Alert: Computer trash could byte our butts By Tom Brooker News-Chronicle Oh, sure. Now you're complaining that there's not ENOUGH rain. Wasn't it less than two months ago when you moaned about your back yard being turned into a sports fishery? Wasn't it just scant weeks ago you whined about every raindrop turning into a mosquito? It was, wasn't it? And STILL you're not happy. What? Are you hoping that we'll get torrential showers just in time for your vacation up north? Huh? Is THAT what you want? Are you praying that the long-awaited family picnic will find you all huddled together, drenched under some park pavilion with a mess of the kids who didn't want to attend in the first place, all saying, "I told you this would suck," and you can't cook the brats because the charcoal is too damp, and in-laws you never liked in the first place are getting loaded on you precious Leinies, each one an expert on how to get that grill roaring, and each one not the least bit reluctant to stand over your shoulder and instruct you every infuriating moment? Yeah, Right. Go ahead: Pray for rain. Wisconsinites ... Jeesh! Well, I have bigger brats to fry right here in my own cookery provided by the gracious hospitality of This Week Magazine. It's time I stopped listening to your quibbling about the Weather Gods and get down to business at hand. ... Jenny P. of Grand Chute gets us out of the gate: "I can't help but notice all the old computer stuff people are putting out on the curb, and it seems to me there's more and more of it every week. Can't this stuff be salvaged, maybe collected and donated to a Third World country in desperate need of computers? Does this all have to be just dumped in a landfill? Isn't this waste almost criminal?" Answer: I hate to break this to you, Jenny, but it IS headed to a quasi-Third World entity - and it is criminal. You're just not connecting the dots. Next time you're making the rounds, snooping into every neighbor's garbage (hey, it's OK; we ALL do it), I want you to pay very close attention to the condition that heap of old Dells and HPs are in the night before collection. Then look at them the next morning, right before the city dutifully comes around to turn your Gateway into scrap. The pile looks different, doesn't it? You bet your bobby socks it does, and that's because SOMEBODY has sifted through it and disemboweled it of all its goodies. SOMEBODY took all those RAM chips. SOMEBODY snatched all those circuit boards. SOMEBODY pirated all those keyboards, even though the space bars don't work and some have an old Chicklet where the Q key used to be. Who do you think that "somebody" is, Jenny? You'd like to think it's the neighborhood nerd-child who's grown bored with conquering the Legend of Zelda XXIII for the hundredth time, wouldn't you? Well, YOU"D BE WRONG! I'll tell you who's pilfering all those computer parts, Jenny: TERRORISTS! That's right, and the 9-11 commission's report took special note of this (as well it should!), but it was censored by the CIA, and only a few of us journalists with the right connections (ahem, that would be ME) know about it. So, the next time you're thinking about junking that old 386 and making Billy Gates a tad richer by buying the newest Pentium Bazillion, think about this: Will that Chicklet Q be the very key needed to send a message worldwide to Taliban refugees that they have the go-ahead to doctor all the Rocky Road ice cream headed for worldwide distribution to 31 Flavors? Will your old Pong machine be converted by the Hezbollah into the electronic guts necessary to jam the computers of Israel's financial institutions and plunge us into World War III? Will your old motherboard soon power part of the telecommunication system that allows Osama bin Laden to watch reruns of "Three's Company" in some mountain-cave hideout in Pakistan, thus giving him the inspiration necessary to carry on? The message is simple: DON'T throw out your old computer! That's the three ounces of prevention ALL of us Americans need to exert, Jenny. However, lest you worry about this too greatly, I need to assure you our government is aware of this ticking time bomb and taking action. Just last week, while inspecting a perfectly good (though somewhat contorted) fiberboard entertainment center some spendthrift had put out for collection next to a pile of discarded ColecoVision gaming stations, I was startled by the approach of one of Green Bay's steel scavengers. I hid behind some bushes, watching to my amazement while not one, but TWO men exited the garbage truck to collect the trash. Being a journalist, I immediately noted that the guy in the tweed sports jacket and sunglasses seemed strangely out of place, yet vaguely familiar. Then it struck me: TOM RIDGE! That's right, Jenny. This computer "trash" issue is being dealt with at the highest lever, and let me tell you, I slept a lot better that night because of it. And I'll tell you something else: John Kerry would NOT allow the secretary of Homeland Security to ride shotgun on garbage trucks! I'm not joshing. He said that to a crowd of Democratic pinko pacifists in a speech just last week in Pocatello, Idaho. There's only one man who's ready to stand up and protect America's trash, and we all know who that is. Tom Brooker is a recovering journalist masquerading as the editor of the Green Bay News-Chronicle. You can ask his anything through e-mail at [email protected] or through regular mail, P.O. Box 2467, Breen Bay, WI, 54306-2467.