having the entire mountain to choose from, he could establish
 His dominance over the same four square inches previously dominated by Rubio,
 who by now was several hundred yards away, dominating a new spot, which Moo
 Shu
 would then frantically sprint toward, and so on all day long, with each dog
 absolutely convinced that he was the Baddest Hombre on the planet.

 Ha ha!  At least we human males don't do THAT.  We don't need to. We have
 tanks.



                        Are You a Real Guy?
               
 
   Take This Scientific Quiz to Determine Your Guyness Quotient
                        ( by Dave Berry )
 
 
1. Alien beings from a highly advanced society visit the Earth,
   and you are the first human they encounter. As a token of
   intergalactic friendship, they present you with a small but
   incredibly sophisticated device that is capable of curing all
   disease, providing an infinite supply of clean energy, wiping out
   hunger and poverty, and permanently eliminating oppression and
   violence all over the entire Earth. You decide to:
 
a. Present it to the president of the United States.
b. Present it to the secretary general of the United Nations.
c. Take it apart.
 
 
2. As you grow older, what lost quality of your youthful life do
   you miss the most?
 
a. Innocence.
b. Idealism.
c. Cherry bombs.
 
 
3. When is it okay to kiss another male?
 
a. When you wish to display simple and pure affection without
   regard for narrow-minded social conventions.
b. When he is the pope. (Not on the lips.)
c. When he is your brother and you are Al Pacino and this is the
   only really sportsmanlike way to let him know that, for business
   reasons, you have to have him killed.
 
 
4. What about hugging another male?
 
a. If he's your father and at least one of you has a fatal disease.
b. If you're performing the Heimlich maneuver. (And even in this
   case, you should repeatedly shout: "I am just dislodging food
   trapped in this male's trachea! I am not in any way aroused!")
c. If you're a professional baseball player and a teammate hits
   a home run to win the World Series, you may hug him provided that
   (1) He is legally within the basepath, (2) Both of you are wear-
   ing protective cups, and (3) You also pound him fraternally with
   your fist hard enough to cause fractures.
 
 
5. Complete this sentence: A funeral is a good time to...
 
a. ...remember the deceased and console his loved ones.
b. ...reflect upon the fleeting transience of earthly life.
c. ...tell the joke about the guy who has Alzheimer's disease and
      cancer.
 
 
6. In your opinion, the ideal pet is:
 
a. A cat.
b. A dog.
c. A dog that eats cats.
 
 
7. You have been seeing a woman for several years. She's
   attractive and intelligent, and you always enjoy being with her.
   One leisurely Sunday afternoon the two of you are taking it
   easy-- you're watching a football game; she's reading the
   papers--when she suddenly, out of the clear blue sky, tells you
   that she thinks she really loves you, but she can no longer bear
   the uncertainty of not knowing where your relationship is going.
   She says she's not asking whether you want to get married; only
   whether you believe that you have some kind of future ; only
   whether you believe that you have some kind of future together.
   What do you say?
 
a. That you sincerely believe the two of you do have a future,
   but you don't want to rush it.
b. That although you also have strong feelings for her, you
   cannot honestly say that you'll be ready anytime soon to make a
   lasting commitment, and you don't want to hurt her by holding out
   false hope.
c. That you cannot believe the Jets called a draw play on third
   and seventeen.
 
 
8. Okay, so you have decided that you truly love a woman and you
   want to spend the rest of your life with her-sharing the joys and
   the sorrows, the triumphs and the tragedies, and all the
   adventures and opportunities that the world has to offer, come
   what may. How do you tell her?
 
a. You take her to a nice restaurant and tell her after dinner.
b. You take her for a walk on a moonlit beach, and you say her
   name, and when she turns to you, with the sea breeze blowing her
   hair and the stars in her eyes, you tell her.
c. Tell her what?
 
 
9. One weekday morning your wife wakes up feeling ill and asks
   you to get your three children ready for school. Your first
   question to her is:
 
a. "Do they need to eat or anything?"
b. "They're in school already?"
c. "There are three of them?"
 
 
10. When is it okay to throw away a set of veteran underwear?
 
a. When it has turned the color of a dead whale and developed new
   holes so large that you're not sure which ones were originally
   intended for your legs.
b. When it is down to eight loosely connected underwear molecules
   and has to be handled with tweezers.
c. It is never okay to throw away veteran underwear. A real guy
   checks the garbage regularly in case somebody--and we are not
   naming names, but this would be his wife--is quietly trying to
   discard his underwear, which she is frankly jealous of, because
   the guy seems to have a more intimate relationship with it than
   with her.
 
 
11. What, in your opinion, is the most reasonable explanation for
   the fact that Moses led the Israelites all over the place for
   forty years before they finally got to the Promised Land?
 
a. He was being tested.
b. He wanted them to really appreciate the Promised Land when
   they finally got there.
c. He refused to ask directions.
 
 
12. What is the human race's single greatest achievement?
 
a. Democracy.
b. Religion.
c. Remote control.
 
 
How to Score: Give yourself one point for every time you picked
answer "c."  A real guy would score at least 10 on this test.  In
fact, a real guy would score at least 15, because he would get
the special five-point bonus for knowing the joke about the guy
who has Alzheimer's disease and cancer.


 A Brief History of Time

 3050 B.C.- A Sumerian invents the wheel. Within the week, the idea is stolen
and duplicated by other Sumerians, thereby establishing the business ethic for
all times.

 2900 B.C.-Wondering why the Egyptians call that new thing a Sphinx becomes
the first of the world's Seven Great Wonders.

 1850 B.C.-Britons proclaim Operation Stonehenge a success. They've finally
gotten those boulders arrange in a sufficiently meaningless pattern to confuse
the hell out of scientists for centuries.

 1785 B.C.-The first calendar, composed of a year with 354 days, is introduced
by Babylonian scientists.

 1768 B.C.-Babylonians realize something is wrong when winter begins in June.

 776 B.C.-The world's first known money appears in Persia, immediately causing
the world's first known counterfeiter to appear in Persia the next day.

 525 B.C.-The first Olympics are held, and prove similar to the modern games,
except that the Russians don't try to enter a six-footer with a mustache in the
women's shot put. However, the Egyptians do!

 410 B.C.-Rome ends the practice of throwing debtors into slavery, thus
removing the biggest single obstacle to the development of the credit card.

 404 B.C.-The Peloponnesian war has been going on for 27 years now because
neither side can find a treaty writer who knows how to spell Peloponnesian.

 214 B.C.-Tens of thousands of Chinese labor for a generation to build the
1,500 mile long Great Wall of China. And after all that, it still doesn't keep
the neighbor's dog out.

 1 B.C.-Calendar manufacturers find themselves in total disagreement over what
to call next year.

 79 A.D.- Buying property in Pompeii turns out to have been a lousy real estate
investment.

 432- St. Patrick introduces Christianity to Ireland, thereby giving the
natives something interesting to fight about for the rest of their recorded
history.

 1000-Leif Ericsson discovers America, but decides it's not worth mentioning.

 1043-Lady Godiva finds a means of demonstrating against high taxes that
mmediately makes everyone forget what she is demonstrating against.

 1125-Arabic numerals are introduced to Europe, enabling peasants to sole
the most baffling problem that confronts them: How much tax do you owe on
MMMDCCCLX Lira when you're in the XXXVI percent bracket?

 1233-The Inquisition is set up to torture and kill anyone who disagrees with
the Law of the Church. However, the practice is so un-Christian that it is
permitted to continue for only 600 years.

 1297-The world's first stock exchange opens, but no one has the foresight
to buy IBM or Xerox.

 1433- Portugal launches the African slave trade, which just proves what a
small, ambitious country can do with a little bit of ingenuity and a whole lot
of evil!

 1456-An English judge reviews Joan of Arc's case and cancels her death
sentence. Unfortunately for her, she was put to death in 1431.

 1492- Columbus proves how lost he really is by landing in the Bahamas, naming
the place San Salvador, and calling the people who live there Indians.

 1497-Amerigo Vespucci becomes the 7th or 8th explorer to become the new world,
but the first to think of naming it in honor of himself...the United States of
Vespuccia!

 1508-Michelangelo finally agrees to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,
but he still refuses to wash the windows.

 1513-Ponce de Leon claims he found the Fountain of youth, but dies of old age
trying to remember where it was he found it.

 1522-Scientists, who know the world is flat, conclude that Magellan made it
all the way around by crawling across the bottom.

 1568-Saddened over the slander of his good name, Ivan the Terrible kills
another 100,000 peasants to make them stop calling him Ivan the Terrible.

 1607-The Indians laugh themselves silly as the first European tourist to visit
Virginia tries to register as "John Smith".

 1618-Future Generations are doomed as the English execute Sir Walter Raleigh,
but allow his tobacco plants to live.

 1642-Nine students receive the first Bachelor of Arts degrees conferred in
America, and immediately discover there are no jobs open for a kid with a
liberal arts education.

 1670-The pilgrims are too busy burning false witches to observe the golden
anniversary of their winning religious freedom.

 1755-Samuel Johnson issues the first English Dictionary, at last providing
young children with a book they can look up dirty words in.

 1758- New Jersey is chosen as the site of America's first Indian reservation,
which should give Indians an idea of the kind of shabby living conditions they
can expect from here on out.

 1763-The French and Indian War ends. The French and Indians both lost.

 1770-The shooting of three people in the Boston Massacre touches off the
Revolution. 200 Years later, three shootings in Boston will be considered just
about average for a Saturday Night.

 1773-Colonists dump tea into Boston Harbor. British call the act "barbaric",
noting that no one added cream.

 1776-Napoleon decides to maintain a position of neutrality in the American
Revolution, primarily because he is only seven years old.

 1779-John Paul Jones notifies the British, "I have just begun to fight!" and
then feels pretty foolish when he discovers that his ship is sinking.

 1793- "Let them eat cake!" becomes the most famous thing Marie Antoinette
ever said. Also, the least diplomatic thing she ever said. Also, the last thing
she ever said.

 1799-Translation of the Rosetta Stone finally enables scholars to learn that
Egyptian hieroglyphics don't say anything important. "Dear Ramses,  How are you?
I am fine."

 1805-Robert Fulton invents the torpedo.

 1807-Robert Fulton invents the steamship so he has something to blow up with
his torpedo.

 1815-Post Office policy is established as Andrew Jackson wins the Battle of
New Orleans a month after he should have received the letter telling him the War
of 1812 is over.

 1840-William Henry Harrison is elected president in a landslide, proving that
the campaign motto, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" is so meaningless that very few
can disagree with it.

 1850-Henry Clay announces, "I'd rather be right than president," which gets
quite a laugh, coming from a guy who has run for president five times without
winning.

 1859- Charles Darwin writes "Origin of the Species". It has the same general
plot as "Planet of the Apes", but fails to gross as much money.

 1865-Union Soldiers face their greatest challenge of the war: getting General
Grant sober enough to accept Lee's surrender.

 1894-Thomas Edison displays the first motion picture, and everybody likes it
except the movie critics.

 1903- The opening of the Trans-Siberian Railway enables passengers from Moscow
to reach Vladivostok in eight days, which is a lot sooner than most
of them want to get there.

 1910- The founding of the Boy Scouts of America comes as bad news to old
ladies who would rather cross the street by themselves.

 1911-Roald Amundsen discovers the South Pole and confirms what he's suspected
all along: It looks a helluva lot like the North Pole!

 1912-People with Reservations for the voyage of the Titanic get their money
back.

 1920-The 18th Amendment to the Constitution makes drinking illegal in the
U.S. so everyone stops. Except for the 40 million who don't stop!

 1924-Hitler is released from prison four years early, after convincing the
parole board that he is a changed man who won't cause any more trouble.

 1928- Herbert Hoover promises "a chicken in every pot and a car in every
garage," but he neglects to add that most Americans will soon be without pots
and garages.

 1930- Pluto is discovered. Not the dog, stupid; the planet. The dog wasn't
discovered until 1938.

 1933- German housewives begin to realize why that crazy wallpaper hanger with
the mustache never came back to finish his work.

 1933-Hitler establishes the Third Reich, and announces that it will last for a
thousand years. As matters develop, he is only 988 years off.

 1934- John Dillinger is gunned down by police as he leaves a Chicago movie
theater. And just to make the evening a complete washout, he didn't enjoy the
movie either.

 1934-As if the Great Depression weren't giving businessmen enough headaches,
Ralph Nader is born.

 1938-Great Britain and Germany sign a peace treaty, thereby averting all
possibility of WWII.

 1944-Hitler's promise of Volkswagens for all Germans as soon as they've won
the war doesn't prove to be as strong an incentive as he had hoped.

 A little boy opened the big and old family Bible with
fascination, and looked at the old pages as he turned
them. Suddenly, something fell out of the Bible,
and he picked it up and looked at it closely. It was
an old leaf from a tree that had been pressed in
between the pages. "Momma, look what I found," the
boy called out. "What have you got there, dear?" his
mother asked. With astonishment in the young boy's
voice, he answered: "I think it's Adam's suit!"

The preacher was wired for sound with a lapel mike,
and as he preached, he moved briskly about the
platform, jerking the mike cord as he went. Then he
moved to one side, getting wound up in the cord and
nearly tripping before jerking it again. After
several circles and jerks, a little girl in the third
pew leaned toward her mother and whispered, "If he
gets loose, will he hurt us?"

Six-year-old Angie and her four-year-old brother Joel
were sitting together in church. Joel giggled, sang,
and talked out loud. Finally, his big sister had
enough. "You're not supposed to talk out loud in
church." "Why? Who's going to stop me?" Joel asked.
Angie pointed to the back of the church and said, "See
those two men standing by the door? They're hushers."

The kindergarten teacher was showing her class an
encyclopedia page picturing several national flags.
She pointed to the American flag and asked, "What flag
is this?" A little girl called out, "That's the flag of
our country." "Very good," the teacher said. "And
what is the name of our country?" 'Tis of thee," the
girl said confidently.

After putting her children to bed, a mother changed
into old slacks and a droopy blouse and proceeded to
wash her hair. As she heard the children getting more
and more rambunctious, her patience grew thin. At last
she threw a towel around her head and stormed into
their room, putting them back to bed with stern
warnings. As she left the room, she heard her
three-year-old say with a trembling voice, "Who was
that?"

Two little boys were visiting their grandfather, and
he took them to a restaurant for lunch. They couldn't
make up their minds about what they wanted to eat.
Finally the grandfather grinned at the server and
said, "Just bring them bread and water." One of the
little boys looked up and quavered, "Can I have
ketchup on it?"

A new neighbor asked the little girl next door if she
had any brothers and sisters. She replied, "No, I'm
the lonely child."

A mother was telling her little girl what her own
childhood was like: "We used to skate outside on a
pond. I had a swing made from a tire; it hung from a
tree in our front yard. We rode our pony. We picked
wild raspberries in the woods." The little girl was
wide-eyed, taking this in. At last she said, "I sure
wish I'd gotten to know you sooner!"

My grandson was visiting one day when he asked,
"Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?" I
mentally polished my halo while I asked, "No, how are
we alike?" "You're both old," he replied.

A little girl was diligently pounding away on her
father's word processor. She told him she was writing
a story. "What's it about?" he asked. "I don't know,"
she replied. "I can't read." 
I didn't know if my granddaughter had learned her
colors yet, so I decided to test her. I would point
out something and ask what color it was. She would
tell me, and always she was correct. But it was fun
for me, so I continued. At last she headed for the
door, saying sagely, "Grandma, I think you should try
to figure out some of these yourself!"

A ten-year-old, under the tutelage of her grandmother,
was becoming quite knowledgeable about the Bible. Then
one day she floored her grandmother by asking, "Which
Virgin was the mother of Jesus: the Virgin Mary or the
King James Virgin?"

A Sunday school class was studying the Ten
Commandments. They were ready to discuss the last one.
The teacher asked if anyone could tell her what it
was. Susie raised her hand, stood tall, and quoted,
"Thou shall not take the covers off the neighbor's
wife."

   How To Tell Where a Driver is From:
  
   One hand on wheel, one hand on horn: Chicago
  
   One hand on wheel, one finger out window: New York
  
   One hand on wheel, one hand on newspaper, foot solidly
   on  accelerator:  Boston
  
   One hand on wheel, cradling cell phone, brick on
   accelerator: California. With gun in lap: LA
  
   Both hands on wheel, eyes shut, both feet on brake,
   quivering in terror: Ohio, but driving in California.
  
   Both hands in air, gesturing, both feet on accelerator,
   head turned to talk to someone in back seat: Italy
  
   One hand on latte, one knee on wheel, cradling cell
   phone, foot on brake, mind on game: Seattle
  
   One hand on wheel, one hand on hunting rifle,alternating
   between both feet being on the accelerator and both on
   the  brake, throwing a McDonald's bag out the window:
   Alabama
  
   One hand on wheel, one hand hanging out the window,
   keeping  speed steadily at 70 mph, driving down the center
   of the road unless coming around a blind curve, in which
   case they are on the left side of the road: Kentucky
  
   One hand constantly refocusing the rearview mirror to
   show different angles of the BIG hair, one hand going
   between mousse, brush, and rattail comb to keep the helmet
   hair going, both feet on the accelerator pedal steering
   the car, chrome .38 revolver with mother of pearl inlaid handle
    in the glove compartment:   Texas (female)
  
   Four wheel drive pickup truck, shotgun mounted in rear
   window, beer cans on floor, squirrel tails attached to
   antenna: West Virginia
  
   Two hands gripping wheel, blue hair barely visible
   above window level, driving 35 on the interstate in the
   left lane with the left blinker on: Florida

  Origins:  Life in the 1500's:
 
   Most people got married in June because they
 took their yearly
   bath in May and were still smelling pretty good
 by June.  However,
   they were starting to smell, so brides carried
 a bouquet of
   flowers to hide the b.o.
 
   Baths equaled a big tub filled with hot water.
 The man of the
   house had the privilege of the nice clean
 water, then all the other
   sons and men, then the women and finally the
 children.
   Last of all the babies. By then the water was
 so dirty you could
   actually loose someone in it.  Hence the
 saying, "Don't throw the
   baby out with the bath water".
 
   Houses had thatched roofs.  Thick straw, piled
 high, with no wood
   underneath. It was the only place for animals
 to get warm, so all
   the pets...dogs, cats and other small animals,
 mice, rats, bugs
   lived in the roof.  When it rained it became
 slippery and sometimes
   the animals would slip and fall off the roof.
   Hence the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs,"
 
   There was nothing to stop things from falling
 into the house. This
   posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs
 and other droppings
   could really mess up your nice clean bed.  So,
 they found if they
   made beds with big posts and hung a sheet over
 the top, it
   addressed that problem.  Hence those beautiful
 big 4 poster beds
   with canopies.
 
   The floor was dirt.  Only the wealthy had
 something other than
   dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor".  The
 wealthy had slate floors
   which would get slippery in the winter when
 wet. So they spread
   thresh on the floor to help keep their footing.
  As the winter
   wore on they kept adding more thresh until when
 you opened the
   door it would all start slipping outside. A
 piece of wood was
   placed at the entry way, hence a "thresh hold".
 
   They cooked in the kitchen in a big kettle that
 always hung over the
   fire. Every day they lit the fire and added
 things to the pot.  They
   mostly ate vegetables and didn't get much meat.
  They would eat the
   stew for dinner leaving leftovers in the pot to
 get cold overnight
   and then start over the next day.  Sometimes
 the stew had food in
   it that had been in there for a month.  Hence
 the rhyme: peas
   porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge
 in the pot nine
   days old."  Sometimes they could obtain pork
 and would
   feel really special when that happened. When
 company came over,
   they would bring out some bacon and hang it to
 show it off.
   It was a sign of wealth and that a man "could
 really bring
   home the bacon." They would cut off a little to
 share with
   guests and would all sit around and "chew the
 fat."
 
   Those with money had plates made of pewter.
 Food with a high acid
   content caused some of the lead to leach onto
 the food. This happened
   most often with tomatoes, so they stopped
 eating tomatoes... for 400
   years.
 
   Most people didn't have pewter plates, but had
 trenchers - a
   piece of wood with the middle scooped out like
 a bowl. Trencher
   were never washed and a lot of times worms got
 into the wood.
   After eating off wormy trenchers, they would
 get "trench mouth."
 
   Bread was divided according to status. Workers
 got the burnt bottom
   of the loaf, the family got the middle, and
 guests got the top, or
   the "upper crust".
 
   Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey.
 The combination would
   sometimes knock them out for a couple of days.
 Someone walking
   along the road would take them for dead and
 prepare them for burial.
   They were laid out on the kitchen table for a
 couple of days and the
   family would gather around and eat and drink
 and wait and see if
   they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding
 a "wake".
 
   England is old and small and they started
 running out of places to
   bury people.  So, they would dig up coffins and
 would take their
   bones to a house  and re-use the grave.  In
 reopening these coffins,
   one out of 25 coffins were found to have
 scratch marks on the inside
   and they realized they had been  burying people
 alive.  So they
   thought they would tie a string on their wrist
 and lead it through
   the coffin and up through the ground and tie it
 to a bell.
   Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard
 all night to
   listen for the bell.  Hence on the "graveyard
 shift" they would
   know that someone was "saved by the bell" or he
 was a "dead ringer".


 Andy Rooney Blurbs

 Ads In Bills: Have you ever noticed that they put
 advertisements in with
 your bills now? Like bills aren't distasteful enough,
 they have to stuff
 junk mail in there with them. I get back at them. I
 put garbage in with
 my check when I mail it in. Coffee grinds, banana
 peels...I write,
 "Could you throw this away for me? Thank You."

 Fabric Softener: My wife uses fabric softener. I
 never knew what that
 stuff was for. Then I noticed women coming up to me
 (sniff) 'Married'
 (walk off). That's how they mark their territory. You
 can take off the
 ring, but it's hard to get that April fresh scent out
 of your clothes.

 Cripes: My wife's from the Mid-west. Very nice people
 there. Very
 wholesome. They use words like 'Cripes'. 'For Cripe's
 sake.' Who would
 that be, Jesus Cripe's? The son of 'Gosh' of the
 church of 'Holy Moly'?
 I'm not making fun of it. You think I wanna burn in
 'Heck'?

 Morning Differences: Men and women are different in
 the morning. The men
 wake up aroused in the morning. We can't help it. We
 just wake up and we
 want you. And the women are thinking, 'How can he
 want me the way I look
 in the morning?' It's because we can't see you. We
 have no blood
 anywhere near our optic nerve.

 Pregnancy: It's weird when pregnant women feel the
 baby kicking. They
 say, 'Oh my god. He's kicking. Do you wanna feel it?'
 I always feel
 awkward reaching over there. Come on! It's weird to
 ask someone to feel
 your stomach. I don't do that when I have gas. "Oh my
 god...give me your
 hand...It won't be long now..."

 Grandma: My grandmother has a bumper sticker on her
 car that says,
 'Sexy Senior Citizen'. You don't want to think of
 your grandmother that
 way, do you? Out entering wet shawl contests. Makes
 you wonder where she
 got that dollar she gave you for your birthday.

 Prisons: Did you know that it costs forty thousand
 dollars a year to
 house each prisoner? Jeez, for forty thousand bucks a
 piece I'll take a
 few prisoners into my house. I live in Los Angeles. I
 already have bars
 on the windows. I don't think we should give free
 room and board to
 criminals. I think they should have to run twelve
 hours a day on a
 treadmill and generate electricity. And if they don't
 want to run, they
 can rest in the chair that's hooked up to the
 generator.

 Award Shows: Can you believe how many award shows
 they have now? They
 have awards for commercials. The Cleo Awards, a whole
 show full of
 commercials. I taped it and then I fast-forwarded
 through the whole
 thing.

 Phone-In-Polls: You know those shows where people
 call in and vote on
 different issues? Did you ever notice there's always
 like 18% that say
 "I don't know". It costs 90 cents to call up and
 vote...They're voting
 "I don't know." "Honey, I feel very strongly about
 this. Give me the
 phone. (Into Phone) I DON'T KNOW!" (Hangs up looking
 proud.) "Sometimes
 you have to stand up for what you believe you're not
 sure about." This
 guy probably calls up phone sex girls for $2.95 to
 say "I'm not in the
 mood."

 Answering Machine: Did you ever hear one of these
 corny, positive
 messages on someone's answering machine? "Hi, it's a
 great day and I'm
 out enjoying it right now. I hope you are too. The
 thought for the day
 is 'Share the love.' Beep." "Uh, yeah...this is the
 VD clinic
 calling.... Speaking of being positive, your test is
 back. Stop sharing
 the love."

 Kids  and the Bible

The following statements about the bible were written by children and
have not been retouched or corrected (i.e., incorrect spelling has been
left in.)

In the first book of the Bible, Guinessis, God got tired of creating
the world, so he took the Sabbath off.

Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree.

Noah's wife was called Joan of Ark.
Noah built an ark, which the animals come on to in pears.

Lot's wife was a pillar of salt by day, but a ball of fire by night.

The Jews were a proud people and throughout history they had trouble
with the unsympathetic Genitals.

Samson was a strongman who let himself be led astray by a Jezebel like
Delilah.
Samson slayed the Philistines with the axe of the Apostles.

 Moses led the Hebrews to the Red Sea, where they made nleavened bread
which is bread without any ingredients.

The Egyptians were all drowned in the dessert.  Afterwards, Moses went
up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten ammendments.

The first commandment was when Eve told Adam to eat the apple.  The
seventh commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery.

Moses died before he ever reached Canada.  Then Joshua led the Hebrews
in the battle of Geritol.

The greatest miracle in the Bible is when Joshua told his son to stand
still and he obeyed him.

David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar.  He fought with
the Finklesteins, a race of people who lived
in Biblical times.

Solomon, one of David's sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.

When Mary heard that she was the mother of Jesus, she sang the
Magna Carta.

When the three wise guys from the east side arrived, they found Jesus
in the manager.

Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption.

St. John, the blacksmith, dumped water on his head.

Jesus enunciated the Golden Rule, which says to do one to others before
they do one to you.

He also explained, "a man doth not live by sweat alone."

It was a miracle when Jesus rose from the dead and managed to get the
tombstone off the entrance.

The people who followed the Lord were called the 12 decibels.  The
epistles were the wives of the apostles.

One of the opossums was St. Matthew who was also a taximan.

St. Paul cavorted to Christianity.  He preached holy acrimony, which is
another name for marriage.

A Christian should have only one spouse. This is called monotony.

Someone once noted that a Southerner can get away with the most awful
kind of insult just as long as it's prefaced with the words "Bless her heart"
or "Bless his heart.

As in, "Bless his heart, if they put his brain on the head of a pin, it'd
roll around like a BB on a six-lane highway." Or, "Bless her heart,
she's so bucktoothed, she could eat an  apple through a picket fence."

There are also the sneakier ones that I remember from tongue-clucking
types of my childhood: "You know, it's amazing that even though she had that
baby seven months after they got married, bless her heart, it weighed 10
pounds!"

As long as the heart is sufficiently blessed, the insult can't be all
that bad, at least that's what my Great-aunt Tiny (bless her heart, she was
anything but) used to say.

I was thinking about this the other day when a friend was telling me
about her new Northern friend who was upset because her toddler is just
beginning to talk and he has a Southern accent. My friend, who is very kind and,
bless her heart, cannot do a thing about those thighs of hers, so don't even
start, was justifiably miffed about this.

After all, this woman had CHOSEN to move south a couple of years ago.
"Can you believe it?" she said to my friend. "A child of mine is going to be
taaaallllkkin' a-liiiike thiiiissss."

I can think of far worse fates than speaking Southern for this adorable
little boy, who, bless his heart, must surely be the East Coast king of
mucus.

I wish I'd been there. I would have said that she shouldn't fret, because
there is  nothing so sweet or pleasing on the ear as a soft, Southern drawl.
Of course, maybe we shouldn't be surprised at her "carryings on." After
all,when you come from a part of the world where "family silver" refers to
the large medallion around Uncle Vinnie's neck, you just have to, as aunt
Tiny would say, "consider the source."

Now don't get me wrong. Some of my dearest friends are from the North,
bless their hearts. I welcome their perspective, their friendships and their
recipes for authentic Northern Italian food.

I've even gotten past their endless complaints that you can't find good
bread down here. The ones who really gore my ox are the native Southerners
who have begun to act almost embarrassed about their speech. It's as if
they want to bury it in the "Hee Haw" cornfield.

We've already lost too much. I was raised to swanee, not swear, but you
hardly ever hear anyone say that anymore, I swanee you don't.

And I've caught myself thinking twice before saying something is "right
much," "right close" or "right good" because non-natives think this is
right funny indeed.

I have a friend from Bawston who thinks it's hilarious when I say I've
got to "carry" my daughter to the doctor or "cut off"" the light. That's OK.

It's when you have to explain things to people who were born here that I
get mad as a mule eating bumblebees. Not long ago, I found myself trying to
explain to a native Southerner what I meant by being "in the short rows."
I'm used to explaining that expression (it means you've worked a right smart
but you're almost done) to newcomers to the land of buttermilk and cold
collard sandwiches (better than you think), but to have to explain it to a
Southerner was just plain  weird.

The most grating example is found in restaurants and stores where nice,
Magnolia-mouthed clerks now say "you guys" instead of "y'all," as their
mamas raised them up to say. I'd sooner wear white shoes in February,
drink unsweetened tea and eat Miracle Whip instead of Duke's than utter the
words "you guys."

Not long ago, I went to lunch with four women friends, and the waiter, a

nice Southern boy, you-guys-ed all of us within an inch of our lives.  "You 
guys ready to order? What can I get for you guys? Would you guys like to
keep you guys' forks?"  Lord, have mercy.

It's a little comforting that, at the very same time some natives are so
eager to blend in, they've taken to making microwave grits (an abomination),
the rest of the world is catching on that it's cool to be Clampett.

How else do you explain NASCAR tracks and Krispy Kreme doughnut
franchises springing up like yard onions all over the country? To those of you
who're still a little embarrassed by your Southernness, take two tent revivals
and a dose of redeye gravy and call me in the morning. Bless your heart.


                  Dealing With Jerks

 I was sitting at my desk, when I remembered a phone call I had to
 make. I found the number and dialed it. A man answered nicely saying,
 "Hello?"

 I politely said, "This is John Reiner and could I please speak to
 Robin Bishop?" Suddenly the phone was slammed down on me! I couldn't
 believe that anyone could be that rude.

I tracked down Robin's correct number and called her. She had
 transposed the last two digits.

 After I hung up with Robin, I spotted the wrong number still lying
 there on my desk. I decided to call it again. When the same person
 once more answered, I yelled "You're a jerk!" and hung up.

 Next to his phone number I wrote the word "Jerk," and put it in my
 desk drawer. Every couple of weeks, when I was paying bills, or had
 a really bad day, I'd call him up. He'd answer, and then I'd yell,
 "You're a jerk!" It would always cheer me up.

 Later in the year the phone company introduced caller ID. This was a
 real disappointment for me, I would have to stop calling the jerk.

 Then one day I had an idea. I dialed his number, then heard his voice,
 "Hello." I made up a name. "Hi. This is Joe with the telephone company
 and I'm just calling to see if you're familiar with our caller ID
 program?"

 He went, "No!" and slammed the phone down. I quickly called him back
 and said, "That's because you're a jerk!"

 And the reason I took the time to tell you this story, is to show you
 how if there's ever anything really bothering you, you can  something
 about it.

 Just dial 742-4522.

 Part 2

 This old lady at the mall really took her time pulling out of the
 parking space. I didn't think she was ever going to leave. Finally her
 car began to move and she started to very slowly back out of the
 stall. I backed up a little more to give her plenty of room to pull
 out. Great, I thought, she's finally leaving.

 All of a sudden this black Camaro come flying up the parking isle in
 the wrong direction and pulls into her space. I started honking my
 horn and yelling, "You can't just do that, Buddy. I was here first!"

 The guy climbed out of his Camaro completely ignoring me. He walked
 toward the mall as if he didn't even hear me.

I thought to myself, this guy's a jerk, there's sure a lot of jerks in
this world. I noticed he had a For Sale sign in the back window of his car.
I wrote down the number. Then I hunted for another place to park.

 A couple of days later, I'm at home sitting at my desk. I had just
 gotten off the phone after calling 742-4522 and yelling, "You're a
 jerk!" (It's really easy to call him now since I have his number on
 speed dial).

 I noticed the phone number of the guy with the black Camaro lying on
 my desk and thought I'd better call this guy, too.

 After a couple rings someone answered the phone and said, "Hello." I
 said, "Is this the man with the black Camaro for sale?"
 "Yes it is."
 "Can you tell me where I can see it?"
 "Yes, I live at 1802 West 34th street. It's a yellow house and the
 car's parked right out front."
 I said, "What's your name?"
 "My name is Don Hansen."
 "When's a good time to catch you, Don?"
 "I'm home in the evenings."
 "Listen Don, can I tell you something?"
 "Yes."
 "Don, you're a jerk!" And I slammed the phone down.

 After I hung up I added Don Hansen's number to my speed dialer. For a
 while things seemed to be going better for me. Now when I had a problem I
have two jerks to call. Then after several months of calling the jerks and
 hanging up on them, the whole thing started to seem like an obligation.
 It just wasn't as enjoyable as it used to be.

 I gave the problem some serious thought and came up with a solution.
 First, I had my phone dial Jerk #1. A man answered nicely saying,
 "Hello."
I yelled "You're a jerk!" But I didn't hang up.
 The jerk said, "Are you still there?"
 I said, "Yeah.."
 He said, "Stop calling me."
 I said, "No."
 He said, "What's your name, Pal?"
 I said, "Don Hansen."
 "Where do you live?"
 "1802 West 34th Street. It's a yellow house and my black Camaro's
 parked out front."
 "I'm coming over right now, Don. You'd better start saying your
 prayers."
 "Yeah, like I'm really scared, Jerk!" and I hung up.
 Then I called Jerk #2
 He answered, "Hello."
 I said, "Hello, Jerk!"
 He said, "If I ever find out who you are..."
 "You'll what?"
 "I'll kick your butt."
 "Well, here's your chance. I'm coming over right now
 Jerk!" And I hung up.
 Then I picked up the phone and called the police. I told them
 a big gang fight was going down at 1802 West 34th Street. After that I
 climbed into my car and headed over to 34th Street to watch the whole
 thing.

 I turned onto 34th Street and parked my car under the shade of a tree
 half a block from Jerk #2's house. There were two guys fighting out
 front. Suddenly there were about 12 police cars and a helicopter.

 The police wrestled the two men to the ground and took them away.

 A couple of months go by and I get a call for jury duty. I was picked
to be on a trial of two guys charged with disorderly conduct...

  The story behind the letter below is that there is this nutball
  in Newport, RI named Scott Williams who digs things out of
  his backyard and sends the stuff he finds to the Smithsonian
  Institute, labeling them with scientific names, insisting that
  they are actual archaeological finds.  This guy really exists and
  does this in his spare time!  Anyway...here's the actual response
  from the Smithsonian Institution.
  ____________________________________________________

  Smithsonian Institute
  207 Pennsylvania Avenue
  Washington, DC 20078

  Dear Mr. Williams:

  Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled
  "93211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post...Hominid
  skull."   We have given this specimen a careful and detailed
  examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with
  your theory that it represents conclusive proof of the presence
  of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago.
  Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a
  Barbie doll, of the variety that one of our staff, who has small
  children, believes to be "Malibu Barbie." It is evident that you
  have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this
  specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who
  are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to
  come to contradiction with your findings.  However, we do feel
  that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen
  which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:

  1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are
  typically fossilized bone.

  2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic
  centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest
  identified proto-homonids.

  3.  The dentition pattern evident on the skull is more consistent
  with the common domesticated dog than it is with the ravenous
  man-eating Pliocene clams you speculate roamed the wetlands
  during that time.  This latter finding is certainly one of the most
  intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with
  this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily
  against it.  Without going into too much detail, let us say that:

  A.  The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog
  has chewed on.

  B. Clams don't have teeth.

  It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your
  request to have the specimen carbon-dated.  This is partially due
  to the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and
  partly due to carbon-dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of
  recent geologic record.  To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie
  dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon-dating is likely
  to produce wildly inaccurate results.  Sadly, we must also deny
  your request that we approach the National Science Foundation
  Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen
  the scientific name Australopithecus spiff-arino.   Speaking
  personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your
  proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the
  species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound
  like it might be Latin.

  However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this
  fascinating specimen to the museum.  While it is undoubtedly not a
  Hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of  the
  great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly.
  You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his
  own office for the display of the specimens you have previously
  submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on
 what
  you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered
  in your Newport back yard.

  We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you
  proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the
  Director to pay for it.  We are particularly interested in hearing
  you expand on your theories surrounding the trans-positating
  fillifitation of ferrous metal in a structural matrix that makes the
 excellent
  juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on
  the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive
  crescent wrench.

  Yours in Science,
  Harvey Rowe
  Chief Curator-Antiquities







Cartoon Laws of Physics

Cartoon Law I

Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its
situation. 

Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in
midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this
point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over. 

Cartoon Law II

Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter
intervenes suddenly. 

Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters
are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize
boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called
this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease. 

Cartoon Law III

Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming
to its perimeter. 

Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality
of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are
so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house,
leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony
often catalyzes this reaction. 

Cartoon Law IV

The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or
equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral
down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken. 

Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it
inevitably unsuccessful. 

Cartoon Law V

All principles of gravity are negated by fear. 

Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them
directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an adversary's
signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a
chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a character
who is running or the wheels of a speeding auto need never touch the
ground, especially when in flight. 

Cartoon Law VI

As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once. 

This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a character's
head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of altercation at several
places simultaneously.  This effect is common as well among bodies that
are spinning or being throttled. A `wacky' character has the option of
self- replication only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off walls to
achieve the velocity required. 

Cartoon Law VII

Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel
entrances; others cannot. 

This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least it
is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to trick an
opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical space. The
painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to follow into the
painting. 

This is ultimately a problem of art, not of science. 

Cartoon Law VIII

Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent. 

Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives
might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed,
accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be
destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate,
elongate, snap back, or solidify. 

Corollary: A cat will assume the shape of its container. 

Cartoon Law IX

Everything falls faster than an anvil. 

Cartoon Law X

For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance. 

This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to the
physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of watching
it happen to a duck instead. 

Cartoon Law Amendment A

A sharp object will always propel a character upward. 

When poked (usually in the buttocks) with a sharp object (usually a pin),
a character will defy gravity by shooting straight up, with great
velocity. 

Cartoon Law Amendment B

The laws of object permanence are nullified for "cool" characters. 

Characters who are intended to be "cool" can make previously nonexistent
objects appear from behind their backs at will. For instance, the Road
Runner can materialize signs to express himself without speaking. 

Cartoon Law Amendment C

Explosive weapons cannot cause fatal injuries. 

They merely turn characters temporarily black and smoky. 

Cartoon Law Amendment D

Gravity is transmitted by slow-moving waves of large wavelengths. 

Their operation can be wittnessed by observing the behavior of a canine
suspended over a large vertical drop. Its feet will begin to fall first,
causing its legs to stretch. As the wave reaches its torso, that part will
begin to fall, causing the neck to stretch. As the head begins to fall,
tension is released and the canine will resume its regular proportions
until such time as it strikes the ground. 

Cartoon Law Amendment E

Dynamite is spontaneously generated in "C-spaces" (spaces in which cartoon
laws hold). 

The process is analogous to steady-state theories of the universe which
postulated that the tensions involved in maintaining a space would cause
the creation of hydrogen from nothing. Dynamite quanta are quite large
(stick sized) and unstable (lit). Such quanta are attracted to psychic
forces generated by feelings of distress in "cool" characters (see
Amendment B, which may be a special case of this law), who are able to use
said quanta to their advantage. One may imagine C-spaces where all matter
and energy result from primal masses of dynamite exploding. A big bang
indeed.

 BANK ON MY ACCOUNT, OLD CHAP

        My dear Bank Manager,

        I am writing to thank you for bouncing the cheque with which I
endeavored to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations some three
nano-seconds must have elapsed between his presenting the cheque, and the
arrival in my account of the funds needed to honour it.  I refer, of
course, to the  automatic monthly deposit of my entire salary, an
arrangement which, I admit, has only been in place for eight years.  You
are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also
for debiting my account by way of penalty for the inconvenience I caused
your bank.

        My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has
caused  me to re-think my errant financial ways. You have set me on the
path of fiscal righteousness. No more will our relationship be blighted by
these unpleasant incidents, for I am restructuring my affairs in 1999,
taking as my model the procedures, attitudes and conduct of your very own
bank.

        I can think of no greater compliment, and I know you will be
excited and  proud to hear it.  To this end, please be advised about the
following changes. First, I  have noticed that whereas I personally attend
to your telephone calls and  letters, when I try to contact you I am
confronted by the impersonal, ever-changing, pre-recorded, faceless entity
which your bank has become.

        From now on I, like you, chose only to deal with a flesh and blood
person.  My mortgage and loan repayments will, therefore and hereafter, no
longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank by personal cheque,
addressed personally and confidentially to an employee of your branch,
whom you  must nominate. You will be aware that it is an offence under the
Postal Act  for any other person to open such an envelope.

        Please find attached an Application for Contact Status which I
require  your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight
pages, but in  order that I know as much about him or her as your bank
knows about me, there is no alternative. Please note that all copies of
his/her medical history must be countersigned by a Justice of the Peace,
and that the  mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income,
debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof.

      In due course I will issue your employee with a PIN number which
he/she must quote in all dealings with me. I regret that it cannot be
shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modeled it on the number of
button  presses required to access my account balance on your phonebank
service. As  they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

        Let me level the playing field even further by introducing you to
my new telephone system, which you will notice, is very much like yours.
My
Authorised Contact at your bank, the only person with whom I will have any
dealings, may call me at any time and be answered by an automated voice.
By pressing the buttons on the phone, he/she will be guided through an
extensive set of menus:

   1) to make an appointment to see me,
   2) to query a missing repayment,
  3) to make a general complaint or inquiry, and so on.

        The contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my
automated answering service. While this may on occasion involve a lengthy
wait,  uplifting music will play for the duration.  This month I have
chosen to refrain from The Best of Woody Guthrie: "Oh the banks are made
of marble/ With a guard at every door And the vaults are filled with
silver/ That the miners sweated for!" After twenty minutes of that, our
mutual contact will probably know it off by heart.

        On a more serious note, we come to the matter of cost. As your
bank has often pointed out, the ongoing drive for greater efficiency
comes at a cost-- a cost which you have always been quick to pass on to
me.
Let me repay your kindness by passing some costs back.

        First, there is the matter of advertising material you send me.
This I will read for a fee of $2 per page. Inquiries from your nominated
contact will be billed at $5 per minute of my time spent in response. Any
debits to  my account, as, for example, in the matter of the penalty for
the dishonoured cheque, will be passed back to you. My new phone number
service runs at 75 cents per minute (even Woody Guthrie doesn't come
free), so keep your  inquiries brief and to the point. Regrettably, but
again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee to
cover the setting up of this new arrangement.

Way I wish you a happy, if ever-so-slightly less prosperous, New Year.

                                     Your humble client,

  Jolyon Ansuz

 IDIOTS!

 Sign in a gas station: Coke - - 49 cents. Two for a dollar.

 I was signing the receipt for my credit card purchase when the clerk
 noticed
 that I had never signed my name on the back of the credit card.  She
 informed
 me that she could not complete the transaction unless the card was
 signed.
 When I asked why, she explained that it was necessary to compare the
 signature on the back of the credit card with the signature I just
 signed on the receipt. So I signed the credit card in front of her.
She
 carefully compared the signature to the one I signed on the receipt.
As
 luck
 would have it, they matched.

 IDIOTS & GEOGRAPHY
 After interviewing a particularly short-spoken job candidate, I
 described the person to my boss as rather monosyllabic. My boss
said,
 "Really? Where is Monosyllabia?" Thinking that he was just kidding,
I
 played along and said
 that it was just south of Elbonia. He replied "Oh, you mean over by
 Croatia?"

 ADVICE FOR IDIOTS
 An actual tip from page 16 of the HP Environmental, Health, & Safety
 Handbook for Employees: "Blink you eyelids periodically to lubricate
 your
 eyes."

 IDIOTS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
 I live in a semi-rural area. We recently had a new neighbor call the
 local township administrative office to request the removal of the
Deer
 Crossing sign on our road. The reason: Many deer were being hit by
cars
 and he no longer wanted them to cross there.

