Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has issued a 54-page listing of hundreds of pork projects he's identified in the recently enacted omnibus spending bill. As Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-SC) has said, "When the budget is passed, you'll find old Hollings gettin' his share." That's part of his campaign stand. [Robert L. Park, WHAT'S NEW, 30Oct98.]

Another example of US government in action was the recent extension of wiretapping authority to include "roving" taps. In other words, the FBI can tap your home or business phone if they believe you will be visited by someone for whom they have tapping authority, without getting a separate judicial warrant. The measure was not debated in Congress -- and had been previously rejected -- but was added in joint committee to an unrelated bill. Congress is not permitted floor discussion of such bills, and can only vote to pass or not pass them. Members really had no information about the unexpected provision.

(The provision can be repealed, of course. The law is a bubbling stew -- which makes it hard to track voting records, because there are so many reasons one might support or vote against a particular bill. That's why political analysts are needed, until we get much better AI systems.)

You can check out candidate's positions, voting records, or watchdog analyses on dozens of issues (if the servers aren't overloaded) at . After navigating to individual candidates or races, look for candidates' answers to the NPAT questionnaire. If you don't know which districts and races are relevant, the website will look it up from your ZIP code. [David L. Haase, SJM, 01Nov98, 4F.] (This is particularly helpful if you're a one-issue voter, as on abortion, gun control, educational policy, health care, foreign policy, etc.)

Other unbiased election sites include Web White & Blue and Policy.com . Partisan sites with "brochureware" are also available. [IBD, 30Oct98. Edupage.]

MineSet is Silicon Graphics flagship product for data mining and visualization. See for details, or for a review from Data Management Strategies. MineSet is part of SGI's varsity program, which makes it available for universities via . MLC++, the algorithmic basis for MineSet, is free for research purposes, from . Send questions to . To subscribe to the MineSet announcement/discussion list, send a "subscribe mineset_list your@address" message to . [Ronny Kohavi , dbworld, 14Jan98.]

Fuzzy tools for data clustering analysis and data mining include Siemens SieFuzzy and SENN ; NASA's AutoClass, ; Management Intelligenter Technologien's DataEngine and WINROSA, or from Heike Mohmeyer ; and TransferTech's Cluster Analysis Manager (CAM) and Fuzzy Control Manager (FCM), . [Ljiljana Trajkovic et al., comp.ai.fuzzy, 17Nov97.]

The fuzzyTECH site at has notes on consumer products designed using neural-fuzzy techniques. There's also a downloadable fuzzyTECH Demo with a NeuroFuzzy add-on module to convert sample data into fuzzy logic rules. [Constantin von Altrock , comp.ai.fuzzy, 16Nov97.]

Boston U. (MA): prof in neural systems, NN, pattern recognition, speech.

NEC Research Institute (Princeton. NJ): scientist/RA in IR, ML.

Rutgers U. (New Brunswick, NJ): assistant profs in IS, IR, HCI, digital libraries.

Herndon, VA: MS/PhD researcher in agents, AI.

Oakland U. (Rochester, MI): CS&E chair.

UCI (Irvine, CA): prof in neural computation.

UEast Anglia (Redditch, UK): two RAs in data mining, AI, OR, evolutionary optimization.

UBradford (UK): PhD RA/fellow in AI, path planning, animation, and goal inference from actions for virtual entertainment environments.

UDublin (Ireland): lecturer in computational linguistics, NLP, AI. [06Nov98 deadline.]

4> Entrepreneurship: [Jason Westmacott.]

ExpertBIZ is a free bimonthly ezine for consultants, tutors, self-publishers, and others seeking to profit from their own expertise. Visit or send a message to . [Carole Lipski , NEW-LIST, 26Jul98.]

Consulting for Consultants is an email newsletter providing tips, tricks, trends, and articles for consultants, trainers, lecturers, etc. Visit or send a "subscribe" subject line to . [NEW-LIST, 05Aug98.]

At-Home Entrepreneur is a daily ezine for home-based entrepreneurs: marketing, generating profit, creating web sites, classifieds, etc. Send a "subscribe" subject line to . [Monique Harris , NEW-LIST, 04Mar98.]

SOHO-Spider is a weekly email update with sites of interest to owners of small or home-based business. Send a "subscribe soho-spider" message to . [Scott Temaat , NEW-LIST, 04Mar98.]

The Venture Capital Resource Library has a business planning template, a directory of venture capital firms, financial news online, etc. . [16Oct98.]

The Fast Growth Newsletter is a weekly publication of tips for building fast-growth companies. Send a "subscribe FastGrowthNewsletter" subject line to . [Brett Thomas , NEW-LIST, 24Apr98.]

5> Business services: [Jason Westmacott and Louis Bookbinder.]

Bottom Line, from CPA Michael Gray, is a free monthly newsletter of tax and business advice. . Send a "subscribe your name" message to . [Michael C. Gray , NEW-LIST, 13Jun98.]

The Business Resource Library is a free listing of groups that offer help on taxes, marketing, women in business, home-based issues, etc. . [, net-hap, 26May98.]

M3 Ebusiness Forum is a free weekly email newsletter of e-business news and issues. Visit or send a "subscribe marketing-digest" message to . [Murray Robinson , net-hap, 15Jul98.]

ProfitNews is a free biweekly ezine featuring business ideas, Internet marketing information, business support services, and classified ads. Send a blank message to for a sample, or a "SubscribePN" subject line to . [, NEW-LIST, 01Apr98.]

The Non-Profit Internet Resources page includes ways to promote and fund your nonprofit organization. (Internet Resources/Global Communications & Community Networking). [John Walker , CSS Internet News, 31Dec97. net-hap.]

"Bay Area First!" provides resources for doing business in the S.F. Bay Area. It includes breaking news, statistics on all nine counties, a business resources directory, and discussion groups. . [, net-hap, 27May98.]

-- Ken