I just tried #2, or my interpretation of #2 and it didn't work... here is the code I used:

#!/usr/bin/perl

print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "here we go again...";

        if (eval "require LWP::UserAgent; use HTTP::Request::Common; 1
+;") {
                my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
                my %post;
                my $content = $ua->request(POST "http://www.cnn.com", 
+[%post])->as_string;
                print $content;
        } else {
                print "didnt work";
        }
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And here is the error I got:

./networktest.pl
String found where operator expected at ./networktest.pl line 10, near
+ "POST "http://www.cnn.com""
        (Do you need to predeclare POST?)
syntax error at ./networktest.pl line 10, near "POST "http://www.cnn.c
+om""
Execution of ./networktest.pl aborted due to compilation errors.
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