 IDIOTS & COMPUTERS
 My neighbor works in the operations department in the central office
of
 a large bank. Employees in the field call him when they have
problems
 with their computers. One night he got a call from a woman in one of
the
 branch banks who had this question: "I've got smoke coming out of
the
 back of my terminal. Do you guys have a fire downtown?"

 IDIOTS ARE EASY TO PLEASE
 I was sitting in my science class, when the teacher commented that
the
 next day would be the shortest day of the year. My lab partner
became
 visibly excited, cheering and clapping. I explained to her that the
 amount of daylight changes, not the actual amount of time. Needless
to
 say, she was very disappointed.

 IDIOTS IN FOOD SERVICE
 My daughter went to a local Taco Bell and ordered a taco. She asked
the
 individual behind the counter for "minimal lettuce." He said he was
 sorry, but they only had iceberg.

 AN IDIOT'S IDIOT
 Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a
 metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a
photocopy
 machine. The message "He's lying" was placed in the copier, and
police
 pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect was
telling a
 lie. Believing the "lie detector" was working, the suspect
confessed.



        A Story To Live By
      by Ann Wells (Los Angeles Times) 

 My brother-in-law opened the bottom drawer of my sister's bureau 
 and lifted out a tissue-wrapped package.  "This," he said, "is not 
 a slip. This is lingerie."  He discarded the tissue and handed
 me the slip. It was exquisite; silk, handmade and trimmed with 
 a cobweb of lace. The price tag with an astronomical figure on 
 it was still attached.  "Jan bought this the first time we went 
 to New York, at  least 8 or 9 years ago. She never wore it. She 
 was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess this is the 
 occasion."  He took the slip from me and put it on the bed with 
 the other clothes we were taking to the mortician. His hands
 lingered on the soft material for a moment, then he slammed the 
 drawer shut and turned to me. "Don't ever save anything for a
 special occasion. Every day you're alive is a special occasion." 

 I remembered those words through the funeral and the days that 
 followed when I helped him and my niece attend to all the sad 
 chores that follow an unexpected death. I thought about them on
 the plane returning to California from the Midwestern town where 
 my sister's family lives. I thought about all the things that
 she hadn't seen or heard or done. I thought about the things 
 that she had done without realizing that they were special. 

 I'm still thinking about his words, and they've changed my life. 
 I'm reading more and dusting less. I'm sitting on the deck and 
 admiring the view without fussing about the weeds in the garden. 
 I'm spending more time with my family and friends and less time
 in committee meetings. Whenever possible, life should be a pattern 
 of experience to savor, not  endure. I'm trying to recognize
 these moments now and cherish them. 

 I'm not "saving" anything; we use our good china and crystal for 
 every special event-such as losing a pound, getting the sink
 unstopped, the  first camellia blossom. 

 I wear my good blazer to the market if I feel like it. My theory 
 is if I look prosperous, I can shell out $28.49 for one small bag 
 of groceries without wincing. I'm not saving my good perfume for 
 special parties; clerks in hardware stores and tellers in banks 
 have noses that function as well as my party-going friends'.

 "Someday" and "one of these days" are losing their grip on my 
 vocabulary. If it's worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to
 see and hear and do  it now. I'm not sure what my sister would have 
 done had she known that she wouldn't be here for the tomorrow we
 all take for granted. I think she would have called family members 
 and a few close friends. She might have called a few former
 friends to apologize and mend fences for past squabbles.
 I like to think she would have gone out for a Chinese dinner, 
 her favorite food. I'm guessing-I'll never know.

It's those little things left undone that would make me angry if 
I knew that my hours were limited. Angry because I put off seeing 
good Friends whom I was going to get in touch with-someday. 
Angry because I hadn't written certain letters that I intended to 
write-one of these days. Angry and sorry that I didn't tell my 
husband and daughter often enough how much I truly love them. 
I'm trying very hard not to put off, hold back, or save anything 
that would add laughter and luster to our lives.

 And every morning when I open my eyes, I tell myself that it is 
 special.

 Every day, every minute, every breath truly is...a gift. 



Twinkies

In an effort to clarify questions about the Twinkies' purported
source of nutrition and food source, and to determine the
durability and unusual physical characteristics of Twinkies, I
subjected the Hostess snack logs to the following experiments.


EXPOSURE

A Twinkie was left on a window ledge for 4 days, during which
time an inch and a half of rain fell.  Many flies were observed
crawling across the Twinkie's surface, but contrary to the
hypothesis, birds (even pigeons) avoided this potential source of
substance.

Despite the rain and prolonged exposure to the sun, the Twinkie
retained its original color and form.  When removed, the Twinkie
was found to be substantially dehydrated.  Cracked open, it was
observed to have taken on the consistency of industrial foam
insulation; the filling, however, retained its advertised
"creaminess".


RADIATION

A Twinkie was placed in a conventional microwave oven, which was
set for precisely 4 minutes (the approximate cooking time of
bacon).  After 20 seconds, the oven began to emit the Twinkie's
rich, characteristic aroma of artificial butter.  After one
minute, this aroma began to resemble the acrid smell of burning
rubber.  The experiment was aborted after 2 minutes and 10
seconds when thick, foul smoke began billowing from the top of
the oven.  A second Twinkie was subjected to the same experiment;
this Twinkie leaked molten white filling.  When cooled, this now
epoxy-like filling bonded the Twinkie to its plate, defying
gravity: it was removed only upon application of a butter knife.


EXTREME FORCE

A Twinkie was dropped from a ninth-floor window, a fall of
approximately 120 feet.  It landed right side up, then bounced
onto its back.  The expected "splatter" effect was not observed.
Indeed, the only discernible damage to the Twinkie was a narrow
fissure on its underside; otherwise, the Twinkie remained
structurally intact.


EXTREME COLD

A Twinkie was placed in a conventional freezer for 24 hours.
Upon removal, the Twinkie was not found to be frozen solid, but
its physical properties had noticeably "slowed".  The filling was
found to be the approximate consistency of acrylic paint, while
exhibiting the mercury-like property of not adhering to
practically any surface.  It was noticed that the Twinkie had
generously absorbed all of the freezers orders.


EXTREME HEAT

A Twinkie was exposed to a gas flame for 2 minutes.  While the
Twinkie smoked and blackened and the filling in one of its "cream
holes" boiled, the Twinkie did not catch fire.  It did, however,
produce the same "burning rubber" aroma noticed in the radiation
experiment.


IMMERSION

A Twinkie was dropped into a large bucket filled with water, the
Twinkie floated momentarily, then began to list and sink.
Viscous yellow tendrils ran off its lower half, possibly
consisting of a water-soluble artificial coloring.

After 2 hours, the Twinkie bloated substantially.  Its coloring
was now a vary pale tan (in contrast to the yellow, urine-like
water that surrounded it).  The Twinkie bobbed when touched, and
had a gelatinous texture.  After 72 hours, the Twinkie had
increased roughly 200 percent of its original size.  The water
had turned opaque, and a small, fan-shaped spray of filling had
leaked from one of the "cream holes". Unfortunately, efforts to
remove the Twinkie for further analysis were abandoned when,
under light pressure the Twinkie disintegrated into an amorphous
cloud of debris.  A distinctly sour odor was noted.


SUMMARY OF RESULTS

The Twinkie's survival of a 120 foot drop, along with some of the
unusual phenomena associated with the "creamy filling" and
artificial coloring, should give pause to those observers who
would unequivocally categorize the Twinkie as "food".  Further
clinical inquiry is required before any definite conclusions can
be drawn.

So, your crush on the bass player from Vibrating Sandbox has finally
died a whimpering death and you're wondering where to go from here.
All the sinister dudes are either dating a series of interchangeable
high-school riot girls in baby doll dresses and an overdose of manic
panic, or permanently shacked up with some bitter old lady who pays
all the bills.  Which will it be, a wifely prison or a humiliating one
night stand?  Into this void of potential mates comes a man you may not
have considered before, a man of substance, quietude and stability, a
cerebral creature with a culture all his own.  In short, a geek.


Why Geek Dudes Rule

    They are generally available.

    Other women will tend not to steal them.

    They can fix things.

    Your parents will love them.

    They're smart.


Where The Geek Dude Lurks

While they are often into alternative music, geek dudes tend not to go
to shows too often.  Instead you'll find them hanging out with their
friends, discussing the latest hardware revolution or perfecting their
Bill Gates impressions.  You know how some people wear t-shirts with
their favorite bands on them, thus showing that they went to certain
shows?  Well, geek dudes wear t-shirts with the logos of different
software companies on them, thus showing that they are up on the
latest, um, releases.  A small, though convivial, rivalry may be
detected here amongst the geek dudes.  Try wearing one yourself and see
if he strikes up a conversation.

Of course the best way to meet a geek dude is through the Internet.
All geeks harbor a secret fantasy about meeting some girl in
cyberspace, carrying on an e-mail romance in which he has the chance
to combine an activity he is comfortable with, computing, with one he
is very uncomfortable with, socializing.  To many geek dudes,
cyberdating is just an advanced form of some kind of video game, but
they are frustrated by a lack of players.  Their lack is your strength.


Imprinting

You might notice that these men harbor some strange ideas about how
the world works and some particularly strange ideas about women.  There
is a reason for this.  Because they've had limited interpersonal
experience, geek dudes must look elsewhere for behavior models.
Lacking a real world social milieu, geeks often go through a
transference stage with such narratives, and try to model their
interactions on them.  Thus, certain media images and themes come to
have an overly cathected, metaphorized reality to them, while the rest
of us view such programming as mere entertainment.  Case in point, our
next topic...


The Trek factor

If you're not up on your Star Trek, you can forget about getting or
keeping a geek dude.  And I'm not just talking vintage-era Captain Kirk
and Spock either.  You've got to be up on your The Next Generation,
your Deep Space Nine, your Babylon 5.  Armed with your own knowledge of
Federation policies, you can better gauge when and how to act.  The
sexual politics of Star Trek are pretty blunt: the men run the
technology and the ship, and the women are caretakers (a doctor and a
counselor).  Note the sexual tensions on the bridge of the Enterprise:
the women, in skin tight uniforms, and with luxuriant, flowing hair.
The men, often balding, and sporting some sort of permanently attached
computer auxiliary.  This world metaphorizes the fantasies of the geek
dude, who sees himself in the geeky-but-heroic male officers and who
secretly desires a sexy, smart, Deanna or Bev to come along and
deferentially accept him for who he is.  If you are willing to accept
that this is his starting point for reality, you are ready for a geek
relationship.


Once You've Nabbed Him

Of course, catching that geek guy is only half the battle.  Keeping him
by your side is another story altogether.  I was privileged to speak
with Miss Victoria Maat, who not only got herself a geek guy but was
also clever enough to marry him just a few short months ago.  She
interrupted her newlywed bliss to give us a few tips on the care and
feeding of a geek man:

Geeks are sensitive and caring lovers and husbands.  If you can hang
with the techno-lifestyle, they make the best mates.  They are the most
attractive people, not flashy or hunky, but the kind who get cuter and
more alluring over time (I told you she was a newlywed).  Definitely
give geeks a chance.


Geek Cuisine

Geeks tend towards packaged, junk foods since they prefer to work and
think and aren't all that into cooking for themselves.  Make sure that
your geek understands that you are not merely a replicator, and
provide him with home cooked food.  A batch of chocolate chip cookies
will let him know that you love him.  You do have to monitor your geek
for weight gain; however, remember that most of their days are spent
sitting and staring at a monitor.


Geek Lifestyle

The geek dude has long work habits and tends to bring his work home
with him.  He seems permanently connected to his hard disk.  You must
at least appear interested in his work.  Generally, a solid
understanding of the computer is a must; if you cannot master this,
you should at least be able to talk the talk.  Remember most geeks are
anal and they get stressed about details which appear insignificant.
Be understanding, put on your best Deanna Troi face (see above) and
empathize.

To relax, geeks love to play the latest computer games.  Let him play
Myst or Chuck Yeager's Air Combat for hours if he wants to.  Act
concerned if he's stuck or has just been ambushed by three MiGs.  My
geek loves to try to help people on the Internet who say that they are
stuck in Myst.  He comes up with clever riddles instead of directing
them point blank.  Geeks also like to go to sci-fi and Japanese
animated movies, again, a basically harmless vent for your man.


Geek Buddies

Many geeks extend their work friendships into what they jokingly refer
to as RL (Real Life, also known as "that big room with the ceiling
that is sometimes blue and sometimes black with little lights").  The
greatest thing about your geek's buddies is that you can feel secure
in setting them up with your girlfriends.  They may feel awkward
around females at first, so don't overwhelm them.  In time they will
come out of their shell and realize that you are into the same things
they are.


Post-It Note

I thank Victoria for the above advice.  I must say that when she read
my draft of the piece, before writing her section, she asked her
husband which one he thought she was more like, Deanna or Beverly.
Howard, the devil, immediately replied that he had always thought
Victoria was actually most like Ensign Ro Laren, a cute character with
a slight authority problem who is always had trouble (this is fairly
apt).  This exchange is interesting for several reasons:

    Howard had already thought about who she was most like.

    He could summon up characters from seasons past with ease.

    Victoria actually knew who he meant.

    Folks, I think this marriage will last.


One Last Thing

Because they have been so abused and ignored by society, many geeks
have gone underground.  You may actually know some and just haven't
noticed them.  They often feel resentful, and misunderstood, and it is
important to realize this as you grow closer to them.  Don't ever try
to force the issue, or make crazy demands that he choose between his
computer and you.  Remember, his computer has been there for him his
whole life; you are a new interloper he hasn't quite grasped yet.

Geek dudes thrive on mystery and love challenges and intellectual
puzzles.  Don't you consider yourself one?  Wouldn't you like a little
intellectual stimulation or your own?  We thought so.

       The following are actual stories told by travel agents (and
         you wonder why US citizens generally score less than the
         rest of the world on geography)...
         
         I had someone who wanted to stay at the Bob Newhart Inn in
         Connecticut.  When I explained that the inn was fictional,
         the customer became very irate and insisted "I know it is
         real, I see people check in every week!" Also, I really did
         have someone ask for an aisle seat so that their hair
         wouldn't get messed up by being near the window.
         
         A client called in inquiring about a package to Hawaii.
         After going over all the cost info, she asked, "would it be
         cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to
         Hawaii?"
         
         I got a call from a woman who wanted to go to Capetown.  I
         started to explain the length of the flight and the passport
         information when she interrupted me with "I'm not trying to
         make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts."
         Without trying to make her look like the stupid one, I
         calmly explained, "Cape Cod is in Massachusetts, Capetown is
         in Africa." Her response....click.
         
         A secretary called in looking for a hotel in Los Angeles.
         She gave me various names off a list, none of which I could
         find.  I finally had her fax me the list.  To my surprise,
         it was a list of hotels in New Orleans, Louisiana.  She
         thought the LA stood for Los Angeles, and that New Orleans
         was a suburb of LA.  Worst of all, when I called her back,
         she was not even embarrassed.
         
         A man called, furious about a Florida package we did.  I
         asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando.  He said
         he was expecting an ocean-view room.  I tried to explain
         that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the
         state.  He replied, "Don't lie to me.  I looked on the map
         and Florida is a very thin state."
         
         I got a call from a man who asked, "is it possible to see
         England from Canada?" I said, "No." He said "but they look
         so close on the map."
         
         Another man called and asked if he could rent a car in
         Dallas.  When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed he had
         a 1-hour layover in Dallas.  When I asked him why he wanted
         to rent a car, he said, "I heard Dallas was a big airport,
         and I need a car to drive between the gates to save time."
         
         A nice lady just called.  She needed to know how it was
         possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and got
         into Chicago at 8:33am.  I tried to explain that Michigan
         was an hour ahead of Illinois, but she could not understand
         the concept of time zones.  Finally I told her the plane
         went very fast, and she bought that!
         
         A woman called and asked, "Do airlines put your physical
         description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs
         to who?" I said, "No, why do you ask?" She replied, "Well,
         when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my
         luggage that said FAT, and I'm overweight, is there any
         connection?" After putting her on hold for a minute while I
         "looked into it" ( I was actually laughing) I came back and
         explained the city code for Fresno is FAT, and that the
         airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.
         
         I just got off the phone with a man who asked, "How do I
         know which plane to get on?" I asked him what exactly he
         meant, to which he replied, "I was told my flight number is
         823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on them."
         
         A woman called and said, "I need to fly to Pepsi-cola on one
         of those computer planes." I asked if she meant to fly to
         Pensacola on a commuter plane.  She said, "Yea, whatever."
         
         A business man called and had a question about the documents
         he needed in order to fly to China.  After a lengthy
         discussion about passports, I reminded him he needed a visa.
         "Oh no I don't, I've been to China many times and never had
         to have one of those." I double checked, and sure enough,
         his stay required a visa.  When I told him this he said,
         "Look, I've been to China 4 times and every time they have
         accepted my American Express."
         
         A woman called to make reservations, "I want to go from
         Chicago to Hippopotamus, New York" The agent was at a loss
         for words.  Finally, the agent: "Are you sure that's the
         name of the town?" "Yes, what flights do you have?" replied
         the customer.  After some searching, the agent came back
         with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every airport code
         in the country and can't find a Hippopotamus anywhere." The
         customer retorted, "Oh don't be silly.  Everyone knows where
         it is.  Check your map!" The agent scoured a map of the
         state of New York and finally offered, "You don't mean
         Buffalo, do you?" "That's it!  I knew it was a big animal!"

    How to get Electric Power from Hamsters

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------
        o Stick copper and zinc electrode-needles in opposite ends of
          hamster. Use in series for higher voltage.

        o Go to Radio Chack and offer them the hamster in exchange for two
          AAA batteries.

        o Attach the hamster to a hand-crank generator and then drop it
          onto a trampoline.

        o Ignite in large numbers. Use heat released to drive steam
          turbine.

        o Kidnap and threaten to torture. Extort ransom from animal-rights
          activists and other anti-cruelty types: demand payment in the
          form of electric current.

        o Drop large numbers of hamsters into tar pit, wait a few million
          years, drill for crude oil at same location to run electric
          turbine.

        o Cold Fusion - Steam Turbine. No explanation necessary.

        o Any form of neutron capture / beta emission.

        o Convince hamsters they're really lemmings. Show cliff to
          hamsters. Install turbine halfway down cliff.

        o Put hamster on electricity-generating treadmill. Feed back small
          portion of generated electricity into hamster brain pleasure
          center. Watch him generate his little heart out!

        o Seal large quantity of hamsters in air tight holding tanks. Add
          water. Allow suitable time to pass for decomposition. Collect
          methane gas resulting. Put gas in fuel cells.

        o Skin hamster. Melt animal fat into tallow and then form candles.
          Heat steam turbine.

        o Accumulate enough hamsters so that the self-gravitational force
          causes the mass to shrink and heat up. Use thermocouples to
          generate energy.

        o Raid electric utilities corporate headquarters. Threaten to drop
          hamster down CEO's pants unless he gives you a power plant.

        o Get several dozen hamsters. Shoot them up with crystal meth.
          Attach dog sled.

        o (This is, undoubtedly, the way to get the most power from them)
          Combine the hamster with an equal mass of antimatter -- a
          anti-hamster if you will. Then harness the massive energy release
          for power....

        o a. Find a _good_ genetic engineer. b. Splice appropriate genes
          from electric eels into hamsters, because they're smaller and
          cuter and, well, hamsters. c. Feed the hamsters. d. Surgically
          install appropriate electrodes. e. Periodically drain off the
          voltage. Unfortunately, this only gets you DC current. P.S. How
          could I have been so blind? Splice in genes from blue-green algae
          as well, and you wouldn't even have to feed the hamsters! (Well,
          maybe some posphorous and iron and stuff)

        o Mail the electric company a dead hamster every day until they
          give you power for free.

        o Crossbreed hamster with Mothra and use resulting giant mutant
          lightning- breathing hamster as power source.

        o Give the hamster to Scotty, he'll find some way to yeild 20% more
          powermore power from the little bugger.

        o Take thousands of hamsters into orbit -- when the orbit decays,
          they will heat up the atmosphere. With enough hamsters, you could
          raise the planets temperature as much as you want.

        o Emmass enormous quantities of hamsters until it reaches enough
          mass to begin hamsterfusion in the core. Use solar cells to
          convert radioation to electricity.

        o Throw in more hamsters (see above) until the hamsterstar goes
          supernova... you couldn't want any more energy than that...

        o Repeat above with another mass of hamsters... spin the resulting
          neutron-hamsters around each other in a binary orbit... use
          gravity waves to rotate turbine.

        o Take five or six hits of acid. Tell yourself very firmly that
          hamsters _are_ electricity. (Well, they've got lots of electrons
          in them, yes?) Acquire hamsters however you choose;
          "operationally", you've now got electricity. (I say "five or six
          hits", because I find that things which were perfectly clear to
          me after ONE hit make absolutely no sense afterwards, e.g., that
          the word "Krups" is actually an onomatopeiac piece of German
          slang for an unprintable Viennese practice, besides Leary used to
          take five hits or so. QED.)

        o Give them little magnetic collars, and run them through a maze of
          coiled wires.

        o Take two hamsters, run one through a klein bottle to convert it
          to anti- matter. Combine the first hamster with the anti-hamster.
          Harness the resultant massive burst of energy.

        o Drop hamster into black hole. Use photovoltaics to release the
          radiated energy.

        o Put female hamster scent on glass rod. Release male hamster. He
          will try to rub his furry coat against glass rod. Drawback: only
          creates static electricty.
    

INTRODUCTION

                                                   Procedural Background

Before us are motions for a preliminary injunction filed by plaintiffs who challenge on constitutional grounds provisions of the Communications Decency Act of 1996
(CDA or "the Act"), which constitutes Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, signed into law by the President on February 8, 1996.1
Telecommunications Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-104, § 502, 110 Stat. 56, 133-35. Plaintiffs include various organizations and individuals who, inter alia, are
associated with the computer and/or communications industries, or who publish or post materials on the Internet, or belong to various citizen groups. See ACLU
Complaint (¶¶ 7-26), ALA First Amended Complaint (¶¶ 3, 12-33). 

The defendants in these actions are Janet Reno, the Attorney General of the United States, and the United States Department of Justice. For convenience, we will
refer to these defendants as the Government. Plaintiffs contend that the two challenged provisions of the CDA that are directed to communications over the Internet
which might be deemed "indecent" or "patently offensive" for minors, defined as persons under the age of eighteen, infringe upon rights protected by the First
Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. 

Plaintiffs in Civil Action Number 96-963, in which the lead plaintiff is the American Civil Liberties Union (the ACLU),2 filed their action in the United States
District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on the day the Act was signed, and moved for a temporary restraining order to enjoin enforcement of these
two provisions of the CDA. On February 15, 1996, following an evidentiary hearing, Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter, to whom the case had been assigned, granted a
limited temporary restraining order, finding in a Memorandum that 47 U.S.C. § 223(a)(1)(B) ("the indecency provision" of the CDA) was unconstitutionally vague.
On the same day, Chief Judge Dolores K. Sloviter, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, having been requested by the parties
and the district court to convene a three-judge court, pursuant to § 561(a) of the CDA, appointed such a court consisting of, in addition to Judge Buckwalter, Judge
Stewart Dalzell of the same district, and herself, as the circuit judge required by 28 U.S.C. § 2284. 

After a conference with the court, the parties entered into a stipulation, which the court approved on February 26, 1996, wherein the Attorney General agreed that: 

     she will not initiate any investigations or prosecutions for violations of 47 U.S.C. § 223(d) for conduct occurring after enactment of this provision until
     the three-judge court hears Plaintiffs' Motion for Preliminary Injunction . . . and has decided the motion. 

The Attorney General's commitment was qualified to the extent that: 

     her full authority to investigate or prosecute any violation of § 223(a)(1)(B), as amended, and § 223(d) as to conduct which occurs or occurred during
     any period of time after enactment of these provisions (including for the period of time to which this stipulation applies) should the Court deny plaintiffs'
     motion or, if the motion is granted, should these provisions ultimately be upheld. 

Stipulation, ¶ 4, in C.A. No. 96-963. 

Shortly thereafter, the American Library Association, Inc. (the ALA) and others3 filed a similar action at C.A. No. 96-1458. On February 27, 1996, Chief Judge
Sloviter, again pursuant to § 561(a) of the CDA and upon request, convened the same three-judge court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2284. The actions were
consolidated pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 42(a), "for all matters relating to the disposition of motions for preliminary injunction in these cases, including the hearing on
such motions." 

The parties were afforded expedited discovery in connection with the motions for preliminary injunction, and they cooperated with Judge Dalzell, who had been
assigned the case management aspects of the litigation. While the discovery was proceeding, and with the agreement of the parties, the court began receiving
evidence at the consolidated hearings which were conducted on March 21 and 22, and April 1, 12 and 15, 1996. In order to expedite the proceedings, the parties
worked closely with Judge Dalzell and arranged to stipulate to many of the underlying facts and to place much of their cases in chief before the court by sworn
declarations, so that the hearings were largely devoted to cross-examination of certain of the witnesses whose declarations had been filed. The parties submitted
proposed findings of fact and post-hearing memoranda on April 29, and the court heard extensive oral argument on May 10, 1996.4 

Statutory Provisions at Issue

Plaintiffs focus their challenge on two provisions of section 502 of the CDA which amend 47 U.S.C. §§ 223(a) and 223(d). 

Section 223(a)(1)(B) provides in part that any person in interstate or foreign communications who, "by means of a telecommunications device,"5 "knowingly . . .
makes, creates, or solicits" and "initiates the transmission" of "any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image or other communication which is obscene or
indecent, knowing that the recipient of the communication is under 18 years of age," "shall be criminally fined or imprisoned." (emphasis added). 

Section 223(d)(1) ("the patently offensive provision"), makes it a crime to use an "interactive computer service"6 to "send" or "display in a manner available" to a
person under age 18, "any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive
as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs, regardless of whether the user of such service placed the call or
initiated the communication." 

Plaintiffs also challenge on the same grounds the provisions in § 223(a)(2) and § 223(d)(2), which make it a crime for anyone to "knowingly permit any
telecommunications facility under his or her control to be used for any activity prohibited" in §§ 223(a)(1)(B) and 223(d)(1). The challenged provisions impose a
punishment of a fine, up to two years imprisonment, or both for each offense. 

Plaintiffs make clear that they do not quarrel with the statute to the extent that it covers obscenity or child pornography, which were already proscribed before the
CDA's adoption. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 1464-65 (criminalizing obscene material); id. §§ 2251-52 (criminalizing child pornography); see also New York v. Ferber, 458
U.S. 747 (1982); Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973). 

Plaintiffs in the ACLU action also challenge the provision of the CDA that criminalizes speech over the Internet that transmits information about abortions or
abortifacient drugs and devices, through its amendment of 18 U.S.C. § 1462(c). That section now prohibits the sending and receiving of information over the Internet
by any means regarding "where, how, or of whom, or by what means any drug, medicine, article, or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion
may be obtained or made". The Government has stated that it does not contest plaintiffs' challenge to the enforceability of the provision of the CDA as it relates to 18
U.S.C. § 1462(c).7 

As part of its argument that the CDA passes constitutional muster, the Government cites the CDA's "safe harbor" defenses in new § 223(e) of 47 U.S.C., which
provides: 

     (e) Defenses 

     In addition to any other defenses available by law: 

     (1) No person shall be held to have violated subsection (a) or (d) of this section solely for providing access or connection to or from a facility, system,
     or network not under that person's control, including transmission, downloading, intermediate storage, access software, or other related capabilities that
     are incidental to providing such access or connection that does not include the creation of the content of the communication. 

     (2) The defenses provided by paragraph (1) of this subsection shall not be applicable to a person who is a conspirator with an entity actively involved in
     the creation or knowing distribution of communications that violate this section, or who knowingly advertises the availability of such communications. 

     (3) The defenses provided in paragraph (1) of this subsection shall not be applicable to a person who provides access or connection to a facility,
     system, or network engaged in the violation of this section that is owned or controlled by such person. 

     (4) No employer shall be held liable under this section for the actions of an employee or agent unless the employee's or agent's conduct is within the
     scope of his or her employment or agency and the employer (A) having knowledge of such conduct, authorizes or ratifies such conduct, or (B)
     recklessly disregards such conduct. 

     (5) It is a defense to a prosecution under subsection (a)(1)(B) or (d) of this section, or under subsection (a)(2) of this section with respect to the use of
     a facility for an activity under subsection (a)(1)(B) that a person -- 

     (A) has taken, in good faith, reasonable, effective, and appropriate actions under the circumstances to restrict or prevent access by minors to a
     communication specified in such subsections, which may involve any appropriate measures to restrict minors from such communications, including any
     method which is feasible under available technology; or 

     (B) has restricted access to such communication by requiring use of a verified credit card, debit account, adult access code, or adult personal
     identification number. 

     (6) The Federal Communications Commission may describe measures which are reasonable, effective, and appropriate to restrict access to
     prohibited communications under subsection (d) of this section. Nothing in this section authorizes the Commission to enforce, or is intended to provide
     the Commission with the authority to approve, sanction, or permit, the use of such measures. The Commission shall have no enforcement authority over
     the failure to utilize such measures. . . . 



                                                             II.
                                                FINDINGS OF FACT

All parties agree that in order to apprehend the legal questions at issue in these cases, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the exponentially growing,
worldwide medium that is the Internet, which presents unique issues relating to the application of First Amendment jurisprudence and due process requirements to
this new and evolving method of communication. For this reason all parties insisted on having extensive evidentiary hearings before the three-judge court. The court's
Findings of fact are made pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(a). The history and basic technology of this medium are not in dispute, and the first forty-eight paragraphs
of the following Findings of fact are derived from the like-numbered paragraphs of a stipulation8 the parties filed with the court.9 

                                                  The Nature of Cyberspace

                                   The Creation of the Internet and the Development of Cyberspace

1. The Internet is not a physical or tangible entity, but rather a giant network which interconnects innumerable smaller groups of linked computer networks. It is thus
a network of networks. This is best understood if one considers what a linked group of computers -- referred to here as a "network" -- is, and what it does. Small
networks are now ubiquitous (and are often called "local area networks"). For example, in many United States Courthouses, computers are linked to each other for
the purpose of exchanging files and messages (and to share equipment such as printers). These are networks. 

2. Some networks are "closed" networks, not linked to other computers or networks. Many networks, however, are connected to other networks, which are in turn
connected to other networks in a manner which permits each computer in any network to communicate with computers on any other network in the system. This
global Web of linked networks and computers is referred to as the Internet. 

3. The nature of the Internet is such that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to determine its size at a given moment. It is indisputable, however, that the Internet has
experienced extraordinary growth in recent years. In 1981, fewer than 300 computers were linked to the Internet, and by 1989, the number stood at fewer than
90,000 computers. By 1993, over 1,000,000 computers were linked. Today, over 9,400,000 host computers worldwide, of which approximately 60 percent
located within the United States, are estimated to be linked to the Internet. This count does not include the personal computers people use to access the Internet
using modems. In all, reasonable estimates are that as many as 40 million people around the world can and do access the enormously flexible communication Internet
medium. That figure is expected to grow to 200 million Internet users by the year 1999. 

4. Some of the computers and computer networks that make up the Internet are owned by governmental and public institutions, some are owned by non-profit
organizations, and some are privately owned. The resulting whole is a decentralized, global medium of communications -- or "cyberspace" -- that links people,
institutions, corporations, and governments around the world. The Internet is an international system. This communications medium allows any of the literally tens of
millions of people with access to the Internet to exchange information. These communications can occur almost instantaneously, and can be directed either to specific
individuals, to a broader group of people interested in a particular subject, or to the world as a whole. 

5. The Internet had its origins in 1969 as an experimental project of the Advanced Research Project Agency ("ARPA"), and was called ARPANET. This network
linked computers and computer networks owned by the military, defense contractors, and university laboratories conducting defense-related research. The network
later allowed researchers across the country to access directly and to use extremely powerful supercomputers located at a few key universities and laboratories. As
it evolved far beyond its research origins in the United States to encompass universities, corporations, and people around the world, the ARPANET came to be
called the "DARPA Internet," and finally just the "Internet." 

6. From its inception, the network was designed to be a decentralized, self-maintaining series of redundant links between computers and computer networks,
capable of rapidly transmitting communications without direct human involvement or control, and with the automatic ability to re-route communications if one or more
individual links were damaged or otherwise unavailable. Among other goals, this redundant system of linked computers was designed to allow vital research and
communications to continue even if portions of the network were damaged, say, in a war. 

7. To achieve this resilient nationwide (and ultimately global) communications medium, the ARPANET encouraged the creation of multiple links to and from each
computer (or computer network) on the network. Thus, a computer located in Washington, D.C., might be linked (usually using dedicated telephone lines) to other
computers in neighboring states or on the Eastern seaboard. Each of those computers could in turn be linked to other computers, which themselves would be linked
to other computers. 

8. A communication sent over this redundant series of linked computers could travel any of a number of routes to its destination. Thus, a message sent from a
computer in Washington, D.C., to a computer in Palo Alto, California, might first be sent to a computer in Philadelphia, and then be forwarded to a computer in
Pittsburgh, and then to Chicago, Denver, and Salt Lake City, before finally reaching Palo Alto. If the message could not travel along that path (because of military
attack, simple technical malfunction, or other reason), the message would automatically (without human intervention or even knowledge) be re-routed, perhaps, from
Washington, D.C. to Richmond, and then to Atlanta, New Orleans, Dallas, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, and finally to Palo Alto. This type of transmission, and
re-routing, would likely occur in a matter of seconds. 

9. Messages between computers on the Internet do not necessarily travel entirely along the same path. The Internet uses "packet switching" communication protocols
that allow individual messages to be subdivided into smaller "packets" that are then sent independently to the destination, and are then automatically reassembled by
the receiving computer. While all packets of a given message often travel along the same path to the destination, if computers along the route become overloaded,
then packets can be re-routed to less loaded computers. 

10. At the same time that ARPANET was maturing (it subsequently ceased to exist), similar networks developed to link universities, research facilities, businesses,
and individuals around the world. These other formal or loose networks included BITNET, CSNET, FIDONET, and USENET. Eventually, each of these networks
(many of which overlapped) were themselves linked together, allowing users of any computers linked to any one of the networks to transmit communications to users
of computers on other networks. It is this series of linked networks (themselves linking computers and computer networks) that is today commonly known as the
Internet. 

11. No single entity -- academic, corporate, governmental, or non-profit -- administers the Internet. It exists and functions as a result of the fact that hundreds of
thousands of separate operators of computers and computer networks independently decided to use common data transfer protocols to exchange communications
and information with other computers (which in turn exchange communications and information with still other computers). There is no centralized storage location,
control point, or communications channel for the Internet, and it would not be technically feasible for a single entity to control all of the information conveyed on the
Internet. 

                                               How Individuals Access the Internet

12. Individuals have a wide variety of avenues to access cyberspace in general, and the Internet in particular. In terms of physical access, there are two common
methods to establish an actual link to the Internet. First, one can use a computer or computer terminal that is directly (and usually permanently) connected to a
computer network that is itself directly or indirectly connected to the Internet. Second, one can use a "personal computer" with a "modem" to connect over a
telephone line to a larger computer or computer network that is itself directly or indirectly connected to the Internet. As detailed below, both direct and modem
connections are made available to people by a wide variety of academic, governmental, or commercial entities. 

13. Students, faculty, researchers, and others affiliated with the vast majority of colleges and universities in the United States can access the Internet through their
educational institutions. Such access is often via direct connection using computers located in campus libraries, offices, or computer centers, or may be through
telephone access using a modem from a student's or professor's campus or off-campus location. Some colleges and universities install "ports" or outlets for direct
network connections in each dormitory room or provide access via computers located in common areas in dormitories. Such access enables students and professors
to use information and content provided by the college or university itself, and to use the vast amount of research resources and other information available on the
Internet worldwide. 

14. Similarly, Internet resources and access are sufficiently important to many corporations and other employers that those employers link their office computer
networks to the Internet and provide employees with direct or modem access to the office network (and thus to the Internet). Such access might be used by, for
example, a corporation involved in scientific or medical research or manufacturing to enable corporate employees to exchange information and ideas with academic
researchers in their fields. 

15. Those who lack access to the Internet through their schools or employers still have a variety of ways they can access the Internet. Many communities across the
country have established "free-nets" or community networks to provide their citizens with a local link to the Internet (and to provide local-oriented content and
discussion groups). The first such community network, the Cleveland Free-Net Community Computer System, was established in 1986, and free-nets now exist in
scores of communities as diverse as Richmond, Virginia, Tallahassee, Florida, Seattle, Washington, and San Diego, California. Individuals typically can access
free-nets at little or no cost via modem connection or by using computers available in community buildings. Free-nets are often operated by a local library,
educational institution, or non-profit community group. 

16. Individuals can also access the Internet through many local libraries. Libraries often offer patrons use of computers that are linked to the Internet. In addition,
some libraries offer telephone modem access to the libraries' computers, which are themselves connected to the Internet. Increasingly, patrons now use library
services and resources without ever physically entering the library itself. Libraries typically provide such direct or modem access at no cost to the individual user. 

17. Individuals can also access the Internet by patronizing an increasing number of storefront "computer coffee shops," where customers -- while they drink their
coffee -- can use computers provided by the shop to access the Internet. Such Internet access is typically provided by the shop for a small hourly fee. 

18. Individuals can also access the Internet through commercial and non-commercial "Internet service providers" that typically offer modem telephone access to a
computer or computer network linked to the Internet. Many such providers -- including the members of plaintiff Commercial Internet Exchange Association -- are
commercial entities offering Internet access for a monthly or hourly fee. Some Internet service providers, however, are non-profit organizations that offer free or very
low cost access to the Internet. For example, the International Internet Association offers free modem access to the Internet upon request. Also, a number of trade
or other non-profit associations offer Internet access as a service to members. 

19. Another common way for individuals to access the Internet is through one of the major national commercial "online services" such as America Online,
CompuServe, the Microsoft Network, or Prodigy. These online services offer nationwide computer networks (so that subscribers can dial-in to a local telephone
number), and the services provide extensive and well organized content within their own proprietary computer networks. In addition to allowing access to the
extensive content available within each online service, the services also allow subscribers to link to the much larger resources of the Internet. Full access to the online
service (including access to the Internet) can be obtained for modest monthly or hourly fees. The major commercial online services have almost twelve million
individual subscribers across the United States. 

20. In addition to using the national commercial online services, individuals can also access the Internet using some (but not all) of the thousands of local dial-in
computer services, often called "bulletin board systems" or "BBSs." With an investment of as little as $2,000.00 and the cost of a telephone line, individuals,
non-profit organizations, advocacy groups, and businesses can offer their own dial-in computer "bulletin board" service where friends, members, subscribers, or
customers can exchange ideas and information. BBSs range from single computers with only one telephone line into the computer (allowing only one user at a time),
to single computers with many telephone lines into the computer (allowing multiple simultaneous users), to multiple linked computers each servicing multiple dial-in
telephone lines (allowing multiple simultaneous users). Some (but not all) of these BBS systems offer direct or indirect links to the Internet. Some BBS systems
charge users a nominal fee for access, while many others are free to the individual users. 

21. Although commercial access to the Internet is growing rapidly, many users of the Internet -- such as college students and staff -- do not individually pay for
access (except to the extent, for example, that the cost of computer services is a component of college tuition). These and other Internet users can access the
Internet without paying for such access with a credit card or other form of payment. 

                                            Methods to Communicate Over the Internet

22. Once one has access to the Internet, there are a wide variety of different methods of communication and information exchange over the network. These many
methods of communication and information retrieval are constantly evolving and are therefore difficult to categorize concisely. The most common methods of
communications on the Internet (as well as within the major online services) can be roughly grouped into six categories: 

     (1) one-to-one messaging (such as "e-mail"), 

     (2) one-to-many messaging (such as "listserv"), 

     (3) distributed message databases (such as "USENET newsgroups"), 

     (4) real time communication (such as "Internet Relay Chat"), 

     (5) real time remote computer utilization (such as "telnet"), and 

     (6) remote information retrieval (such as "ftp," "gopher," and the "World Wide Web"). 

Most of these methods of communication can be used to transmit text, data, computer programs, sound, visual images (i.e., pictures), and moving video images. 

23. One-to-one messaging. One method of communication on the Internet is via electronic mail, or "e-mail," comparable in principle to sending a first class letter.
One can address and transmit a message to one or more other people. E-mail on the Internet is not routed through a central control point, and can take many and
varying paths to the recipients. Unlike postal mail, simple e-mail generally is not "sealed" or secure, and can be accessed or viewed on intermediate computers
between the sender and recipient (unless the message is encrypted). 

24. One-to-many messaging. The Internet also contains automatic mailing list services (such as "listservs"), also referred to by witnesses as "mail exploders" that
allow communications about particular subjects of interest to a group of people. For example, people can subscribe to a "listserv" mailing list on a particular topic of
interest to them. The subscriber can submit messages on the topic to the listserv that are forwarded (via e-mail), either automatically or through a human moderator
overseeing the listserv, to anyone who has subscribed to the mailing list. A recipient of such a message can reply to the message and have the reply also distributed to
everyone on the mailing list. This service provides the capability to keep abreast of developments or events in a particular subject area. Most listserv-type mailing
lists automatically forward all incoming messages to all mailing list subscribers. There are thousands of such mailing list services on the Internet, collectively with
hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Users of "open" listservs typically can add or remove their names from the mailing list automatically, with no direct human
involvement. Listservs may also be "closed," i.e., only allowing for one's acceptance into the listserv by a human moderator. 

25. Distributed message databases. Similar in function to listservs -- but quite different in how communications are transmitted -- are distributed message databases
such as "USENET newsgroups." User-sponsored newsgroups are among the most popular and widespread applications of Internet services, and cover all
imaginable topics of interest to users. Like listservs, newsgroups are open discussions and exchanges on particular topics. Users, however, need not subscribe to the
discussion mailing list in advance, but can instead access the database at any time. Some USENET newsgroups are "moderated" but most are open access. For the
moderated newsgroups,10 all messages to the newsgroup are forwarded to one person who can screen them for relevance to the topics under discussion.
USENET newsgroups are disseminated using ad hoc, peer to peer connections between approximately 200,000 computers (called USENET "servers") around the
world. For unmoderated newsgroups, when an individual user with access to a USENET server posts a message to a newsgroup, the message is automatically
forwarded to all adjacent USENET servers that furnish access to the newsgroup, and it is then propagated to the servers adjacent to those servers, etc. The
messages are temporarily stored on each receiving server, where they are available for review and response by individual users. The messages are automatically and
periodically purged from each system after a time to make room for new messages. Responses to messages, like the original messages, are automatically distributed
to all other computers receiving the newsgroup or forwarded to a moderator in the case of a moderated newsgroup. The dissemination of messages to USENET
servers around the world is an automated process that does not require direct human intervention or review. 

26. There are newsgroups on more than fifteen thousand different subjects. In 1994, approximately 70,000 messages were posted to newsgroups each day, and
those messages were distributed to the approximately 190,000 computers or computer networks that participate in the USENET newsgroup system. Once the
messages reach the approximately 190,000 receiving computers or computer networks, they are available to individual users of those computers or computer
networks. Collectively, almost 100,000 new messages (or "articles") are posted to newsgroups each day. 

27. Real time communication. In addition to transmitting messages that can be later read or accessed, individuals on the Internet can engage in an immediate dialog,
in "real time", with other people on the Internet. In its simplest forms, "talk" allows one-to-one communications and "Internet Relay Chat" (or IRC) allows two or
more to type messages to each other that almost immediately appear on the others' computer screens. IRC is analogous to a telephone party line, using a computer
and keyboard rather than a telephone. With IRC, however, at any one time there are thousands of different party lines available, in which collectively tens of
thousands of users are engaging in conversations on a huge range of subjects. Moreover, one can create a new party line to discuss a different topic at any time.
Some IRC conversations are "moderated" or include "channel operators." 

28. In addition, commercial online services such as America Online, CompuServe, the Microsoft Network, and Prodigy have their own "chat" systems allowing their
members to converse. 

29. Real time remote computer utilization. Another method to use information on the Internet is to access and control remote computers in "real time" using "telnet."
For example, using telnet, a researcher at a university would be able to use the computing power of a supercomputer located at a different university. A student can
use telnet to connect to a remote library to access the library's online card catalog program. 

30. Remote information retrieval. The final major category of communication may be the most well known use of the Internet -- the search for and retrieval of
information located on remote computers. There are three primary methods to locate and retrieve information on the Internet. 

