(This was sent to all-ai much earlier in the day, but hasn't come
through yet; apologies for the duplicate you'll doubtless get sometime
next week.  See if you can catch the editing differences between the
two versions!)

The hippies figured it out in the eighties.  

For years, these long-haired eco-freaks had been lobbying the
government, picketing corporations, and occasionally ramming big metal
stakes into trees to protect them from loggers, dooming them instead
to slow death by rust poisoning.

But finally, in the Me decade, they really figured it out.  As their
stock portfolios matured, they discovered that they no longer needed
to turn to others for help.  They could best benefit the
environment... by buying it.  Here in the 90s, huge tracts of land
have been swept up by eco-freak hippies such as Ted "Jane's Husband"
Turner, and the tide shows no sign of turning.  

We can learn from this.

For years, we here at the AI lab have been aiding the Girl Scouts in
their eternal struggle to stay afloat; the bottle-caps, nickels,
dimes, and occasional dollar bills have together saved many a Girl
Scout from being logged.

But we stand now at the dawn of a new era.  With the recent boom in
Internet industries, and in particular the incredible success of the
IPO of our sister lab's child, Akamai, we can now eliminate the piddly
cash.  We can save the Girl Scouts all at once, and forever.  My
friends, now we can perform the ultimate act of charity.

Now we can buy the Girl Scouts.
Lock, stock, and barrel.

Of course, with ownership comes responsibility; we must manage this
natural resource once we have acquired it, and this leads to difficult
questions.  For instance:

- who will manage the Girl Scout portfolio?
- are cookies really an efficient use of Girl Scout labor, or could
  we improve the profit margin by having them sell vacuum cleaners?
- how will Girl Scouts be distributed to stockholders?

Come figure out the answer to these and other thorny questions as we
contemplate our brave new vision -- a world of Girl Scouts without
need -- at this week's

************** G I R L    S C O U T   B E N E F I T **************
**************  5:30pm, in the 7th floor playroom   **************