October 8, 2000

2:32 PM

In the NY debate between Clinton and Lazio a reporter asked them about House bill 602p. An evil bill this one, purporedtly letting the US Postal Service tax email!
posted by capt.crackpipe (10 comments total)

To her credit, Hillary's instinctive response was, "I don't know." Lazio, who is a member of the house, and should know more about house resolutions seemed clueless and went on with his speech how he will oppose this bill.

Kramer is an investigative reporter in NYC. I hope she planned on asking this as a trick question. Otherwise I am very afraid of the state of New York press.
posted by tamim at 3:46 PM on October 8, 2000

The Washington Post coverage of the question included a statement from KCBS that said it was a viewer question submitted by e-mail. What a great excuse.
posted by tomalak at 4:03 PM on October 8, 2000

Mainstream NY press (that includes the VV) is just terribly boring and superficial. They all follow majority opinion. NY1? POS. Come to think of it I’m having a hard time thinking of any mainstream news outlet that is consistently bold and worthwhile. I know lots of magazines and newspapers do lots of good things. It just seems so few and far between.
posted by capt.crackpipe at 4:49 PM on October 8, 2000

Wasn't the number itself enough of a warning sign that this was bogus? Senate bills have numbers starting with S., bills in the House start with H.R. I haven't cracked a civics textbook in over a decase, and I know this crap. I can't believe that the urban legend hasn't evolved into a more virulent strain about bill "S. 602" or "H.R. 602".
posted by harmful at 5:30 PM on October 8, 2000

What? So the twenty bucks a month I've been paying the postman...
posted by skallas at 5:44 PM on October 8, 2000

Damn! Harmful beat me to it! grumble grumble


posted by Mick at 9:08 PM on October 8, 2000

Now that I've actually read the article, I see that they mentioned the matter of bill numbering. Just the same, last time I heard the 602P story (my dad has learned to check with me on questionable tech news), I checked Thomas just to be sure. For those who aren't familiar with it, Thomas is the Library of Congress's web-based database of legislative info; you can look up bills pending before either house, or get all kinds of useful information.
posted by harmful at 7:15 AM on October 9, 2000

Don't worry everyone: I have emailed every single person in my Outlook Express address book, including all my co-workers and even people who I don't know all that well, to let them know about this new and terrible tax. Please do the same! Because the next thing you know, they'll be taxing modems!
posted by tranquileye at 8:09 AM on October 9, 2000

I guess "Thomas" is pals with "EDGAR".

I know who Thomas was. Who the hell is/was Edgar? (Probably an acronym...)

[EDGAR is the online database of SEC filings for all companies in the US which are publicly traded on any official stock exchange.]
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:45 AM on October 9, 2000

I've always wondered whether someone would ever turn up some state legislature or hell, a German bunde that has a "Congressman Tony Schnell" in it that USES the xxxP convention.

Yep, it's right next to the GOOD TIMES virus factory ...
posted by dhartung at 8:24 AM on October 10, 2000