31. A simple method uses "ftp" (or file transfer protocol) to list the names of computer files available on a remote computer, and to transfer one or more of those files
to an individual's local computer. 

32. Another approach uses a program and format named "gopher" to guide an individual's search through the resources available on a remote computer. 

                                                     The World Wide Web

33. A third approach, and fast becoming the most well-known on the Internet, is the "World Wide Web." The Web utilizes a "hypertext" formatting language called
hypertext markup language (HTML), and programs that "browse" the Web can display HTML documents containing text, images, sound, animation and moving
video. Any HTML document can include links to other types of information or resources, so that while viewing an HTML document that, for example, describes
resources available on the Internet, one can "click" using a computer mouse on the description of the resource and be immediately connected to the resource itself.
Such "hyperlinks" allow information to be accessed and organized in very flexible ways, and allow people to locate and efficiently view related information even if the
information is stored on numerous computers all around the world. 

34. Purpose. The World Wide Web (W3C) was created to serve as the platform for a global, online store of knowledge, containing information from a diversity of
sources and accessible to Internet users around the world. Though information on the Web is contained in individual computers, the fact that each of these computers
is connected to the Internet through W3C protocols allows all of the information to become part of a single body of knowledge. It is currently the most advanced
information system developed on the Internet, and embraces within its data model most information in previous networked information systems such as ftp, gopher,
wais, and Usenet. 

35. History. W3C was originally developed at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, and was initially used to allow information sharing within
internationally dispersed teams of researchers and engineers. Originally aimed at the High Energy Physics community, it has spread to other areas and attracted much
interest in user support, resource recovery, and many other areas which depend on collaborative and information sharing. The Web has extended beyond the
scientific and academic community to include communications by individuals, non-profit organizations, and businesses. 

36. Basic Operation. The World Wide Web is a series of documents stored in different computers all over the Internet. Documents contain information stored in a
variety of formats, including text, still images, sounds, and video. An essential element of the Web is that any document has an address (rather like a telephone
number). Most Web documents contain "links." These are short sections of text or image which refer to another document. Typically the linked text is blue or
underlined when displayed, and when selected by the user, the referenced document is automatically displayed, wherever in the world it actually is stored. Links for
example are used to lead from overview documents to more detailed documents, from tables of contents to particular pages, but also as cross-references, footnotes,
and new forms of information structure. 

37. Many organizations now have "home pages" on the Web. These are documents which provide a set of links designed to represent the organization, and through
links from the home page, guide the user directly or indirectly to information about or relevant to that organization. 

38. As an example of the use of links, if these Findings were to be put on a World Wide Web site, its home page might contain links such as those:
*THE NATURE OF CYBERSPACE
*CREATION OF THE INTERNET AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CYBERSPACE
*HOW PEOPLE ACCESS THE INTERNET
*METHODS TO COMMUNICATE OVER THE INTERNET

39. Each of these links takes the user of the site from the beginning of the Findings to the appropriate section within this Adjudication. Links may also take the user
from the original Web site to another Web site on another computer connected to the Internet. These links from one computer to another, from one document to
another across the Internet, are what unify the Web into a single body of knowledge, and what makes the Web unique. The Web was designed with a maximum
target time to follow a link of one tenth of a second. 

40. Publishing. The World Wide Web exists fundamentally as a platform through which people and organizations can communicate through shared information.
When information is made available, it is said to be "published" on the Web. Publishing on the Web simply requires that the "publisher" has a computer connected to
the Internet and that the computer is running W3C server software. The computer can be as simple as a small personal computer costing less than $1500 dollars or
as complex as a multi-million dollar mainframe computer. Many Web publishers choose instead to lease disk storage space from someone else who has the
necessary computer facilities, eliminating the need for actually owning any equipment oneself. 

41. The Web, as a universe of network accessible information, contains a variety of documents prepared with quite varying degrees of care, from the hastily typed
idea, to the professionally executed corporate profile. The power of the Web stems from the ability of a link to point to any document, regardless of its status or
physical location. 

42. Information to be published on the Web must also be formatted according to the rules of the Web standards. These standardized formats assure that all Web
users who want to read the material will be able to view it. Web standards are sophisticated and flexible enough that they have grown to meet the publishing needs of
many large corporations, banks, brokerage houses, newspapers and magazines which now publish "online" editions of their material, as well as government agencies,
and even courts, which use the Web to disseminate information to the public. At the same time, Web publishing is simple enough that thousands of individual users
and small community organizations are using the Web to publish their own personal "home pages," the equivalent of individualized newsletters about that person or
organization, which are available to everyone on the Web. 

43. Web publishers have a choice to make their Web sites open to the general pool of all Internet users, or close them, thus making the information accessible only
to those with advance authorization. Many publishers choose to keep their sites open to all in order to give their information the widest potential audience. In the
event that the publishers choose to maintain restrictions on access, this may be accomplished by assigning specific user names and passwords as a prerequisite to
access to the site. Or, in the case of Web sites maintained for internal use of one organization, access will only be allowed from other computers within that
organization's local network.11 

44. Searching the Web. A variety of systems have developed that allow users of the Web to search particular information among all of the public sites that are part
of the Web. Services such as Yahoo, Magellan, Altavista, Webcrawler, and Lycos are all services known as "search engines" which allow users to search for Web
sites that contain certain categories of information, or to search for key words. For example, a Web user looking for the text of Supreme Court opinions would type
the words "Supreme Court" into a search engine, and then be presented with a list of World Wide Web sites that contain Supreme Court information. This list would
actually be a series of links to those sites. Having searched out a number of sites that might contain the desired information, the user would then follow individual
links, browsing through the information on each site, until the desired material is found. For many content providers on the Web, the ability to be found by these
search engines is very important. 

45. Common standards. The Web links together disparate information on an ever-growing number of Internet-linked computers by setting common information
storage formats (HTML) and a common language for the exchange of Web documents (HTTP). Although the information itself may be in many different formats,
and stored on computers which are not otherwise compatible, the basic Web standards provide a basic set of standards which allow communication and exchange
of information. Despite the fact that many types of computers are used on the Web, and the fact that many of these machines are otherwise incompatible, those who
"publish" information on the Web are able to communicate with those who seek to access information with little difficulty because of these basic technical standards. 

46. A distributed system with no centralized control. Running on tens of thousands of individual computers on the Internet, the Web is what is known as a distributed
system. The Web was designed so that organizations with computers containing information can become part of the Web simply by attaching their computers to the
Internet and running appropriate World Wide Web software. No single organization controls any membership in the Web, nor is there any single centralized point
from which individual Web sites or services can be blocked from the Web. From a user's perspective, it may appear to be a single, integrated system, but in reality it
has no centralized control point. 

47. Contrast to closed databases. The Web's open, distributed, decentralized nature stands in sharp contrast to most information systems that have come before it.
Private information services such as Westlaw, Lexis/Nexis, and Dialog, have contained large storehouses of knowledge, and can be accessed from the Internet with
the appropriate passwords and access software. However, these databases are not linked together into a single whole, as is the World Wide Web. 

48. Success of the Web in research, education, and political activities. The World Wide Web has become so popular because of its open, distributed, and
easy-to-use nature. Rather than requiring those who seek information to purchase new software or hardware, and to learn a new kind of system for each new
database of information they seek to access, the Web environment makes it easy for users to jump from one set of information to another. By the same token, the
open nature of the Web makes it easy for publishers to reach their intended audiences without having to know in advance what kind of computer each potential
reader has, and what kind of software they will be using. 

                                        Restricting Access to Unwanted On-Line Material12

                                                            PICS

49. With the rapid growth of the Internet, the increasing popularity of the Web, and the existence of material online that some parents may consider inappropriate for
their children, various entities have begun to build systems intended to enable parents to control the material which comes into their homes and may be accessible to
their children. The World Wide Web Consortium launched the PICS ("Platform for Internet Content Selection") program in order to develop technical standards that
would support parents' ability to filter and screen material that their children see on the Web. 

50. The Consortium intends that PICS will provide the ability for third parties, as well as individual content providers, to rate content on the Internet in a variety of
ways. When fully implemented, PICS-compatible World Wide Web browsers, Usenet News Group readers, and other Internet applications, will provide parents
the ability to choose from a variety of rating services, or a combination of services. 

51. PICS working group PICS-WG participants include many of the major online services providers, commercial internet access providers, hardware and
software companies, major internet content providers, and consumer organizations. Among active participants in the PICS effort are: 

     Adobe Systems, Inc. 
     Apple Computer 
     America Online 
     AT&T 
     Center for Democracy and Technology 
     CompuServe 
     Delphi Internet Services 
     Digital Equipment Corporation 
     IBM 
     First floor 
     First Virtual Holdings Incorporated 
     France Telecom 
     FTP Software 
     Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan 
     Information Technology Association of America 
     Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA) 
     Interactive Services Association 
     MCI 
     Microsoft 
     MIT/LCS/World Wide Web Consortium 
     NCD 
     NEC 
     Netscape Communications Corporation 
     NewView 
     O'Reilly and Associates 
     Open Market 
     Prodigy Services Company 
     Progressive Networks 
     Providence Systems/Parental Guidance 
     Recreational Software Advisory Council 
     SafeSurf 
     SoftQuad, Inc. 
     Songline Studios 
     Spyglass 
     SurfWatch Software 
     Telequip Corp. 
     Time Warner Pathfinder 
     Viacom Nickelodeon13 

52. Membership in the PICS-WG includes a broad cross-section of companies from the computer, communications, and content industries, as well as trade
associations and public interest groups. PICS technical specifications have been agreed to, allowing the Internet community to begin to deploy products and services
based on the PICS-standards. 

53. Until a majority of sites on the Internet have been rated by a PICS rating service, PICS will initially function as a "positive" ratings system in which only those
sites that have been rated will be displayed using PICS compatible software. In other words, PICS will initially function as a site inclusion list rather than a site
exclusion list. The default configuration for a PICS compatible Internet application will be to block access to all sites which have not been rated by a PICS rating
service, while allowing access to sites which have a PICS rating for appropriate content.14 

                                                          Software

54. For over a year, various companies have marketed stand alone software that is intended to enable parents and other adults to limit the Internet access of
children. Examples of such software include: Cyber Patrol, CYBERsitter, The Internet Filter, Net Nanny, Parental Guidance, SurfWatch, Netscape Proxy Server,
and WebTrack. The market for this type of software is growing, and there is increasing competition among software providers to provide products. 

Cyber Patrol

55. As more people, particularly children, began to use the Internet, Microsystems Software, Inc. decided to develop and market Internet software intended to
empower parents to exercise individual choice over what material their children could access. Microsystems' stated intent is to develop a product which would give
parents comfort that their children can reap the benefits of the Internet while shielding them from objectionable or otherwise inappropriate materials based on the
parents' own particular tastes and values. Microsystems' product, Cyber Patrol, was developed to address this need. 

56. Cyber Patrol was first introduced in August 1995, and is currently available in Windows and Macintosh versions. Cyber Patrol works with both direct Internet
Access providers (ISPs, e.g., Netcom, PSI, UUnet), and Commercial Online Service Providers (e.g., America Online, Compuserv, Prodigy, Microsoft). Cyber
Patrol is also compatible with all major World Wide Web browsers on the market (e.g., Netscape, Navigator, Mosaic, Prodigy's Legacy and Skimmer browsers,
America Online, Netcom's NetCruiser, etc.). Cyber Patrol was the first parental empowerment application to be compatible with the PICS standard. In February of
1996, Microsystems put the first PICS ratings server on the Internet. 

57. The CyberNOT list contains approximately 7000 sites in twelve categories. The software is designed to enable parents to selectively block access to any or all
of the twelve CyberNOT categories simply by checking boxes in the Cyber Patrol Headquarters (the Cyber Patrol program manager). These categories are: 

     Violence/Profanity: Extreme cruelty, physical or emotional acts against any animal or person which are primarily intended to hurt or inflict pain. Obscene
     words, phrases, and profanity defined as text that uses George Carlin's seven censored words more often than once every fifty messages or pages. 
     Partial Nudity: Full or partial exposure of the human anatomy except when exposing genitalia. 
     Nudity: Any exposure of the human genitalia. 
     Sexual Acts (graphic or text): Pictures or text exposing anyone or anything involved in explicit sexual acts and lewd and lascivious behavior, including
     masturbation, copulation, pedophilia, intimacy and involving nude or partially nude people in heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian or homosexual encounters. Also
     includes phone sex ads, dating services, adult personals, CD-ROM and videos. 
     Gross Depictions (graphic or text): Pictures or descriptive text of anyone or anything which are crudely vulgar, deficient in civility or behavior, or showing
     scatological impropriety. Includes such depictions as maiming, bloody figures, indecent depiction of bodily functions. 
     Racism/Ethnic Impropriety: Prejudice or discrimination against any race or ethnic culture. Ethnic or racist jokes and slurs. Any text that elevates one race over
     another. 
     Satanic/Cult: Worship of the devil; affinity for evil, wickedness. Sects or groups that potentially coerce individuals to grow, and keep, membership. 
     Drugs/Drug Culture: Topics dealing with the use of illegal drugs for entertainment. This would exclude current illegal drugs used for medicinal purposes (e.g.,
     drugs used to treat victims of AIDS). Includes substances used for other than their primary purpose to alter the individual's state of mind such as glue sniffing. 
     Militant/Extremist: Extremely aggressive and combative behaviors, radicalism, advocacy of extreme political measures. Topics include extreme political groups
     that advocate violence as a means to achieve their goal. 
     Gambling: Of or relating to lotteries, casinos, betting, numbers games, on-line sports or financial betting including non-monetary dares. 
     Questionable/Illegal: Material or activities of a dubious nature which may be illegal in any or all jurisdictions, such as illegal business schemes, chain letters,
     software piracy, and copyright infringement. 
     Alcohol, Beer & Wine: Material pertaining to the sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages. Also includes sites and information relating to tobacco products.

58. Microsystems employs people to search the Internet for sites containing material in these categories. Since new sites are constantly coming online, Microsystems
updates the CyberNOT list on a weekly basis. Once installed on the home PC, the copy of Cyber Patrol receives automatic updates to the CyberNOT list over the
Internet every seven days. 

59. In February of 1996, Microsystems signed a licensing arrangement with CompuServe, one of the leading commercial online services with over 4.3 million
subscribers. CompuServe provides Cyber Patrol free of charge to its subscribers. Microsystems the same month signed a licensing arrangement with Prodigy,
another leading commercial online service with over 1.4 million subscribers. Prodigy will provide Cyber Patrol free of charge of its subscribers. 

60. Cyber Patrol is also available directly from Microsystems for $49.95, which includes a six month subscription to the CyberNOT blocked sites list (updated
automatically once every seven days). After six months, parents can receive six months of additional updates for $19.95, or twelve months for $29.95. Cyber Patrol
Home Edition, a limited version of Cyber Patrol, is available free of charge on the Internet. To obtain either version, parents download a seven day demonstration
version of the full Cyber Patrol product from the Microsystems Internet World Wide Web Server. At the end of the seven day trial period, users are offered the
opportunity to purchase the complete version of Cyber Patrol or provide Microsystems some basic demographic information in exchange for unlimited use of the
Home Edition. The demographic information is used for marketing and research purposes. Since January of 1996, over 10,000 demonstration copies of Cyber
Patrol have been downloaded from Microsystems' Web site. 

61. Cyber Patrol is also available from Retail outlets as NetBlocker Plus. NetBlocker Plus sells for $19.95, which includes five weeks of updates to the CyberNOT
list. 

62. Microsystems also sells Cyber Patrol into a growing market in schools. As more classrooms become connected to the Internet, many teachers want to ensure
that their students can receive the benefit of the Internet without encountering material they deem educationally inappropriate. 

63. Microsystems is working with the Recreational Software Advisory Council (RSAC), a non-profit corporation which developed rating systems for video games,
to implement the RSAC rating system for the Internet. 

64. The next release of Cyber Patrol, expected in second quarter of this year, will give parents the ability to use any PICS rating service, including the RSAC rating
service, in addition to the Microsystems CyberNOT list. 

65. In order to speed the implementation of PICS and encourage the development of PICS-compatible Internet applications, Microsystems maintains a server on
the Internet which contains its CyberNOT list. The server provides software developers with access to a PICS rating service, and allows software developers to test
their products' ability to interpret standard PICS labels. Microsystems is also offering its PICS client test program for Windows free of charge. The client program
can be used by developers of PICS rating services to test their services and products. 

SurfWatch

66. Another software product, SurfWatch, is also designed to allow parents and other concerned users to filter unwanted material on the Internet. SurfWatch is
available for both Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, and Microsoft Windows 95 Operating Systems, and works with direct Internet Access Providers (e.g.,
Netcom, PSI, UUnet, AT&T, and more than 1000 other Internet Service Providers). 

67. The suggested retail price of SurfWatch Software is $49.95, with a street price of between $20.00 and $25.00. The product is also available as part of
CompuServe/Spry Inc.'s Internet in a Box for Kids, which includes access to Spry's Kids only Internet service and a copy of SurfWatch. Internet in a Box for Kids
retails for approximately $30.00. The subscription service, which updates the SurfWatch blocked site list automatically with new sites each month, is available for
$5.95 per month or $60.00 per year. The subscription is included as part of the Internet in a Box for Kids program, and is also provided as a low-cost option from
Internet Service Providers. 

68. SurfWatch is available at over 12,000 retail locations, including National stores such as Comp USA, Egghead Software, Computer City, and several national
mail order outlets. SurfWatch can also be ordered directly from its own site on the World Wide Web, and through the Internet Shopping Network. 

69. Plaintiffs America Online (AOL), Microsoft Network, and Prodigy all offer parental control options free of charge to their members. AOL has established an
online area designed specifically for children. The "Kids Only" parental control feature allows parents to establish an AOL account for their children that accesses
only the Kids Only channel on America Online.15 

70. AOL plans to incorporate PICS-compatible capability into its standard Web browser software, and to make available to subscribers other PICS-compatible
Web browsers, such as the Netscape software. 

71. Plaintiffs CompuServe and Prodigy give their subscribers the option of blocking all access to the Internet, or to particular media within their proprietary online
content, such as bulletin boards and chat rooms. 

72. Although parental control software currently can screen for certain suggestive words or for known sexually explicit sites, it cannot now screen for sexually explicit
images unaccompanied by suggestive text unless those who configure the software are aware of the particular site. 

73. Despite its limitations, currently available user-based software suggests that a reasonably effective method by which parents can prevent their children from
accessing sexually explicit and other material which parents may believe is inappropriate for their children will soon be widely available. 

                                                   Content on the Internet

74. The types of content now on the Internet defy easy classification. The entire card catalogue of the Carnegie Library is on-line, together with journals, journal
abstracts, popular magazines, and titles of compact discs. The director of the Carnegie Library, Robert Croneberger, testified that on-line services are the emerging
trend in libraries generally. Plaintiff Hotwired Ventures LLC organizes its Web site into information regarding travel, news and commentary, arts and entertainment,
politics, and types of drinks. Plaintiff America Online, Inc., not only creates chat rooms for a broad variety of topics, but also allows members to create their own
chat rooms to suit their own tastes. The ACLU uses an America Online chat room as an unmoderated forum for people to debate civil liberties issues. Plaintiffs'
expert, Scott Bradner,16 estimated that 15,000 newsgroups exist today, and he described his own interest in a newsgroup devoted solely to Formula 1 racing
cars. America Online makes 15,000 bulletin boards available to its subscribers, who post between 200,000 and 250,000 messages each day. Another plaintiffs'
expert, Harold Rheingold, participates in "virtual communities" that simulate social interaction. It is no exaggeration to conclude that the content on the Internet is as
diverse as human thought. 

75. The Internet is not exclusively, or even primarily, a means of commercial communication. Many commercial entities maintain Web sites to inform potential
consumers about their goods and services, or to solicit purchases, but many other Web sites exist solely for the dissemination of non-commercial information. The
other forms of Internet communication -- e-mail, bulletin boards, newsgroups, and chat rooms -- frequently have non-commercial goals. For the economic and
technical reasons set forth in the following paragraphs, the Internet is an especially attractive means for not-for-profit entities or public interest groups to reach their
desired audiences. There are examples in the parties' stipulation of some of the non-commercial uses that the Internet serves. Plaintiff Human Rights Watch, Inc.,
offers information on its Internet site regarding reported human rights abuses around the world. Plaintiff National Writers Union provides a forum for writers on issues
of concern to them. Plaintiff Stop Prisoner Rape, Inc., posts text, graphics, and statistics regarding the incidence and prevention of rape in prisons. Plaintiff Critical
Path AIDS Project, Inc., offers information on safer sex, the transmission of HIV, and the treatment of AIDS. 

76. Such diversity of content on the Internet is possible because the Internet provides an easy and inexpensive way for a speaker to reach a large audience,
potentially of millions. The start-up and operating costs entailed by communication on the Internet are significantly lower than those associated with use of other
forms of mass communication, such as television, radio, newspapers, and magazines. This enables operation of their own Web sites not only by large companies,
such as Microsoft and Time Warner, but also by small, not-for-profit groups, such as Stop Prisoner Rape and Critical Path AIDS Project. The Government's
expert, Dr. Dan R. Olsen,17 agreed that creation of a Web site would cost between $1,000 and $15,000, with monthly operating costs depending on one's goals
and the Web site's traffic. Commercial online services such as America Online allow subscribers to create Web pages free of charge. Any Internet user can
communicate by posting a message to one of the thousands of newsgroups and bulletin boards or by engaging in an on-line "chat", and thereby reach an audience
worldwide that shares an interest in a particular topic. 

77. The ease of communication through the Internet is facilitated by the use of hypertext markup language (HTML), which allows for the creation of "hyperlinks" or
"links". HTML enables a user to jump from one source to other related sources by clicking on the link. A link might take the user from Web site to Web site, or to
other files within a particular Web site. Similarly, by typing a request into a search engine, a user can retrieve many different sources of content related to the search
that the creators of the engine have collected. 

78. Because of the technology underlying the Internet, the statutory term "content provider,"18 which is equivalent to the traditional "speaker," may actually be a
hybrid of speakers. Through the use of HTML, for example, Critical Path and Stop Prisoner Rape link their Web sites to several related databases, and a user can
immediately jump from the home pages of these organizations to the related databases simply by clicking on a link. America Online creates chat rooms for particular
discussions but also allows subscribers to create their own chat rooms. Similarly, a newsgroup gathers postings on a particular topic and distributes them to the
newsgroup's subscribers. Users of the Carnegie Library can read on-line versions of Vanity Fair and Playboy, and America Online's subscribers can peruse the New
York Times, Boating, and other periodicals. Critical Path, Stop Prisoner Rape, America Online and the Carnegie Library all make available content of other
speakers over whom they have little or no editorial control. 

79. Because of the different forms of Internet communication, a user of the Internet may speak or listen interchangeably, blurring the distinction between "speakers"
and "listeners" on the Internet. Chat rooms, e-mail, and newsgroups are interactive forms of communication, providing the user with the opportunity both to speak
and to listen. 

80. It follows that unlike traditional media, the barriers to entry as a speaker on the Internet do not differ significantly from the barriers to entry as a listener. Once
one has entered cyberspace, one may engage in the dialogue that occurs there. In the argot of the medium, the receiver can and does become the content provider,
and vice-versa. 

81. The Internet is therefore a unique and wholly new medium of worldwide human communication. 

                                          Sexually Explicit Material On the Internet

82. The parties agree that sexually explicit material exists on the Internet. Such material includes text, pictures, and chat, and includes bulletin boards, newsgroups,
and the other forms of Internet communication, and extends from the modestly titillating to the hardest-core. 

83. There is no evidence that sexually-oriented material is the primary type of content on this new medium. Purveyors of such material take advantage of the same
ease of access available to all users of the Internet, including establishment of a Web site. 

84. Sexually explicit material is created, named, and posted in the same manner as material that is not sexually explicit. It is possible that a search engine can
accidentally retrieve material of a sexual nature through an imprecise search, as demonstrated at the hearing. Imprecise searches may also retrieve irrelevant material
that is not of a sexual nature. The accidental retrieval of sexually explicit material is one manifestation of the larger phenomenon of irrelevant search results. 

85. Once a provider posts content on the Internet, it is available to all other Internet users worldwide. Similarly, once a user posts a message to a newsgroup or
bulletin board, that message becomes available to all subscribers to that newsgroup or bulletin board. For example, when the UCR/California Museum of
Photography posts to its Web site nudes by Edward Weston and Robert Mapplethorpe to announce that its new exhibit will travel to Baltimore and New York City,
those images are available not only in Los Angeles, Baltimore, and New York City, but also in Cincinnati, Mobile, or Beijing -- wherever Internet users live.
Similarly, the safer sex instructions that Critical Path posts to its Web site, written in street language so that the teenage receiver can understand them, are available
not just in Philadelphia, but also in Provo and Prague. A chat room organized by the ACLU to discuss the United States Supreme Court's decision in FCC v.
Pacifica Foundation would transmit George Carlin's seven dirty words to anyone who enters. Messages posted to a newsgroup dedicated to the Oklahoma City
bombing travel to all subscribers to that newsgroup. 

86. Once a provider posts its content on the Internet, it cannot prevent that content from entering any community. Unlike the newspaper, broadcast station, or cable
system, Internet technology necessarily gives a speaker a potential worldwide audience. Because the Internet is a network of networks (as described above in
Findings 1 through 4), any network connected to the Internet has the capacity to send and receive information to any other network. Hotwired Ventures, for
example, cannot prevent its materials on mixology from entering communities that have no interest in that topic. 

87. Demonstrations at the preliminary injunction hearings showed that it takes several steps to enter cyberspace. At the most fundamental level, a user must have
access to a computer with the ability to reach the Internet (typically by way of a modem). A user must then direct the computer to connect with the access provider,
enter a password, and enter the appropriate commands to find particular data. On the World Wide Web, a user must normally use a search engine or enter an
appropriate address. Similarly, accessing newsgroups, bulletin boards, and chat rooms requires several steps. 

88. Communications over the Internet do not "invade" an individual's home or appear on one's computer screen unbidden. Users seldom encounter content "by
accident." A document's title or a description of the document will usually appear before the document itself takes the step needed to view it, and in many cases the
user will receive detailed information about a site's content before he or she need take the step to access the document. Almost all sexually explicit images are
preceded by warnings as to the content. Even the Government's witness, Agent Howard Schmidt, Director of the Air Force Office of Special Investigation, testified
that the "odds are slim" that a user would come across a sexually explicit site by accident. 

89. Evidence adduced at the hearing showed significant differences between Internet communications and communications received by radio or television. Although
content on the Internet is just a few clicks of a mouse away from the user, the receipt of information on the Internet requires a series of affirmative steps more
deliberate and directed than merely turning a dial. A child requires some sophistication and some ability to read to retrieve material and thereby to use the Internet
unattended. 

                                        Obstacles to Age Verification on the Internet

90. There is no effective way to determine the identity or the age of a user who is accessing material through e-mail, mail exploders, newsgroups or chat rooms. An
e-mail address provides no authoritative information about the addressee, who may use an e-mail "alias" or an anonymous remailer. There is also no universal or
reliable listing of e-mail addresses and corresponding names or telephone numbers, and any such listing would be or rapidly become incomplete. For these reasons,
there is no reliable way in many instances for a sender to know if the e-mail recipient is an adult or a minor. The difficulty of e-mail age verification is compounded for
mail exploders such as listservs, which automatically send information to all e-mail addresses on a sender's list. Government expert Dr. Olsen agreed that no current
technology could give a speaker assurance that only adults were listed in a particular mail exploder's mailing list. 

91. Because of similar technological difficulties, individuals posting a message to a newsgroup or engaging in chat room discussions cannot ensure that all readers are
adults, and Dr. Olsen agreed. Although some newsgroups are moderated, the moderator's control is limited to what is posted and the moderator cannot control who
receives the messages. 

92. The Government offered no evidence that there is a reliable way to ensure that recipients and participants in such fora can be screened for age. The Government
presented no evidence demonstrating the feasibility of its suggestion that chat rooms, newsgroups and other fora that contain material deemed indecent could be
effectively segregated to "adult" or "moderated" areas of cyberspace. 

93. Even if it were technologically feasible to block minors' access to newsgroups and similar fora, there is no method by which the creators of newsgroups which
contain discussions of art, politics or any other subject that could potentially elicit "indecent" contributions could limit the blocking of access by minors to such
"indecent" material and still allow them access to the remaining content, even if the overwhelming majority of that content was not indecent. 

94. Likewise, participants in MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) and MUSEs (Multi-User Simulation Environments) do not know whether the other participants are
adults or minors. Although MUDs and MUSEs require a password for permanent participants, they need not give their real name nor verify their age, and there is no
current technology to enable the administrator of these fantasy worlds to know if the participant is an adult or a minor. 

95. Unlike other forms of communication on the Internet, there is technology by which an operator of a World Wide Web server may interrogate a user of a Web
site. An HTML document can include a fill-in-the-blank "form" to request information from a visitor to a Web site, and this information can be transmitted back to
the Web server and be processed by a computer program, usually a Common Gateway Interface (cgi) script. The Web server could then grant or deny access to
the information sought. The cgi script is the means by which a Web site can process a fill-in form and thereby screen visitors by requesting a credit card number or
adult password. 

96. Content providers who publish on the World Wide Web via one of the large commercial online services, such as America Online or CompuServe, could not use
an online age verification system that requires cgi script because the server software of these online services available to subscribers cannot process cgi scripts. There
is no method currently available for Web page publishers who lack access to cgi scripts to screen recipients online for age. 

                                         The Practicalities of the Proffered Defenses

Note: The Government contends the CDA makes available three potential defenses to all content providers on the Internet: credit card verification, adult verification
by password or adult identification number, and "tagging". 

                                                    Credit Card Verification

97. Verification19 of a credit card number over the Internet is not now technically possible. Witnesses testified that neither Visa nor Mastercard considers the
Internet to be sufficiently secure under the current technology to process transactions in that manner. Although users can and do purchase products over the Internet
by transmitting their credit card number, the seller must then process the transaction with Visa or Mastercard off-line using phone lines in the traditional way. There
was testimony by several witnesses that Visa and Mastercard are in the process of developing means of credit card verification over the Internet. 

98. Verification by credit card, if and when operational, will remain economically and practically unavailable for many of the non-commercial plaintiffs in these
actions. The Government's expert "suspected" that verification agencies would decline to process a card unless it accompanied a commercial transaction. There
was no evidence to the contrary. 

99. There was evidence that the fee charged by verification agencies to process a card, whether for a purchase or not, will preclude use of the credit-card
verification defense by many non-profit, non-commercial Web sites, and there was no evidence to the contrary. Plaintiffs' witness Patricia Nell Warren, an author
whose free Web site allows users to purchase gay and lesbian literature, testified that she must pay $1 per verification to a verification agency. Her Web site can
absorb this cost because it arises in connection with the sale of books available there. 

100. Using credit card possession as a surrogate for age, and requiring use of a credit card to enter a site, would impose a significant economic cost on
non-commercial entities. Critical Path, for example, received 3,300 hits daily from February 4 through March 4, 1996. If Critical Path must pay a fee every time a
user initially enters its site, then, to provide free access to its non-commercial site, it would incur a monthly cost far beyond its modest resources. The ACLU's Barry
Steinhardt testified that maintenance of a credit card verification system for all visitors to the ACLU's Web site would require it to shut down its Web site because
the projected cost would exceed its budget. 

101. Credit card verification would significantly delay the retrieval of information on the Internet. Dr. Olsen, the expert testifying for the Government, agreed that
even "a minute is an absolutely unreasonable delay . . . People will not put up with a minute." Plaintiffs' expert Donna Hoffman similarly testified that excessive
delay disrupts the "flow" on the Internet and stifles both "hedonistic" and "goal-directed" browsing. 

102. Imposition of a credit card requirement would completely bar adults who do not have a credit card and lack the resources to obtain one from accessing any
blocked material. At this time, credit card verification is effectively unavailable to a substantial number of Internet content providers as a potential defense to the
CDA. 

                                                 Adult Verification by Password

103. The Government offered very limited evidence regarding the operation of existing age verification systems, and the evidence offered was not based on personal
knowledge. AdultCheck and Verify, existing systems which appear to be used for accessing commercial pornographic sites, charge users for their services. Dr.
Olsen admitted that his knowledge of these services was derived primarily from reading the advertisements on their Web pages. He had not interviewed any
employees of these entities, had not personally used these systems, had no idea how many people are registered with them, and could not testify to the reliability of
their attempt at age verification. 

104. At least some, if not almost all, non-commercial organizations, such as the ACLU, Stop Prisoner Rape or Critical Path AIDS Project, regard charging listeners
to access their speech as contrary to their goals of making their materials available to a wide audience free of charge. 

105. It would not be feasible for many non-commercial organizations to design their own adult access code screening systems because the administrative burden of
creating and maintaining a screening system and the ongoing costs involved is beyond their reach. There was testimony that the costs would be prohibitive even for a
commercial entity such as HotWired, the online version of Wired magazine. 

106. There is evidence suggesting that adult users, particularly casual Web browsers, would be discouraged from retrieving information that required use of a credit
card or password. Andrew Anker testified that HotWired has received many complaints from its members about HotWired's registration system, which requires
only that a member supply a name, e-mail address and self-created password. There is concern by commercial content providers that age verification requirements
would decrease advertising and revenue because advertisers depend on a demonstration that the sites are widely available and frequently visited. 

107. Even if credit card verification or adult password verification were implemented, the Government presented no testimony as to how such systems could ensure
that the user of the password or credit card is in fact over 18. The burdens imposed by credit card verification and adult password verification systems make them
effectively unavailable to a substantial number of Internet content providers. 

                                              The Government's "Tagging" Proposal

108. The feasibility and effectiveness of "tagging" to restrict children from accessing "indecent" speech, as proposed by the Government has not been established.
"Tagging" would require content providers to label all of their "indecent" or "patently offensive" material by imbedding a string of characters, such as "XXX," in either
the URL or HTML. If a user could install software on his or her computer to recognize the "XXX" tag, the user could screen out any content with that tag. Dr. Olsen
proposed a "-L18" tag, an idea he developed for this hearing in response to Mr. Bradner's earlier testimony that certain tagging would not be feasible. 

109. The parties appear to agree that it is technologically feasible -- "trivial", in the words of plaintiffs' expert -- to imbed tags in URLs and HTML, and the
technology of tagging underlies both plaintiffs' PICS proposal and the Government's "-L18" proposal. 

110. The Government's tagging proposal would require all content providers that post arguably "indecent" material to review all of their online content, a task that
would be extremely burdensome for organizations that provide large amounts of material online which cannot afford to pay a large staff to review all of that material.
The Carnegie Library would be required to hire numerous additional employees to review its on-line files at an extremely high cost to its limited budget. The cost and
effort would be substantial for the Library and frequently prohibitive for others. Witness Kiroshi Kuromiya testified that it would be impossible for his organization,
Critical Path, to review all of its material because it has only one full and one part-time employee. 

111. The task of screening and tagging cannot be done simply by using software which screens for certain words, as Dr. Olsen acknowledged, and we find that
determinations as to what is indecent require human judgment. 

112. In lieu of reviewing each file individually, a content provider could tag its entire site but this would prevent minors from accessing much material that is not
"indecent" under the CDA. 

113. To be effective, a scheme such as the -L18 proposal would require a worldwide consensus among speakers to use the same tag to label "indecent" material.
There is currently no such consensus, and no Internet speaker currently labels its speech with the -L18 code or with any other widely-recognized label. 

114. Tagging also assumes the existence of software that recognizes the tags and takes appropriate action when it notes tagged speech. Neither commercial Web
browsers nor user-based screening software is currently configured to block a -L18 code. Until such software exists, all speech on the Internet will continue to travel
to whomever requests it, without hindrance. Labelling speech has no effect in itself on the transmission (or not) of that speech. Neither plaintiffs nor the Government
suggest that tagging alone would shield minors from speech or insulate a speaker from criminal liability under the CDA. It follows that all speech on any topic that is
available to adults will also be available to children using the Internet (unless it is blocked by screening software running on the computer the child is using). 

115. There is no way that a speaker can use current technology to know if a listener is using screening software. 

116. Tags can not currently activate or deactivate themselves depending on the age or location of the receiver. Critical Path, which posts on-line safer sex
instructions, would be unable to imbed tags that block its speech only in communities where it may be regarded as indecent. Critical Path, for example, must choose
either to tag its site (blocking its speech in all communities) or not to tag, blocking its speech in none. 

                                          The Problems of Offshore Content and Caching

117. A large percentage, perhaps 40% or more, of content on the Internet originates outside the United States. At the hearing, a witness demonstrated how an
Internet user could access a Web site of London (which presumably is on a server in England), and then link to other sites of interest in England. A user can
sometimes discern from a URL that content is coming from overseas, since InterNIC allows a content provider to imbed a country code in a domain name.20
Foreign content is otherwise indistinguishable from domestic content (as long as it is in English), since foreign speech is created, named, and posted in the same
manner as domestic speech. There is no requirement that foreign speech contain a country code in its URL. It is undisputed that some foreign speech that travels
over the Internet is sexually explicit. 

118. The use of "caching" makes it difficult to determine whether the material originated from foreign or domestic sources. Because of the high cost of using the
trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific cables, and because the high demand on those cables leads to bottleneck delays, content is often "cached", or temporarily stored, on
servers in the United States. Material from a foreign source in Europe can travel over the trans-Atlantic cable to the receiver in the United States, and pass through a
domestic caching server which then stores a copy for subsequent retrieval. This domestic caching server, rather than the original foreign server, will send the material
from the cache to the subsequent receivers, without placing a demand on the trans-oceanic cables. This shortcut effectively eliminates most of the distance for both
the request and the information and, hence, most of the delay. The caching server discards the stored information according to its configuration (e.g., after a certain
time or as the demand for the information diminishes). Caching therefore advances core Internet values: the cheap and speedy retrieval of information. 

119. Caching is not merely an international phenomenon. Domestic content providers store popular domestic material on their caching servers to avoid the delay of
successive searches for the same material and to decrease the demand on their Internet connection. America Online can cache the home page of the New York
Times on its servers when a subscriber first requests it, so that subsequent subscribers who make the same request will receive the same home page, but from
America Online's caching service rather than from the New York Times's server.21 

120. Put simply, to follow the example in the prior paragraph, America Online has no control over the content that the New York Times posts to its Web site, and
the New York Times has no control over America Online's distribution of that content from a caching server. 

                                                          Anonymity

121. Anonymity is important to Internet users who seek to access sensitive information, such as users of the Critical Path AIDS Project's Web site, the users,
particularly gay youth, of Queer Resources Directory, and users of Stop Prisoner Rape (SPR). Many members of SPR's mailing list have asked to remain
anonymous due to the stigma of prisoner rape. 

                                                Plaintiffs' Choices Under the CDA

122. Many speakers who display arguably indecent content on the Internet must choose between silence and the risk of prosecution. The CDA's defenses -- credit
card verification, adult access codes, and adult personal identification numbers -- are effectively unavailable for non-commercial, not-for-profit entities. 

123. The plaintiffs in this action are businesses, libraries, non-commercial and not-for-profit organizations, and educational societies and consortia. Although some of
the material that plaintiffs post online -- such as information regarding protection from AIDS, birth control or prison rape -- is sexually explicit and may be
considered "indecent" or "patently offensive" in some communities, none of the plaintiffs is a commercial purveyor of what is commonly termed "pornography." 



                                                            III.
                                             CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

Plaintiffs have established a reasonable probability of eventual success in the litigation by demonstrating that §§ 223(a)(1)(B) and 223(a)(2) of the CDA are
unconstitutional on their face to the extent that they reach indecency. Sections 223(d)(1) and 223(d)(2) of the CDA are unconstitutional on their face. Accordingly,
plaintiffs have shown irreparable injury, no party has any interest in the enforcement of an unconstitutional law, and therefore the public interest will be served by
granting the preliminary injunction. Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373-74 (1976); Hohe v. Casey, 868 F.2d 69, 72 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 848 (1989);
Acierno v. New Castle County, 40 F.3d 645, 653 (3d Cir. 1994). The motions for preliminary injunction will therefore be granted. 

The views of the members of the Court in support of these conclusions follow. 



SLOVITER, Chief Judge, Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit:

                                                             A.
                                                    Statutory Provisions

As noted in Part I, Introduction, the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction is confined to portions of two provisions of the Communications Decency Act of
1996, § 223(a) and § 223(d), which they contend violate their First Amendment free speech and Fifth Amendment due process rights. To facilitate reference, I set
forth those provisions in full. Section 223(a), the "indecency" provision, subjects to criminal penalties of imprisonment of no more than two years or a fine or both
anyone who: 

     1) in interstate or foreign communications . . . 

          (B) by means of a telecommunications device 

          knowingly -- 

               (i) makes, creates, or solicits, and 

               (ii) initiates the transmission of, 

          any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene or indecent, knowing that the recipient of
          the communication is under 18 years of age, regardless of whether the maker of such communication placed the call or initiated the
          communication; . . . 

     (2) knowingly permits any telecommunications facility under his control to be used for any activity prohibited by paragraph (1) with the intent that it be
     used for such activity. 

(emphasis added). 

The term "telecommunications device" is specifically defined not to include "the use of an interactive computer service," as that is covered by section 223(d)(1). 

Section 223(d), the "patently offensive" provision, subjects to criminal penalties anyone who: 

     (1) in interstate or foreign communications knowingly-- 

          (A) uses an interactive computer service to send to a specific person or persons under 18 years of age, or 

          (B) uses any interactive computer service to display in a manner available to a person under 18 years of age, any comment, request,
          suggestion, proposal, image or other communication that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by
          contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs, regardless of whether the use of such service placed the call
          or initiated the communication; or 

     (2) knowingly permits any telecommunications facility under such person's control to be used for an activity prohibited by paragraph (1) with the intent
     that it be used for such activity. 

(emphasis added). 

Two aspects of these provisions stand out. First, we are dealing with criminal provisions, subjecting violators to substantial penalties. Second, the provisions on
indecent and patently offensive communications are not parallel. 

The government uses the term "indecent" interchangeably with "patently offensive" and advises that it so construes the statute in light of the legislative history and the
Supreme Court's analysis of the word "indecent" in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). However, the CDA does not define "indecent."
Notwithstanding Congress' familiarity with Pacifica, it enacted § 223(a), covering "indecent" communications, without any language confining "indecent" to
descriptions or depictions of "sexual or excretory activities or organs," language it included in the reference to "patently offensive" in § 223(d)(1)(B). Nor does §
223(a) contain the phrase "in context," which the government believes is relevant. 

The failure to define "indecent" in § 223(a) is thus arguably a negative pregnant and subject to "the rule of construction that an express statutory requirement here,
contrasted with statutory silence there, shows an intent to confine the requirement to the specified instance." Field v. Mans, 116 S.Ct. 437, 442 (1995). See also
Gozlon-Peretz v. United States, 498 U.S. 395, 404 (1991) ("'Where Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another
section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion'") (quoting Russello v. United
States, 464 U.S. 16, 23 (1983)). 

Plaintiffs note the difference but do not press this as a basis for distinguishing between the two sections in their preliminary injunction arguments and therefore I will
also use the words interchangeably for this purpose, leaving open the issue for consideration at the final judgment stage if it becomes relevant. 

                                                             B.
                                              Preliminary Injunction Standard

To obtain a preliminary injunction, plaintiffs must establish that they are likely to prevail on the merits and that they will suffer irreparable harm if injunctive relief is not
granted. We also must consider whether the potential harm to the defendant from issuance of a temporary restraining order outweighs possible harm to the plaintiffs if
such relief is denied, and whether the granting of injunctive relief is in the public interest. See Campbell Soup Co. v. ConAgra, Inc., 977 F.2d 86, 90-91 (3d Cir.
1992); Bradley v. Pittsburgh Bd. of Educ., 910 F.2d 1172, 1175 (3d Cir. 1990). 

In a case in which the injury alleged is a threat to First Amendment interests, the finding of irreparable injury is often tied to the likelihood of success on the merits. In
Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347 (1976), the Supreme Court emphasized that "the loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably
constitutes irreparable injury." Id. at 373 (citing New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971)). 

