And another thing …

The U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century is a 14-member panel that includes former Sens. Warren Rudman and Gary Hart, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, along with other diplomatic, military, academic, media and business leaders. Its charge is to assess America’s safety in the post-Cold War new millennium. Its preliminary report was released Wednesday and its primary finding is that the future holds dangers ranging from “mass disruption by attacks on information systems to mass destruction from weapons in the hands of terrorists … Americans will beome increasingly vulnerable to hostile atack on our homeland, the casualties and carnage will not be like a video game.” Otherwise, things are looking pretty good.

Special Counsel Kenneth Starr said in a speech the other day he really should have had someone else handle the investigation into President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky; he now realizes that expanding his original Whitewater inquiry into unrelated areas created the impression of a witch hunt. Besides, he just can’t get that thong out of his mind.

Canadians have other things to worry about. Like, for instance, why Maine believes they don’t have computers. It seems the Maine Turnpike Authority thanked some of Maine’s summer guests recently by handing out computer mouse pads — 20,000 of them — to tourists as they left the state, but the MTA thanked only the south-going traffic through York. Vacationers going north got — well, they got the pleasure of knowing that southbound travelers are the more valued. And we thought Maine took Canadians at par.

By now most people have heard of Wonderlic Inc., even if they don’t know the name. Wonderlic makes the intelligence test that the New London, Conn., Police Department used to exclude a candidate who scored too high. The department concluded that a smart person would soon grow bored with the routine of police work and move on to a more interesting job. Nick Checker, a local playwright in New London, responded in the New York Times, “I’d rather have them hire the right man or woman for the job and keep replacing them than have the same moron there for 20 years.” Mr. Checker just tested out of a job at the New London Police Department.