Contents -- Introduction -- The Crazy Years: A Mission Statement -- Information Overload -- Braindrain Wave -- Says Who? -- The Mahooha Filter -- A Tale of Two Charlies -- And Now the News . . . -- Substance Abuse -- Bean Counting -- Reflections of a Recovering Nicotinic -- Mugging the Poor for Their Own Good -- Big Nanny's New Clothes -- Terminal Improvement -- Where There's No Smoke . . . -- Imagination Has Its Downside -- Science in Fishnet Stockings -- Buzzed High Zonked Stoned Wasted -- Flinging Phlegm at the Flim Flam in Flin Flon -- O Canada -- Citizen Keen -- Thanks for All the Fish -- Phone-y Manners -- Night of the Impolite Canadian -- Pull Up a Soapbox -- Hail on the Chief -- There Are No Good Bushwhackers -- The Opposite of a Great Lie -- Free Speech Is Worth Paying For -- I Want a Really Interactive Newspaper -- Lead Us Not Into Temptation -- The Process -- Qui Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? -- Declarative Sentients -- Present Imperative, or Social Mahooha -- Burning the Sambuca -- The Fall-Guy Shortage -- Seduction of the Innocent -- You Never Forget the First Time -- Lay Off the Lady -- School Will Be Ending, Next Month -- What Is It With Bankers? -- "More than enough is-a too much . . ." -- Please Don't Talk About Him 'Til He's Gone -- A God Too Old to Change, or Pope Sinks Hope -- You Just Can't Kill for Jesus/Allah/Jahweh/Rama/Elvis. . . . -- Biting the Hand That Leads Us -- Whatever -- Environmental Floss -- Loathe Yourself, Fine-But Leave Me Out of It. -- Some Cats Know -- Voluntary Poverty Threatens Real Poor People -- Ain't That a Shame -- Extreme Forms of Argument -- Mass Destruction Isn't Rocket Science -- What Does It Mean to be Human? -- The Only Thing We Have to Fear -- Strapped for Takeoff -- The Beam Up Mine Own -- "It claims to be fully automatic-but actually, you have to push this little button, here . . .".

"His bow-tie is really a camera . . . ," or The Future Is Not Listening -- Sting of the Cyber Trifles, or How I spent my winter worktime -- Compared to What? -- Don't Go Toward the Light . . . -- Off the Road -- Got to Admit It's Gotten Better -- The New Idiot Box -- Be Less Than You Can Be, or The most important component is the off switch -- Give It Another Kick, David- -- Cyberspace Cadets -- About as Reliable as a Computer . . . . -- Nuking Themselves in the Foot or, Look out, tech's press! -- Devil's Advocate -- "Fool, fool, back to the beginning is the rule-" -- Character Defects -- Space -- Headline -- "…still I persist in wondering" -- The Day It Hailed Columbia -- The Virgin Next Door Is Wet -- Starsong on My Desktop -- If You Can Fry an Egg in Space, Hilton Wants to Talk to You -- Senator Socksdryer and the Two Million Dollar Boondoggle -- Nostalgia for Tomorrow -- 2001, by God!, or Looking back at the future -- The Future Ain't What It Used to Be -- Futures We Never Dreamed -- Evil's Rootkiller, or Brother, can you spare a paradigm? -- Plus ça Change -- Intellectual Property -- St. George, We Need You Now! -- "The worm on the skyhook" -- They Don't Make Unreality Like They Used To -- Recutting the Crown Jewels -- The Anarchists Who Couldn't Shoot Straight, or Please don't shoot the guitar player -- If You Take It . . . We Can't Leave It -- Silver Lining -- Valmiki's Third Reality -- The Ones with a Zero on the End -- Precious Are the Eggs of the Sturgeon -- Thanks for the Music -- Farewell to Nova Scotia -- Why Pamela Wallin Is Dangerous -- Lagniappe -- What's All This Brouhaha? Ha Ha . . . -- The Yoomins of Sol III -- Yoomins Reconsidered -- Afterword.