Subjecting speakers to criminal penalties for speech that is constitutionally protected in itself raises the spectre of irreparable harm. Even if a court were unwilling to
draw that conclusion from the language of the statute itself, plaintiffs have introduced ample evidence that the challenged provisions, if not enjoined, will have a chilling
effect on their free expression. Thus, this is not a case in which we are dealing with a mere incidental inhibition on speech, see Hohe v. Casey, 868 F.2d 69, 73 (3d
Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 848 (1989), but with a regulation that directly penalizes speech. 

Nor could there be any dispute about the public interest factor which must be taken into account before a court grants a preliminary injunction. No long string of
citations is necessary to find that the public interest weighs in favor of having access to a free flow of constitutionally protected speech. See, e.g., Turner
Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 114 S. Ct. 2445, 2458 (1994); Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748, 763-65
(1976). 

Thus, if plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the merits, they will have shown the irreparable injury needed to entitle them to a preliminary injunction. 

                                                             C.
                                               Applicable Standard of Review

The CDA is patently a government-imposed content-based restriction on speech, and the speech at issue, whether denominated "indecent" or "patently offensive," is
entitled to constitutional protection. See Sable Communications of California, Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115, 126 (1989). As such, the regulation is subject to strict
scrutiny, and will only be upheld if it is justified by a compelling government interest and if it is narrowly tailored to effectuate that interest. Sable, 492 U.S. at 126;
see also Turner Broadcasting, 114 S. Ct. at 2459 (1994). "The benefit gained by a content-based restriction must outweigh the loss of constitutionally protected
rights." Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. at 363. 

The government's position on the applicable standard has been less than pellucid but, despite some references to a somewhat lesser burden employed in
broadcasting cases, it now appears to have conceded that it has the burden of proof to show both a compelling interest and that the statute regulates least
restrictively. Tr. of Preliminary Injunction Hearing at 121 (May 10, 1996). In any event, the evidence and our Findings of Fact based thereon show that Internet
communication, while unique, is more akin to telephone communication, at issue in Sable, than to broadcasting, at issue in Pacifica, because, as with the telephone,
an Internet user must act affirmatively and deliberately to retrieve specific information online. Even if a broad search will, on occasion, retrieve unwanted materials,
the user virtually always receives some warning of its content, significantly reducing the element of surprise or "assault" involved in broadcasting. Therefore, it is highly
unlikely that a very young child will be randomly "surfing" the Web and come across "indecent" or "patently offensive" material. 

Judge Dalzell's separate opinion fully explores the reasons for the differential treatment of radio and television broadcasting for First Amendment purposes from that
accorded other means of communication. It follows that to the extent the Court employed a less than strict scrutiny standard of review in Pacifica and other
broadcasting cases, see, e.g., Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367 (1969), there is no reason to employ a less than strict scrutiny standard of review
in this case. 

                                                             D.
                                          The Nature of the Government's Interest

The government asserts that shielding minors from access to indecent materials is the compelling interest supporting the CDA. It cites in support the statements of the
Supreme Court that "it is evident beyond the need for elaboration that a State's interest in `safeguarding the physical and psychological well-being of a minor' is
`compelling,'" New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 757 (1982)(quoting Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U.S. 596, 607 (1982)), and "there is a
compelling interest in protecting the physical and psychological well-being of minors. This interest extends to shielding minors from the influence of literature that is
not obscene by adult standards." Sable, 492 U.S at 126. It also cites the similar quotation appearing in Fabulous Assoc., Inc. v. Pennsylvania Public Utility Comm'n,
896 F.2d 780, 787 (3d Cir. 1990). 

Those statements were made in cases where the potential harm to children from the material was evident. Ferber involved the constitutionality of a statute which
prohibited persons from knowingly promoting sexual performances by children under 16 and distributing material depicting such performances. Sable and Fabulous
involved the FCC's ban on "dial-a-porn" (dealing by definition with pornographic telephone messages). In contrast to the material at issue in those cases, at least
some of the material subject to coverage under the "indecent" and "patently offensive" provisions of the CDA may contain valuable literary, artistic or educational
information of value to older minors as well as adults. The Supreme Court has held that "minors are entitled to a significant measure of First Amendment protection,
and only in relatively narrow and well-defined circumstances may government bar public dissemination of protected materials to them." Erznoznik v. City of
Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 212-213 (1975)(citations omitted). 

In Erznoznik, the Court rejected an argument that an ordinance prohibiting the display of films containing nudity at drive-in movie theatres served a compelling
interest in protecting minor passersby from the influence of such films. The Court held that the prohibition was unduly broad, and explained that "speech that is
neither obscene as to youths nor subject to some other legitimate proscription cannot be suppressed solely to protect the young from ideas or images that a
legislative body thinks unsuitable for them." 422 U.S. at 213-14. As Justice Scalia noted in Sable, "the more pornographic what is embraced within the . . .
category of `indecency,' the more reasonable it becomes to insist upon greater assurance of insulation from minors." Sable, 492 U.S. at 132 (Scalia, J., concurring).
It follows that where non-pornographic, albeit sexually explicit, material also falls within the sweep of the statute, the interest will not be as compelling. 

In part, our consideration of the government's showing of a "compelling interest" trenches upon the vagueness issue, discussed in detail in Judge Buckwalter's opinion
but equally pertinent to First Amendment analysis. Material routinely acceptable according to the standards of New York City, such as the Broadway play Angels in
America which concerns homosexuality and AIDS portrayed in graphic language, may be far less acceptable in smaller, less cosmopolitan communities of the United
States. Yet the play garnered two Tony Awards and a Pulitzer prize for its author, and some uninhibited parents and teachers might deem it to be material to be read
or assigned to eleventh and twelfth graders. If available on the Internet through some libraries, the text of the play would likely be accessed in that manner by at least
some students, and it would also arguably fall within the scope of the CDA. 

There has been recent public interest in the female genital mutilation routinely practiced and officially condoned in some countries. News articles have been
descriptive, and it is not stretching to assume that this is a subject that occupies news groups and chat rooms on the Internet. We have no assurance that these
discussions, of obvious interest and relevance to older teenage girls, will not be viewed as patently offensive -- even in context -- in some communities. 

Other illustrations abound of non-obscene material likely to be available on the Internet but subject to the CDA's criminal provisions. Photographs appearing in
National Geographic or a travel magazine of the sculptures in India of couples copulating in numerous positions, a written description of a brutal prison rape, or
Francesco Clemente's painting "Labirinth," see Def. Exh. 125, all might be considered to "depict or describe, in terms patently offensive as measured by
contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs." 47 U.S.C. § 223(d)(1). But the government has made no showing that it has a
compelling interest in preventing a seventeen-year-old minor from accessing such images. 

By contrast, plaintiffs presented testimony that material that could be considered indecent, such as that offered by Stop Prisoner Rape or Critical Path AIDS project,
may be critically important for certain older minors. For example, there was testimony that one quarter of all new HIV infections in the United States is estimated to
occur in young people between the ages of 13 and 20, an estimate the government made no effort to rebut. The witnesses believed that graphic material that their
organizations post on the Internet could help save lives, but were concerned about the CDA's effect on their right to do so. 

The government counters that this court should defer to legislative conclusions about this matter. However, where First Amendment rights are at stake, "deference
to a legislative finding cannot limit judicial inquiry." Sable, 492 U.S. at 129 (quoting Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia, 435 U.S. 829, 843 (1978)).
"Whatever deference is due legislative findings would not foreclose our independent judgment of the facts bearing on an issue of constitutional law." Id. 

Moreover, it appears that the legislative "findings" the government cites concern primarily testimony and statements by legislators about the prevalence of obscenity,
child pornography, and sexual solicitation of children on the Internet. Similarly, at the hearings before us the government introduced exhibits of sexually explicit
material through the testimony of Agent Howard Schmidt, which consisted primarily of the same type of hard-core pornographic materials (even if not technically
obscene) which concerned Congress and which fill the shelves of "adult" book and magazine stores. Plaintiffs emphasize that they do not challenge the Act's
restrictions on speech not protected by the First Amendment, such as obscenity, child pornography or harassment of children. Their suit is based on their assertion,
fully supported by their evidence and our findings, that the CDA reaches much farther. 

I am far less confident than the government that its quotations from earlier cases in the Supreme Court signify that it has shown a compelling interest in regulating the
vast range of online material covered or potentially covered by the CDA. Nonetheless, I acknowledge that there is certainly a compelling government interest to
shield a substantial number of minors from some of the online material that motivated Congress to enact the CDA, and do not rest my decision on the inadequacy of
the government's showing in this regard. 

                                                             E.
                                                  The Reach of the Statute

Whatever the strength of the interest the government has demonstrated in preventing minors from accessing "indecent" and "patently offensive" material online, if the
means it has chosen sweeps more broadly than necessary and thereby chills the expression of adults, it has overstepped onto rights protected by the First
Amendment. Sable, 492 U.S. at 131. 

The plaintiffs argue that the CDA violates the First Amendment because it effectively bans a substantial category of protected speech from most parts of the Internet.
The government responds that the Act does not on its face or in effect ban indecent material that is constitutionally protected for adults. Thus one of the factual issues
before us was the likely effect of the CDA on the free availability of constitutionally protected material. A wealth of persuasive evidence, referred to in detail in the
Findings of Fact, proved that it is either technologically impossible or economically prohibitive for many of the plaintiffs to comply with the CDA without seriously
impeding their posting of online material which adults have a constitutional right to access. 

With the possible exception of an e-mail to a known recipient, most content providers cannot determine the identity and age of every user accessing their material.
Considering separately content providers that fall roughly into two categories, we have found that no technology exists which allows those posting on the category of
newsgroups, mail exploders or chat rooms to screen for age. Speakers using those forms of communication cannot control who receives the communication, and in
most instances are not aware of the identity of the recipients. If it is not feasible for speakers who communicate via these forms of communication to conduct age
screening, they would have to reduce the level of communication to that which is appropriate for children in order to be protected under the statute. This would effect
a complete ban even for adults of some expression, albeit "indecent," to which they are constitutionally entitled, and thus would be unconstitutional under the holding
in Sable, 492 U.S. at 131. 

Even as to content providers in the other broad category, such as the World Wide Web, where efforts at age verification are technically feasible through the use of
Common Gateway Interface (cgi) scripts (which enable creation of a document that can process information provided by a Web visitor), the Findings of Fact show
that as a practical matter, non-commercial organizations and even many commercial organizations using the Web would find it prohibitively expensive and
burdensome to engage in the methods of age verification proposed by the government, and that even if they could attempt to age verify, there is little assurance that
they could successfully filter out minors. 

The government attempts to circumvent this problem by seeking to limit the scope of the statute to those content providers who are commercial pornographers, and
urges that we do likewise in our obligation to save a congressional enactment from facial unconstitutionality wherever possible. But in light of its plain language and its
legislative history, the CDA cannot reasonably be read as limited to commercial pornographers. A court may not impose a narrowing construction on a statute unless
it is "readily susceptible" to such a construction. Virginia v. American Booksellers Ass'n, 484 U.S. 383, 397 (1988). The court may not "rewrite a . . . law to
conform it to constitutional requirements." Id. Although we may prefer an interpretation of a statute that will preserve the constitutionality of the statutory scheme,
United State v. Clark, 445 U.S. 23, 27 (1980), we do not have license to rewrite a statute to "create distinctions where none were intended." American Tobacco
Co. v. Patterson, 456 U.S. 63, 72 n.6 (1982); see also Consumer Party v. Davis, 778 F.2d 140, 147 (3d Cir. 1985). The Court has often stated that "absent a
clearly expressed legislative intention to the contrary, statutory language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive." Escondido Mut. Water Co. v. La Jolla Band of
Mission Indians, 466 U.S. 765, 772 (1984)(quoting North Dakota v. United States, 460 U.S. 300, 312 (1983)). 

It is clear from the face of the CDA and from its legislative history that Congress did not intend to limit its application to commercial purveyors of pornography.
Congress unquestionably knew how to limit the statute to such entities if that was its intent, and in fact it did so in provisions relating to dial-a-porn services. See 47
U.S.C. § 223(b)(2)(A) (criminalizing making any indecent telephone communication "for commercial purposes"). It placed no similar limitation in the CDA.
Moreover, the Conference Report makes clear that Congress did not intend to limit the application of the statute to content providers such as those which make
available the commercial material contained in the government's exhibits, and confirms that Congress intended "content regulation of both commercial and
non-commercial providers." Conf. Rep. at 191. See also, 141 Cong. Rec. S8089 (daily ed. June 9, 1995) (Statement of Senator Exon). 

The scope of the CDA is not confined to material that has a prurient interest or appeal, one of the hallmarks of obscenity, because Congress sought to reach farther.
Nor did Congress include language that would define "patently offensive" or "indecent" to exclude material of serious value. It follows that to narrow the statute in the
manner the government urges would be an impermissible exercise of our limited judicial function, which is to review the statute as written for its compliance with
constitutional mandates. 

I conclude inexorably from the foregoing that the CDA reaches speech subject to the full protection of the First Amendment, at least for adults.1 In questions of the
witnesses and in colloquy with the government attorneys, it became evident that even if "indecent" is read as parallel to "patently offensive," the terms would cover a
broad range of material from contemporary films, plays and books showing or describing sexual activities (e.g., Leaving Las Vegas) to controversial contemporary
art and photographs showing sexual organs in positions that the government conceded would be patently offensive in some communities (e.g., a Robert
Mapplethorpe photograph depicting a man with an erect penis). 

We have also found that there is no effective way for many Internet content providers to limit the effective reach of the CDA to adults because there is no realistic
way for many providers to ascertain the age of those accessing their materials. As a consequence, we have found that "many speakers who display arguably
indecent content on the Internet must choose between silence and the risk of prosecution." Such a choice, forced by sections 223(a) and (d) of the CDA, strikes at
the heart of speech of adults as well as minors. 

                                                             F.
                                             Whether CDA is Narrowly Tailored

In the face of such a patent intrusion on a substantial category of protected speech for adults, there is some irony in considering whether the statute is narrowly
tailored or, as sometimes put, whether Congress has used the least restrictive means to achieve a compelling government interest. See Sable, 492 U.S. at 126. It
would appear that the extent of the abridgement of the protected speech of adults that it has been shown the CDA would effect is too intrusive to be outweighed by
the government's asserted interest, whatever its strength, in protecting minors from access to indecent material. Nonetheless, the formulation of the inquiry requires
that we consider the government's assertion that the statute is narrowly drafted, and I proceed to do so. 

In this case, the government relies on the statutory defenses for its argument of narrow tailoring. There are a number of reasons why I am not persuaded that the
statutory defenses can save the CDA from a conclusion of facial unconstitutionality. 

First, it is difficult to characterize a criminal statute that hovers over each content provider, like the proverbial sword of Damocles, as a narrow tailoring. Criminal
prosecution, which carries with it the risk of public obloquy as well as the expense of court preparation and attorneys' fees, could itself cause incalculable harm. No
provider, whether an individual, non-profit corporation, or even large publicly held corporation, is likely to willingly subject itself to prosecution for a miscalculation of
the prevalent community standards or for an error in judgment as to what is indecent. A successful defense to a criminal prosecution would be small solace indeed. 

Credit card and adult verification services are explicitly referred to as defenses in § 223(e)(5)(B) of the CDA. As is set forth fully in the detailed Findings of Fact,
these defenses are not technologically or economically feasible for most providers. 

The government then falls back on the affirmative defense to prosecution provided in § 223(e)(5)(A) for a person who "has taken, in good faith, reasonable,
effective, and appropriate actions under the circumstances to restrict or prevent access by minors to a communication specified in such subsections . . . including any
method which is feasible under available technology." The government emphasizes that "effective" does not require 100% restriction, and that this defense is
"open-ended" and requires only reasonable efforts based on current technology. 

But, as the evidence made clear, there is no such technology at this time. The government proffered as one option that would constitute a valid affirmative defense
under § 223(e)(5)(A) a "tagging" scheme conceived by Dr. Olsen in response to this lawsuit whereby a string of characters would be imbedded in all arguably
indecent or patently offensive material. Our Findings of Fact set forth fully the reasons why we found that the feasibility and effectiveness of tagging in the manner
proposed by the government has not been established. All parties agree that tagging alone does nothing to prevent children from accessing potentially indecent
material, because it depends upon the cooperation of third parties to block the material on which the tags are embedded. Yet these third parties, over which the
content providers have no control, are not subject to the CDA. I do not believe a statute is narrowly tailored when it subjects to potential criminal penalties those
who must depend upon third parties for the effective operation of a statutory defense. 

Most important, the government's "tagging" proposal is purely hypothetical and offers no currently operative defense to Internet content providers. At this time, there
is no agreed-upon "tag" in existence, and no web browsers or user-based screening systems are now configured to block tagged material. Nor, significantly, has the
government stipulated that a content provider could avoid liability simply by tagging its material. 

Third, even if the technology catches up, as the government confidently predicts, there will still be a not insignificant burden attached to effecting a tagging defense, a
burden one should not have to bear in order to transmit information protected under the constitution. For example, to effect tagging content providers must review all
of their material currently published online, as well as all new material they post in the future, to determine if it could be considered "patently offensive" in any
community nationwide. This would be burdensome for all providers, but for the many not-for-profit entities which currently post thousands of Web pages, this
burden would be one impossible to sustain. 

Finally, the viability of the defenses is intricately tied to the clarity of the CDA's scope. Because, like Judge Buckwalter, and for many of the reasons he gives, I
believe that "indecent" and "patently offensive" are inherently vague, particularly in light of the government's inability to identify the relevant community by whose
standards the material will be judged, I am not persuaded by the government that the statutory defenses in § 223(e) provide effective protection from the
unconstitutional reach of the statute. 

Minors would not be left without any protection from exposure to patently unsuitable material on the Internet should the challenged provisions of the CDA be
preliminarily enjoined. Vigorous enforcement of current obscenity and child pornography laws should suffice to address the problem the government identified in
court and which concerned Congress. When the CDA was under consideration by Congress, the Justice Department itself communicated its view that it was not
necessary because it was prosecuting online obscenity, child pornography and child solicitation under existing laws, and would continue to do so.2 It follows that
the CDA is not narrowly tailored, and the government's attempt to defend it on that ground must fail. 

                                                             G.
                                                   Preliminary Injunction

When Congress decided that material unsuitable for minors was available on the Internet, it could have chosen to assist and support the development of technology
that would enable parents, schools, and libraries to screen such material from their end. It did not do so, and thus did not follow the example available in the print
media where non-obscene but indecent and patently offensive books and magazines abound. Those responsible for minors undertake the primary obligation to
prevent their exposure to such material. Instead, in the CDA Congress chose to place on the speakers the obligation of screening the material that would possibly
offend some communities. 

Whether Congress' decision was a wise one is not at issue here. It was unquestionably a decision that placed the CDA in serious conflict with our most cherished
protection - the right to choose the material to which we would have access. 

The government makes what I view as an extraordinary argument in its brief. It argues that blocking technology needed for effective parental control is not yet
widespread but that it "will imminently be in place." Government's Post-hearing Memorandum at 66. It then states that if we uphold the CDA, it "will likely unleash
the 'creative genius' of the Internet community to find a myriad of possible solutions." I can imagine few arguments less likely to persuade a court to uphold a criminal
statute than one that depends on future technology to cabin the reach of the statute within constitutional bounds. 

The government makes yet another argument that troubles me. It suggests that the concerns expressed by the plaintiffs and the questions posed by the court reflect
an exaggerated supposition of how it would apply the law, and that we should, in effect, trust the Department of Justice to limit the CDA's application in a reasonable
fashion that would avoid prosecution for placing on the Internet works of serious literary or artistic merit. That would require a broad trust indeed from a generation
of judges not far removed from the attacks on James Joyce's Ulysses as obscene. See United States v. One Book Entitled Ulysses, 72 F.2d 705 (2d Cir. 1934);
see also Book Named "John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure" v. Attorney General of Mass., 383 U.S. 413 (1966). Even if we were to place confidence
in the reasonable judgment of the representatives of the Department of Justice who appeared before us, the Department is not a monolithic structure, and individual
U.S. Attorneys in the various districts of the country have or appear to exercise some independence, as reflected by the Department's tolerance of duplicative
challenges in this very case. 

But the bottom line is that the First Amendment should not be interpreted to require us to entrust the protection it affords to the judgment of prosecutors. Prosecutors
come and go. Even federal judges are limited to life tenure. The First Amendment remains to give protection to future generations as well. I have no hesitancy in
concluding that it is likely that plaintiffs will prevail on the merits of their argument that the challenged provisions of the CDA are facially invalid under both the First
and Fifth Amendments. 



BUCKWALTER, District Judge

                                                             A.

I believe that plaintiffs should prevail in this litigation. 

My conclusion differs in part from my original memorandum filed in conjunction with the request for a Temporary Restraining Order. As part of the expedited review
(per § 561 of the CDA), and in contrast to the limited documentation available to me at the time of the T.R.O. hearing, we have now gathered voluminous evidence
presented by way of sworn declarations, live testimony, demonstrative evidence, and other exhibits.1 Based upon our findings of fact derived from careful
consideration of that evidence, I now conclude that this statute is overbroad and does not meet the strict scrutiny standard in Sable Communications of California,
Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115 (1989). 

More specifically, I now find that current technology is inadequate to provide a safe harbor to most speakers on the Internet. On this issue, I concur in Chief Judge
Sloviter's opinion. In addition, I continue to believe that the word "indecent" is unconstitutionally vague, and I find that the terms "in context" and "patently offensive"
also are so vague as to violate the First and Fifth Amendments. 

It is, of course, correct that statutes that attempt to regulate the content of speech presumptively violate the First Amendment. See e.g. R.A.V. v. City of Saint Paul,
505 U.S. 377, 381 (1992). That is as it should be. The prohibition against Government's regulation of speech cannot be set forth any clearer than in the language of
the First Amendment itself. I suspect, however, that it may come as a surprise to many people who have not followed the evolution of constitutional law that, by
implication at least, the First Amendment provides that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech unless that law advances a compelling
governmental interest.2 Our cherished freedom of speech does not cover as broad a spectrum as one may have gleaned from a simple reading of the
Amendment.3 

First Amendment jurisprudence has developed into a study of intertwining standards and applications, perhaps as a necessary response to our ever-evolving culture
and modes of communication.4 

Essentially, my concerns are these: above all, I believe that the challenged provisions are so vague as to violate both the First and Fifth Amendments, and in particular
that Congress' reliance on Pacifica is misplaced. In addition, I believe that technology as it currently exists -- and it bears repeating that we are at the preliminary
injunction phase only -- cannot provide a safe harbor for most speakers on the Internet, thus rendering the statute unconstitutional under a strict scrutiny analysis. I
refer to Chief Judge Sloviter's more detailed analysis of this issue. 

While I believe that our findings of fact clearly show that as yet no defense is technologically feasible, and while I also have found the present Act to be
unconstitutionally vague, I believe it is too early in the development of this new medium to conclude that other attempts to regulate protected speech within the
medium will fail a challenge. That is to say that I specifically do not find that any and all statutory regulation of protected speech on the Internet could not survive
constitutional scrutiny. Prior cases have established that government regulation to prevent access by minors to speech protected for adults, even in media considered
the vanguard of our First Amendment protections, like print, may withstand a constitutional challenge. See e.g. Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 635 (1968)
("`Material which is protected for distribution to adults is not necessarily constitutionally protected from restriction upon its dissemination to children.'") (quoting
Bookcase Inc. v. Broderick, 18 N.Y.2d 71, 75, 271 N.Y.S.2d 947, 952, 218 N.E.2d 668, 671 (1966), appeal dismissed, sub nom Bookcase, Inc. v. Leary,
385 U.S. 12 (1966)). It should be noted that those restrictions that have been found constitutional were sensitive to the unique qualities of the medium at which the
restriction was aimed. 

                                                             B.

This statute, all parties agree, deals with protected speech, the preservation of which has been extolled by court after court in case after case as the keystone, the
bulwark, the very heart of our democracy. What is more, the CDA attempts to regulate protected speech through criminal sanctions, thus implicating not only the
First but also the Fifth Amendment of our Constitution. The concept of due process is every bit as important to our form of government as is free speech. If free
speech is at the heart of our democracy, then surely due process is the very lifeblood of our body politic; for without it, democracy could not survive. Distilled to its
essence, due process is, of course, nothing more and nothing less than fair play. If our citizens cannot rely on fair play in their relationship with their government, the
stature of our government as a shining example of democracy would be greatly diminished. I believe that an exacting or strict scrutiny of a statute which attempts to
criminalize protected speech requires a word by word look at that statute to be sure that it clearly sets forth as precisely as possible what constitutes a violation of
the statute. 

The reason for such an examination is obvious. If the Government is going to intrude upon the sacred ground of the First Amendment and tell its citizens that their
exercise of protected speech could land them in jail, the law imposing such a penalty must clearly define the prohibited speech not only for the potential offender but
also for the potential enforcer. Kolender, 461 U.S. 352; Hoffman Estates, 455 U.S. 489; Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566 (1974); Grayned v. City of Rockford,
408 U.S. 104 (1972); Winters v. New York, 333 U.S. 507 (1948). 

In dealing with issues of vagueness and due process over the years, the Supreme Court has enunciated many notable principles. One concern with vague laws relates
to the issue of notice. The older cases have used phrases such as "a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common
intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the first essential of due process of law," Connally v. General Const. Co., 269
U.S. 385, 391 (1926) (citations omitted); "it will not do to hold an average man to the peril of indictment for the unwise exercise of his . . . knowledge involving so
many factors of varying effect that neither the person to decide in advance nor the jury to try him after the fact can safely and certainly judge the result," Cline v. Frink
Dairy Co., 274 U.S. 445, 465 (1927); and "no one may be required at peril of life, liberty or property to speculate as to the meaning of penal statutes. All are
entitled to be informed as to what the State commands or forbids," Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U.S. 451, 453 (1939). Second, the Court has said that laws must
provide precise standards for those who apply them to prevent arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement, because "when the legislature fails to provide such
minimal guidelines, a criminal statute may permit `a standardless sweep that allows policemen, prosecutors, and juries to pursue their personal predilections.'"
Kolender, 461 U.S. at 358 (citing Goguen, 415 U.S. at 575). Finally, when First Amendment concerns have been implicated, a stricter standard of examination for
vagueness is imperative. "This court has intimated that stricter standards of permissible statutory vagueness may be applied to a statute having a potentially inhibiting
effect on speech; a man may the less be required to act at his peril here, because the free dissemination of ideas may be the loser." Smith v. California, 361 U.S.
147, 151 (1959). See also Hoffman Estates, 455 U.S. at 499 ("Perhaps the most important factor affecting the clarity that the Constitution demands of a law is
whether it threatens to inhibit the exercise of constitutionally protected rights. If, for example, the law interferes with the right of free speech . . . , a more stringent
vagueness test should apply.") (citations omitted). 

A case which sums up vagueness as it relates to due process as succinctly as any other is Grayned v. City of Rockford. Here the court said: 

     It is a basic principle of due process that an enactment is void for vagueness if its prohibitions are not clearly defined. Vague laws offend several
     important values. First, because we assume that man is free to steer between lawful and unlawful conduct, we insist that laws give the person of
     ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly. Vague laws may trap the innocent by not
     providing fair warning. Second, if arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement is to be prevented, laws must provide explicit standards for those who apply
     them. A vague law impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with
     the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application. Third, but related, where a vague statute "abuts upon sensitive areas of basic First
     Amendment freedoms," it "operates to inhibit the exercise of those freedoms." Uncertain meanings inevitably lead citizens to "'steer far wider of the
     unlawful zone' . . . than if the boundaries of the forbidden areas were clearly marked." 

Grayned, 408 U.S. at 108-109 (citations omitted). 

At the same time, in considering the vagueness issue, as the Government correctly points out, "Condemned to the use of words, we can never expect mathematical
certainty from our language." Grayned, 408 U.S. at 110. See also Hoffman Estates, 455 U.S. 489; Hynes v. Mayor & Council of Oradell, 425 U.S. 610 (1976);
Goguen, 415 U.S. 566. In addition, it will always be true that the fertile legal "imagination can conjure hypothetical cases in which the meaning of disputed terms
will be in nice question." American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 412 (1950). Thus, as I considered the vagueness issue I have kept in mind the
observation of Justice Holmes, denying a challenge to vagueness in Nash v. United States, 229 U.S. 373 (1913). To Justice Holmes, "the law is full of instances
where a man's fate depends on his estimating rightly, that is, as the jury subsequently estimates it, some matter of degree. If his judgment is wrong, not only may he
incur a fine or a short imprisonment . . ., he may incur the penalty of death." Nash, 229 U.S. at 377. Even more recently the court has stated that "due process does
not require `impossible standards' of clarity." Kolender, 461 U.S. at 361, (quoting United States v. Petrillo, 332 U.S. 1, 7-8 (1947)). It is with all of these principles
in mind, as they interplay with the unique features of the Internet, that I have reached my conclusion. 

The fundamental constitutional principle that concerns me is one of simple fairness, and that is absent in the CDA. The Government initially argues that "indecent" in
this statute is the same as "patently offensive." I do not agree that a facial reading of this statute supports that conclusion. The CDA does not define the term
"indecent," and the FCC has not promulgated regulations defining indecency in the medium of cyberspace. If "indecent" and "patently offensive" were intended to
have the same meaning, surely section (a) could have mirrored section (d)'s language.5 Indecent in this statute is an undefined word which, standing alone, offers no
guidelines whatsoever as to its parameters. Interestingly, another federal crime gives a definition to indecent entirely different from that proposed in the present
case.6 While not applicable here, this example shows the indeterminate nature of the word and the need for clear definition, particularly in a statute which infringes
upon protected speech. Although the use of different terms in § 223(a) and (d) suggests that Congress intended that the terms have different meanings, the
Conference Report indicates an intention to treat § 223(a) as containing the same language as § 223(d). Conf. Rep. at 188-89 ("The conferees intend that the term
indecency . . . has the same meaning as established in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978) and Sable and "New section 223(d)(1) codifies the
definition of indecency from Pacifica . . . . The precise contours of the definition of indecency have varied . . . . The essence of the phrase -- patently offensive
descriptions of sexual and excretory activities -- has remained constant, however."). Therefore, I will acknowledge that the term indecency is "reasonably
susceptible" to the definition offered in the Conference Report and might therefore adopt such a narrowing construction if it would thereby preserve the
constitutionality of the statute. See Virginia v. American Booksellers Association, 484 U.S. 383, 397 (1988); Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205
(1975). 

Accepting these terms as synonymous, however, provides no greater help to a speaker attempting to comply with the CDA. Contrary to the Government's
suggestion, Pacifica does not answer the question of whether the terms pass constitutional muster in the present case. In Pacifica, the Court did not consider a
vagueness challenge to the term "indecent," but considered only whether the Government had the authority to regulate the particular broadcast at issue -- George
Carlin's Monologue entitled "Filthy Words." In finding in the affirmative, the Court emphasized that its narrow holding applied only to broadcasting, which is "uniquely
accessible to children, even those too young to read." 438 U.S. at 749. Thus, while the Court sanctioned the FCC's time restrictions on a radio program that
repeatedly used vulgar language, the Supreme Court did not hold that use of the term "indecent" in a statute applied to other media, particularly a criminal statute,
would be on safe constitutional ground. 

The Supreme Court more recently had occasion to consider a statute banning "indecent" material in the dial-a-porn context in Sable, 492 U.S. 115, and found that a
complete ban on such programming violated the First Amendment because it was not narrowly tailored to serve the purpose of limiting children's access to
commercial pornographic telephone messages. Once again, the Court did not consider a challenge to the term "indecent" on vagueness grounds, and indeed has
never directly ruled on this issue. 

Several other courts have, however, upheld the use of the term in statutes regulating different media. For example, in Information Providers' Coalition v. FCC, 928
F.2d 866 (9th Cir. 1991), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals considered whether the term "indecent" in the 1989 Amendment to the Communications Act regulating
access to telephone dial-a-porn services and the FCC's implementing regulations was void for vagueness. The FCC had defined "indecent" as "the description or
depiction of sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the telephone medium."
928 F.2d at 874. Although recognizing that the Supreme Court had never explicitly ruled on a vagueness challenge to the term, the court read Sable and Pacifica as
having implicitly accepted the use of this definition of "indecent." The court further stated that the FCC's definition of "indecent" was no less imprecise than was the
definition of "obscenity" as announced in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 25 (1973), and thus concluded that "indecent" as pertained to dial-a-porn regulations
must survive a vagueness challenge. See also Dial Information Services v. Thornburgh, 938 F.2d 1535 (2d Cir. 1991), (upholding the use of "indecent" in the same
amendment to the Communications Act and FCC regulations.); Action for Children's Television v. FCC, 932 F.2d 1504, 1508 (D.C.Cir. 1991) (rejecting
vagueness challenge to "indecency" provision in broadcast television regulations).7 

Notably, however, in these telephone and cable television cases the FCC had defined indecent as patently offensive by reference to contemporary community
standards for that particular medium. See, e.g., Pacifica, 438 U.S. at 732 (defining "indecent" by reference to terms "patently offensive as measured by
contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium"); Dial Information Services, 938 F.2d at 1540 (defining indecency by reference to contemporary
community standards for the telephone medium). Here, the provision is not so limited. In fact, there is no effort to conform the restricting terms to the medium of
cyberspace, as is required under Pacifica and its progeny. 

The Government attempts to save the "indecency" and "patently offensive" provisions by claiming that the provisions would only be used to prosecute pornographic
works which, when considered "in context" as the statute requires, would be considered "indecent" or "patently offensive" in any community. The Government thus
contends that plaintiffs' fears of prosecution for publishing material about matters of health, art, literature or civil liberties are exaggerated and unjustified. The
Government's argument raises two issues: first is the question of which "community standards" apply in cyberspace, under the CDA; and second is the proposition
that citizens should simply rely upon prosecutors to apply the statute constitutionally. 

Are the contemporary community standards to be applied those of the vast world of cyberspace, in accordance with the Act's apparent intent to establish a uniform
national standard of content regulation? The Government offered no evidence of any such national standard or nationwide consensus as to what would be considered
"patently offensive". On the contrary, in supporting the use of the term "indecent" in the CDA, the Government suggests that, in part, this term was chosen as a means
of insulating children from material not restricted under current obscenity laws. This additional term is necessary, the Government states, because "whether something
rises to the level of obscene is a legal conclusion that, by definition, may vary from community to community." Govt. Brief at 31. In support of its argument, the
Government points to the Second Circuit's decision in United States v. Various Articles of Obscene Merchandise, Schedule No. 2102, 709 F.2d 132, 134, 137 (2d
Cir. 1983), which upheld the district court's conclusion that "detailed portrayals of genitalia, sexual intercourse, fellatio, and masturbation" including the film "Deep
Throat" and other pornographic films and magazines, are not obscene in light of the community standards prevailing in New York City." What this argument indicates
is that as interpretations of obscenity ebb and flow throughout various communities, restrictions on indecent material are meant to cover a greater or lesser quantity of
material not reached by each community's obscenity standard. It follows that to do this, what constitutes indecency must be as open to fluctuation as the obscenity
standard and cannot be rigidly constructed as a single national standard if it is meant to function as the Government has suggested. As Justice Scalia stated, "the
more narrow the understanding of what is `obscene,' . . . the more pornographic what is embraced within the residual category of `indecency.'" Sable, 492 U.S. at
132 (Scalia, J. concurring). This understanding is consistent with the case law, in which the Supreme Court has explained that the relevant community is the one
where the information is accessed and where the local jury sits. See Sable, 492 U.S. at 125; Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87 (1974); Miller, 413 U.S. at 30
("Our nation is simply too big and too diverse for this Court to reasonably expect that such standards of what is patently offensive could be articulated for all 50
states in a single formulation."). However, the Conference Report with regard to the CDA states that the Act is "intended to establish a uniform national standard of
content regulation." Conf. Rep. at 191. This conflict inevitably leaves the reader of the CDA unable to discern the relevant "community standard," and will
undoubtedly cause Internet users to "steer far wider of the unlawful zone" than if the community standard to be applied were clearly defined. The chilling effect on the
Internet users' exercise of free speech is obvious. See Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U.S. 360, 372 (1964). This is precisely the vice of vagueness. 

In addition, the Government's argument that the challenged provisions will be applied only to "pornographic" materials, and will not be applied to works with serious
value is without support in the CDA itself. Unlike in the obscenity context, indecency has not been defined to exclude works of serious literary, artistic, political or
scientific value, and therefore the Government's suggestion that it will not be used to prosecute publishers of such material is without foundation in the law itself. The
Government's claim that the work must be considered patently offensive "in context" does nothing to clarify the provision, for it fails to explain which context is
relevant. "Context" may refer to, among other things, the nature of the communication as a whole, the time of day it was conveyed, the medium used, the identity of
the speaker, or whether or not it is accompanied by appropriate warnings. See e.g., Pacifica, 438 U.S. at 741 n.16, n.17 (referring to "the context of the whole
book," and to the unique interpretation of the First Amendment "in the broadcasting context"). 

The thrust of the Government's argument is that the court should trust prosecutors to prosecute only a small segment of those speakers subject to the CDA's
restrictions, and whose works would reasonably be considered "patently offensive" in every community. Such unfettered discretion to prosecutors, however, is
precisely what due process does not allow. "It will not do to say that a prosecutor's sense of fairness and the Constitution would prevent a successful . . . prosecution
for some of the activities seemingly embraced within the sweeping statutory definitions. The hazard of being prosecuted . . . nevertheless remains . . . .
Well-intentioned prosecutors and judicial safeguards do not neutralize the vice of a vague law." Baggett, 377 U.S. at 373-74; see also Keyishian v. Board of
Regents, 385 U.S. 589, 599 (1967)("it is no answer" to a vague law for the Government "to say that the statute would not be applied in such a case."). And we
cannot overlook the vagaries of politics. What may be, figuratively speaking, one administration's pen may be another's sword. 

The evidence and arguments presented by the Government illustrate the possibility of arbitrary enforcement of the Act. For example, one Government expert opined
that any of the so-called "seven dirty words" used in the Carlin monologue would be subject to the CDA and therefore should be "tagged," as should paintings of
nudes displayed on a museum's web site. The Government has suggested in its brief, however, that the Act should not be so applied. See Govt. Brief at 37
(suggesting that "seven dirty words" if used "in the context of serious discussions" would not be subject to the Act). Even Government counsel was unable to define
"indecency" with specificity. The Justice Department attorney could not respond to numerous questions from the court regarding whether, for example, artistic
photographs of a nude man with an erect penis, depictions of Indian statues portraying different methods of copulation, or the transcript of a scene from a
contemporary play about AIDS could be considered "indecent" under the Act. 

Plaintiffs also argue that section 223(e)(5)(A) of the CDA, offering a defense for speakers who take "good faith, reasonable, effective and appropriate actions under
the circumstances to restrict or prevent access by minors to a communication" covered by the Act, is unconstitutionally vague because it fails to specify what would
constitute an effective defense to prosecution. The plain language of the safe harbor provision indicates an effort to ensure that the statute limits speech in the least
restrictive means possible by taking into account emerging technologies in allowing for any and all "reasonable, effective and appropriate" approaches to restricting
minors' access to the proscribed material. But, the statute itself does not contain any description of what, other than credit card verification and adult identification
codes -- which we have established remain unavailable to most content providers -- will protect a speaker from prosecution. Significantly, although the FCC is
authorized to specify measures that might satisfy this defense, the FCC's views will not be definitive but will only "be admitted as evidence of good faith efforts" that
the defendant has met the requirements of the defense. 47 U.S.C. § 223(e)(6). Thus, individuals attempting to comply with the statute presently have no clear
indication of what actions will ensure that they will be insulated from criminal sanctions under the CDA. 

                                                             C.

The consequences of posting indecent content are severe.8 I recognize that people must make judgments each and every day, many times in the most intimate of
relationships and that an error in judgment can have serious consequences. It is also true that where those consequences involve penal sanctions, a criminal law or
statute has more often than not carefully defined the proscribed conduct. It is not so much that the accused needs these precise definitions, as it has been said he or
she rarely reads the law in advance. What is more important is that the enforcer of statutes must be guided by clear and precise standards. In statutes that break into
relatively new areas, such as this one, the need for definition of terms is greater, because even commonly understood terms may have different connotations or
parameters in this new context.9 Words cannot define conduct with mathematical certainty, and lawyers, like the bright and intelligent ones now before us, will
most certainly continue to devise ways by which to challenge them. This rationale, however, can neither support a finding of constitutionality nor relieve legislators
from the very difficult task of carefully drafting legislation tailored to its goal and sensitive to the unique characteristics of, in this instance, cyberspace. 



DALZELL, District Judge

A. Introduction

I begin with first principles: As a general rule, the Constitution forbids the Government from silencing speakers because of their particular message. R.A.V. v. City of
Saint Paul, 112 S. Ct. 2538, 2542 (1992). "Our political system and cultural life rest upon this ideal." Turner Broadcasting Sys. v. FCC, 114 S. Ct. 2445, 2458
(1994). This general rule is subject only to "narrow and well-understood exceptions". Id. A law that, as here, regulates speech on the basis of its content, is
"presumptively invalid". R.A.V., 112 S. Ct. at 2542. 

Two of the exceptions to this general rule deal with obscenity (commonly understood to include so-called hardcore pornography), Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15
(1973), and child pornography, New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982). The Government can and does punish with criminal sanction people who engage in
these forms of speech. 18 U.S.C. §§ 1464-65 (criminalizing obscene material); id. §§ 2251-52 (criminalizing child pornography). Indeed, the Government could
punish these forms of speech on the Internet even without the CDA. E.g., United States v. Thomas, 74 F.3d 701, 704-05 (6th Cir. 1995) (affirming obscenity
convictions for the operation of a computer bulletin board). 

The Government could also completely ban obscenity and child pornography from the Internet. No Internet speaker has a right to engage in these forms of speech,
and no Internet listener has a right to receive them. Child pornography and obscenity have "no constitutional protection, and the government may ban them outright
in certain media, or in all." Alliance for Community Media v. FCC, 56 F.3d 105, 112 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (citing R.A.V., 112 S. Ct. at 2545), cert. granted sub nom.
Denver Area Educ. Telecommunications Consortium, 116 S. Ct. 471 (1996); see also Ferber, 458 U.S. at 756. As R.A.V. notes, "'the freedom of speech' referred
to by the First Amendment does not include a freedom to disregard these traditional limitations." R.A.V., 112 S. Ct. at 2543. 

The cases before us, however, are not about obscenity or child pornography. Plaintiffs in these actions claim no right to engage in these forms of speech in the future,
nor does the Government intimate that plaintiffs have engaged in these forms of speech in the past. 

This case is about "indecency", as that word has come to be understood since the Supreme Court's decisions in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1976),
and Sable Communications v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115 (1989). The legal difficulties in these actions arise because of the special place that indecency occupies in the
Supreme Court's First Amendment jurisprudence. While adults have a First Amendment right to engage in indecent speech, Sable, 492 U.S. at 126; see also
Pacifica, 438 U.S. at 747-48, the Supreme Court has also held that the Government may, consistent with the Constitution, regulate indecency on radio and
television, and in the "dial-a-porn" context, as long as the regulation does not operate as a complete ban. Thus, any regulation of indecency in these areas must give
adults access to indecent speech, which is their right. 

The Government may only regulate indecent speech for a compelling reason, and in the least restrictive manner. Sable, 492 U.S. at 126. "It is not enough to show
that the Government's ends are compelling; the means must be carefully tailored to achieve those ends." Id. This "most exacting scrutiny", Turner, 114 S. Ct. at
2459, requires the Government to "demonstrate that the recited harms are real, not merely conjectural, and that the regulation will in fact alleviate these harms in a
direct and material way." United States v. National Treasury Employees Union, 115 S. Ct. 1003, 1017 (1995) (citing Turner, 114 S. Ct. at 1017). Thus, although
our analysis here must balance ends and means, the scales tip at the outset in plaintiffs' favor. This is so because "regulations which permit the Government to
discriminate on the basis of the content of the message cannot be tolerated under the First Amendment." Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of the New York State
Crime Victims Board, 502 U.S. 105, 116 (1991) (citation omitted). 

The Government argues that this case is really about pornography on the Internet. Apart from hardcore and child pornography, however, the word pornography
does not have a fixed legal meaning. When I use the word pornography in my analysis below, I refer to for-profit purveyors of sexually explicit, "adult" material
similar to that at issue in Sable. See 492 U.S. at 118. Pornography is normally either obscene or indecent, as Justice Scalia noted in his concurrence in Sable. Id. at
132. I would avoid using such an imprecise (and overbroad) word, but I feel compelled to do so here, since Congress undoubtedly had such material in mind when it
passed the CDA. See S. Rep. No. 230, 104th Cong., 2d Sess. 187-91 (1996), reprinted in 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. 10, 200-05 hereinafter Senate Report.
Moreover, the Government has defended the Act before this court by arguing that the Act could be constitutionally applied to such material. 

