RANCHO SANTA FE, Calif. (Reuter) - The bodies of 39 men and women, cloaked
in purple shrouds, were found in a million-dollar California mansion in
what police on Thursday said appeared to be a mass suicide.<p>
Cmdr. Alan Fulmer of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department told an
early-morning news conference the cause of death was directly attributable
to the cultists use of Microsoft Corporation's popular web-browsing
software Internet Explorer.<p>
The religious group designed computer web pages that were "best viewed with
Internet Explorer 3.0"<p>
Fulmer said that "when they discovered that Internet Explorer was not going
to fully support Java, they had no choice but to kill themselves." He
continued "only the seriously disturbed or religiously fanatic would
design web sites for Internet Explorer". An unidentified officer added
"they should have been using Netscape like all sane people do."<p>
Police said there was no sign the deaths were related to Saturday's
incident in Quebec when five members of a doomsday cult called the Solar
Temple died in a blazing house in an apparent ritual suicide pact.<p>
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<font size="3"><B>Got any stuff for us? <a href="mailto:julian_patterson@vnu.co.uk">Send it</a> to us and if it's remotely funny or about computers or both we'll put it up.</B></font></FONT>