Plaintiffs have, as noted, moved for a preliminary injunction. The standards for such relief are well-settled. Plaintiffs seeking preliminary injunctive relief must show (1)
"a reasonable probability of eventual success in the litigation" and (2) "irreparable injury pendente lite" if relief is not granted. Acierno v. New Castle County, 40
F.2d 645, 653 (3d Cir. 1994). We must also consider, if appropriate, (3) "the possibility of harm to other interested persons from the grant or denial of the
injunction", and (4) "the public interest". Id.; see also Opticians Ass'n v. Independent Opticians, 920 F.2d 187, 192 (3d Cir. 1990). 

In a First Amendment challenge, a plaintiff who meets the first prong of the test for a preliminary injunction will almost certainly meet the second, since irreparable
injury normally arises out of the deprivation of speech rights, "for even minimal periods of time". Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373-74 (1976); Hohe v. Casey, 868
F.2d 69, 72 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 848 (1989). Of course, neither the Government nor the public generally can claim an interest in the enforcement of an
unconstitutional law. Thus, I focus my legal analysis today primarily on whether plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on their claim that the CDA is
unconstitutional. The issues of irreparable harm to plaintiffs, harm to third parties, and the public interest all flow from that determination.1 

Plaintiffs' challenge here is a "facial" one. A law that regulates the content of speech is facially invalid if it does not pass the "most exacting scrutiny" that we have
described above, or if it would "penalize a substantial amount of speech that is constitutionally protected". Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 112 S. Ct.
2395, 2401 (1992). This is so even if some applications would be "constitutionally unobjectionable". Id.; see also National Treasury Employees Union v. United
States, 990 F.2d 1271, 1279-80 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (Randolph, J., concurring), aff'd, 115 S. Ct. 1003 (1995). Sometimes facial challenges require an inquiry into a
party's "standing" (i.e., whether a party may properly challenge a law as facially invalid). See, e.g., Ferber, 458 U.S. at 767-79. At other times a facial challenge
requires only an inquiry into the law's reach. See, e.g., R.A.V., 112 S. Ct. at 2547.2 As I describe it in part C below, I have no question that plaintiffs here have
standing to challenge the validity of the CDA, and, indeed, the Government has not seriously challenged plaintiffs' standing to do so. See, e.g., Virginia v. American
Booksellers Assoc., 484 U.S. 383, 392 (1988). Thus, the focus is squarely on the merits of plaintiffs' facial challenge.3 

I divide my legal analysis below into three parts. In Part B, I examine the traditional definition of indecency and relate it to the provisions of the CDA at issue in this
action. From this analysis I conclude that § 223(a) and § 223(d) of the CDA reach the same kind of speech. My analysis also convinces me that plaintiffs are
unlikely to succeed in their claim that the CDA is unconstitutionally vague. In Part C, I address the Government's argument that plaintiffs are not the CDA's target,
nor would they likely face prosecution under the Act. Here, I conclude that plaintiffs could reasonably fear prosecution under the Act, even if some of their fears
border on the farfetched. In Part D, I consider the legal implications of the special attributes of Internet communication, as well as the effect that the CDA would
have on these attributes. In this Part I conclude that the disruptive effect of the CDA on Internet communication, as well as the CDA's broad reach into protected
speech, not only render the Act unconstitutional but also would render unconstitutional any regulation of protected speech on this new medium. 

B. Defining Indecency

Although no court of appeals has ever to my knowledge upheld a vagueness challenge to the meaning of "indecency", several recent cases have grappled with the
elusive meaning of that word in the context of cable television and "dial-a-porn". Alliance for Community Media v. FCC, 56 F.3d 105 (D.C. Cir. 1995), cert.
granted, 116 S. Ct. 471 (1996); Dial Information Serv. Corp. v. Thornburgh, 938 F.2d 1535 (2d Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1072 (1992); Information
Providers Coalition for Defense of the First Amendment v. FCC, 928 F.2d 866 (9th Cir. 1991). 

In Alliance for Community Media, 56 F.3d at 123-25, for example, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals addressed prohibitions on indecent programming on
certain cable television channels. That court noted that the FCC has codified the meaning of "'indecent' programming" on cable television as "programming that
describes or depicts sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the cable
medium." Id. at 112 (citing what is now 47 C.F.R. § 76.701(g)). 

The FCC took a similar approach to the definition of "indecency" in the "dial-a-porn" medium.4 In Dial Information Services, 938 F.2d at 1540, the Second
Circuit quoted the FCC's definition of indecent telephone communications in that context: 

     In the dial-a-porn context, we believe it is appropriate to define indecency as the description or depiction of sexual or excretory activities or organs in
     a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the telephone medium. 

Id. at 1540 (citation omitted); see also Information Providers' Coalition for Defense of the First Amendment v. FCC, 928 F.2d 866, 876 (9th Cir. 1991). 

These three cases recognize that the FCC did not define "indecency" for cable and dial-a-porn in a vacuum. Rather, it borrowed from the Supreme Court's decision
in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). In that case (which I describe in greater detail below), the Supreme Court established the rough outline from
which the FCC fashioned its three-part definition. For the first two parts of the test, the Supreme Court emphasized the "importance of context" in examining
arguably indecent material. Id. at 747 n.25. "Context" in the Pacifica opinion includes consideration of both the particular medium from which the material originates
and the particular community that receives the material. Id. at 746 (assuming that the Carlin monologue "would be protected in other contexts"); id. at 748-51
(discussing the attributes of broadcast); see also Information Providers' Coalition, 928 F.2d at 876 (discussing the "content/context dichotomy"). Second, the opinion
limits its discussion to "patently offensive sexual and excretory language", Pacifica, 438 U.S. at 747, and this type of content has remained the FCC's touchstone.
See, e.g., Alliance for Community Media, 56 F.3d at 112.5 

We have quoted from the CDA extensively above and I will only briefly rehearse that discussion here. Section 223(a) of the CDA criminalizes "indecent" speech on
the Internet. This is the "indecency" provision. Section 223(d) of the CDA addresses speech that, "in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as
measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs". This is the "patently offensive" provision. The foregoing discussion leads
me to conclude that these two provisions describe the same kind of speech. That is, the use of "indecent" in § 223(a) is shorthand for the longer description in §
223(d). Conversely, the longer description in § 223(d) is itself the definition of "indecent" speech. I believe Congress could have used the word "indecent" in both §
223(a) and § 223(d), or it could have used the "patently offensive" description of § 223(d) in § 223(a), without a change in the meaning of the Act. I do not believe
that Congress intended that this distinction alone would change the reach of either section of the CDA.6 

The CDA's legislative history confirms this conclusion. There, the conference committee explicitly noted that § 223(d) "codifies the definition of indecency from FCC
v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). . . . The conferees intend that the term indecency (and the rendition of the definition of that term in new section 502)
has the same meaning as established in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978) and Sable Communications of California, Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115
(1989)." Senate Report at 188, reprinted in 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 201-02. The legislative history makes clear that Congress did not intend to create a distinction in
meaning when it used the generic term "indecency" in § 223(a) and the definition of that term in § 223(d).7 

There is no doubt that the CDA requires the most stringent review for vagueness, since it is a criminal statute that "threatens to inhibit the exercise of constitutionally
protected rights". Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U.S 379, 391 (1979); see also Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 358 n.8 (1983); Grayned, 408 U.S. at 108-09. My
analysis here nevertheless leads ineluctably to the conclusion that the definition of indecency is not unconstitutionally vague. The Miller definition of obscenity has
survived such challenges, see, e.g., Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87, 118-19 (1974); Fort Wayne Books, Inc. v. Indiana, 489 U.S. 46, 57 (1989), and the
definition of indecency contains a subset of the elements of obscenity. If the Miller test "gives the person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know
what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly", Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108 (1972), the omission of parts of that test does not warrant a
contrary conclusion. See Dial Information Services, 938 F.2d at 1541-42. Similarly, since the definition of indecency arose from the Supreme Court itself in Pacifica,
we may fairly imply that the Court did not believe its own interpretation to invite "arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement" or "abut upon sensitive areas of basic
First Amendment freedoms". Grayned, 408 U.S. at 108-109 (citations and alterations omitted). Sable, while not explicitly addressing the issue of vagueness,
reinforces this conclusion. See Information Providers' Coalition, 928 F.2d at 875-76 (citing Sable, 492 U.S. at 126-27). It follows, then, that plaintiffs' vagueness
challenge is not likely to succeed on the merits and does not support preliminary injunctive relief. 

The possible interpretations of the defenses in § 223(e) do not alter this conclusion. As a matter of statutory construction, § 223(e)(5)(B) could not be clearer. This
section, which imports the dial-a-porn defenses into the CDA, creates "specific and objective" methods to avoid liability. See Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468
U.S. 609, 629 (1984). Section 223(e)(5)(A) is more suspect, since it arguably "fails to describe with sufficient particularity what a suspect must do in order to
satisfy" it. Kolender 461 U.S. at 361.8 Yet even though the defenses in both sections are unavailable to many Internet users, their unavailability does not render the
liability provisions vague. Rather, their unavailability just transforms § 223(a) and § 223(d) into a total ban, in violation of Butler v. Michigan, 352 U.S. 380, 383
(1957), and Sable, 492 U.S. at 127, 131. I am sensitive to plaintiffs' arguments that the statute, as written, does not create safe harbors through which all Internet
users may shield themselves from liability. Transcript of May 10, 1996, at 37-38. Here again, however, the absence of safe harbors relates to the (over)breadth of a
statute, and not its vagueness. See Sable, 492 U.S. at 127, 131. 

C. Plaintiffs' Likelihood of Prosecution Under the Act

The Government has consistently argued that the speech of many of the plaintiffs here is almost certainly not indecent. They point, for example, to the educational and
political content of plaintiffs' speech, and they also suggest that the occasional curse word in a card catalogue will probably not result in prosecution. See Senate
Report at 189, reprinted in 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 203 ("Material with serious redeeming value is quite obviously intended to edify and educate, not to offend."). In
this section I address that argument. 

I agree with the Government that some of plaintiffs' claims are somewhat exaggerated, but hyperbolic claims do not in themselves weigh in the Government's favor.
In recent First Amendment challenges, the Supreme Court has itself paid close attention to extreme applications of content-based laws. 

In Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of the New York State Crimes Victim Board, 502 U.S. 105 (1991), the Court addressed the constitutionality of a law that
required criminals to turn over to their victims any income derived from books, movies, or other commercial exploitation of their crimes. Id. at 504-05. In its opinion,
the Court evaluated the argument of an amicus curiae that the law's reach could include books such as The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Civil Disobedience, and
Confessions of Saint Augustine, and authors such as Emma Goldman, Martin Luther King, Jr., Sir Walter Raleigh, Jesse Jackson, and Bertrand Russell. Id. at
121-22. The Court credited the argument even while recognizing that it was laced with "hyperbole": 

     The argument that the statute . . . would prevent publication of all of these works is hyperbole -- some would have been written without compensation
     -- but the . . . law clearly reaches a wide range of literature that does not enable a criminal to profit from his crime while a victim remains
     uncompensated. 

Id. at 122. If a content-based law "can produce such an outcome", id. at 123 (emphasis added), then Simon & Schuster allows us to consider those outcomes in our
analysis. 

Even more recently, in United States v. National Treasury Employees Union, 115 S. Ct. 1003 (1995), the Court addressed the constitutionality of a law that banned
federal employees from accepting honoraria for publications unrelated to their work. Id. at 1008. The Court noted that the law would reach "literary giants like
Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, . . . Walt Whitman, . . . and Bret Harte". Id. at 1012. This concern resurfaced later in the opinion, see id. at 1015
("We cannot ignore the risk that the ban might deprive us of the work of a future Melville or Hawthorne."), even though a footnote immediately renders this
concern at least hyperbolic: 

     These authors' familiar masterworks would survive the honoraria ban as currently administered. Besides exempting all books, the regulations
     implementing the ban protect fiction and poetry from the ban's coverage, although the statute's language is not so clear. But some great artists deal in
     fact as well as fiction, and some deal in both. 

Id. n.16 (citations omitted). 

Here, even though it is perhaps unlikely that the Carnegie Library will ever stand in the dock for putting its card catalogue online, or that the Government will hale the
ACLU into court for its online quiz of the seven dirty words, we cannot ignore that the Act could reach these activities. The definition of indecency, like the definition
of obscenity, is not a rigid formula. Rather, it confers a large degree of autonomy to individual communities to set the bounds of decency for themselves. Cf. Sable,
492 U.S. at 125-26. This is as it should be, since this flexibility recognizes that ours is a country with diverse cultural and historical roots. See, e.g., Hamling, 418
U.S. at 104 ("A juror is entitled to draw on his own knowledge of the views of the average person in the community or vicinage from which he comes for making the
required determination, just as he is entitled to draw on his knowledge of the propensities of a 'reasonable' person in other areas of the law."). 

Putting aside hyperbolic application, I also have little doubt that some communities could well consider plaintiffs' speech indecent, and these plaintiffs could --
perhaps should -- have a legitimate fear of prosecution. In Action for Children's Television v. FCC, 58 F.3d 654 (D.C. Cir. 1995), the District of Columbia Court of
Appeals summarized three broadcasts that the FCC found indecent in the late 1980s: 

     The offending morning broadcast . . . contained "explicit references to masturbation, ejaculation, breast size, penis size, sexual intercourse, nudity,
     urination, oral-genital contact, erections, sodomy, bestiality, menstruation and testicles." The remaining two were similarly objectionable. 

Id. at 657 (citing In re Infinity Broadcasting Corp., 3 FCC R. 930, 932 (1987)). In Infinity Broadcasting, one of the broadcasts that the FCC found indecent was an
excerpt of a play about AIDS, finding that the excerpts "contained the concentrated and repeated use of vulgar and shocking language to portray graphic and lewd
depictions of excretion, anal intercourse, ejaculation, masturbation, and oral-genital sex". 3 FCC R. at 934.9 To the FCC, even broadcasts with "public value . . .
addressing the serious problems posed by AIDS" can be indecent if "that material is presented in a manner that is patently offensive". Id. (emphasis in original).10 

Yet, this is precisely the kind of speech that occurs, for example, on Critical Path AIDS Project's Web site, which includes safer sex instructions written in street
language for easy comprehension. The Web site also describes the risk of HIV transmission for particular sexual practices. The FCC's implication in In the Matter of
King Broadcasting Co., 5 FCC R. 2971 (1990), that a "candid discussion of sexual topics" on television was decent in part because it was "not presented in a
pandering, titillating or vulgar manner" would be unavailing to Critical Path, other plaintiffs, and some amici. These organizations want to pander and titillate on their
Web sites, at least to a degree, to attract a teen audience and deliver their message in an engaging and coherent way.11 

In In re letter to Merrell Hansen, 6 FCC R. 3689 (1990), the FCC found indecent a morning discussion between two announcers regarding Jim Bakker's alleged
rape of Jessica Hahn. Id. Here, too, the FCC recognized that the broadcast had public value. Id. (noting that the broadcast concerned "an incident that was at the
time 'in the news'"). Yet, under the FCC's interpretation of Pacifica, "the merit of a work is 'simply one of the many variables' that make up a work's context". Id.
(citation omitted). 

One of the plaintiffs here, Stop Prisoner Rape, Inc., has as its core purpose the issue of prison rape. The organization creates chat rooms in which members can
discuss their experiences. Some amici have also organized Web sites dedicated to survivors of rape, incest, and other sexual abuse. These Web sites provide fora
for the discussion and contemplation of shared experiences. The operators of these sites, and their participants, could legitimately fear prosecution under the CDA. 

With respect to vulgarity, the Government is in a similarly weak position. In Pacifica, the Supreme Court held that multiple repetition of expletives could be indecent.
Pacifica, 438 U.S. at 750. Although the FCC did not follow this rationale with respect to a broadcast of "a bona fide news story" on National Public Radio, Letter to
Mr. Peter Branton, 6 FCC R. 610 (1991), aff'd on other grounds sub nom. Branton v. FCC, 993 F.2d 906, 908 (D.C. Cir. 1993), the ACLU, a plaintiff here,
could take little comfort from that administrative decision. It would need to discern, for example, whether a chat room that it organized to discuss the meaning of the
word fuck was more like the Carlin monologue or more like a National Public Radio broadcast.12 Plaintiffs' expert would have found expletives indecent in a
community consisting only of himself,13 and his views undoubtedly -- and reasonably -- reflect the view of many people. 

In sum, I am less confident than the Government that societal mores have changed so drastically since Pacifica that an online equivalent of the Carlin monologue, or
the Carlin monologue itself online, would pass muster under the CDA. Under existing precedent, plaintiffs' fear of prosecution under the Act is legitimate, even
though they are not the pornographers Congress had in mind when it passed the CDA.14 Cf. City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 459 (1987). My discussion of
the effect and reach of the CDA, therefore, applies both to plaintiffs' hyperbolic concerns and to their very real ones. 

D. A Medium-Specific Analysis

The Internet is a new medium of mass communication.15 As such, the Supreme Court's First Amendment jurisprudence compels us to consider the special
qualities of this new medium in determining whether the CDA is a constitutional exercise of governmental power. Relying on these special qualities, which we have
described at length in our Findings of fact above, I conclude that the CDA is unconstitutional and that the First Amendment denies Congress the power to regulate
protected speech on the Internet. This analysis and conclusions are consistent with Congress's intent to avoid tortuous and piecemeal review of the CDA by
authorizing expedited, direct review in the Supreme Court "as a matter of right" of interlocutory, and not merely final, orders upholding facial challenges to the Act.
See § 561(b) of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.16 

1. The Differential Treatment of Mass Communication Media

Nearly fifty years ago, Justice Jackson recognized that "the moving picture screen, the radio, the newspaper, the handbill, the sound truck and the street corner
orator have differing natures, values, abuses and dangers. Each . . . is a law unto itself". Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U.S. 77, 97 (1949) (Jackson, J., concurring). The
Supreme Court has expressed this sentiment time and again since that date, and differential treatment of the mass media has become established First Amendment
doctrine. See, e.g., Turner Broadcasting Sys., Inc. v. FCC, 114 S. Ct. 2445, 2456 (1994) ("It is true that our cases have permitted more intrusive regulation of
broadcast speakers than of speakers in other media."); Pacifica, 438 U.S. at 748 ("We have long recognized that each medium of expression presents special First
Amendment problems."); City of Los Angeles v. Preferred Communications, Inc., 476 U.S. 488, 496 (1974) ("Different communications media are treated
differently for First Amendment purposes.") (Blackmun, J., concurring); Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego, 453 U.S. 490, 500-01 (1981) (plurality opinion)
("This Court has often faced the problem of applying the broad principles of the First Amendment to unique forums of expression."). Thus, the Supreme Court has
established different rules for print, Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241 (1974), broadcast radio and television, see, e.g., Red Lion Broadcasting
Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367 (1969), cable television, Turner, 114 S. Ct. at 2456-57, and even billboards, Metromedia, 453 U.S. at 501, and drive-in movie
theaters, Erzoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205 (1975). 

This medium-specific approach to mass communication examines the underlying technology of the communication to find the proper fit between First Amendment
values and competing interests. In print media, for example, the proper fit generally forbids governmental regulation of content, however minimal. Tornillo, 418 U.S.
at 258. In other media (billboards, for example), the proper fit may allow for some regulation of both content and of the underlying technology (such as it is) of the
communication. Metromedia, 453 U.S. at 502. 

Radio and television broadcasting present the most expansive approach to medium-specific regulation of mass communication. As a result of the scarcity of band
widths on the electromagnetic spectrum, the Government holds broad authority both to parcel out the frequencies and to prohibit others from speaking on the same
frequency: 

     As a general matter, there are more would-be broadcasters than frequencies available in the electromagnetic spectrum. And if two broadcasters were
     to attempt to transmit over the same frequency in the same locale, they would interfere with one another's signals, so that neither could be heard at all.
     The scarcity of broadcast frequencies thus required the establishment of some regulatory mechanism to divide the electromagnetic spectrum and assign
     specific frequencies to particular broadcasters. 

Turner, 114 S. Ct. at 2456 (citing FCC v. League of Women Voters, 468 U.S. 364 (1984)). 

This scarcity also allows the Government to regulate content even after it assigns a license: 

     In addition, the inherent physical limitation on the number of speakers who may use the broadcast medium has been thought to require some adjustment
     in traditional First Amendment analysis to permit the Government to place limited content restraints, and impose certain affirmative obligations, on
     broadcast licensees. 

Id. at 2457 (citing Red Lion, 395 U.S. at 390-95; National Broadcasting Co. v. United States, 319 U.S. 190 (1943)). 

The broadcasting cases firmly establish that the Government may force a licensee to offer content to the public that the licensee would otherwise not offer, thereby
assuring that radio and television audiences have a diversity of content. In broadcasting, "it is the right of the public to receive suitable access to social, political,
esthetic, moral, and other ideas and experiences which is crucial". Red Lion, 395 U.S. at 390; see also CBS, Inc. v. FCC, 453 U.S. 367, 395 (1981) ("A licensed
broadcaster is 'granted the free and exclusive use of a limited and valuable part of the public domain; when he accepts that franchise it is burdened by enforceable
public obligations.'") (citation omitted); Columbia Broadcasting Sys., Inc. v. Democratic Nat'l Comm., 412 U.S. 94, 110-11 (1973). These content restrictions
include punishing licensees who broadcast inappropriate but protected speech at an impermissible time. Pacifica, 438 U.S. at 750-51. 

In this case, the Government relies on the Pacifica decision in arguing that the CDA is a constitutional exercise of governmental power. Since the CDA regulates
indecent speech, and since Pacifica authorizes governmental regulation of indecent speech (so the Government's argument goes), it must follow that the CDA is a
valid exercise of governmental power. That argument, however, ignores Pacifica's roots as a decision addressing the proper fit between broadcasting and the First
Amendment. The argument also assumes that what is good for broadcasting is good for the Internet. 

2. The Scope of the Pacifica Decision

In FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978), the Supreme Court first decided whether the Government had the power to regulate indecent speech. Id. at
729. In Pacifica, a radio listener complained about the broadcast of George Carlin's "Filthy Words" monologue at 2:00 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon. Id. at 729-30.
The Carlin monologue was replete with "the words you couldn't say on the public . . . airwaves . . . , ever", and the listener had tuned in while driving with his young
son in New York. Id. The FCC issued a declaratory order, holding that it could have subjected the Pacifica Foundation (owner of the radio station) to an
administrative sanction. Id. at 730. In its order the FCC also described the standards that it would use in the future to regulate indecency in the broadcast medium.
Id. at 731. The Supreme Court upheld the FCC's decision and confirmed the power of that agency to regulate indecent speech. Id. at 750-51. 

The rationale of Pacifica rested on three overlapping considerations. First, using as its example the Carlin monologue before it, the Court weighed the value of
indecent speech and concluded that such speech "lies at the periphery of First Amendment concerns." Id. at 743. Although the Court recognized that the FCC had
threatened to punish Pacifica based on the content of the Carlin monologue, id. at 742, it found that the punishment would have been permissible because four-letter
words "offend for the same reasons that obscenity offends." Id. at 746 (footnote omitted). The Court then described the place of four-letter words "in the hierarchy
of first amendment values": 

     Such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived
     from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. 

Id. at 746 (citing Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572 (1942)). 

Second, the Court recognized that "broadcasting . . . has received the most limited First Amendment protection." Id. at 748. The Government may regulate
broadcast consistent with the Constitution, even though the same regulation would run afoul of the First Amendment in the print medium. Id. (comparing Red Lion
Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367 (1969) with Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241 (1974)). This is so because broadcasting has a
"uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of all Americans" and "is uniquely accessible to children, even those too young to read." Pacifica, 438 U.S. at 748-49. 

Third, the Court found the FCC's sanction -- an administrative sanction -- to be an appropriate means of regulating indecent speech. At the outset of the opinion, the
Court disclaimed that its holding was a "consideration of any question relating to the possible application of § 1464 as a criminal statute." Id. at 739 n.13. Later in
the opinion, the Court "emphasized the narrowness of its holding", and explicitly recognized that it had not held that the Carlin monologue would justify a criminal
prosecution. Id. at 750. Instead, the Court allowed the FCC to regulate indecent speech with administrative penalties under a "nuisance" rationale -- "like a pig in the
parlor instead of the barnyard." Id. at 750 (citation omitted). 

Time has not been kind to the Pacifica decision. Later cases have eroded its reach, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly instructed against overreading the
rationale of its holding. 

First, in Bolger v. Young Drug Products Corp., 463 U.S. 60 (1983), the Supreme Court refused to extend Pacifica to a law unrelated to broadcasting. In that case,
a federal law prohibited the unsolicited mailing of contraceptive advertisements. Id. at 61. The Government defended the law by claiming an interest in protecting
children from the advertisements. The Court rejected this argument as overbroad: 

     In Pacifica, this Court did recognize that the Government's interest in protecting the young justified special treatment of an afternoon broadcast heard
     by adults as well as children. At the same time, the majority "emphasized the narrowness of our holding", explaining that broadcasting is "uniquely
     pervasive" and that it is "uniquely accessible to children, even those too young to read." The receipt of mail is far less intrusive and uncontrollable. Our
     decisions have recognized that the special interest of the Federal Government in regulation of the broadcast media does not readily translate into a
     justification for regulation of other means of communication. 

Id. at 74 (citations and footnotes omitted) (emphasis in original) see also id. at 72 ("The 'short, though regular, journey from mail box to trash can . . . is an
acceptable burden, at least so far as the Constitution is concerned.'") (citation omitted) (alterations in original). 

Second, in Sable Communications v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115 (1989), the Supreme Court again limited Pacifica. In that case, the Court considered the validity of a ban
on indecent "dial-a-porn" communications. Id. at 117-18.17 As in Bolger, the Government argued that Pacifica justified a complete ban of that form of speech.
The Supreme Court disagreed, holding instead that Pacifica's "emphatically narrow" holding arose out of the "unique attributes of broadcasting". Id. at 127. The
Court held that the ban was unconstitutional. Id. at 131. 

Sable narrowed Pacifica in two ways. First, the Court implicitly rejected Pacifica's nuisance rationale for dial-a-porn, holding instead that the Government could only
regulate the medium "by narrowly drawn regulations designed to serve those interests without unnecessarily interfering with First Amendment freedoms". Id. at 126
(citation omitted). Under this strict scrutiny, "it is not enough to show that the Government's ends are compelling; the means must be carefully tailored to achieve
those ends." Id.; see also Fabulous Assoc. v. Pennsylvania Pub. Util. Comm., 896 F.2d 780, 784-85 (3d Cir. 1990). 

Second, the Court concluded that the law, like a law it had struck down in 1957, "denied adults their free speech rights by allowing them to read only what was
acceptable for children". Sable, 492 U.S. at 126 (citing Butler v. Michigan, 352 U.S. 380 (1957)). Thus, any regulation of dial-a-porn would have to give adults the
opportunity to partake of that medium. Id. This conclusion echoes Bolger. See Bolger, 463 U.S. at 74 ("The level of discourse reaching a mailbox simply cannot be
limited to that which would be suitable for a sandbox.").18 

Finally, in Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 114 S. Ct. 2445 (1994), the Supreme Court implicitly limited Pacifica once again when it declined to adopt the
broadcast rationale for the medium of cable television. The Court concluded that the rules for broadcast were "inapt" for cable because of the "fundamental
technological differences between broadcast and cable transmission". Id. at 2457. 

The legal significance to this case of Turner's refusal to apply the broadcast rules to cable television cannot be overstated. Turner's holding confirms beyond doubt
that the holding in Pacifica arose out of the scarcity rationale unique to the underlying technology of broadcasting, and not out of the end product that the viewer
watches. That is, cable television has no less of a "uniquely pervasive presence" than broadcast television, nor is cable television more "uniquely accessible to
children" than broadcast. See Pacifica, 438 U.S. at 748-49. From the viewer's perspective, cable and broadcast television are identical: moving pictures with sound
from a box in the home. Whether one receives a signal through an antenna or through a dedicated wire, the end result is just television in either case. In declining to
extend broadcast's scarcity rationale for cable, the Supreme Court also implicitly limited Pacifica, the holding of which flows directly from that rationale.19 

Turner thus confirms that the analysis of a particular medium of mass communication must focus on the underlying technology that brings the information to the user.
In broadcast, courts focus on the limited number of band widths and the risk of interference with those frequencies. See, e.g., Turner, 114 S. Ct. at 2456-57. In
cable, courts focus on the number of channels, the different kinds of cable operators, and the cost to the consumer. Id. at 2452. 

I draw two conclusions from the foregoing analysis. First, from the Supreme Court's many decisions regulating different media differently, I conclude that we cannot
simply assume that the Government has the power to regulate protected speech over the Internet, devoting our attention solely to the issue of whether the CDA is a
constitutional exercise of that power. Rather, we must also decide the validity of the underlying assumption as well, to wit, whether the Government has the power to
regulate protected speech at all. That decision must take into account the underlying technology, and the actual and potential reach, of that medium. Second, I
conclude that Pacifica's holding is not persuasive authority here, since plaintiffs and the Government agree that Internet communication is an abundant and growing
resource. Nor is Sable persuasive authority, since the Supreme Court's holding in that case addressed only one particular type of communication (dial-a-porn), and
reached no conclusions about the proper fit between the First Amendment and telephone communications generally. Again, plaintiffs and the Government here agree
that the Internet provides content as broad as the imagination. 

3. The Effect of the CDA and the Novel Characteristics of Internet Communication

Over the course of five days of hearings and many hundreds of pages of declarations, deposition transcripts, and exhibits, we have learned about the special
attributes of Internet communication. Our Findings of fact -- many of them undisputed -- express our understanding of the Internet. These Findings lead to the
conclusion that Congress may not regulate indecency on the Internet at all. 

Four related characteristics of Internet communication have a transcendent importance to our shared holding that the CDA is unconstitutional on its face. We explain
these characteristics in our Findings of fact above, and I only rehearse them briefly here. First, the Internet presents very low barriers to entry. Second, these barriers
to entry are identical for both speakers and listeners. Third, as a result of these low barriers, astoundingly diverse content is available on the Internet. Fourth, the
Internet provides significant access to all who wish to speak in the medium, and even creates a relative parity among speakers. 

To understand how disruptive the CDA is to Internet communication, it must be remembered that the Internet evolved free of content-based considerations. Before
the CDA, it only mattered how, and how quickly, a particular packet of data travelled from one point on the Internet to another. In its earliest incarnation as the
ARPANET, the Internet was for many years a private means of access among the military, defense contractors, and defense-related researchers. The developers of
the technology focused on creating a medium designed for the rapid transmittal of the information through overlapping and redundant connections, and without direct
human involvement. Out of these considerations evolved the common transfer protocols, packet switching, and the other technology in which today's Internet users
flourish. The content of the data was, before the CDA, an irrelevant consideration. 

It is fair, then, to conclude that the benefits of the Internet to private speakers arose out of the serendipitous development of its underlying technology. As more
networks joined the "network of networks" that is the Internet, private speakers have begun to take advantage of the medium. This should not be surprising, since
participation in the medium requires only that networks (and the individual users associated with them) agree to use the common data transfer protocols and other
medium-specific technology. Participation does not require, and has never required, approval of a user's or network's content. 

After the CDA, however, the content of a user's speech will determine the extent of participation in the new medium. If a speaker's content is even arguably indecent
in some communities, he must assess, inter alia, the risk of prosecution and the cost of compliance with the CDA. Because the creation and posting of a Web site
allows users anywhere in the country to see that site, many speakers will no doubt censor their speech so that it is palatable in every community. Other speakers will
decline to enter the medium at all. Unlike other media, there is no technologically feasible way for an Internet speaker to limit the geographical scope of his speech
(even if he wanted to), or to "implement a system for screening the locale of incoming" requests. Sable 492 U.S. at 125. 

The CDA will, without doubt, undermine the substantive, speech-enhancing benefits that have flowed from the Internet. Barriers to entry to those speakers affected
by the Act would skyrocket, especially for non-commercial and not-for-profit information providers. Such costs include those attributable to age or credit card
verification (if possible), tagging (if tagging is even a defense under the Act20), and monitoring or review of one's content. 

The diversity of the content will necessarily diminish as a result. The economic costs associated with compliance with the Act will drive from the Internet speakers
whose content falls within the zone of possible prosecution. Many Web sites, newsgroups, and chat rooms will shut down, since users cannot discern the age of
other participants. In this respect, the Internet would ultimately come to mirror broadcasting and print, with messages tailored to a mainstream society from speakers
who could be sure that their message was likely decent in every community in the country. 

The CDA will also skew the relative parity among speakers that currently exists on the Internet. Commercial entities who can afford the costs of verification, or who
would charge a user to enter their sites, or whose content has mass appeal, will remain unaffected by the Act. Other users, such as Critical Path or Stop Prisoner
Rape, or even the ACLU, whose Web sites before the CDA were as equally accessible as the most popular Web sites, will be profoundly affected by the Act. This
change would result in an Internet that mirrors broadcasting and print, where economic power has become relatively coterminous with influence. 

Perversely, commercial pornographers would remain relatively unaffected by the Act, since we learned that most of them already use credit card or adult verification
anyway. Commercial pornographers normally provide a few free pictures to entice a user into proceeding further into the Web site. To proceed beyond these
teasers, users must provide a credit card number or adult verification number. The CDA will force these businesses to remove the teasers (or cover the most
salacious content with cgi scripts), but the core, commercial product of these businesses will remain in place. 

The CDA's wholesale disruption on the Internet will necessarily affect adult participation in the medium. As some speakers leave or refuse to enter the medium, and
others bowdlerize their speech or erect the barriers that the Act envisions, and still others remove bulletin boards, Web sites, and newsgroups, adults will face a
shrinking ability to participate in the medium. Since much of the communication on the Internet is participatory, i.e., is a form of dialogue, a decrease in the number of
speakers, speech fora, and permissible topics will diminish the worldwide dialogue that is the strength and signal achievement of the medium. 

It is no answer to say that the defenses and exclusions of § 223(e) mitigate the disruptive forces of the Act. We have already found as facts that the defenses either
are not available to plaintiffs here or would impose excessive costs on them. These defenses are also unavailable to participants in specific forms of Internet
communication. 

I am equally dubious that the exclusions of § 223(e) would provide significant relief from the Act. The "common carrier" exclusion of § 223(e)(1), for example,
would not insulate America Online from liability for the content it provides to its subscribers. It is also a tricky question whether an America Online chat room
devoted to, say, women's reproductive health, is or is not speech of the service itself, since America Online, at least to some extent, "creates the content of the
communication" simply by making the room available and assigning it a topic. Even if America Online has no liability under this example, the service might legitimately
choose not to provide fora that led to the prosecution of its subscribers. Similarly, it is unclear whether many caching servers are devoted "solely" to the task of
"intermediate storage". The "vicarious liability" exclusion of § 223(e)(4) would not, for example, insulate either a college professor or her employer from liability for
posting an indecent online reading assignment for her freshman sociology class. 

We must of course give appropriate deference to the legislative judgments of Congress. See Sable, 492 U.S. at 129; Turner, 114 S. Ct. at 2472-73 (Blackmun, J.,
concurring). After hearing the parties' testimony and reviewing the exhibits, declarations, and transcripts, we simply cannot in my view defer to Congress's judgment
that the CDA will have only a minimal impact on the technology of the Internet, or on adult participation in the medium. As in Sable, "deference to a legislative
finding cannot limit judicial inquiry when First Amendment rights are at stake." Sable, 492 U.S. at 129 (citation omitted). Indeed, the Government has not revealed
Congress's "extensive record" in addressing this issue, Turner, 114 S. Ct. at 2472 (Blackmun, J., concurring), or otherwise convinced me that the record here is
somehow factually deficient to the record before Congress when it passed the Act. 

4. Diversity and Access on the Internet

Nearly eighty years ago, Justice Holmes, in dissent, wrote of the ultimate constitutional importance of the "free trade in ideas": 

     When men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their
     own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas -- that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself
     accepted in the competition of the market . . . . 

Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919) (Holmes, J., dissenting). 

For nearly as long, critics have attacked this much-maligned "marketplace" theory of First Amendment jurisprudence as inconsistent with economic and practical
reality. Most marketplaces of mass speech, they charge, are dominated by a few wealthy voices. Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241, 248-50
(1974). These voices dominate -- and to an extent, create -- the national debate. Id. Individual citizens' participation is, for the most part, passive. Id. at 251.
Because most people lack the money and time to buy a broadcast station or create a newspaper, they are limited to the role of listeners, i.e., as watchers of
television or subscribers to newspapers. Id. 

Economic realities limit the number of speakers even further. Newspapers competing with each other and with (free) broadcast tend toward extinction, as fixed costs
drive competitors either to consolidate or leave the marketplace. Id. at 249-50. As a result, people receive information from relatively few sources: 

     The elimination of competing newspapers in most of our large cities, and the concentration of control of media that results from the only newspaper's
     being owned by the same interests which own a television station and a radio station, are important components of this trend toward concentration of
     control of outlets to inform the public. 

     The result of these vast changes has been to place in a few hands the power to inform the American people and shape public opinion. 

Id. at 249. 

The Supreme Court has also recognized that the advent of cable television has not offered significant relief from this problem. Although the number of cable channels
is exponentially greater than broadcast, Turner, 114 S. Ct. at 2452, cable imposes relatively high entry costs, id. at 2451-52 (noting that the creation of a cable
system requires "the construction of a physical infrastructure"). 

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has resisted governmental efforts to alleviate these market dysfunctions. In Tornillo, the Supreme Court held that market failure
simply could not justify the regulation of print, 418 U.S. at 258, regardless of the validity of the criticisms of that medium, id. at 251. Tornillo invalidated a state
"right-of-reply" statute, which required a newspaper critical of a political candidate to give that candidate equal time to reply to the charges. Id. at 244. The Court
held that the statute would be invalid even if it imposed no cost on a newspaper, because of the statute's intrusion into editorial discretion: 

     A newspaper is more than a passive receptacle or conduit for news, comment, and advertising. The choice of material to go into a newspaper, and the
     decisions made as to limitations on the size and content of the paper, and treatment of public issues and public officials -- whether fair or unfair --
     constitute the exercise of editorial control and judgment. 

Id. at 258. 

Similarly, in Turner, the Supreme Court rejected the Government's argument that market dysfunction justified deferential review of speech regulations for cable
television. Even recognizing that the cable market "suffers certain structural impediments", Turner, 114 S. Ct. at 2457, the Court could not accept the Government's
conclusion that this dysfunction justified broadcast-type standards of review, since "the mere assertion of dysfunction or failure in a speech market, without more, is
not sufficient to shield a speech regulation from the First Amendment standards applicable to nonbroadcast media." Id. at 2458. "Laws that single out the press, or
certain elements thereof, for special treatment 'pose a particular danger of abuse by the State,' and so are always subject to at least some degree of heightened First
Amendment scrutiny." Id. (citation omitted).21 The Court then eloquently reiterated that government-imposed, content-based speech regulations are generally
inconsistent with "our political system and cultural life": 

     At the heart of the First Amendment lies the principle that each person should decide for him or herself the ideas and beliefs deserving of expression,
     consideration, and adherence. Our political system and cultural life rest upon this ideal. Government action that stifles speech on account of its message,
     or that requires the utterance of a particular message favored by the Government, contravenes this essential right. Laws of this sort pose the inherent
     risk that the Government seeks not to advance a legitimate regulatory goal, but to suppress unpopular ideas or information or manipulate the public
     debate through coercion rather than persuasion. These restrictions "raise the specter that the Government may effectively drive certain ideas or
     viewpoints from the marketplace." 

Id. (citation omitted). 

Both Tornillo and Turner recognize, in essence, that the cure for market dysfunction (government-imposed, content-based speech restrictions) will almost always be
worse than the disease. Here, however, I am hard-pressed even to identify the disease. It is no exaggeration to conclude that the Internet has achieved, and
continues to achieve, the most participatory marketplace of mass speech that this country -- and indeed the world -- has yet seen. The plaintiffs 


Transfer interrupted!

the "democratizing" effects of Internet communication: individual citizens of limited means can speak to a worldwide audience on issues of concern to them.
Federalists and Anti-Federalists may debate the structure of their government nightly, but these debates occur in newsgroups or chat rooms rather than in pamphlets.
Modern-day Luthers still post their theses, but to electronic bulletin boards rather than the door of the Wittenberg Schlosskirche. More mundane (but from a
constitutional perspective, equally important) dialogue occurs between aspiring artists, or French cooks, or dog lovers, or fly fishermen. 

Indeed, the Government's asserted "failure" of the Internet rests on the implicit premise that too much speech occurs in that medium, and that speech there is too
available to the participants. This is exactly the benefit of Internet communication, however. The Government, therefore, implicitly asks this court to limit both the
amount of speech on the Internet and the availability of that speech. This argument is profoundly repugnant to First Amendment principles. 

My examination of the special characteristics of Internet communication, and review of the Supreme Court's medium-specific First Amendment jurisprudence, lead
me to conclude that the Internet deserves the broadest possible protection from government-imposed, content-based regulation. If "the First Amendment erects a
virtually insurmountable barrier between government and the print media", Tornillo, 418 U.S. at 259 (White, J., concurring), even though the print medium fails to
achieve the hoped-for diversity in the marketplace of ideas, then that "insurmountable barrier" must also exist for a medium that succeeds in achieving that diversity. If
our Constitution "prefers 'the power of reason as applied through public discussion'", id. (citation omitted), "regardless of how beneficent-sounding the purposes
of controlling the press might be", id., even though "occasionally debate on vital matters will not be comprehensive and . . . all viewpoints may not be expressed", id.
at 260, a medium that does capture comprehensive debate and does allow for the expression of all viewpoints should receive at least the same protection from
intrusion. 

Finally, if the goal of our First Amendment jurisprudence is the "individual dignity and choice" that arises from "putting the decision as to what views shall be voiced
largely into the hands of each of us", Leathers v. Medlock, 499 U.S. 439, 448-49 (1991) (citing Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 24 (1971)), then we should be
especially vigilant in preventing content-based regulation of a medium that every minute allows individual citizens actually to make those decisions. Any content-based
regulation of the Internet, no matter how benign the purpose, could burn the global village to roast the pig. Cf. Butler, 352 U.S. at 383. 

5. Protection of Children from Pornography

I accept without reservation that the Government has a compelling interest in protecting children from pornography. The proposition finds one of its clearest
expressions in Mill, who recognized that his exposition regarding liberty itself "is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties": 

     We are not speaking of children or of young persons below the age which the law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood. Those who are still in a
     state to require being taken care of by others must be protected against their own actions as well as against external injury. 

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty 69 (Gertrude Himmelfarb ed., Penguin Books 1982) (1859), cited in Harry Kalven Jr., A Worthy Tradition 54 (Jamie Kalven ed.
1988). 

This rationale, however, is as dangerous as it is compelling. Laws regulating speech for the protection of children have no limiting principle, and a well-intentioned law
restricting protected speech on the basis of its content is, nevertheless, state-sponsored censorship. Regulations that "drive certain ideas or viewpoints from the
marketplace" for children's benefit, Simon & Schuster, 502 U.S. at 116, risk destroying the very "political system and cultural life", Turner, 114 S. Ct. at 2458, that
they will inherit when they come of age. 

I therefore have no doubt that a Newspaper Decency Act, passed because Congress discovered that young girls had read a front page article in the New York
Times on female genital mutilation in Africa, would be unconstitutional. Tornillo, 418 U.S. at 258. Nor would a Novel Decency Act, adopted after legislators had
seen too many pot-boilers in convenience store book racks, pass constitutional muster. Butler, 352 U.S. at 383. There is no question that a Village Green Decency
Act, the fruit of a Senator's overhearing of a ribald conversation between two adolescent boys on a park bench, would be unconstitutional. Perry Education Ass'n v.
Perry Local Educators' Ass'n, 460 U.S. 37, 45 (1983). A Postal Decency Act, passed because of constituent complaints about unsolicited lingerie catalogues,
would also be unconstitutional. Bolger, 463 U.S. at 73. In these forms of communication, regulations on the basis of decency simply would not survive First
Amendment scrutiny. 

The Internet is a far more speech-enhancing medium than print, the village green, or the mails. Because it would necessarily affect the Internet itself, the CDA would
necessarily reduce the speech available for adults on the medium. This is a constitutionally intolerable result. 

Some of the dialogue on the Internet surely tests the limits of conventional discourse. Speech on the Internet can be unfiltered, unpolished, and unconventional, even
emotionally charged, sexually explicit, and vulgar -- in a word, "indecent" in many communities. But we should expect such speech to occur in a medium in which
citizens from all walks of life have a voice. We should also protect the autonomy that such a medium confers to ordinary people as well as media magnates. 

Moreover, the CDA will almost certainly fail to accomplish the Government's interest in shielding children from pornography on the Internet. Nearly half of Internet
communications originate outside the United States, and some percentage of that figure represents pornography. Pornography from, say, Amsterdam will be no less
appealing to a child on the Internet than pornography from New York City, and residents of Amsterdam have little incentive to comply with the CDA.22 

My analysis does not deprive the Government of all means of protecting children from the dangers of Internet communication. The Government can continue to
protect children from pornography on the Internet through vigorous enforcement of existing laws criminalizing obscenity and child pornography. See United States v.
Thomas, 74 F.3d 701, 704-05 (6th Cir. 1995). As we learned at the hearing, there is also a compelling need for public education about the benefits and dangers of
this new medium, and the Government can fill that role as well. In my view, our action today should only mean that the Government's permissible supervision of
Internet content stops at the traditional line of unprotected speech. 

Parents, too, have options available to them. As we learned at the hearing, parents can install blocking software on their home computers, or they can subscribe to
commercial online services that provide parental controls. It is quite clear that powerful market forces are at work to expand parental options to deal with these
legitimate concerns. More fundamentally, parents can supervise their children's use of the Internet or deny their children the opportunity to participate in the medium
until they reach an appropriate age. See Fabulous, 896 F.2d at 788-89 (noting that "our society has traditionally placed" these decisions "on the shoulders of the
parent"). 

E. Conclusion

Cutting through the acronyms and argot that littered the hearing testimony, the Internet may fairly be regarded as a never-ending worldwide conversation. The
Government may not, through the CDA, interrupt that conversation. As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest
protection from governmental intrusion. 

True it is that many find some of the speech on the Internet to be offensive, and amid the din of cyberspace many hear discordant voices that they regard as indecent.
The absence of governmental regulation of Internet content has unquestionably produced a kind of chaos, but as one of plaintiffs' experts put it with such resonance
at the hearing: 

     What achieved success was the very chaos that the Internet is. The strength of the Internet is that chaos.23 

Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech the First Amendment
protects. 

For these reasons, I without hesitation hold that the CDA is unconstitutional on its face. 





               IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
             FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA


AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION,  :   CIVIL ACTION
et al.                           :
                                 :
         v.                      :
                                 :
JANET RENO, Attorney General of  :
the United States                :   NO. 96-963

________________________________________________________________

AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOC.,        :    CIVIL ACTION
INC., et al.                    :
                                :
        v.                      :
                                :
UNITED STATES DEP'T OF          :
JUSTICE, et al.                 :    NO. 96-1458


                                                       ORDER

AND NOW, this 11th day of June, 1996, upon consideration of plaintiffs' motions for preliminary injunction, and the memoranda of the parties and amici curiae in
support and opposition thereto, and after hearing, and upon the findings of fact and conclusions of law set forth in the accompanying Adjudication, it is hereby
ORDERED that: 

     1. The motions are GRANTED; 

     2. Defendant Attorney General Janet Reno, and all acting under her direction and control, are PRELIMINARILY ENJOINED from enforcing,
     prosecuting, investigating or reviewing any matter premised upon: 

          (a) Sections 223(a)(1)(B) and 223(a)(2) of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 ("the CDA"), Pub. L. No. 104-104, § 502, 110
          Stat. 133, 133-36, to the extent such enforcement, prosecution, investigation, or review are based upon allegations other than obscenity
          or child pornography; and 

          (b) Sections 223(d)(1) and 223(d)(2) of the CDA; 

     3. Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(c), plaintiffs need not post a bond for this injunction, see Temple Univ. v. White, 941 F.2d 201, 220 (3d Cir. 1991),
     cert. denied sub nom. Snider v. Temple Univ., 502 U.S. 1032 (1992); and 

     4. The parties shall advise the Court, in writing, as to their views regarding the need for further proceedings on the later of (a) thirty days from the date
     of this Order, or (b) ten days after final appellate review of this Order. 


                           BY THE COURT:


                          ______________________________
                          Dolores K. Sloviter, C.J.
                          U.S. Court of Appeals
                          For the Third Circuit


                          ______________________________
                          Ronald L. Buckwalter, J.


                          ______________________________
                          Stewart Dalzell, J.




rab: these footnotes are for the introduction and findings of fact in the decision. 

1. The CDA will be codified at 47 U.S.C. § 223(a) to (h). In the body of this Adjudication, we refer to the provisions of the CDA as they will ultimately be codified
in the United States Code. 

2. The plaintiffs in this action are the American Civil Liberties Union; Human Rights Watch; Electronic Privacy Information Center; Electronic Frontier Foundation;
Journalism Education Association; Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility; National Writers Union; Clarinet Communications Corp.; Institute for Global
Communications; Stop Prisoner Rape; AIDS Education Global Information System; Bibliobytes; Queer Resources Directory; Critical Path AIDS Project, Inc.;
Wildcat Press, Inc.; Declan McCullagh dba Justice on Campus; Brock Meeks dba Cyberwire Dispatch; John Troyer dba The Safer Sex Page; Jonathan Wallace
dba The Ethical Spectacle; and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. We refer to these plaintiffs collectively as the ACLU. 

3. The plaintiffs in the second action, in addition to the ALA, are: American Online, Inc.; American Booksellers Association, Inc.; American Booksellers Foundation
for Free Expression; American Society of Newspaper Editors; Apple Computer, Inc.; Association of American Publishers, Inc.; Association of Publishers, Editors
and Writers; Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition; Commercial Internet Exchange Association; CompuServe Incorporated; Families Against Internet
Censorship; Freedom to Read Foundation, Inc.; Health Sciences Libraries Consortium; Hotwired Ventures LLC; Interactive Digital Software Association;
Interactive Services Association; Magazine Publishers of America; Microsoft Corporation; The Microsoft Network, L.L.C.; National Press Photographers
Association; Netcom On-Line Communication Services, Inc.; Newspaper Association of America; Opnet, Inc.; Prodigy Services Company; Society of Professional
Journalists; Wired Ventures, Ltd. We refer to these plaintiffs collectively as the ALA. 

The eight counts of the amended complaint in this action focus on the CDA's amendment to 47 U.S.C. § 223, and do not challenge the CDA's amendment of 18
U.S.C. § 1462(c). 

4. In addition, we have received briefs of amici curiae supporting and opposing plaintiffs' contentions. Arguing in favor of our granting the motions for preliminary
injunction are Authors Guild, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Ed Carp, Coalition for Positive Sexuality, CONNECTnet, Creative Coalition on AOL,
Tri Dang Do, Feminists for Free Expression, Margarita Lacabe, Maggie LaNoue, LoD Communications, Peter Ludlow, Palmer Museum of Art, Chuck More, Rod
Morgan, PEN American Center, Philadelphia Magazine, PSINet, Inc., Eric S. Raymond, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Don Rittner, The
Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, Lloyd K. Stires, Peter J. Swanson, Kirsti Thomas, Web Communications, and Miryam Ehrlich
Williamson. Opposing the motion are the Family Life Project of the American Center for Law and Justice and a group consisting of The National Law Center for
Children and Families, Family Research Council, "Enough Is Enough!" Campaign, National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, and Morality in
Media. 

5. The Act does not define "telecommunications device". By Order dated February 27, 1996, we asked the parties to address whether a modem is a
"telecommunications device". Plaintiffs and the Government answered in the affirmative, and we agree that the plain meaning of the phrase and the legislative history
of the Act strongly support their conclusion. "Telecommunications" under 47 U.S.C. § 153(48) means "the transmission, between or among points specified by the
user, of information of the user's choosing, without change in the form of content of the information as sent and received." The plain meaning of "device" is "something
that is formed or formulated by design and usually with consideration of possible alternatives, experiment, and testing." Webster's Third New International
Dictionary, 618 (1986). Clearly, the sponsors of the CDA thought it would reach individual Internet users, many of whom still connect through modems. See, e.g.,
141 Cong. Rec. S8329-46 (daily ed. June 14, 1995) (statements of Sen. Exon and Sen. Coats). 

The resolution of the tension between the scope of "telecommunications device" and the scope of "interactive computer service" as defined in 47 U.S.C. § 230(a)(2),
see infra note 6, must await another day. It is sufficient for us to conclude that the exclusion of § 223(h)(1)(B) is probably a narrow one (as the Government has
argued), insulating an interactive computer service from criminal liability under the CDA but not insulating users who traffic in indecent and patently offensive materials
on the Internet through those services. 

6. The statute at § 509 amends 47 U.S.C. to add § 230(e)(2), which defines such a service as "any information service, system, or access software provider that
provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such
systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions." 

7. In the Government's Opposition to plaintiffs' motion for a temporary restraining order in C.A. No. 96-963, it notes "the Department has a longstanding policy that
previous such provisions are unconstitutional and will not be enforced", and that both President Clinton and General Reno "have made the point clear" that no one
will be prosecuted under "the abortion-related provision of newly-amended 18 U.S.C. § 1462(c)." Opposition at 19, n.11 (February 14, 1996). In view of this
"longstanding policy", the Government contends there is no realistic fear of prosecution and, so the argument goes, no need for equitable relief. Id. In their
post-hearing brief, the ACLU plaintiffs inform us that in view of the Government's statement, "they do not seek a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of §
1462(c)." Post-Trial Brief of ACLU Plaintiffs at 2 n.2. 

8. The court again expresses its appreciation to the parties for their cooperative attitude in evolving the stipulation. 

9. The Government has not by motion challenged the standing of any plaintiff in either case, and we harbor no doubts of our own on that point, notwithstanding the
Government's suggestion in a footnote of its post-hearing brief. See Defendants' Post-Hearing Memorandum at 37 n.46 ("Plaintiffs' assertions as to the speech at
issue are so off-point as to raise standing concerns."). Descriptions of these plaintiffs, as well as of the nature and content of the speech they contend is or may be
affected by the CDA, are set forth in paragraphs 70 through 356 at pages 30 through 103 of the parties' stipulation filed in these actions. These paragraphs will not
be reproduced here, but will be deemed adopted as Findings of the court. 

10. It became clear from the testimony that moderated newsgroups are the exception and unmoderated newsgroups are the rule. 

11. The evidence adduced at the hearings provided detail to this paragraph of the parties' stipulation. See Findings 95 to 107. 

12. Testimony adduced at the hearing suggests that market forces exist to limit the availability of material on-line that parents consider inappropriate for their children.
Although the parties sharply dispute the efficacy of so-called "parental empowerment" software, there is a sufficiently wide zone of agreement on what is available to
restrict access to unwanted sites that the parties were able to enter into twenty-one paragraphs of stipulated facts on the subject, which form the basis of paragraphs
49 through 69 of our Findings of fact. Because of the rapidity of developments in this field, some of the technological facts we have found may become partially
obsolete by the time of publication of these Findings. 

13. This membership is constantly growing, according to the testimony of Albert Vezza, Chairman of the World Wide Web Consortium. See also Defendants' Ex.
D-167. 

14. See also Defendants' Ex. D-174 and the testimony of Mr. Vezza. 

15. From this point, our Findings are, unless noted, no longer based upon the parties' stipulation, but upon the record adduced at the hearings. 

16. Mr. Bradner is a member of the Internet Engineering Task Force, the group primarily responsible for Internet technical standards, as well as other
Internet-related associations responsible for, among other things, the prevailing Internet Protocols. He is also associated with Harvard University. 

17. Dr. Olsen chairs the Computer Science Department at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and is the recently-appointed Director of the Human
Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

18. The term "information content provider" is defined in § 509 of the CDA, at the new 47 U.S.C. § 230(e)(3), as "any person or entity that is responsible, in whole
or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service." 

19. By "verification", we mean the method by which a user types in his or her credit card number, and the Web site ensures that the credit card is valid before it
allows the user to enter the site. 

20. InterNIC is a naming organization, not a regulator of content. InterNIC and two other European organizations maintain a master list of domain names to ensure
that no duplication occurs. Creators of Web sites must register their domain name with InterNIC, and the agency will instruct the creator to choose another name if
the new Web site has the name of an already-existing site. InterNIC has no control over content on a site after registration. 

21. This paragraph and the preceding paragraph also illustrate that a content provider might store its own material or someone else's on a caching server. The goal --
saving money and time -- is the same in both cases. 



rab: these are the footnotes to Justice SLOVITER's decision. 

1. It also probably covers speech protected by the First Amendment for some minors a well, because it fails to limit its reach to that which is harmful for minors, an
issue which it is not necessary to decide in light of the other conclusions reached. 

2. See 141 Cong. Rec. S8342 (daily ed. June 14, 1995) (letter from Kent Markus, Acting Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, to Senator
Leahy). 



rab: these are the footnotes to Justice BUCKWALTER's decision. 

1. If by virtue of the statute's authorization of expedited review of its constitutionality, "on its face," 47 U.S.C. §561(a), we were strictly limited to looking at the
words of the statute, I would stand by my T.R.O. opinion. However, in light of the procedures which are required by 47 U.S.C. § 561(a) and 28 U.S.C. § 2284,
and were followed by this court in establishing an extensive record in this case, to ignore the evidence presented would be to ignore what an action for injunctive
relief is all about. 

Section 561 reads as follows: 

     § 561. EXPEDITED REVIEW. 

     (a) THREE-JUDGE DISTRICT COURT HEARING -- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any civil action challenging the constitutionality,
     on its face, of this title or any amendment made by this title, or any provision thereof, shall be heard by a district court of 3 judges convened pursuant to
     the provisions of section 2284 of title 28, United States Code. 

Section 2284 states, in relevant part: 

     § 2284. Three-judge court; when required; composition; procedure 

     (b) In any action required to be heard and determined by a district court of three judges under subsection (a) of this section, the composition and
     procedure of the court shall be as follows: . . . 

     (3) A single judge may conduct all proceedings except the trial . . . . He may grant a temporary restraining order on a specific finding, based on
     evidence submitted, that specified irreparable damages will result if the order is not granted, which order, unless previously revoked by the district
     judge, shall remain in force only until the hearing and determination by the district court of three judges of an application for a preliminary injunction. . . . 

2. Justice Kennedy argues in his opinion in Simon & Schuster v. New York Crime Victims Bd., 502 U.S. 105, 120 (1991), that "the regulated content has the full
protection of the First Amendment and this, I submit, is itself a full and sufficient reason for holding the statute unconstitutional. In my view it is both unnecessary and
incorrect to ask whether the state can show that the statute 'is necessary to serve a compelling state interest and is narrowly drawn to achieve that end.'" In the
present case, there is no disagreement that indecent and patently offensive speech have the full protection of the First Amendment. 

3. Not only has speech been divided up and given values -- with some types of speech given little or no protection (obscenity, fighting words, possibly commercial
speech) -- but also, by court decisions over the years, it has been decided that the content of speech can indeed be regulated provided that the regulation will
directly and materially advance a compelling government interest, and that it is narrowly tailored to accomplish that interest in the least restrictive manner. However,
any content-based restriction must survive this most exacting scrutiny. Sable, 492 U.S. 115; Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989). 

4. The plaintiffs have made facial challenges to the disputed provisions of the CDA on grounds of both vagueness and overbreadth. The approach taken and
language used in evaluating a statute under each of these doctrines commingles, and frequently is treated as a single approach. "We have traditionally viewed
vagueness and overbreadth as logically related and similar doctrines." Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 358 n.8 (1983) (citing Keyishian v. Board of Regents,
385 U.S. 589, 609, (1967); NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 433 (1963)). Even in cases where the court attempts to distinguish these two doctrines, it
acknowledges some interplay between them. See e.g. Village of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 494, and n. 6 (1982). 

In addition, when discussing overbreadth, one cannot avoid reference to the same language used to describe and apply the strict scrutiny standard to constitutionally
protected activities. See e.g. Sable, 492 U.S. at 131; Roberts v. Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 623 (1984). While there are occasional attempts to argue for clear
distinctions among these doctrines, see e.g. Kolender, 461 U.S. at 369 (White, J., Rehnquist, J. dissenting), such bright lines simply have not been, and most likely
cannot be, drawn in this area. 

5. Comparing a different portion of each of these two provisions suggests that different terms are not to be read to mean the same thing. As written, section (a)
pertains to telecommunications devices, and section (d) to interactive computer services. While we have not entirely resolved the tension between these definitions at
this stage, it has been established that these terms are not synonymous, but are in fact intended to denote different technologies. This, together with the rule of
statutory construction set forth in Chief Judge Sloviter's opinion, seems to suggest on the face of the statute that indecent and patently offensive also are not to be
read as synonymous. 

6. 18 U.S.C. §1461 states, "The term `indecent' as used in this section includes matter of a character tending to incite arson, murder or assassination." 

7. Although the Supreme Court may rule on the vagueness question in the context of cable television regulation in Alliance for Community Media v. FCC, 56 F.3d
105 (D.C. Cir. 1995), currently pending on certiorari before the Court, we will not defer adjudication of this issue as the constitutionality of the term in the cable
context may not be determinative of its use in cyberspace. 

8. Each intentional act of posting indecent content for display shall be considered a separate violation of this subsection and carries with it a fine, a prison term of up
to two years, or both. 47 U.S.C. § 223(a),(d) and Conf. Rep. at 189. 

9. As I have noted, the unique nature of the medium cannot be overemphasized in discussing and determining the vagueness issue. This is not to suggest that new
technology should drive constitutional law. To the contrary, I remain of the belief that our fundamental constitutional principles can accommodate any technological
achievements, even those which, presently seem to many to be in the nature of a miracle such as the Internet. 



rab: these are the footnotes to Justice DALZELL's decision. 

1. By Order dated March 13, 1996, we asked the parties to submit their views on questions regarding allocation of the burdens of proof in these cases. Since I
believe that the outcome of these cases is clear regardless of the allocation of proof between the parties, none of my conclusions in this opinion requires me to
choose between the arguments that the parties have presented to us. 

2. Although I do not believe the statue is unconstitutionally vague, I agree with Judge Buckwalter that the Government's promise not to enforce the plain reach of the
law cannot salvage its overbreadth. Even accepting the Government's argument that prosecution of non-obscene pornography would be a "legitimate application" of
the CDA, City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 459 (1987), it is clear that the Act would "make unlawful a substantial amount of constitutionally protected
conduct", id. As in Hill, the Government's circular reasoning -- that the law is constitutional because prosecutors would only apply it to those against whom it could
constitutionally be applied -- must fail. See id. at 464-67. 

3. Plaintiffs have argued that we may consider their challenge under the standards governing both "facial" and "as-applied" challenges. That is, they suggest that we
may pass judgment on the decency of the plaintiffs' speech, even if we are unable to conclude that the act is facially unconstitutional. Surely this procedural confusion
arises out of the three opinions of the D.C. Circuit in National Treasury Employees Union v. United States, 990 F.3d 1271, 1279-80 (D.C. Cir. 1993), aff'd, 115 S.
Ct. 1003. 

I doubt that we could undertake an as-applied inquiry, since we do not know the exact content of plaintiffs' speech. Indeed, it is impossible to know the exact
content of some plaintiffs' speech, since plaintiffs themselves cannot know that content. America Online, for example, cannot know what its subscribers will
spontaneously say in chat rooms or post to bulletin boards. In any event, I need not address this issue, in the light of our disposition today. 

4. "Dial-a-porn" is a shorthand description of "sexually oriented prerecorded telephone messages". Sable, 492 U.S. at 117-18. 

5. In turn, Pacifica's definition of indecency has its roots in the Supreme Court's obscenity jurisprudence. Indecency includes some but not all of the elements of
obscenity. See, e.g., Alliance for Community Media, 56 F.3d at 113-14 n.4. 

6. The reach of the two provisions is not coterminous, however. As we explain in the introduction to this Adjudication, § 223(a) reaches the making, creation,
transmission, and initiation of indecent speech. Section 223(d) arguably reaches more broadly to the "display" of indecent speech. I conclude here only that both
sections refer to the identical type of proscribed speech. 

7. At oral argument, counsel for the Government candidly recognized that "there's nothing quite like this statute before", and that the CDA's novelty raised some
"legislative craftsmanship problems". Transcript of May 10, 1996, at 81-82. I believe that my analysis here makes sense in the light of the legislative history and the
jurisprudence on which Congress relied in enacting the CDA. See Senate Report at 188, reprinted in 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 201-02. 

8. The counterargument is that § 223(e)(5)(A), when read together with § 223(e)(6), merely confers jurisdiction on the FCC to prescribe the "reasonable, effective,
and appropriate actions" that count as defenses. Congress employed a similar scheme for dial-a-porn. See Dial Information Servs., 938 F.2d at 1539 (citing 47
U.S.C. § 223(b)(3)); Information Providers' Coalition, 928 F.2d at 871. 

9. The play was "critically acclaimed and long-running in Los Angeles area theaters". Infinity Broadcasting, 3 FCC R. at 932. 

10. Analytically, it makes sense that indecent speech has public value. After all, indecent speech is nevertheless protected speech, see, e.g., Sable, 492 U.S. at 126,
and it must therefore have some public value that underlies the need for protection. Obscenity, by contrast, has no public value, id. at 124, and thus has no protection
from proscription. 

11. Internet technology undercuts the Government's argument that the "in context" element of §§ 223(a) and 223(d) would insulate plaintiffs such as Critical Path
from liability. See, e.g., Transcript of May 10, 1996, at 89-91. A user who clicks on a link in the Critical Path database (see Findings 33, 77-78) might travel to a
highly graphic page in a larger HTML document. The social value of that page, in context, might be debatable, but the use of links effectively excerpts that document
by eliminating content unrelated to the link. 

12. Moreover, because of the technology of Internet relay chat, it would need to make this determination before it organized the chat room, since it could not
pre-screen the discussion among the participants. Thus, it would need to predict, in advance, what the participants were likely to say. The participants would need to
make a similar determination, unaided (I expect) by First Amendment lawyers. 

13. Testimony of April 12, 1996, at 235-36. 

14. In this section I do not imply that the FCC has jurisdiction to process Internet complaints in the same manner as it does for broadcast. The extent of the FCC's
jurisdiction under the CDA is a sticky question not relevant here. See Senate Report at 190-91, reprinted in 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 204. Because the administrative
decisions cited above arose out of citizens' complaints to the FCC, however, they provide a kind of surrogate insight into the kinds of speech that citizens have
charged as indecent in the past. 

15. See Finding of fact 81. See also Symposium, Emerging Media: Technology and the First Amendment, 104 Yale L.J. 1613 (1995). 

16. A narrow holding for this new medium also will not eliminate the chill to plaintiffs, who could well stifle the extent of their participation in this new medium while
awaiting a future iteration of the CDA. Such a holding would also lead Congress to believe that a rewritten CDA (using, for example, a "harmful to minors" standard,
see Senate Report at 189, reprinted in 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 202) would pass constitutional muster. In my view, a holding consistent with the novel qualities of this
medium provides Congress with prompt and clear answers to the questions that the CDA asks. 

17. The history of dial-a-porn regulation both before and after Sable is tortuous, and involves the intervention of all three branches of government. I will not rehearse
that history here, deferring instead to the other courts that have recounted it. See, e.g., Sable, 492 U.S. at 118-23; Dial Information Serv., 938 F.2d at 1537-40;
Information Providers Coalition, 928 F.2d at 870-73. 

18. Sable is arguably not a decision about mass communication. Unlike Red Lion, Tornillo, or Turner, the Court in Sable reached no conclusions about the proper fit
between the First Amendment and governmental regulation of the telephone. The case also includes no discussion of the technology of the telephone generally. The
plaintiff in that case, a purveyor of dial-a-porn, challenged the statute only with respect to that type of content. Sable, 492 U.S. at 117-18. Thus, the Court's opinion
discussed only the "dial-in services". Id. at 128. Since every telephone call at issue was, by definition, dial-a-porn, every telephone call was, by definition, either
obscene or indecent. Id. at 132 (Scalia, J., concurring). 

Here, however, plaintiffs represent forty-seven different speakers (including educational associations and consortia) who provide content to the Internet on a broad
range of topics. The limited reach of the Sable holding renders it inapt to the Internet communications of the plaintiffs in these actions. 

19. I note here, too, that we have found as a fact that operation of a computer is not as simple as turning on a television, and that the assaultive nature of television,
see Pacifica, 438 U.S. at 748-49, is quite absent in Internet use. See Findings 87-89. The use of warnings and headings, for example, will normally shield users from
immediate entry into a sexually explicit Web site or newsgroup message. See Finding 88. The Government may well be right that sexually explicit content is just a
few clicks of a mouse away from the user, but there is an immense legal significance to those few clicks. 

20. In a May 3, 1996 letter to a three-judge court in the Southern District of New York, John C. Keeney, Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division
of the Department of Justice, has advised that tagging would be "substantial evidence" in support of a § 223(e)(5)(A) defense: 

     Under present technology, non-commercial content providers can take steps to list their sites in URL registries of covered sites, register their sites
     with the marketplace of browsers and blocking software (including listing an IP address), place their material in a directory blocked by screening
     software, or take other similarly effective affirmative steps to make their sites known to the world to allow the sites to be blocked. Under present
     technology, it is the position of the Department of Justice that, absent extraordinary circumstances, such efforts would constitute substantial evidence
     that a content provider had taken good faith, reasonable, effective, and appropriate actions under the circumstances to restrict or prevent access by
     minors to the covered material. The same would be true for tagging by content providers coupled with evidence that the tag would be screened by the
     marketplace of browsers and blocking software. 

Letter of May 3, 1996 from Acting Assistant Attorney General John C. Keeney to Hons. Denise L. Cote, Leonard B. Sand, and Jose A. Cabranes, attached to
Defendants' Motion for Leave to File Supplemental Statement. On May 8, 1996, the Government moved to file the Kenney letter in this action, and we granted the
motion as unopposed the next day. 

The letter certainly raises more questions than it answers. I wonder, for example, whether it is consistent with the plain language of the Act simply for content
providers to "make their sites known to the world" and thereby "to allow them to be blocked", even though this form of notice alone would not reduce the
availability of indecent content. Cf. Senate Report at 178, 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 201 (noting that § 223(d) "applies to content providers who post indecent material
for online display without taking precautions that shield that material from minors"). It is also an unanswered question whether the Keeney letter would eliminate any
of the CDA's chill, since the Government acknowledged that the letter would not prohibit a United States Attorney from taking a contrary position in a particular
prosecution. See Defendants' May 9, 1996 Response to the May 8, 1996 Order of Court. The letter also fails to mention how users who participate in chat rooms,
newsgroups, listservs, and e-mail might take advantage of § 223(e)(5)(A). Finally, it is undisputed that neither PICS nor the hypothetical "-L18" tag are available to
speakers using the World Wide Web today, whom the Government has explicitly reserved its right to prosecute should the CDA ultimately be found constitutional.
See Stipulation and Order of February 26, 1996, quoted supra. 

21. Turner examined certain "must-carry" provisions under an intermediate scrutiny, since those laws imposed incidental burdens on speech but did not directly
regulate content. Turner, 114 S. Ct. at 2469. The Court remanded the case to the district court without passing on the constitutionality of the must-carry provisions.
Id. at 2472. 

22. Arguably, a valid CDA would create an incentive for overseas pornographers not to label their speech. If we upheld the CDA, foreign pornographers could reap
the benefit of unfettered access to American audiences. A valid CDA might also encourage American pornographers to relocate in foreign countries or at least use
anonymous remailers from foreign servers. 


TIPS FOR NORTHENERS MOVING TO THE SOUTH
                                                                             
1.             Save all manner of bacon grease.  You will be instructed later
how to use
it.                                                              

2.             If you forget a Southerner's name, refer to him (or her) as
"Bubba". You have a 75% chance of being
right.                                

3.      Just because you can drive on snow and ice does not mean we can.
Stay home the two days of the year it
snows.                              

4.             If you do run your car into a ditch, don't panic. Four men in
the cab of a four wheel drive with a 12-pack of beer and a tow chain
will be along shortly. Don't try to help them. Just stay out of their
way.This is what they live
for.                                                

5.             Don't be surprised to find movie rentals and bait in the same
store.                                                                  

6.             Do not buy food at the movie store.                           

7.             If it can't be fried in bacon grease, it ain't worth cooking,let
alone eating.                                                       

8.             Remember: "Y'all" is singular. "All y'all" is plural. "All
y'all's" is plural
possessive.                                            

9.             There is nothing sillier than a Northerner imitating a southern
accent, unless it is a southerner imitating a Boston accent.          

10.            Get used to hearing, "You ain't from around here, are you?    

11.            People walk slower here.                                      

12.            Don't be worried that you don't understand anyone. They don't
understand you, either.                                     

13.            The first Southern expression to creep into a transplanted
Northerner's vocabulary is the adjective "Big ol'", as in "big ol'
truck" or "big ol' boy". Eighty-five percent begin their new southern
influenced dialect with this expression. One hundred percent are in
denial about it.                                                   

14.            The proper pronunciation you learned in school is no longer
proper.                                                             

15.            Be advised: The "He needed killin'" defense is valid here.  

16.            If attending a funeral in the South, remember, we stay until the
last shovel of dirt    is thrown on and the tent is torn down.      

17.            If you hear a Southerner exclaim, "Hey, y'all, watch this!" stay
out of his way.  These are likely the last words he will ever say.  

18.            Most Southerners do not use turn signals, and they ignore those
who do. In fact, if you see a signal blinking on a car with a southern
license plate, you may rest assured that it was on when the car was
purchased.                                                     

19.            Northerners can be identified by the spit on the inside of their
car's windshiel that comes from yelling at other drivers.           

20.            The winter wardrobe you always brought out in September can wait
until  November.                                                      

21.            If there is the prediction of the slightest chance of even the
most minuscule accumulation of snow, your presence is required at the
local grocery store. It does not matter if you need anything from the
store, it is just something you're supposed to
do.                          

22.            Satellite dishes are very popular in the South. When you
purchase one it is to be positioned directly in front of your trailer. 
This is logical bearing in mind that the dish cost considerably more
than the trailer and should, therefore, be displayed.               

23.            Tornadoes and Southerners going through a divorce have a lot in
common. In either case, you know someone is fixin' to lose them a
trailer.                                                                 

24.            Florida is not considered a southern state. There are far more
Yankees than Southerners living there.                                 

25.            In southern churches you will hear the hymn, "All Glory, Laud
and Honor". You will also hear expressions such as, "Laud, have mercy",
"Good Laud", and "Laudy, Laudy,
Laudy".                                      

26.            As you are cursing the person driving 15 mph in a 55 mph zone,
directly in the middle of the road, remember, many folks learned to
drive on a model of vehicle known as John Deere, and this is the proper
speed and lane position for the
vehicle.                                      

27.            You can ask a Southerner for directions, but unless you already
know the positions of key hills, trees, rocks, and where buildings used
to stand, you're better off trying to find it
yourself.




                           KING ARTHUR  Graham Chapman
                                  PATSY  Terry Gilliam
                             SOLDIER #1  Michael Palin
                             SOLDIER #2  John Cleese
                            CART MASTER  Eric Idle 
                               CUSTOMER  John Cleese 
                            DEAD PERSON  John Young 
                                 DENNIS  Michael Palin 
                                  WOMAN  Terry Jones 
                           BLACK KNIGHT  John Cleese
                           GREEN KNIGHT  Terry Gilliam
                              LEAD MONK  Neil Innes
                            VILLAGER #1  Eric Idle
                            VILLAGER #2  Michael Palin
                           SIR BEDEVERE  Terry Jones
                                  WITCH  Connie Booth
                            VILLAGER #3  John Cleese
                            VILLAGER #4  Neil Innes
                               NARRATOR  Michael Palin
                            PAGE TURNER  Maggie Gilliam
                          SIR LAUNCELOT  John Cleese
                            SIR GALAHAD  Michael Palin
                              SIR ROBIN  Eric Idle
         SIR NOT-APPEARING-IN-THIS-FILM  Tom Palin
                               PRISONER  Mark Zycon
                                    MAN  Neil Innes
                                    GOD  Graham Chapman
                           FRENCH GUARD  John Cleese     
                              HISTORIAN  John Young
                                 KNIGHT  John Cleese
                       HISTORIAN'S WIFE  Rita Davies
                               MINSTREL  Neil Innes
                              LEFT HEAD  Terry Jones
                            MIDDLE HEAD  Graham Chapman
                             RIGHT HEAD  Michael Palin
                                   ZOOT  Carol Cleveland
                                 PIGLET  Avril Stewart
                                WINSTON  Sally Kinghorn
                                  DINGO  Carol Cleveland
                   OLD MAN/BRIDGEKEEPER  Terry Gilliam
                      TIM THE ENCHANTER  John Cleese
                      HEAD KNIGHT OF NI  Michael Palin
                      CARTOON CHARACTER  Terry Jones
                                 FATHER  Michael Palin
                         PRINCE HERBERT  Terry Jones
                               GUARD #1  Eric Idle
                               GUARD #2  Graham Chapman
                               CONCORDE  Eric Idle
                               GUEST #1  Michael Palin      
                               GUEST #2  Michael Palin
                              OLD CRONE  Bee Duffell
                     ROGER THE SHRUBBER  Eric Idle
                             OFFICER #1  Julian Doyle
                              INSPECTOR  Roy Smith
                   RABBIT OF CAERBANNOG  himself
                        BROTHER MAYNARD  Eric Idle
                         SECOND BROTHER  Michael Palin
                               ANIMATOR  Terry Gilliam

 ___________
|           |
|  Scene 1  |
|___________|

    opening music
    wind
    clop clop clop
KING ARTHUR:  Whoa there!
    clop clop clop
SOLDIER #1:  Halt!  Who goes there?
ARTHUR:  It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot.
    King of the Britons, defeater of the Saxons, Sovereign of all England!
SOLDIER #1:  Pull the other one!
ARTHUR:  I am,... and this is my trusty servant Patsy.  We have ridden the 
    length and breadth of the land in search of knights who will join me in
    my court at Camelot.  I must speak with your lord and master.
SOLDIER #1:  What?  Ridden on a horse?
ARTHUR:  Yes!
SOLDIER #1:  You're using coconuts!
ARTHUR:  What?
SOLDIER #1:  You've got two empty halves of coconut and you're bangin' 'em 
    together.
ARTHUR:  So?  We have ridden since the snows of winter covered this land, 
    through the kingdom of Mercia, through--
SOLDIER #1:  Where'd you get the coconuts?
ARTHUR:  We found them.
SOLDIER #1:  Found them?  In Mercia?  The coconut's tropical!
ARTHUR:  What do you mean?
SOLDIER #1:  Well, this is a temperate zone.
ARTHUR:  The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the 
    plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to
    our land?
SOLDIER #1:  Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?
ARTHUR:  Not at all.  They could be carried.
SOLDIER #1:  What?  A swallow carrying a coconut?
ARTHUR:  It could grip it by the husk!
SOLDIER #1:  It's not a question of where he grips it!  It's a simple
    question of weight ratios!  A five ounce bird could not carry a one
    pound coconut.
ARTHUR:  Well, it doesn't matter.  Will you go and tell your master that
    Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here?
SOLDIER #1:  Listen.  In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow
    needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?
ARTHUR:  Please!
SOLDIER #1:  Am I right?
ARTHUR:  I'm not interested!
SOLDIER #2:  It could be carried by an African swallow!
SOLDIER #1:  Oh, yeah, an African swallow maybe, but not a European swallow.
    That's my point.
SOLDIER #2:  Oh, yeah, I agree with that.
ARTHUR:  Will you ask your master if he wants to join my court at Camelot?!
SOLDIER #1:  But then of course a-- African swallows are non-migratory.
SOLDIER #2:  Oh, yeah.
SOLDIER #1:  So, they couldn't bring a coconut back anyway.
    clop clop clop
SOLDIER #2:  Wait a minute!  Supposing two swallows carried it together?
SOLDIER #1:  No, they'd have to have it on a line.
SOLDIER #2:  Well, simple!  They'd just use a strand of creeper!
SOLDIER #1:  What, held under the dorsal guiding feathers?
SOLDIER #2:  Well, why not?


 ___________
|           |
|  Scene 2  |
|___________|

    thud
    clang
CART MASTER:  Bring out your dead!
    clang
    Bring out your dead!
    clang
    Bring out your dead!
    clang
    Bring out your dead!
    clang
    Bring out your dead!
    cough cough...
    clang
    ...cough cough
    Bring out your dead!
    clang
    Bring out your dead!
    clang
    Bring out your dead!  Ninepence.
    clang
    Bring out your dead!
    clang
    Bring out your dead!
    clang
    Bring out...
    rewr! 
    ...your dead!
    rewr!
    clang
    Bring out your dead!
CUSTOMER:  Here's one.
CART MASTER:  Ninepence.
DEAD PERSON:  I'm not dead!
CART MASTER:  What?
CUSTOMER:  Nothing.  Here's your ninepence.
DEAD PERSON:  I'm not dead!
CART MASTER:  'Ere.  He says he's not dead!
CUSTOMER:  Yes, he is.
DEAD PERSON:  I'm not!
CART MASTER:  He isn't?
CUSTOMER:  Well, he will be soon.  He's very ill.
DEAD PERSON:  I'm getting better! 
CUSTOMER:  No, you're not.  You'll be stone dead in a moment.
CART MASTER:  Oh, I can't take him like that.  It's against regulations.
DEAD PERSON:  I don't want to go on the cart!
CUSTOMER:  Oh, don't be such a baby.
CART MASTER:  I can't take him.
DEAD PERSON:  I feel fine!
CUSTOMER:  Well, do us a favour.
CART MASTER:  I can't.
CUSTOMER:  Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes?  He won't be long.
CART MASTER:  No, I've got to go to the Robinsons'.  They've lost nine today.
CUSTOMER:  Well, when's your next round?
CART MASTER:  Thursday.
DEAD PERSON:  I think I'll go for a walk.
CUSTOMER:  You're not fooling anyone, you know.  Look.  Isn't there something 
    you can do?
DEAD PERSON:  singing  I feel happy.  I feel happy.
    whop
CUSTOMER:  Ah, thanks very much.
CART MASTER:  Not at all.  See you on Thursday.
CUSTOMER:  Right.  All right.
    howl
    clop clop clop
    Who's that, then?
CART MASTER:  I dunno.  Must be a king.
CUSTOMER:  Why?
CART MASTER:  He hasn't got shit all over him.


 ___________
|           |
|  Scene 3  |
|___________|

    thud
    King Arthur music
    thud thud thud
    King Arthur music stops
ARTHUR:  Old woman!
DENNIS:  Man!
ARTHUR:  Man.  Sorry.  What knight lives in that castle over there?
DENNIS:  I'm thirty-seven.
ARTHUR:  I-- what?
DENNIS:  I'm thirty-seven.  I'm not old.
ARTHUR:  Well, I can't just call you 'Man'.
DENNIS:  Well, you could say 'Dennis'.
ARTHUR:  Well, I didn't know you were called 'Dennis'.
DENNIS:  Well, you didn't bother to find out, did you?
ARTHUR:  I did say 'sorry' about the 'old woman', but from the behind you 
    looked--
DENNIS:  What I object to is that you automatically treat me like an
    inferior!
ARTHUR:  Well, I am King!
DENNIS:  Oh, King, eh, very nice.  And how d'you get that, eh?  By exploiting 
    the workers!  By 'anging on to outdated imperialist dogma which
    perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society.  If
    there's ever going to be any progress with the--
WOMAN:  Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here.  Oh!  How d'you do?
ARTHUR:  How do you do, good lady?  I am Arthur, King of the Britons.  Who's 
    castle is that?
WOMAN:  King of the who?
ARTHUR:  The Britons.
WOMAN:  Who are the Britons?
ARTHUR:  Well, we all are.  We are all Britons, and I am your king.
WOMAN:  I didn't know we had a king.  I thought we were an autonomous 
    collective.
DENNIS:  You're fooling yourself.  We're living in a dictatorship: a self-
    perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--
WOMAN:  Oh, there you go bringing class into it again.
DENNIS:  That's what it's all about.  If only people would hear of--
ARTHUR:  Please!  Please, good people.  I am in haste.  Who lives in that 
    castle?
WOMAN:  No one lives there.
ARTHUR:  Then who is your lord?
WOMAN:  We don't have a lord.
ARTHUR:  What?
DENNIS:  I told you.  We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune.  We take it in
    turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week,...
ARTHUR:  Yes.
DENNIS:  ...but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a
    special bi-weekly meeting...
ARTHUR:  Yes, I see.
DENNIS:  ...by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,...
ARTHUR:  Be quiet!
DENNIS:  ...but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major--
ARTHUR:  Be quiet!  I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN:  Order, eh?  Who does he think he is?  Heh.
ARTHUR:  I am your king!
WOMAN:  Well, I didn't vote for you.
ARTHUR:  You don't vote for kings.
WOMAN:  Well, how did you become King, then?
ARTHUR:  The Lady of the Lake,...
    angels sing
    ...her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur
    from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I,
    Arthur, was to carry Excalibur.
    singing stops
    That is why I am your king!
DENNIS:  Listen.  Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no
    basis for a system of government.  Supreme executive power derives from
    a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
ARTHUR:  Be quiet!
DENNIS:  Well, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just
    'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
ARTHUR:  Shut up!
DENNIS:  I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some
    moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
ARTHUR:  Shut up, will you?  Shut up!
DENNIS:  Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
ARTHUR:  Shut up!
DENNIS:  Oh!  Come and see the violence inherent in the system!  Help!  Help!
    I'm being repressed!
ARTHUR:  Bloody peasant!
DENNIS:  Oh, what a give-away.  Did you hear that?  Did you hear that, eh?
    That's what I'm on about.  Did you see him repressing me?  You saw it, 
    didn't you?


 ___________
|           |
|  Scene 4  |
|___________|

    King Arthur music
    music stops
BLACK KNIGHT:  Aaaagh!
    King Arthur music
    music stops
BLACK KNIGHT:  Aaagh!
GREEN KNIGHT:  Ooh!
    King Arthur music
    music stops
    stab
BLACK KNIGHT:  Aagh!
GREEN KNIGHT:  Oh!
    King Arthur music
    Ooh!
    music stops
BLACK KNIGHT:  Aaaagh!
    clang
BLACK KNIGHT and GREEN KNIGHT:  Agh!, oh!, etc.
GREEN KNIGHT:  Aaaaaah!  Aaaaaaaaah!
    woosh
    BLACK KNIGHT kills GREEN KNIGHT
    thud
    scrape
BLACK KNIGHT:  Umm!
    clop clop clop
ARTHUR:  You fight with the strength of many men, Sir Knight.
    pause
    I am Arthur, King of the Britons.
    pause
    I seek the finest and the bravest knights in the land to join me in my
    court at Camelot.
    pause
    You have proved yourself worthy.  Will you join me?
    pause
    You make me sad.  So be it.  Come, Patsy.
BLACK KNIGHT:  None shall pass.
ARTHUR:  What?
BLACK KNIGHT:  None shall pass.
ARTHUR:  I have no quarrel with you, good Sir Knight, but I must cross this 
    bridge.
BLACK KNIGHT:  Then you shall die.
ARTHUR:  I command you, as King of the Britons, to stand aside!
BLACK KNIGHT:  I move for no man.
ARTHUR:  So be it!
ARTHUR and BLACK KNIGHT:  Aaah!, hiyaah!, etc.
    ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's left arm off
ARTHUR:  Now stand aside, worthy adversary.
BLACK KNIGHT:  'Tis but a scratch.
ARTHUR:  A scratch?  Your arm's off!
BLACK KNIGHT:  No, it isn't.
ARTHUR:  Well, what's that, then?
BLACK KNIGHT:  I've had worse.
ARTHUR:  You liar!
BLACK KNIGHT:  Come on, you pansy!
    clang
    Huyah!
    clang
    Hiyaah!
    clang
    Aaaaaaaah!
    ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's right arm off
ARTHUR:  Victory is mine!
    kneeling
    We thank Thee Lord, that in Thy mer--
BLACK KNIGHT:  Hah!
    kick
    Come on, then.
ARTHUR:  What?
BLACK KNIGHT:  Have at you!
    kick
ARTHUR:  Eh.  You are indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine.
BLACK KNIGHT:  Oh, had enough, eh?
ARTHUR:  Look, you stupid bastard.  You've got no arms left.
BLACK KNIGHT:  Yes, I have.
ARTHUR:  Look!
BLACK KNIGHT:  Just a flesh wound.
    kick
ARTHUR:  Look, stop that.
BLACK KNIGHT:  Chicken!
    kick
    Chickennn!
ARTHUR:  Look, I'll have your leg.
    kick
    Right!
    whop
    ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's right leg off
BLACK KNIGHT:  Right.  I'll do you for that!
ARTHUR:  You'll what?
BLACK KNIGHT:  Come here!
ARTHUR:  What are you going to do, bleed on me?
BLACK KNIGHT:  I'm invincible!
ARTHUR:  You're a looney.
BLACK KNIGHT:  The Black Knight always triumphs!  Have at you!  Come on,
    then.
    whop
    ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's last leg off
BLACK KNIGHT:  Oh?  All right, we'll call it a draw.
ARTHUR:  Come, Patsy.
BLACK KNIGHT:  Oh.  Oh, I see.  Running away, eh?  You yellow bastards!
    Come back here and take what's coming to you.  I'll bite your legs off!


 ___________
|           |
|  Scene 5  |
|___________|

MONKS:  chanting  Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.
    bonk
    Pie Iesu domine,...
    bonk
    ...dona eis requiem.
    bonk
    Pie Iesu domine,...
    bonk
    ...dona eis requiem.
CROWD:  A witch!  A witch!
    bonk
    A witch!  A witch!
MONKS:  chanting  Pie Iesu domine...
CROWD:  A witch!  A witch!  A witch!  A witch!  We've found a witch!
    A witch!  A witch!  A witch!  A witch!  We've got a witch!  A witch!
    A witch!  Burn her!  Burn her!  Burn her!  We've found a witch!  We've
    found a witch!  A witch!  A witch!  A witch!
VILLAGER #1:  We have found a witch.  May we burn her?
CROWD:  Burn her!  Burn!  Burn her!  Burn her!
BEDEVERE:  How do you know she is a witch?
VILLAGER #2:  She looks like one.
CROWD:  Right!  Yeah!  Yeah!
BEDEVERE:  Bring her forward.
WITCH:  I'm not a witch.  I'm not a witch.
BEDEVERE:  Uh, but you are dressed as one.
WITCH:  They dressed me up like this.
CROWD:  Augh, we didn't!  We didn't...
WITCH:  And this isn't my nose.  It's a false one.
BEDEVERE:  Well?
VILLAGER #1:  Well, we did do the nose.
BEDEVERE:  The nose?
VILLAGER #1:  And the hat, but she is a witch!
VILLAGER #2:  Yeah!
CROWD:  We burn her!  Right!  Yeaaah!  Yeaah!
BEDEVERE:  Did you dress her up like this?
VILLAGER #1:  No!
VILLAGER #2 and 3:  No.  No.
VILLAGER #2:  No.
VILLAGER #1:  No.
VILLAGERS #2 and #3:  No.
VILLAGER #1:  Yes.
VILLAGER #2:  Yes.
VILLAGER #1:  Yes.  Yeah, a bit.
VILLAGER #3:  A bit.
VILLAGERS #1 and #2:  A bit.
VILLAGER #3:  A bit.
VILLAGER #1:  She has got a wart.
RANDOM:  cough
BEDEVERE:  What makes you think she is a witch?
VILLAGER #3:  Well, she turned me into a newt.
BEDEVERE:  A newt?
VILLAGER #3:  I got better.
VILLAGER #2:  Burn her anyway!
VILLAGER #1:  Burn!
CROWD:  Burn her!  Burn!  Burn her!...
BEDEVERE:  Quiet!  Quiet!  Quiet!  Quiet!  There are ways of telling whether
    she is a witch.
VILLAGER #1:  Are there?
VILLAGER #2:  Ah?
VILLAGER #1:  What are they?
CROWD:  Tell us!  Tell us!...
BEDEVERE:  Tell me.  What do you do with witches?
VILLAGER #2:  Burn!
VILLAGER #1:  Burn!
CROWD:  Burn!  Burn them up!  Burn!...
BEDEVERE:  And what do you burn apart from witches?
VILLAGER #1:  More witches!
VILLAGER #3:  Shh!
VILLAGER #2:  Wood!
BEDEVERE:  So, why do witches burn?
    pause
VILLAGER #3:  B--... 'cause they're made of... wood?
BEDEVERE:  Good!  Heh heh.
CROWD:  Oh, yeah.  Oh.
BEDEVERE:  So, how do we tell whether she is made of wood?
VILLAGER #1:  Build a bridge out of her.
BEDEVERE:  Ah, but can you not also make bridges out of stone?
VILLAGER #1:  Oh, yeah.
RANDOM:  Oh, yeah.  True.  Uhh...
BEDEVERE:  Does wood sink in water?
VILLAGER #1:  No.  No.
VILLAGER #2:  No, it floats!  It floats!
VILLAGER #1:  Throw her into the pond!
CROWD:  The pond!  Throw her into the pond!
BEDEVERE:  What also floats in water?
VILLAGER #1:  Bread!
VILLAGER #2:  Apples!
VILLAGER #3:  Uh, very small rocks!
VILLAGER #1:  Cider!
VILLAGER #2:  Uh, gra-- gravy!
VILLAGER #1:  Cherries!
VILLAGER #2:  Mud!
VILLAGER #3:  Uh, churches!  Churches!
VILLAGER #2:  Lead!  Lead!
ARTHUR:  A duck!
CROWD:  Oooh.
BEDEVERE:  Exactly.  So, logically...
VILLAGER #1:  If... she... weighs... the same as a duck,... she's made of
    wood.
BEDEVERE:  And therefore?
VILLAGER #2:  A witch!
VILLAGER #1:  A witch!
CROWD:  A witch!  A witch!...
VILLAGER #4:  Here is a duck.  Use this duck.
    quack quack quack
BEDEVERE:  Very good.  We shall use my largest scales.
CROWD:  Ohh!  Ohh!  Burn the witch!  Burn the witch!  Burn her!  Burn her!
    Burn her!  Burn her!  Burn her!  Burn her!  Burn her!  Ahh!  Ahh...
BEDEVERE:  Right.  Remove the supports!
    whop
    clunk
    creak
CROWD:  A witch!  A witch!  A witch!
WITCH:  It's a fair cop.
VILLAGER #3:  Burn her!
CROWD:  Burn her!  Burn her!  Burn her!  Burn!  Burn!...
BEDEVERE:  Who are you who are so wise in the ways of science?
ARTHUR:  I am Arthur, King of the Britons.
BEDEVERE:  My liege!
ARTHUR:  Good Sir Knight, will you come with me to Camelot and join us at
    the Round Table?
BEDEVERE:  My liege!  I would be honored.
ARTHUR:  What is your name?
BEDEVERE:  'Bedevere', my liege.
ARTHUR:  Then I dub you 'Sir Bedevere, Knight of the Round Table'.


 _______________________
|                       |
|  Narrative Interlude  |
|_______________________|

NARRATOR:  The wise Sir Bedevere was the first to join King Arthur's
    knights, but other illustrious names were soon to follow: Sir Lancelot
    the Brave, Sir Gallahad the Pure, and Sir Robin the-not-quite-so-brave-
    as-Sir-Lancelot, who had nearly fought the Dragon of Angnor, who had
    nearly stood up to the vicious Chicken of Bristol, and who had
    personally wet himself at the Battle of Badon Hill, and the aptly named
    Sir Not-appearing-in-this-film.  Together they formed a band whose names
    and deeds were to be retold throughout the centuries: the Knights of the
    Round Table.


 ___________
|           |
|  Scene 6  |
|___________|

    clop clop clop
SIR BEDEVERE:  And that, my liege, is how we know the earth to be banana-
    shaped.
ARTHUR:  This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedevere.  Explain again how
    sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.
BEDEVERE:  Oh, certainly, sir.
SIR LAUNCELOT:  Look, my liege!
    trumpets
ARTHUR:  Camelot!
SIR GALAHAD:  Camelot!
LAUNCELOT:  Camelot!
PATSY:  It's only a model.
ARTHUR:  Shh!  Knights, I bid you welcome to your new home.  Let us ride...
    to... Camelot!
    in medieval hall
KNIGHTS:  singing
    We're Knights of the Round Table.
    We dance whene'er we're able.
    We do routines and chorus scenes
    With footwork impeccable.
    We dine well here in Camelot.
    We eat ham and jam and spam a lot.

    dancing
    We're Knights of the Round Table.
    Our shows are formidable,
    But many times we're given rhymes
    That are quite unsingable.
    We're opera mad in Camelot.
    We sing from the diaphragm a lot.

    in dungeon
PRISONER:  clap clap clap clap
    in medieval hall
KNIGHTS:  tap-dancing
    In war we're tough and able,
    Quite indefatigable.
    Between our quests we sequin vests and impersonate Clark Gable.
    It's a busy life in Camelot.
MAN:  I have to push the pram a lot.

    outdoors
ARTHUR:  Well, on second thought, let's not go to Camelot.  It is a silly
    place.
KNIGHTS:  Right.  Right.


 ___________
|           |
|  Scene 7  |
|___________|

    clop clop clop
    boom boom
    angels sing
GOD:  Arthur!  Arthur, King of the Britons!  Oh, don't grovel!
    singing stops
    One thing I can't stand, it's people groveling.
ARTHUR:  Sorry.
    boom
GOD:  And don't apologize.  Every time I try to talk to someone it's 'sorry
    this' and 'forgive me that' and 'I'm not worthy'.
    boom
    What are you doing now?!
ARTHUR:  I'm averting my eyes, O Lord.
GOD:  Well, don't.  It's like those miserable Psalms-- they're so depressing.
    Now, knock it off!
ARTHUR:  Yes, Lord.
GOD:  Right!  Arthur, King of the Britons, your Knights of the Round Table
    shall have a task to make them an example in these dark times.
ARTHUR:  Good idea, O Lord!
GOD:  'Course it's a good idea!  Behold!
    angels sing
    Arthur, this is the Holy Grail.  Look well, Arthur, for it is your
    sacred task to seek this grail.  That is your purpose, Arthur: the quest 
    for the Holy Grail.
    boom
    singing stops
LAUNCELOT:  A blessing!  A blessing from the Lord!
GALAHAD:  God be praised!


 ___________
|           |
|  Scene 8  |
|___________|

    King Arthur music
    clop clop clop
ARTHUR:  Halt!
    horn
    Hallo!
    pause
    Hallo!
FRENCH GUARD:  Allo!  Who is eet?
ARTHUR:  It is King Arthur, and these are my Knights of the Round Table.
    Whose castle is this?
FRENCH GUARD:  This is the castle of my master, Guy de Loimbard.
ARTHUR:  Go and tell your master that we have been charged by God with a
    sacred quest.  If he will give us food and shelter for the night, he
    can join us in our quest for the Holy Grail.
FRENCH GUARD:  Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he'll be very keen.
    Uh, he's already got one, you see.
ARTHUR:  What?
GALAHAD:  He says they've already got one!
ARTHUR:  Are you sure he's got one?
FRENCH GUARD:  Oh, yes.  It's very nice-a.  (I told him we already got one.)
FRENCH GUARDS:  chuckling
ARTHUR:  Well, u-- um, can we come up and have a look?
FRENCH GUARD:  Of course not!  You are English types-a!
ARTHUR:  Well, what are you, then?
FRENCH GUARD:  I'm French!  Why do think I have this outrageous accent, you
    silly king-a?!
GALAHAD:  What are you doing in England?
FRENCH GUARD:  Mind your own business!
ARTHUR:  If you will not show us the Grail, we shall take your castle by
    force!
FRENCH GUARD:  You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs!  Go and boil your
    bottom, sons of a silly person.  I blow my nose at you, so-called Arthur
    King, you and all your silly English k-nnnnniggets.  Thpppppt!  Thppt!
    Thppt!
GALAHAD:  What a strange person.
ARTHUR:  Now look here, my good man--
FRENCH GUARD:  I don't wanna talk to you no more, you empty headed animal
    food trough wiper!  I fart in your general direction!  Your mother was a
    hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
GALAHAD:  Is there someone else up there we could talk to?
FRENCH GUARD:  No.  Now, go away, or I shall taunt you a second time-a!
    sniff
ARTHUR:  Now, this is your last chance.  I've been more than reasonable.
FRENCH GUARD:  (Fetchez la vache.)
OTHER FRENCH GUARD:  Quoi?
FRENCH GUARD:  (Fetchez la vache!)
    mooo
ARTHUR:  If you do not agree to my commands, then I shall--
    twong
    mooooooo
    Jesus Christ!
KNIGHTS:  Christ!
    thud
    Ah!  Ohh!...
ARTHUR:  Right!  Charge!
KNIGHTS:  Charge!
    mayhem
FRENCH GUARD:  Hey, this one is for your mother!  There you go.
    mayhem
FRENCH GUARD:  And this one's for your dad!
ARTHUR:  Run away!
KNIGHTS:  Run away!
FRENCH GUARD:  Thppppt!
FRENCH GUARDS:  taunting
LAUNCELOT:  Fiends!  I'll tear them apart!
ARTHUR:  No, no.  No, no.
BEDEVERE:  Sir!  I have a plan, sir.

    later

    wind
    saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw saw
    clunk
    bang
    rewr!
    squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak
    rrrr rrrr rrrr
    drilllll
    sawwwww
    clunk
    crash
    clang
    squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak...
    creak
FRENCH GUARDS:  whispering  C'est un lapin, lapin de bois.  Quoi?  Un
    cadeau.  What?  A present.  Oh, un cadeau.  Oui, oui.  Hurry.  What?
    Let's go.  Oh.  On y va.  Bon magne.  Over here...
    squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak...
    clllank
ARTHUR:  What happens now?
BEDEVERE:  Well, now, uh, Launcelot, Galahad, and I, uh, wait until
    nightfall, and then leap out of the rabbit, taking the French, uh, by
    surprise.  Not only by surprise, but totally unarmed!
ARTHUR:  Who leaps out?
BEDEVERE:  U-- u-- uh, Launcelot, Galahad, and I, uh, leap out of the
    rabbit, uh, and uh...
ARTHUR:  Ohh.
BEDEVERE:  Oh.  Um, l-- look, i-- i-- if we built this large wooden badger--
    clank
    twong
ARTHUR:  Run away!
KNIGHTS:  Run away!  Run away!  Run away!  Run away!  Run away!  Run away!
    Run away!
    CRASH
FRENCH GUARDS:  Oh, haw haw haw haw!  Haw!  Haw haw heh...


 ___________
|           |
|  Scene 9  |
|___________|

    clack
VOICE:  Picture for Schools, take eight.
DIRECTOR:  Action!
HISTORIAN:  Defeat at the castle seems to have utterly disheartened King
    Arthur.  The ferocity of the French taunting took him completely by
    surprise, and Arthur became convinced that a new strategy was required
    if the quest for the Holy Grail were to be brought to a successful
    conclusion.  Arthur, having consulted his closest knights, decided that
    they should separate and search for the Grail individually.
    clop clop clop
    Now, this is what they did:  Launcelot--
KNIGHT:  Aaaah!
    slash
    KNIGHT kills HISTORIAN
HISTORIAN'S WIFE:  Frank!


 ____________
|            |
|  Scene 10  |
|____________|

    trumpets
NARRATOR:  The Tale of Sir Robin.  So, each of the knights went their
    separate ways.  Sir Robin rode north, through the dark forest of Ewing,
    accompanied by his favourite minstrels.
MINSTREL:  singing  Bravely bold Sir Robin rode forth from Camelot.
    He was not afraid to die, O brave Sir Robin.
    He was not at all afraid to be killed in nasty ways,
    Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Robin!
    
    He was not in the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp,
    Or to have his eyes gouged out and his elbows broken,
    To have his kneecaps split and his body burned away
    And his limbs all hacked and mangled, brave Sir Robin!

    His head smashed in and his heart cut out
    And his liver removed and his bowels unplugged
    And his nostrils raped and his bottom burned off
    And his pen--
SIR ROBIN:  That's-- that's, uh-- that's enough music for now, lads.  Heh.
    Looks like there's dirty work afoot.
DENNIS:  Anarcho-syndicalism is a way of preserving freedom.
WOMAN:  Oh, Dennis, forget about freedom.  We haven't got enough mud.
ALL HEADS:  Halt!  Who art thou?
MINSTREL:  singing  He is brave Sir Robin, brave Sir Robin, who--
ROBIN:  Shut up!  Um, n-- n-- n-- nobody, really.  I'm j-- j-- j-- ju--
    just, um-- just passing through.
ALL HEADS:  What do you want?
MINSTREL:  singing  To fight and--
ROBIN:  Shut up!  Um, oo, a-- nothing.  Nothing, really.  I, uh-- j-- j-- 
    just-- just to, um-- just to p-- pass through, good Sir Knight.
ALL HEADS:  I'm afraid not!
ROBIN:  Ah.  W-- well, actually I-- I am a Knight of the Round Table.
ALL HEADS:  You're a Knight of the Round Table?
ROBIN:  I am.
LEFT HEAD:  In that case, I shall have to kill you.
MIDDLE HEAD:  Shall I?
RIGHT HEAD:  Oh, I don't think so.
MIDDLE HEAD:  Well, what do I think?
LEFT HEAD:  I think kill him.
RIGHT HEAD:  Oh, let's be nice to him.
LEFT HEAD:  Oh, shut up.
ROBIN:  Perhaps I could--
LEFT HEAD:  And you.  Oh, quick!  Get the sword out.  I want to cut his head
    off!
RIGHT HEAD:  Oh, cut your own head off!
MIDDLE HEAD:  Yes, do us all a favour!
LEFT HEAD:  What?
RIGHT HEAD:  Yapping on all the time.
MIDDLE HEAD:  You're lucky.  You're not next to him.
LEFT HEAD:  What do you mean?
MIDDLE HEAD:  You snore!
LEFT HEAD:  Oh, I don't.  Anyway, you've got bad breath.
MIDDLE HEAD:  Well, it's only because you don't brush my teeth.
RIGHT HEAD:  Oh, stop bitching and let's go have tea.
LEFT HEAD:  Oh, all right.  All right.  All right.  We'll kill him first and
    then have tea and biscuits.
MIDDLE HEAD:  Yes.
RIGHT HEAD:  Oh, not biscuits.
LEFT HEAD:  All right.  All right, not biscuits, but let's kill him anyway.
ALL HEADS:  Right!
MIDDLE HEAD:  He buggered off.
RIGHT HEAD:  So he has.  He's scarpered.

MINSTREL:  singing  Brave Sir Robin ran away,
ROBIN:  No!
MINSTREL:  singing  Bravely ran away, away.
ROBIN:  I didn't!
MINSTREL:  singing  When danger reared its ugly head, he bravely turned
    his tail and fled.
ROBIN:  No!
MINSTREL:  singing  Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
ROBIN:  I didn't!
MINSTREL:  singing  And gallantly, he chickened out.  Bravely taking to
    his feet,
ROBIN:  I never did!
MINSTREL:  singing  He beat a very brave retreat,
ROBIN:  All lies!
MINSTREL:  singing  Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin.
ROBIN:  I never!


 ___________
|           |
|  Cartoon  |
|___________|

CARTOON MONKS:  chanting  Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.
CARTOON CHARACTER:  Heh heh heeh ooh...
    twang
CARTOON MONKS:  chanting  Pie Iesu domine,...
CARTOON CHARACTERS:  Wayy!
    splash
    Ho ho.  Woa, wayy!
    twang
    splash
    Heh heh heh heh ho!  Heh heh heh!
CARTOON MONKS:  chanting  ...dona eis requiem.
CARTOON CHARACTER:  Wayy!
    twang
    Wayy!
    twang
VOICE:  whispering  Forgive me, for I have sinned.
CARTOON CHARACTER:  Oh!  Oooo.


 ____________
|            |
|  Scene 11  |
|____________|

    trumpets
NARRATOR:  The Tale of Sir Galahad.
    boom
    wind
    howl
    howl
    boom
    angels singing
    howl
    boom
    howl
    boom
    pound pound pound
GALAHAD:  Open the door!  Open the door!
    pound pound pound
    In the name of King Arthur, open the door!
    creak
    thump
    creak
    boom
GIRLS:  Hello!
ZOOT:  Welcome, gentle Sir Knight.  Welcome to the Castle Anthrax.
GALAHAD:  The Castle Anthrax?
ZOOT:  Yes.  Oh, it's not a very good name, is it?  Oh, but we are nice and
    we will attend to your every, every need!
GALAHAD:  You are the keepers of the Holy Grail?
ZOOT:  The what?
GALAHAD:  The Grail.  It is here.
ZOOT:  Oh, but you are tired and you must rest awhile.  Midget!  Crapper!
MIDGET and CRAPPER:  Yes, O Zoot?
ZOOT:  Prepare a bed for our guest.
MIDGET and CRAPPER:  Oh, thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!
    Thank you!  Thank you!...
ZOOT:  Away!  Away, varletesses.  The beds here are warm and soft and very,
    very big.
GALAHAD:  Well, look, I-- I, uh--
ZOOT:  What is your name, handsome knight?
GALAHAD:  'Sir Galahad... the Chaste'.
ZOOT:  Mine is 'Zoot'.  Just 'Zoot'.  Oh, but come.
GALAHAD:  Look, please!  In God's name, show me the Grail!
ZOOT:  Oh, you have suffered much.  You are delirious.
GALAHAD:  No, look.  I have seen it!  It is here in this--
ZOOT:  Sir Galahad!  You would not be so ungallant as to refuse our
    hospitality.
GALAHAD:  Well, I-- I, uh--
ZOOT:  Oh, I am afraid our life must seem very dull and quiet compared to
    yours.  We are but eight score young blondes and brunettes, all between 
    sixteen and nineteen-and-a-half, cut off in this castle with no one to
    protect us.  Oooh.  It is a lonely life: bathing, dressing, undressing,
    making exciting underwear.  We are just not used to handsome knights.
    Nay.  Nay.  Come.  Come.  You may lie here.  Oh, but you are wounded!
GALAHAD:  No, no.  It's-- it's nothing.
ZOOT:  Oh, you must see the doctors immediately!  No, no, please!  Lie down.
    clap clap
PIGLET:  Well, what seems to be the trouble?
GALAHAD:  They're doctors?!
ZOOT:  Uh, they... have a basic medical training, yes.
GALAHAD:  B-- but--
ZOOT:  Oh, come.  Come.  You must try to rest.  Doctor Piglet!  Doctor
    Winston!  Practise your art.
WINSTON:  Try to relax.
GALAHAD:  Are you sure that's absolutely necessary?
PIGLET:  We must examine you.
GALAHAD:  There's nothing wrong with that!
PIGLET:  Please.  We are doctors.
GALAHAD:  Look!  This cannot be.  I am sworn to chastity.
PIGLET:  Back to your bed!  At once!
GALAHAD:  Torment me no longer.  I have seen the Grail!
PIGLET:  There's no grail here.
GALAHAD:  I have seen it!  I have seen it!
    clank
    I have seen--
GIRLS:  Hello.
GALAHAD:  Oh.
GIRLS:  Hello.  Hello.  Hello.  Hello.  Hello.  Hello.  Hello.  Hello.
    Hello.  Hello.  Hello.  Hello.  Hello.  Hello.  Hello.  Hello.  Hello.
    Hello.  Hello.  Hello.  Hello.  Hello.  Hello.
GALAHAD:  Zoot!
DINGO:  No, I am Zoot's identical twin sister, Dingo.
GALAHAD:  Oh, well, excuse me, I--
DINGO:  Where are you going?
GALAHAD:  I seek the Grail!  I have seen it, here in this castle!
DINGO:  Oh, no.  Oh, no!  Bad, bad Zoot!
GALAHAD:  Well, what is it?
DINGO:  Oh, wicked, bad, naughty Zoot!  She has been setting alight to our
    beacon, which, I have just remembered, is grail-shaped.  It's not the
    first time we've had this problem.
GALAHAD:  It's not the real Grail?
DINGO:  Oh, wicked, bad, naughty, evil Zoot!  She is a bad person and must
    pay the penalty!  Do you think this scene should have been cut?  We were
    so worried when the boys were writing it, but now, we're glad.  It's
    better than some of the previous scenes, I think.
LEFT HEAD:  At least ours was better visually.
DENNIS:  Well, at least ours was committed.  It wasn't just a string of
    pussy jokes.
OLD MAN:  Get on with it.
TIM THE ENCHANTER:  Yes, get on with it!
ARMY OF KNIGHTS:  Yes, get on with it!
DINGO:  Oh, I am enjoying this scene.
GOD:  Get on with it!
DINGO:  sigh
    clunk
    Oh, wicked, wicked Zoot.  Oh, she is a naughty person and she must pay
    the penalty, and here in Castle Anthrax, we have but one punishment for
    setting alight the grail-shaped beacon: you must tie her down on a bed
    and spank her.
GIRLS:  A spanking!  A spanking!
DINGO:  You must spank her well, and after you have spanked her, you may
    deal with her as you like, and then, spank me.
AMAZING:  And spank me.
STUNNER:  And me.
LOVELY:  And me.
DINGO:  Yes.  Yes, you must give us all a good spanking!
GIRLS:  A spanking!  A spanking!  There is going to be a spanking tonight!
DINGO:  And after the spanking, the oral sex.
GIRLS:  The oral sex!  The oral sex!
GALAHAD:  Well, I could stay a bit longer.
LAUNCELOT:  Sir Galahad!
GALAHAD:  Oh, hello.
LAUNCELOT:  Quick!
GALAHAD:  What?
LAUNCELOT:  Quick!
GALAHAD:  Why?
LAUNCELOT:  You are in great peril!
DINGO:  No, he isn't.
LAUNCELOT:  Silence, foul temptress!
GALAHAD:  You know, she's got a point.
LAUNCELOT:  Come on!  We will cover your escape!
GALAHAD:  Look, I'm fine!
LAUNCELOT:  Come on!
GIRLS:  Sir Galahad!
GALAHAD:  No.  Look, I can tackle this lot single-handed!
DINGO:  Yes!  Let him tackle us single-handed!
GIRLS:  Yes!  Let him tackle us single-handed!
LAUNCELOT:  No, Sir Galahad.  Come on!
GALAHAD:  No!  Really!  Honestly, I can cope.  I can handle this lot easily.
DINGO:  Oh, yes.  Let him handle us easily.
GIRLS:  Yes.  Let him handle us easily.
LAUNCELOT:  No.  Quick!  Quick!
GALAHAD:  Please!  I can defeat them!  There's only a hundred-and-fifty of
    them!
DINGO:  Yes!  Yes, he will beat us easily!  We haven't a chance.
GIRLS:  We haven't a chance.  He will beat us easily...
    boom
DINGO:  Oh, shit.

LAUNCELOT:  We were in the nick of time.  You were in great peril.
GALAHAD:  I don't think I was.
LAUNCELOT:  Yes, you were.  You were in terrible peril.
GALAHAD:  Look, let me go back in there and face the peril.
LAUNCELOT:  No, it's too perilous.
GALAHAD:  Look, it's my duty as a knight to sample as much peril as I can.
LAUNCELOT:  No, we've got to find the Holy Grail.  Come on!
GALAHAD:  Oh, let me have just a little bit of peril?
LAUNCELOT:  No.  It's unhealthy.
GALAHAD:  I bet you're gay.
LAUNCELOT:  No, I'm not.


 _______________________
|                       |
|  Narrative Interlude  |
|_______________________|

NARRATOR:  Sir Launcelot had saved Sir Galahad from almost certain
    temptation, but they were still no nearer the Grail.  Meanwhile, King
    Arthur and Sir Bedevere, not more than a swallow's flight away, had
    discovered something.  Oh, that's an unladen swallow's flight, obviously.  
    I mean, they were more than two laden swallows' flights away-- four,
    really, if they had a coconut on a line between them.  I mean, if the
    birds were walking and dragging--
CROWD:  Get on with it!
NARRATOR:  Oh, anyway.  On to scene twenty-four, which is a smashing scene
    with some lovely acting, in which Arthur discovers a vital clue, and in
    which there aren't any swallows, although I think you can hear a
    starling-- oooh!


 ____________
|            |
|  Scene 12  |
|____________|

OLD MAN:  Heh, hee ha ha hee hee!  Hee hee hee ha ha ha...
ARTHUR:  And this enchanter of whom you speak, he has seen the Grail?
OLD MAN:  ...Ha ha ha ha!  Heh, hee ha ha hee!  Ha hee ha!  Ha ha ha ha...
ARTHUR:  Where does he live?
OLD MAN:  ...Heh heh heh heh...
ARTHUR:  Old man, where does he live?
OLD MAN:  ...Hee ha ha ha.  He knows of a cave, a cave which no man has
    entered.
ARTHUR:  And the Grail.  The Grail is there?
OLD MAN:  There is much danger, for beyond the cave lies the Gorge of
    Eternal Peril, which no man has ever crossed.
ARTHUR:  But the Grail!  Where is the Grail?!
OLD MAN:  Seek you the Bridge of Death.
ARTHUR:  The Bridge of Death, which leads to the Grail?
OLD MAN:  Heh, hee hee hee hee!  Ha ha ha ha ha!  Hee ha ha...


 ____________
|            |
|  Scene 13  |
|____________|

    spooky music
    music stops
HEAD KNIGHT OF NI:  Ni!
KNIGHTS OF NI:  Ni!  Ni!  Ni!  Ni!  Ni!
ARTHUR:  Who are you?
HEAD KNIGHT:  We are the Knights Who Say... 'Ni'!
RANDOM:  Ni!
ARTHUR:  No!  Not the Knights Who Say 'Ni'!
HEAD KNIGHT:  The same!
BEDEVERE:  Who are they?
HEAD KNIGHT:  We are the keepers of the sacred words: 'Ni', 'Peng', and
    'Neee-wom'!
RANDOM:  Neee-wom!
ARTHUR:  Those who hear them seldom live to tell the tale!
HEAD KNIGHT:  The Knights Who Say 'Ni' demand a sacrifice!
ARTHUR:  Knights of Ni, we are but simple travellers who seek the enchanter
    who lives beyond these woods.
HEAD KNIGHT:  Ni!
KNIGHTS OF NI:  Ni!  Ni!  Ni!  Ni!  Ni!...
ARTHUR:  Ow!  Ow!  Ow!  Agh!
HEAD KNIGHT:  We shall say 'ni' again to you if you do not appease us.
ARTHUR:  Well, what is it you want?
HEAD KNIGHT:  We want... a shrubbery!
    dramatic chord
ARTHUR:  A what?
KNIGHTS OF NI:  Ni!  Ni!  Ni!  Ni!
ARTHUR and PARTY:  Ow!  Oh!
ARTHUR:  Please!  Please!  No more!  We will find you a shrubbery.
HEAD KNIGHT:  You must return here with a shrubbery, or else, you will never 
    pass through this wood... alive.
ARTHUR:  O Knights of Ni, you are just and fair, and we will return with a
    shrubbery.
HEAD KNIGHT:  One that looks nice.
ARTHUR:  Of course.
HEAD KNIGHT:  And not too expensive.
ARTHUR:  Yes.
HEAD KNIGHT:  Now... go!


 ___________
|           |
|  Cartoon  |
|___________|

    trumpets
CARTOON CHARACTER:  Hmm hmm--
    boom
    Oh!  Great scott!  Hm.  Hmm.
    boom
    Hm!  Hmm.  mumble mumble mumble
    boom
    mumble mumble mumble
    boom
    mumble mumble mumble
    boom
    mumble mumble mumble
    boom
    mumble mumble mumble
    boom
    mumble mumble mumble
    boom
    mumble mumble mumble
    boom
    mumble mumble mumble
    boom
    Ohh!
    crash
    mumble mumble mumble
    boom
SUN:  Ay, up!  Thsss.
    boom
    Ayy, up!
    boom
    Thsss.
    boom
    Ayy, up!
CARTOON CHARACTER:  Stop that!  Stop that!
    boom
SUN:  Ay, up!
CARTOON CHARACTER:  Stop that!
    boom
    Look on!  Clear off!  Go on!  Go away!  Go away!  Go away!  And you!
    Clear off! 
    sniff
SUN:  mumble mumble mumble
    bells
CARTOON CHARACTER:  Hah.  Bloody weather.


 ____________
|            |
|  Scene 14  |
|____________|

NARRATOR:  The Tale of Sir Launcelot.
FATHER:  One day, lad, all this will be yours!
PRINCE HERBERT:  What, the curtains?
FATHER:  No.  Not the curtains, lad.  All that you can see, stretched out
    over the hills and valleys of this land!  This'll be your kingdom, lad.
HERBERT:  But Mother--
FATHER:  Father, lad.  Father.
HERBERT:  B-- b-- but Father, I don't want any of that.
FATHER:  Listen, lad.  I built this kingdom up from nothing.  When I started
    here, all there was was swamp.  Other kings said I was daft to build a
    castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em.  It
    sank into the swamp.  So, I built a second one.  That sank into the
    swamp.  So, I built a third one.  That burned down, fell over, then sank
    into the swamp, but the fourth one... stayed up!  And that's what you're
    gonna get, lad: the strongest castle in these islands.
HERBERT:  But I don't want any of that.  I'd rather--
FATHER:  Rather what?!
HERBERT:  I'd rather...
    music
    ...just... sing!
FATHER:  Stop that!  Stop that!  You're not going into a song while I'm here.
    Now listen, lad.  In twenty minutes, you're getting married to a girl 
    whose father owns the biggest tracts of open land in Britain.
HERBERT:  B-- but I don't want land.
FATHER:  Listen, Alice,--
HERBERT:  Herbert.
FATHER:  'Erbert.  We live in a bloody swamp.  We need all the land we can
    get.
HERBERT:  But-- but I don't like her.
FATHER:  Don't like her?!  What's wrong with her?!  She's beautiful.  She's
    rich.  She's got huge... tracts o' land!
HERBERT:  I know, but I want the-- the girl that I marry to have... 
    music
    ...a certain,... special... something!
FATHER:  Cut that out!  Cut that out!  Look, you're marrying Princess Lucky,
    so you'd better get used to the idea!
    smack
    Guards!  Make sure the Prince doesn't leave this room until I come and
    get him.
GUARD #1:  Not to leave the room even if you come and get him.
GUARD #2:  Hic!
FATHER:  No, no.  Until I come and get him.
GUARD #1:  Until you come and get him, we're not to enter the room.
FATHER:  No, no.  No.  You stay in the room and make sure he doesn't leave.
GUARD #1:  And you'll come and get him.
GUARD #2:  Hic!
FATHER:  Right.
GUARD #1:  We don't need to do anything apart from just stop him entering
    the room.
FATHER:  No, no.  Leaving the room.
GUARD #1:  Leaving the room.  Yes.
    sniff
FATHER:  All right?
GUARD #1:  Right.
GUARD #2:  Hic!
FATHER:  Right.
GUARD #1:  Oh, if-- if-- if, uhh-- if-- if-- w-- ehh-- i-- if-- if we--
FATHER:  Yes?  What is it?
GUARD #1:  Oh, i-- if-- i-- oh--
FATHER:  Look, it's quite simple.
GUARD #1:  Uh...
FATHER:  You just stay here and make sure 'e doesn't leave the room.  All
    right?
GUARD #2:  Hic!
FATHER:  Right.
GUARD #1:  Oh, I remember.  Uhh, can he leave the room with us?
FATHER:  N-- no no.  No.  You just keep him in here and make sure he--
GUARD #1:  Oh, yes.  We'll keep him in here, obviously, but if he had to
    leave and we were with him--
FATHER:  No, no, no, no.  Just keep him in here--
GUARD #1:  Until you or anyone else--
FATHER:  No, not anyone else.  Just me.
GUARD #1:  Just you.
GUARD #2:  Hic!
FATHER:  Get back.
GUARD #1:  Get back.
FATHER:  All right?
GUARD #1:  Right.  We'll stay here until you get back.
GUARD #2:  Hic!
FATHER:  And, uh, make sure he doesn't leave.
GUARD #1:  What?
FATHER:  Make sure 'e doesn't leave.
GUARD #1:  The Prince?
FATHER:  Yes.  Make sure 'e doesn't leave.
GUARD #1:  Oh, yes, of course. 
GUARD #2:  Hic!
GUARD #1:  Ah.  I thought you meant him.  You know, it seemed a bit daft me
    havin' to guard him when he's a guard.
FATHER:  Is that clear?
GUARD #2:  Hic!
GUARD #1:  Oh, quite clear.  No problems.
FATHER:  Right.  Where are you going?
GUARD #1:  We're coming with you.
FATHER:  No, no.  I want you to stay here and make sure 'e doesn't leave.
GUARD #1:  Oh, I see.  Right.
HERBERT:  But Father!
FATHER:  Shut your noise, you!  And get that suit on!
    music
    And no singing!
GUARD #2:  Hic!
FATHER:  Oh, go and get a glass of water.
    clank
    scribble scribble scribble fold fold
    twong


 ____________
|            |
|  Scene 15  |
|____________|
 
LAUNCELOT:  Well taken, Concorde!
CONCORDE:  Thank you, sir!  Most kind.
LAUNCELOT:  And again!  Over we go!  Good.  Steady!  And now, the big one!
    Uuh!  Come on, Concorde!
    thwonk
CONCORDE:  Message for you, sir.
    fwump
LAUNCELOT:  Concorde!  Concorde!  Speak to me!  'To whoever finds this note: 
    I have been imprisoned by my father, who wishes me to marry against my
    will.  Please, please, please come and rescue me.  I am in the Tall Tower
    of Swamp Castle.'  At last!  A call!  A cry of distress!  This could be
    the sign that leads us to the Holy Grail!  Brave, brave Concorde, you
    shall not have died in vain!
CONCORDE:  Uh, I'm-- I'm not quite dead, sir.
LAUNCELOT:  Well, you shall not have been mortally wounded in vain!
CONCORDE:  I-- I-- I think I c-- I could pull through, sir.
LAUNCELOT:  Oh, I see.
CONCORDE:  Actually, I think I'm all right to come with you, sir--
LAUNCELOT:  No, no, sweet Concorde!  Stay here!  I will send help as soon as
    I have accomplished a daring and heroic rescue in my own particular...
    sigh
CONCORDE:  Idiom, sir?
LAUNCELOT:  Idiom!
CONCORDE:  No, I feel fine, actually, sir.
LAUNCELOT:  Farewell, sweet Concorde!
CONCORDE:  I'll, um-- I'll just stay here, then.  Shall I, sir?  Yeah.


 ____________
|            |
|  Scene 16  |
|____________|


    inside castle
PRINCESS LUCKY and GIRLS:  giggle giggle giggle
    outside castle
GUEST:  'Morning!
SENTRY #1:  'Morning.
SENTRY #2:  Oooh.
SENTRY #1:  ptoo
LAUNCELOT:  Ha ha!  Hiyya!
SENTRY #2:  Hey!
LAUNCELOT:  Hiyya!, Ha!, etc.
PRINCESS LUCKY and GIRLS:  giggle giggle giggle
LAUNCELOT:  Ha ha!  Huy!
GUESTS:  Uuh!  Aaah!
LAUNCELOT:  Ha ha!  And take this!  Aah!  Hiyah!  Aah!  Aaah!  Hyy!  Hya!
    Hiyya!  Ha!...
GUARD #1:  Now, you're not allowed to enter the room-- aaugh!
LAUNCELOT:  O fair one, behold your humble servant, Sir Launcelot of Camelot.
    I have come to take y--  Oh, I'm terribly sorry.
HERBERT:  You got my note!
LAUNCELOT:  Uh, well, I-- I got a-- a note.
HERBERT:  You've come to rescue me!
LAUNCELOT:  Uh, well, no.  You see, I hadn't--
HERBERT:  I knew someone would.  I knew that somewhere out there... 
    music
LAUNCELOT:  Well, I--
HERBERT:  ...there must be... someone...
FATHER:  Stop that!  Stop that!  Stop it!  Stop it!  Who are you?
HERBERT:  I'm your son!
FATHER:  No, not you.
LAUNCELOT:  Uh, I am Sir Launcelot, sir.
HERBERT:  He's come to rescue me, Father.
LAUNCELOT:  Well, let's not jump to conclusions.
FATHER:  Did you kill all those guards?
LAUNCELOT:  Uh...  Oh, yes.  Sorry.
FATHER:  They cost fifty pounds each!
LAUNCELOT:  Well, I'm awfully sorry.  Um, I really can explain everything.
HERBERT:  Don't be afraid of him, Sir Launcelot.  I've got a rope all ready.
FATHER:  You killed eight wedding guests in all!
LAUNCELOT:  Well, uh, you see, the thing is, I thought your son was a lady.
FATHER:  I can understand that.
HERBERT:  Hurry, Sir Launcelot!  Hurry!
FATHER:  Shut up!  You only killed the bride's father, that's all!
LAUNCELOT:  Well, I really didn't mean to...
FATHER:  Didn't mean to?!  You put your sword right through his head!
LAUNCELOT:  Oh, dear.  Is he all right?
FATHER:  You even kicked the bride in the chest!  This is going to cost me a
    fortune!
LAUNCELOT:  Well, I can explain.  I was in the forest, um, riding north from
    Camelot, when I got this note, you see--
FATHER:  Camelot?  Are you from, uh, Camelot?
HERBERT:  Hurry, Sir Launcelot!
LAUNCELOT:  Uh, I am a Knight of King Arthur, sir.
FATHER:  Very nice castle, Camelot.  Uh, very good pig country.
LAUNCELOT:  Is it?
HERBERT:  Hurry!  I'm ready!
FATHER:  Would you, uh, like to come and have a drink?
LAUNCELOT:  Well, that-- that's, uh, awfully nice of you,...
HERBERT:  I am ready!
LAUNCELOT:  ...um, I mean to be so understanding.
    thonk
    Um,...
    woosh
HERBERT:  Oooh!
LAUNCELOT:  ...I'm afraid when I'm in this idiom, I sometimes get a bit, uh,
    sort of carried away.
FATHER:  Oh, don't worry about that.
HERBERT:  Oooh!
    splat


 ____________
|            |
|  Scene 17  |
|____________|

GUESTS:  crying
FATHER:  Well, this is the main hall.  We're going to have all this knocked
    through and made into one big, uh, living room.
GUEST:  There he is!
FATHER:  Oh, bloody hell.
    exciting music
LAUNCELOT:  Ha ha ha!  Hey!  Ha ha!
FATHER:  Hold it!  Stop it!  Hold it!  Hold it!  Hold it!  Hold it!  Hold it!
    Please!
LAUNCELOT:  Sorry.  Sorry.  You see what I mean?  I just get carried away.
    I'm really most awfully sorry.  Sorry!  Sorry, everyone.
GUEST #1:  He's killed the best man!
GUESTS:  yelling
FATHER:  Hold it!  Hold it!  Please!  Hold it!  This is Sir Launcelot from
    the Court of Camelot, a very brave and influential knight, and my special 
    guest here today.
LAUNCELOT:  Hello.
GUEST:  He killed my auntie!
GUESTS:  yelling
FATHER:  Please!  Please!  This is supposed to be a happy occasion!  Let's
    not bicker and argue about who killed who.  We are here today to witness
    the union of two young people in the joyful bond of the holy wedlock.
    Unfortunately, one of them, my son Herbert, has just fallen to his death.
GUESTS:  Oh!  Oh, no!
FATHER:  But I don't want to think I've not lost a son, so much as... gained
    a daughter!
    clap clap clap
    For, since the tragic death of her father--
GUEST #2:  He's not quite dead!
FATHER:  Since the near fatal wounding of her father--
GUEST #2:  He's getting better!
FATHER:  For, since her own father, who, when he seemed about to recover,
    suddenly felt the icy hand of death upon him.
BRIDE'S FATHER:  Uugh!
GUEST #2:  Oh, he's died!
FATHER:  And I want his only daughter to look upon me as her old dad, in a
    very real and legally binding sense.
    clap clap clap
    And I feel sure that the merger-- er, the union between the Princess and
    the brave, but dangerous, Sir Launcelot of Camelot--
LAUNCELOT:  What?
GUEST #2:  Look!  The dead Prince!
GUESTS:  Oooh!  The dead Prince!
CONCORDE:  He's not quite dead.
HERBERT:  No, I feel much better.
FATHER:  You fell out of the Tall Tower, you creep!
HERBERT:  No, I was saved at the last minute.
FATHER:  How?!
HERBERT:  Well, I'll tell you.
    music
FATHER:  Not like that!  Not like that!  No!  Stop it!
GUESTS:  singing  He's going to tell!  He's going to tell!...
FATHER:  Shut uuup!
GUESTS:  singing  He's going to tell!...
FATHER:  Shut up!
GUESTS:  singing  He's going to tell!...
FATHER:  Shut up!
GUESTS:  singing  He's going to tell!...
FATHER:  Not like that!
GUESTS:  singing  He's going to tell!  He's going to tell!  He's going to
    tell!  He's going to tell!...
CONCORDE:  Quickly, sir!
GUESTS:  singing  He's going to tell!...
CONCORDE:  Come this way!
GUESTS:  singing  He's going to tell!  He's going to tell!...
LAUNCELOT:  No!  It's not right for my idiom!
GUESTS:  singing  He's going to tell about his great escape...
LAUNCELOT:  I must escape more... sigh
GUESTS:  singing  Oh, he fell a long, long way,...
CONCORDE:  Dramatically, sir?
LAUNCELOT:  Dramatically!
GUESTS:  singing  But he's here with us today...
LAUNCELOT:  Heee!  Hoa!
    crash
    Hoo!
GUESTS:  singing  What a wonderful escape!
LAUNCELOT:  Excuse me.  Could, uh-- could somebody give me a push, please?


 ____________
|            |
|  Scene 18  |
|____________|

    King Arthur music
    clop clop clop
    rewr!  rewr!  rewr!  rewr!  rewr!  rewr!
ARTHUR:  Old crone!
    rewr!
    music stops
    Is there anywhere in this town where we could buy a shrubbery?
    dramatic chord
OLD CRONE:  Who sent you?
ARTHUR:  The Knights Who Say 'Ni'.
CRONE:  Aggh!  No!  Never!  We have no shrubberies here.
ARTHUR:  If you do not tell us where we can buy a shrubbery, my friend and I
    will say... we will say... 'ni'.
CRONE:  Agh!  Do your worst!
ARTHUR:  Very well!  If you will not assist us voluntarily,... ni!
CRONE:  No!  Never!  No shrubberies!
ARTHUR:  Ni!
CRONE:  cough
BEDEVERE:  Nu!
ARTHUR:  No, no, no, no, i--
BEDEVERE:  Nu!
ARTHUR:  No, it's not that.  It's 'ni'.
BEDEVERE:  Nu!
ARTHUR:  No, no.  'Ni'.  You're not doing it properly.  No.
BEDEVERE:  Ni!
ARTHUR and BEDEVERE:  Ni!
ARTHUR:  That's it.  That's it.  You've got it.
ARTHUR and BEDEVERE:  Ni!
CRONE:  Ohh!
BEDEVERE:  Ni!
ARTHUR:  Ni!
CRONE:  Agh!
BEDEVERE:  Ni!
ARTHUR:  Ni!
BEDEVERE:  Ni!
ARTHUR:  Ni!
BEDEVERE:  Ni!
ROGER THE SHRUBBER:  Are you saying 'ni' to that old woman?
ARTHUR:  Erm,... yes.
ROGER:  Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say 'ni' at
    will to old ladies.  There is a pestilence upon this land.  Nothing is
    sacred.  Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under
    considerable economic stress at this period in history.
ARTHUR:  Did you say 'shrubberies'?
ROGER:  Yes.  Shrubberies are my trade.  I am a shrubber.  My name is 'Roger
    the Shrubber'.  I arrange, design, and sell shrubberies.
BEDEVERE:  Ni!
ARTHUR:  No!  No, no, no!  No!


 ____________
|            |
|  Scene 19  |
|____________|

ARTHUR:  O Knights of Ni, we have brought you your shrubbery.  May we go now?
HEAD KNIGHT:  It is a good shrubbery.  I like the laurels particularly,...
    but there is one small problem.
ARTHUR:  What is that?
HEAD KNIGHT:  We are now... no longer the Knights Who Say 'Ni'.
KNIGHTS OF NI:  Ni!  Shh!
HEAD KNIGHT:  Shh!  We are now the Knights Who Say 'Ecky-ecky-ecky-ecky-
    pikang-zoop-boing-goodem-zoo-owli-zhiv'.
RANDOM:  Ni!
HEAD KNIGHT:  Therefore, we must give you a test.
ARTHUR:  What is this test, O Knights of-- knights who till recently said
    'ni'?
HEAD KNIGHT:  Firstly, you must find... another shrubbery!
    dramatic chord
ARTHUR:  Not another shrubbery!
RANDOM:  Ni!
HEAD KNIGHT:  Then, when you have found the shrubbery, you must place it
    here beside this shrubbery, only slightly higher so you get the two-
    level effect with a little path running down the middle.
KNIGHTS OF NI:  A path!  A path!  A path!  Ni!  Shh!  Knights of Ni!  Ni!
    Ni!  Shh!  Shh!...
HEAD KNIGHT:  Then, when you have found the shrubbery, you must cut down the
    mightiest tree in the forest... with... a herring!
    dramatic chord
KNIGHTS OF NI:  A herring!
ARTHUR:  We shall do no such thing!
HEAD KNIGHT:  Oh, please!
ARTHUR:  Cut down a tree with a herring?  It can't be done.
KNIGHTS OF NI:  Aaaaugh!  Aaaugh!
HEAD KNIGHT:  Augh!  Ohh!  Don't say that word.
ARTHUR:  What word?
HEAD KNIGHT:  I cannot tell, suffice to say is one of the words the Knights
    of Ni cannot hear.
ARTHUR:  How can we not say the word if you don't tell us what it is?
KNIGHTS OF NI:  Aaaaugh!
HEAD KNIGHT:  You said it again!
ARTHUR:  What, 'is'?
KNIGHTS OF NI:  Agh!  No, not 'is'.
HEAD KNIGHT:  No, not 'is'.  You wouldn't get vary far in life not saying
    'is'.
KNIGHTS OF NI:  No, not 'is'.  Not 'is'.
BEDEVERE:  My liege, it's Sir Robin!
MINSTREL:  singing  He is packing it in and packing it up
    And sneaking away and buggering up
    And chickening out and pissing off home,
    Yes, bravely he is throwing in the sponge.
ARTHUR:  Sir Robin!
ROBIN:  My liege!  It's good to see you.
HEAD KNIGHT:  Now he's said the word! 
ARTHUR:  Surely you've not given up your quest for the Holy Grail?
MINSTREL:  singing  He is sneaking away and buggering up--
ROBIN:  Shut up!  No, no.  No.  Far from it.
HEAD KNIGHT:  He said the word again!
KNIGHTS OF NI:  Aaaaugh!
ROBIN:  I was looking for it.
KNIGHTS OF NI:  Aaaaugh!
ROBIN:  Uh, here-- here in this forest.
ARTHUR:  No, it is far from this place.
KNIGHTS OF NI:  Aaaaugh!
HEAD KNIGHT:  Aaaaugh!  Stop saying the word!  The word...
ARTHUR:  Oh, stop it!
HEAD KNIGHT:  ...we cannot hear!  Ow!  He said it again!
ARTHUR:  Patsy!
HEAD KNIGHT:  Wait!  I said it!  I said it!
    clop clop clop
    Ooh!  I said it again!  And there again!  That's three 'it's!  Ohh!
KNIGHTS OF NI:  Aaaaugh!...


 _______________________
|                       |
|  Narrative Interlude  |
|_______________________|

NARRATOR:  And so, Arthur and Bedevere and Sir Robin set out on their
    search to find the enchanter of whom the old man had spoken in scene
    twenty-four.  Beyond the forest, they met Launcelot and Galahad, and
    there was much rejoicing.
KNIGHTS:  Yay!  Yay!
    woosh
NARRATOR:  In the frozen land of Nador, they were forced to eat Robin's
    minstrels.
MINSTREL:  high-pitched  Get back!  Eee!
NARRATOR:  And there was much rejoicing.
KNIGHTS:  Yay!
NARRATOR:  A year passed.
CARTOON CHARACTER:  shivering
NARRATOR:  Winter changed into Spring.
CARTOON CHARACTER:  Mmm, nice.
NARRATOR:  Spring changed into Summer.
CARTOON CHARACTER:  Oh.  Ahh.
NARRATOR:  Summer changed back into Winter,...
CARTOON CHARACTER:  Oh?
NARRATOR:  ...and Winter gave Spring and Summer a miss and went straight on
    into Autumn.
CARTOON CHARACTER:  Aah.
    snap
    Oh!  Waa!
NARRATOR:  Until one day...


 ____________
|            |
|  Scene 20  |
|____________|

    King Arthur music
    clop clop clop
    music stops
    boom
KNIGHTS:  Eh.  Oh.  See it?  Oh.  Oh.
ARTHUR:  Knights!  Forward!
    boom boom boom boom boom
    squeak
    boom boom boom boom
    What manner of man are you that can summon up fire without flint or
    tinder?
TIM THE ENCHANTER:  I... am an enchanter.
ARTHUR:  By what name are you known?
TIM:  There are some who call me... 'Tim'?
ARTHUR:  Greetings, Tim the Enchanter.
TIM:  Greetings, King Arthur!
ARTHUR:  You know my name?
TIM:  I do.
    zoosh
    You seek the Holy Grail!
ARTHUR:  That is our quest.  You know much that is hidden, O Tim.
TIM:  Quite.
    pweeng boom
    clap clap clap
ROBIN:  Oh.
ARTHUR:  Yes, we're-- we're looking for the Holy Grail.  Our quest is to
    find the Holy Grail.
KNIGHTS:  Yeah.  Yes.  It is.  It is.  Yeah.  Yup.  Yup.  Hm.  Mm.
ARTHUR:  And so, we're-- we're-- we're looking for it.
BEDEVERE:  Yes, we are.
GALAHAD:  Yeah. 
ROBIN:  We are.  We are.
BEDEVERE:  We have been for some time.
ROBIN:  Ages.
BEDEVERE:  Umhm.
ARTHUR:  Uh-- uh, so, uh, anything that you could do to, uh-- to help... 
    would be... very... helpful.
GALAHAD:  Look, can you tell us where--
    boom
ARTHUR:  Fine.  Um, I don't want to waste any more of your time, but, uh, I
    don't suppose you could, uh, tell us where we might find a, um-- find a,
    uh-- a, um-- a, uh--
TIM:  A what...?
ARTHUR:  A g-- a-- a g-- a g-- a-- a g--
TIM:  A grail?!
ARTHUR:  Yes, I think so.
ROBIN:  Y-- y-- yes.
ARTHUR:  Yes.
GALAHAD:  Yup.
KNIGHTS:  That's it...
TIM:  Yes!
ROBIN:  Oh.
ARTHUR:  Oh.  Thank you.
ROBIN:  Ahh.
GALAHAD:  Oh.  Fine.
ARTHUR:  Thank you.
ROBIN:  Splendid.
KNIGHTS:  Aah...
    boom pweeng boom boom
ARTHUR:  Look, um, you're a busy man, uh--
TIM:  Yes, I can help you find the Holy Grail.
KNIGHTS:  Oh, thank you.  Oh...
TIM:  To the north there lies a cave-- the cave of Caerbannog-- wherein,
    carved in mystic runes upon the very living rock, the last words of
    Olfin Bedwere of Rheged...
    boom 
    ...make plain the last resting place of the most Holy Grail.
ARTHUR:  Where could we find this cave, O Tim?
TIM:  Follow.  But!  Follow only if ye be men of valour, for the entrance
    to this cave is guarded by a creature so foul, so cruel that no man yet
    has fought with it and lived!  Bones of full fifty men lie strewn about
    its lair.  So, brave knights, if you do doubt your courage or your
    strength, come no further, for death awaits you all with nasty, big,
    pointy teeth.
ARTHUR:  What an eccentric performance.


 ____________
|            |
|  Scene 21  |
|____________|
  
    clop clop clop
    whinny whinny
GALAHAD:  They're nervous, sire.
ARTHUR:  Then we'd best leave them here and carry on on foot.  Dis-mount!
TIM:  Behold the cave of Caerbannog!
ARTHUR:  Right!  Keep me covered.
GALAHAD:  What with?
ARTHUR:  W-- just keep me covered.
TIM:  Too late!
    dramatic chord
ARTHUR:  What?
TIM:  There he is!
ARTHUR:  Where?
TIM:  There!
ARTHUR:  What, behind the rabbit?
TIM:  It is the rabbit.
ARTHUR:  You silly sod!
TIM:  What?
ARTHUR:  You got us all worked up!
TIM:  Well, that's no ordinary rabbit!
ARTHUR:  Ohh.
TIM:  That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes
    on!
ROBIN:  You tit!  I soiled my armour I was so scared!
TIM:  Look, that rabbit's got a vicious streak a mile wide!  It's a killer!
GALAHAD:  Get stuffed!
TIM:  He'll do you up a treat, mate.
GALAHAD:  Oh, yeah?
ROBIN:  You mangy Scots git!
TIM:  I'm warning you!
ROBIN:  What's he do, nibble your bum?
TIM:  He's got huge, sharp-- eh-- he can leap about-- look at the bones!
ARTHUR:  Go on, Bors.  Chop his head off!
BORS:  Right!  Silly little bleeder.  One rabbit stew comin' right up!
TIM:  Look!
    squeak
BORS:  Aaaugh!
    dramatic chord
    clunk
ARTHUR:  Jesus Christ!
TIM:  I warned you!
ROBIN:  I done it again!
TIM:  I warned you, but did you listen to me?  Oh, no, you knew it all,
    didn't you?  Oh, it's just a harmless little bunny, isn't it?  Well,
    it's always the same.  I always tell them--
ARTHUR:  Oh, shut up!
TIM:  Do they listen to me?
ARTHUR:  Right!
TIM:  Oh, no...
KNIGHTS:  Charge!
    squeak squeak squeak
KNIGHTS:  Aaaaugh!, Aaaugh!, etc.
ARTHUR:  Run away!  Run away!
KNIGHTS:  Run away!  Run away!...
TIM:  Ha ha ha ha!  Ha haw haw!  Ha!  Ha ha!
ARTHUR:  Right.  How many did we lose?
LAUNCELOT:  Gawain.
GALAHAD:  Ector.
ARTHUR:  And Bors.  That's five.
GALAHAD:  Three, sir.
ARTHUR:  Three.  Three.  And we'd better not risk another frontal assault.
    That rabbit's dynamite.
ROBIN:  Would it help to confuse it if we run away more?
ARTHUR:  Oh, shut up and go and change your armour.
GALAHAD:  Let us taunt it!  It may become so cross that it will make a
    mistake.
ARTHUR:  Like what?
GALAHAD:  Well... ooh.
LAUNCELOT:  Have we got bows?
ARTHUR:  No.
LAUNCELOT:  We have the Holy Hand Grenade.
ARTHUR:  Yes, of course!  The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch!  'Tis one of the
    sacred relics Brother Maynard carries with him!  Brother Maynard!  Bring
    up the Holy Hand Grenade!
MONKS:  chanting  Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.  Pie Iesu domine,
    dona eis requiem.  Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.  Pie Iesu domine,
    dona eis requiem.
ARTHUR:  How does it, um-- how does it work?
LAUNCELOT:  I know not, my liege.
ARTHUR:  Consult the Book of Armaments!
BROTHER MAYNARD:  Armaments, chapter two, verses nine to twenty-one.
SECOND BROTHER:  And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying,
    'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that, with it, Thou mayest blow
    Thine enemies to tiny bits in Thy mercy.'  And the Lord did grin, and
    the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies
    and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and large chu--
MAYNARD:  Skip a bit, Brother.
SECOND BROTHER:  And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou take out the
    Holy Pin.  Then, shalt thou count to three.  No more.  No less.  Three
    shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting
    shall be three.  Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two,
    excepting that thou then proceed to three.  Five is right out.  Once the
    number three, being the third number, be reached, then, lobbest thou thy
    Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My
    sight, shall snuff it.'
MAYNARD:  Amen.
KNIGHTS:  Amen.
ARTHUR:  Right!  One!...  Two!...  Five!
GALAHAD:  Three, sir!
ARTHUR:  Three!
    angels sing
    boom


 ____________
|            |
|  Scene 22  |
|____________|

ARTHUR:  There!  Look!
LAUNCELOT:  What does it say?
GALAHAD:  What language is that?
ARTHUR:  Brother Maynard!  You are a scholar.
MAYNARD:  It's Aramaic!
GALAHAD:  Of course!  Joseph of Arimathea!
LAUNCELOT:  'Course!
ARTHUR:  What does it say?
MAYNARD:  It reads, 'Here may be found the last words of Joseph of Arimathea.  
    He who is valiant and pure of spirit may find the Holy Grail in the 
    Castle of aaaaaagggh'.
ARTHUR:  What?
MAYNARD:  '...The Castle of aaaaaagggh'.
BEDEVERE:  What is that?
MAYNARD:  He must have died while carving it.
LAUNCELOT:  Oh, come on!
MAYNARD:  Well, that's what it says.
ARTHUR:  Look, if he was dying, he wouldn't bother to carve 'aaaaaggh'.
    He'd just say it!
MAYNARD:  Well, that's what's carved in the rock!
GALAHAD:  Perhaps he was dictating.
ARTHUR:  Oh, shut up.  Well, does it say anything else?
MAYNARD:  No.  Just 'aaaaaagggh'.
LAUNCELOT:  Aaaauugggh.
ARTHUR:  Aaaaaggh.
BEDEVERE:  Do you suppose he meant the Camaaaaaargue?
GALAHAD:  Where's that?
BEDEVERE:  France, I think.
LAUNCELOT:  Isn't there a 'Saint Aaauuves' in Cornwall?
ARTHUR:  No, that's 'Saint Ives'.
LAUNCELOT:  Oh, yes.  Saint Iiiiives.
KNIGHTS:  Iiiiives.
BEDEVERE:  Oooohoohohooo!
LAUNCELOT:  No, no.  'Aaaauugggh', at the back of the throat.  Aaauugh.
BEDEVERE:  N-- no.  No, no, no, no.  'Oooooooh', in surprise and alarm.
LAUNCELOT:  Oh, you mean sort of a 'aaaah'!
BEDEVERE:  Yes, but I-- aaaaaah!
ARTHUR:  Oooh!
GALAHAD:  My God!
    dramatic chord
    roar
MAYNARD:  It's the legendary Black Beast of Aaauugh!
    Black Beast of Aaauugh eats BROTHER MAYNARD
BEDEVERE:  That's it!  That's it!
ARTHUR:  Run away!
KNIGHTS:  Run away!
    roar
    Run away!  Run awaaay!  Run awaaaaay!
    roar
    Keep running!
    boom
    roar
    Shh!  Shh!  Shh!  Shh!  Shh!  Shh!  Shh!  Shh!...
BEDEVERE:  We've lost him.
    roar
KNIGHTS:  Aagh!
NARRATOR:  As the horrendous Black Beast lunged forward, escape for Arthur
    and his knights seemed hopeless, when suddenly, the animator suffered a
    fatal heart attack.
ANIMATOR:  Ulk!
    thump
NARRATOR:  The cartoon peril was no more.  The quest for Holy Grail could
    continue.

 
 ____________
|            |
|  Scene 23  |
|____________|

    gurgle
GALAHAD:  There it is!
ARTHUR:  The Bridge of Death!
ROBIN:  Oh, great.
ARTHUR:  Look!  There's the old man from scene twenty-four!
BEDEVERE:  What is he doing here?
ARTHUR:  He is the keeper of the Bridge of Death.  He asks each traveller
    five questions--
GALAHAD:  Three questions.
ARTHUR:  Three questions.  He who answers the five questions--
GALAHAD:  Three questions.
ARTHUR:  Three questions may cross in safety.
ROBIN:  What if you get a question wrong?
ARTHUR:  Then you are cast into the Gorge of Eternal Peril.
ROBIN:  Oh, I won't go.
GALAHAD:  Who's going to answer the questions?
ARTHUR:  Sir Robin!
ROBIN:  Yes?
ARTHUR:  Brave Sir Robin, you go.
ROBIN:  Hey!  I've got a great idea.  Why doesn't Launcelot go?
LAUNCELOT:  Yes.  Let me go, my liege.  I will take him single-handed.  I
    shall make a feint to the north-east that s--
ARTHUR:  No, no.  No.  Hang on!  Hang on!  Hang on!  Just answer the five
    questions--
GALAHAD:  Three questions.
ARTHUR:  Three questions as best you can, and we shall watch... and pray.
LAUNCELOT:  I understand, my liege.
ARTHUR:  Good luck, brave Sir Launcelot.  God be with you.
BRIDGEKEEPER:  Stop!  Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me
    these questions three, ere the other side he see.
LAUNCELOT:  Ask me the questions, bridgekeeper.  I am not afraid.
BRIDGEKEEPER:  What... is your name?
LAUNCELOT:  My name is 'Sir Launcelot of Camelot'.
BRIDGEKEEPER:  What... is your quest?
LAUNCELOT:  To seek the Holy Grail.
BRIDGEKEEPER:  What... is your favourite colour?
LAUNCELOT:  Blue.
BRIDGEKEEPER:  Right.  Off you go.
LAUNCELOT:  Oh, thank you.  Thank you very much.
ROBIN:  That's easy!
BRIDGEKEEPER:  Stop!  Who approacheth the Bridge of Death must answer me
    these questions three, ere the other side he see.
ROBIN:  Ask me the questions, bridgekeeper.  I'm not afraid.
BRIDGEKEEPER:  What... is your name?
ROBIN:  'Sir Robin of Camelot'.
BRIDGEKEEPER:  What... is your quest?
ROBIN:  To seek the Holy Grail.
BRIDGEKEEPER:  What... is the capital of Assyria?
    pause
ROBIN:  I don't know that!  Auuuuuuuugh!
BRIDGEKEEPER:  Stop!  What... is your name?
GALAHAD:  'Sir Galahad of Camelot'.
BRIDGEKEEPER:  What... is your quest?
GALAHAD:  I seek the Grail.
BRIDGEKEEPER:  What... is your favourite colour?
GALAHAD:  Blue.  No, yel-- auuuuuuuugh!
BRIDGEKEEPER:  Hee hee heh.  Stop!  What... is your name?
ARTHUR:  It is 'Arthur', King of the Britons.
BRIDGEKEEPER:  What... is your quest?
ARTHUR:  To seek the Holy Grail.
BRIDGEKEEPER:  What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
ARTHUR:  What do you mean?  An African or European swallow?
BRIDGEKEEPER:  Huh?  I-- I don't know that.  Auuuuuuuugh!
BEDEVERE:  How do know so much about swallows?
ARTHUR:  Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
    suspenseful music
    music suddenly stops
    intermission
    suspenseful music resumes


 ____________
|            |
|  Scene 24  |
|____________|

ARTHUR:  Launcelot!  Launcelot!  Launcelot!
BEDEVERE:  Launcelot!  Launcelot!
ARTHUR:  Launcelot!
    police radio
    Launcelot!
BEDEVERE:  Launcelot!  Launcelot!
    angels sing
    singing stops
    ethereal music
ARTHUR:  The Castle Aaaagh.  Our quest is at an end!  God be praised!
    Almighty God, we thank Thee that Thou hast vouchsafed to us the most
    holy--
    twong
    baaaa
    Jesus Christ!
    thud
FRENCH GUARD:  Allo, dappy English k-niggets and Monsieur Arthur King, who
    has the brain of a duck, you know.  So, we French fellows outwit you a
    second time!
ARTHUR:  How dare you profane this place with your presence!  I command you, 
    in the name of the Knights of Camelot, to open the doors of this sacred 
    castle, to which God Himself has guided us!
FRENCH GUARD:  How you English say, 'I one more time, mac, unclog my nose in
    your direction', sons of a window-dresser!  So, you think you could out-
    clever us French folk with your silly knees-bent running about advancing
    behavior?!  I wave my private parts at your aunties, you cheesy lot of 
    second hand electric donkey-bottom biters.
ARTHUR:  In the name of the Lord, we demand entrance to this sacred castle!
FRENCH GUARD:  No chance, English bed-wetting types.  I burst my pimples at
    you and call your door-opening request a silly thing, you tiny-brained
    wipers of other people's bottoms!
ARTHUR:  If you do not open this door, we shall take this castle by force!
    splat
    In the name of God and the glory of our--
    splat
FRENCH GUARDS:  laughing
ARTHUR:  Agh.  Right!  That settles it!
FRENCH GUARD:  Yes, depart a lot at this time and cut the approaching any
    more, or we fire arrows at the tops of your heads and make castanets out
    of your testicles already!  Ha ha haaa ha!
ARTHUR:  Walk away.  Just ignore them.
FRENCH GUARD:  And now, remain gone, illegitimate-faced bugger-folk!  And,
    if you think you got a nasty taunting this time, you ain't heard nothing 
    yet, dappy English k-nnniggets!  Thpppt!
FRENCH GUARDS:  taunting
ARTHUR:  We shall attack at once!
BEDEVERE:  Yes, my liege!
ARTHUR:  Stand by for attack!
    exciting music
    music stops
    silence
    French persons!
FRENCH GUARDS:  taunting  ...Dappy!...
ARTHUR:  Today the blood of many a valiant knight shall be avenged.  In the
    name of God,...
FRENCH GUARDS:  Hoo hoo!  Ohh, ha ha ha ha ha!...
ARTHUR:  ...we shall not stop our fight till each one of you lies dead and
    the Holy Grail returns to those whom God has chosen!
FRENCH GUARDS:  ...Ha ha ha!...
ARTHUR:  Charge!
ARMY OF KNIGHTS:  Hooray!
    police siren
HISTORIAN'S WIFE:  Yes, they're the ones.  I'm sure.
INSPECTOR:  Come on.  Anybody armed must go, too.
OFFICER #1:  All right.  Come on.  Back.
HISTORIAN'S WIFE:  Get that one.
OFFICER #1:  Back.  Right away.  Just... pull it off.  Come on.  Come along.
INSPECTOR:  Put this man in the van.
OFFICER #1:  Clear off.  Come on.
BEDEVERE:  With whom?
INSPECTOR:  Which one?
OFFICER #1:  Oh-- this one.
INSPECTOR:  Come on.  Put him in the van.
OFFICER #2:  Get a blanket.
OFFICER #1:  We have no hospital.
RANDOM:  Ahh.
    squeak
RANDOM:  Ooh.
OFFICER #1:  Come on.  Back.  Riiight back.  Come on!
OFFICER #2:  Run along!  Run along!
OFFICER #1:  Pull that off.  My, that's an offensive weapon, that is.
OFFICER #2:  Come on.  Back with 'em.  Back.  Right.  Come along.
INSPECTOR:  Everything?
    squeak
OFFICER #1:  All right, sonny.  That's enough.  Just pack that in.
    crash
CAMERAMAN:  Christ!


1.Insist that you are a vegetarian and protest anytime your roommate eats meat. Then leave "Slim Jim" wrappers on the
     floor and lie on the bed holding your stomach everytime your roommate walks in. If he/she asks about the wrappers, say
     you know nothing about them. 

   2.Get some hair. Disperse it around your roommate's head while he/she is asleep. Keep a pair of scissors by your bed.
     Snicker at your roommate every morning. 

   3.Every time your roommate walks in yell, "Hooray! You're back!" as loud as you can and dance around the room for five
     minutes. Afterwards, keep looking at your watch and saying, "Shouldn't you be going somewhere?" 

   4.Trash the room when your roommate's not around. Then leave and wait for your roommate to come back. When he/she
     does, walk in and act surprised. Say, "Uh-oh, it looks like, THEY, were here again." 

   5.Every time you see your roommate yell, "You son of a..." and kick him/her in the stomach. Then buy him/her some ice
     cream. 

   6.Set your roommate's bed on fire. Apologize and explain that you've been watching too much "Beavis & Butthead." Do
     it again. Tell him/her that you're not sorry because this time, they deserved it. 

   7.Put your glasses on before you go to bed. Take them off as soon as you wake up. If your roommate asks, explain that
     they are Magic Dream Glasses. Complain that you've been having terrible nightmares. 

   8.Eat lots of "Lucky Charms." Pick out all the yellow moons and stockpile them in the closet. If your roommate inquires,
     explain that visitors are coming, but you can't say anything more, or you'll have to face the consequences. 

   9.Set up meetings with your roommate's faculty advisor. Inquire about his/her academic potential. Take lots of notes, and
     then give your roommate a full report. Insist that he/she do the same. 

  10."Drink" a raw egg for breakfast every morning. Explain that you are in training. Eat a dozen donuts every night. 

  11.Every Thursday, pack up everything you own and tell your roommate you're going home. Come back in an hour and
     explain that no one was home. Unpack everything and go to sleep. 

  12.Every time you wake up, start yelling, "Oh, my God! Where the hell am I?!" and run around the room for a few
     minutes. Then go back to bed. If your roommate asks, say you don't know what he/she is talking about. 

  13.Draw a tiny, black spot on your arm. Make it bigger every day. Look at it and say, It's spreading, it's spreading." 

  14.Buy a McDonald's "Happy Meal" for lunch every day. Eat the straw and the napkin. Throw everything else away. 

  15.Buy a plant. Sleep with it at night. Talk to it. After a few weeks, start to argue with it loudly. Then yell, "I can't live in
     the same room with you," storm out of the room and slam the door. Get rid of the plant, but keep the pot. Refuse to
     discuss the plant ever again. 

  16.Buy a Jack-In-The-Box. Every day, turn the handle until the clown pops out. Scream continuously for twenty minutes. 

  17.Hang up pictures of chickens all over the room. If your roommate eats eggs, yell at him/her and call him/her a cannibal. 

  18.Buy some knives. Sharpen them every night. While you're doing so look at your roommate and mutter, "Soon, soon...." 

  19.Lock the door while your roommate is out. When he/she comes back and tries to unlock it, yell, "Don't come in, I'm
     naked!" Keep this up for several hours. When you finally let your roommate in, immediately take off all of your clothes,
     and ignore your roommate. 

  20.Bring in potential "new" roommates from around campus. Give them tours of the room and the building. Have them ask
     about your roommate in front of him/her, and reply, "Oh, him/her? He/she won't be here much longer." 

  21.If your roommate comes home after midnight, hit him/her on the head, Ungrateful little..." 

  22.Pile dirty dishes in your roommate's bed. Insist that you don't know how they got there. 

  23.Collect hundreds of pens and pile them on one side of the room. Keep one pencil on the other side of the room. Laugh at
     the pencil. 

  24.Feign a serious illness for two weeks. Have a priest come to your room and visit you. Write out a will, leaving
     everything to your roommate. One day, miraculously "recover." Insist that your roommate write out a will, leaving
     everything to you. Every time he/she coughs, excitedly say, "Oooh, are you dying?" 

  25.Live in the hallway for a month. Afterwards, bring all of your stuff back into the room and tell your roommate, "Okay,
     your turn." 

  26.Keep a tarantula in a jar for three days. Then get rid of the tarantula. If your roommate asks, say, "Oh, he's around
     here somewhere." 

  27.Tell your roommate, "I've got an important message for you." Then pretend to faint. When you recover, say you can't
     remember what the message was. Later on, say, "Oh, yeah, I remember!" Pretend to faint again. Keep this up for
     several weeks. 

  28.Bowl inside the room. Set up tournaments with other people in the building. Award someone a trophy. If your roommate
     wants to bowl too, explain that he/she needs bowling shoes. 

  29.Walk backwards all the time. Then pretend to trip and hurt yourself. Fake an injury and go through a long, painful
     recovery. Start walking backwards again. 

  30.While your roommate is out, glue your shoes to the ceiling. When your roommate walks in, sit on the floor, hold your
     head, and moan. 

  31.Explain to your roommate that you're going to be housing a prospective student in the near future. One day, bring in a
     pig. If your roommate protests, hug the pig and tell your roommate that he/she hurt its feelings. Watch T.V with the pig,
     eating lots of bacon. 

  32.Make a sandwich. Don't eat it, leave it on the floor. Ignore the sandwich. Wait until your roommate gets rid of it, and
     then say, "Hey, where the hell is my sandwich!?" Complain loudly that you are hungry. 

  33.Punch a hole in the T.V. Sit and watch it anyway, complaining about the poor picture quality. 

  34.Wear a cape. Stand in front of an open window for about an hour every day. Then, one day, when your roommate is
     gone, go outside and lie down underneath the window, pretending to be hurt, and wait for your roommate to return. The
     next day, start standing in front of the window again. 

  35.Collect potatoes. Paint faces on them and give them names. Name one after your roommate. Separate your roommate's
     potato from the others. Wait a few days, and then bake your roommate's potato and eat it. Explain to your roommate,
     "He just didn't belong." 

  36.Fill an empty shaving cream can with whipped cream. Use it to shave, and then spray some into your mouth. Later on,
     complain that you feel sick. Continue this process for several weeks. 

  37.Cover your bed with a tent. Live inside it for a week. If your roommate asks, explain that "It's a jungle out there." Get
     your roommate to bring you food and water. 

  38.Keep a vacuum cleaner in the middle of the room. Look at it with fear for a few days. Then stay out of the room entirely,
     opening the door only a crack and whispering to your roommate, "Psst! Is it gone?" 

  39.Break the window with a rock. If your roommate protests, explain that you were hot. Open and close the broken window
     as you normally would. 

  40.Throw darts at a bare wall. All of a sudden, act excited, telling your roommate that you hit the bull's eye. 

  41.Send flowers to your roommate, with a card that says, "I'm sorry. It won't happen again." When you see them, start
     ripping up the flowers. Repeat the process for a few weeks. 

  42.Hire a night watchman to guard the room while you are sleeping. 

  43.Move everything to one side of the room. Ask your roommate if he knows how much an elephant weighs, and look at
     the floor on the empty side of the room with concern. 

  44.Practice needlepoint every night. At one point, grab your thumb and scream, "Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!" Cry
     hysterically for a few minutes, and then go to bed. Sob and sniff all night. 

  45.When your roommate comes in, pretend that you are on the phone, screaming angrily and shouting obscenities. After
     you hang up, say, "That was your mom. She said she'd call back." 

  46.Every time your roommate comes in, immediately turn off the lights and go to bed. When he/she leaves, get up and
     loudly yell, "Okay, guys, you can come out now." 

  47.Start wearing a crown, all the time. If your roommate tells you to take it off, say, "What the hell do you think you are?
     A king?" 

  48.Sit in front of a chess board for hours, saying nothing, doing nothing. Then, look up and say, "I think this game goes a
     lot faster with two players." 

  49.Talk back to your "Rice Krispies." All of a sudden, act offended, throw the bowl on the floor and kick it. Refuse to
     clean it up, explaining, "No, I want to watch them suffer." 

  50.Change the locks on the door. Don't let your roommate in unless he/she says the secret word. Change the secret word
     often. If your roommate can't guess the secret word, make him/her pay a tithe. 

  51.Scatter stuffed animals around the room. Put party hats on them. Play loud music. When your roommate walks in, turn
     off the music, take off the party hats, put away the stuffed animals, and say, "Well, it was fun while it lasted." 

  52.Hang a tire swing from the ceiling. Act like a monkey. If someone besides your roommate comes in, cease acting like a
     monkey and claim that the tire swing was your roommate's idea. When you and your roommate are alone again,
     continue acting like a monkey. 

  53.Unplug everything in the room except for one toaster. Pray to the toaster. Bring it gifts. Throw some of your
     roommate's possessions out the window. Say that the toaster made you do it. 

  54.Challenge your roommate to a duel. If he/she refuses, claim that you have won by forfeit and therefore conquered
     his/her side of the room. Insist that he/she remove all of his/her possessions immediately. 

  55.Sign your roommate up for various activities. (Campus tour guide, blood donor, organ donor). 

  56.Start dressing like an Indian. If your roommate inquires, claim that you are getting in touch with your Native-American
     roots. If your roommate accuses you of not having any Native-American roots, claim that he/she has offended your
     people and put a curse on your roommate. 

  57.Wear your shoes on the wrong feet, all the time. Constantly complain that your feet hurt. 

  58.Hit your roommate on the head with a brick. Claim that you were trying to kill a mosquito. 

  59.Steal something valuable of your roommate's. If he/she asks about it, tell him/her that you traded it for some magic
     beans. Give some beans to your roommate. 

  60.Instead of turning off the light switch, smash the light bulb with a hammer. Put a new bulb in the next day. Complain
     often about the cost of light bulbs. 

  61.Videotape yourself hammering a nail into a wall for a while, and then stopping. Play the tape in your room. Right before
     the hammering stops on the videotape, look at the screen and say, "Don't do that." 

  62.Whenever your roommate brushes his/her teeth, watch him/her do so. Take notes. Write a paper on it, and circulate it
     around campus. Of your roommate protests, say, "The people have a right to know!" 

  63.Collect potato chips that you think look like famous people. Find the one that looks like your roommate. Burn it, and
     explain, "It had to be done." 

  64.Read the phone book out loud and excitedly. ("Frank Johnson! Oh, wow! 837-9494! Holy cow!") 

  65.Shadow box several times a day. One day, walk in looking depressed. If your roommate asks what's wrong, explain that
     your shadow can't box with you anymore due to an injury. Ask your roommate if you can box with his/her shadow. 

  66.When you walk into the room, look at your roommate in disgust and yell, "Oh, you're here!" Walk away yelling and
     cursing. 

  67.Drink a cup of coffee every morning. When you finish it, gnaw on the mug for about ten minutes. Then, look at your
     roommate, immediately put the mug away, and quickly leave the room. 

  68.Paint a tunnel on the wall like they do in cartoons. Every day, hit your head as you attempt to crawl through it. Hold
     your head and grumble, "Damn road runner...." 

  69.Leave memos on your roommate's bed that say things like, "I know what you did," and "Don't think you can fool me."
     Sign them in blood. 

  70.Hold a raffle, offering your roommate as first prize. If he/she protests, tell him/her that it's all for charity. 

  71.Make cue cards for your roommate. Get them out whenever you'd like to have a conversation. 

  72.Talk like a pirate, all the time. Threaten to make your roommate walk the plank if he/she doesn't swab the deck.
     Arrrrrrrrrrrgh! 

  73.Set up about twenty plants in an organized formation. When your roommate walks in, pretend to be in the middle of
     delivering a speech to the plants. Whisper to them, "We'll continue this later," while eyeing your roommate
     suspiciously. 

  74.Buy a telescope. Sit on your bed and look across the room at your roommate through the telescope. When you're not
     using the telescope, act like your roommate is too far away for you to see. 

  75.Keep some worms in a shoebox. When doing homework, go and consult with the worms every so often. Then become
     angry, shouting at the worms that they're stupid and they don't know what they're talking about. 

  76.Watch "Psycho" every day for a month. Then act excited every time your roommate goes to take a shower. 

  77.Wear a paper hat. Every time your roommate walks in, say, "Welcome to McDonalds, can I take your... Oh, it's just
     you." Take off the hat, sit, and pout. 

  78.Go through your roommate's textbooks with a red pen, changing things and making random corrections. If your
     roommate protests, tell him/her that you just couldn't take it anymore. 

  79.Leave the room at random, knock on the door, and wait for your roommate to let you back in. If he/she asks about it, go
     on a tangent about the importance of good manners. 

  80.Carve a jack-o-lantern. Complain to your roommate that the jack-o-lantern has been staring at you. The next day, tell
     your roommate that the jack-o-lantern thinks he/she has been staring at it. Confide in your roommate that you really
     don't like the jack-o-lantern, but you can't convince it to move out. 

  81.As soon as your roommate turns the light off at night, begin singing famous operas as loud as you can. When your
     roommate turns on the light, look around and pretend to be confused. 

  82.Hang a basketball net on the wall. Challenge your refrigerator to basketball games, and loose. Confide in your
     roommate that you think the refrigerator has been taking steroids. 

  83.Drink lots of lemonade. Talk obnoxiously for hours about how much you love lemonade. Then, one day, paint your face
     yellow. From then on, complain about how much you hate lemonade. 

  84.Late at night, start conversations that begin with, "Remember the good old days, when we used to..." and make up
     stories involving you and your roommate. 

  85.Whenever your roommate sneezes, go and hide in the closet for about and hour. Look around nervously for the rest of
     the day. 

  86.Sit and stare at your roommate for hours. Bring others in to join you. Eat peanuts, throwing a few at your roommate.
     Then say, "Boy, these zoos just aren't what they used to be." 

  87.Tell your roommate that your toe hurts, and that means there's going to be an earthquake, soon. While your roommate
     is out, trash everything on his/her side of the room. When he/she returns, explain that the earthquake hit, but only on
     one side of the room. 

  88.Buy a gun. Clean it every day. One day, put a band-aid on your forehead, and refuse to discuss the gun ever again. 

  89.Buy a lobster. Pretend to play cards with it. Complain to your roommate that the lobster is making up his own rules. 

  90.Make pancakes every morning, but don't eat them. Draw faces on them, and toss them in the closet. Watch them for
     several hours each day. Complain to your roommate that your "pancake farm" isn't evolving into a self-sufficient
     community. Confide in your roommate that you think the king of the pancakes has been taking bribes. 

  91.While you are ironing, pretend to burn yourself. Start a garbage can fire in the middle of the room. Toss the iron inside.
     If your roommate objects, explain that you are just trying to get even. 

  92.Buy some turtles. Paint numbers on their backs. Race them down the hall. 

  93.Create an army of animal crackers. Put them through basic training. Set up little checkpoints around the room. Tell your
     roommate that the camel spotted him/her in a restricted area and said not to do it again. Ask your roommate to
     apologize to the camel. 

  94.Put out a plate of cookies at night. Tell your roommate that they're for the Sandman. Take a bite out of one of the
     cookies while your roommate is asleep. The next morning, accuse your roommate of having bitten one of the cookies. If
     he/she tries to tell you the Sandman did it, insist that you know what the Sandman's teeth marks look like and that those
     are, in fact, not the Sandman's teeth marks. Grumble angrily and storm out of the room. 

Dear Sir: 

I am writing in response to your request for additional information in Block #3 of the accident reporting form. I put "Poor
Planning" as the cause of my accident. You asked for a fuller explanation and I trust the following details will be sufficient. 

I am a bricklayer by trade. On the day of the accident, I was working alone on the roof of a new six-story building. When I
completed my work, I found I had some bricks left over which when weighed later were found to weigh 240 lbs. Rather than
carry the bricks down by hand, I decided to lower them in a barrel by using a pulley which was attached to the side of the
building at the sixth floor. 

Securing the rope at ground level, I went up to the roof, swung the barrel out and loaded the bricks into it. Then I went down
and untied the rope, holding it tightly to insure a slow descent of the 240 lbs of bricks. You will note on the accident reporting
form that my weight is 135 lbs. 

Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope.
Needless to say, I proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the building. 

In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel which was now proceeding downward at an equally impressive speed. This
explains the fractured skull, minor abrasions and the broken collarbone, as listed in Section 3 of the accident reporting form. 

Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into
the pulley which I mentioned in Paragraph 2 of this correspondence. Fortunately by this time I had regained my presence of
mind and was able to hold tightly to the rope, in spite of the excruciating pain I was now beginning to experience. 

At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks hit the ground, and the bottom fell out of the barrel. Now
devoid of the weight of the bricks, the barrel weighed approximately 50 lbs. I refer you again to my weight. 

As you might imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel
coming up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles, broken tooth and severe lacerations of my legs and lower body. 

Here my luck began to change slightly. The encounter with the barrel seemed to slow me enough to lessen my injuries when I
fell into the pile of bricks and fortunately only three vertebrae were cracked. 

I am sorry to report, however, as I lay there on the pile of bricks, in pain, unable to move and watching the empty barrel six
stories above me, I again lost my composure and presence of mind and let go of the rope.





As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research help from that renowned scientific journal SPY magazine (January
1990), I am pleased to present the annual scientific inquiry into Santa Claus. 

1) No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these
are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer--which only Santa has ever seen. 

2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. but since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and
Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total--378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average
(census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each. 

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to
west (which would seem logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good
children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining
presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next
house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but
for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles,
not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding, etc. 

This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second--3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest
man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second--a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15
miles per hour. 

4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2
pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer
can pull no more that 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull ten times the normal amount, we cannot do
the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,000 reindeer. This increases the payload--not even counting the weight of the sleigh-- to
353,430 tons. Again, for comparison, this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth. (The ship--not the monarch...) 

5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance--this will heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as
spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second.
Each. In short, they will burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and creating deafening sonic booms in
their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to
centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of
his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force. 

And I'll bet you guys thought being Santa Claus was a piece of cake.  




