#40 I suspect that this comes from the era when there was a festival of "what if" thinking just after 9/11/01, remember how there was tremendous concern when trucks went missing (esp. gas/oil trucks) because terrorists could crash them into pre-schools... Think of the children! It became a form of national pastime for a while.

In the case of laptops I distinctly remember airport security being overly paranoid even before 9/11. In the late '90s I remember seeing people be asked to boot them up before getting through security just to be sure they weren't disguised bombs.

Oh give the TSA a break. Who among us has NOT seen a child with chronic health problems and feared that they might slaughter us all with their sterilized plastic tubes?

Hmm... Slow news day today? I wonder how many times this has happened out in the real world and not gone reported. A wild and educated guess would give you 200,000 times over the course of 20 years...

Ah, but how many of the aforementioned events result in awesome photos of dumbasses inches away from the jaws of death? It's the image that makes it a good story, not the incident.

Crocs consider pointing to be very rude. Just ask Captain Hook.

I read that excellent article last week. Don't forget, "terrorists" like these are the reason you can't bring a bottle of shampoo in your carry-on luggage anymore.

He was messing with drugdealers. You wanna see how many homeless are dealers as opposed to drug USERS? 1:1,000,000
If they're making dealer money, they probably aren't homeless.

By this account he was messing with both, or the term "vagrants" wouldn't have been included. That wasn't the focus of the story but it's what is known in journalism as a "buried lede" (I didn't make up that spelling).

Kind of like governments justify new law enforcement powers as "anti-terrorism" even if they usually use them for other purposes.

Remind me- who even decided that laptops were likely places for terrorists to conceal explosives in the first place? Was this back in the '80s when laptops were 45-pound monoliths and had enough interior volume to stash a few kilos of cocaine?

Only in America is it considered taboo to support your own country. No... the people of new guinea definitely need to be represented.

Visit Disneyland some time. The very first thing you will see when you walk in the front of the park is a corridor called "Main Street U.S.A." lined with patriotic flags. If you turn to the right you'll find an exhibit called "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln."

The magic kingdom hardly needs to butcher one of its classic attractions to show support for its country.

somebody should build their own robot and (unannounced to the bar owner) challenge him to an impromptu match of Robot Wars!

Now that could be a fun idea. I'm thinking someone could build a remote-controlled version of one of those vending machines they have at medical marijuana dispensaries, just to put the drug dealers back on equal footing.

Finally, screw you little whitebread suburbanite twits and your compassion for the homeless, the pushers and all of society's scum. You don't even know who it is you're trying to defend; you're standing up for a caricature, because you're too sheltered to know what real homeless people, drug dealers, hookers and so on are like.

Don't profess to know my life just because I disagree with you. I happen to live and work in the Bay Area, which has one of the biggest homeless populations in the country. Do I often find some of them to be an annoyance? Absolutely- but that doesn't mean I turn a hose on them. Hell, sometimes I'll even buy them lunch.

Uh... I believe it said "drug dealers, vagrants and others who shouldn't be there". Nothing about homeless. Let's try to stay on track here.

From Wikipedia:

"A vagrant is a person, usually poor, who wanders from place to place without a home or regular work. Urban vagrants are commonly called 'street people'."

If I recall correctly this was the basis for John Rambo's arrest in "First Blood."

#21: I work in SF and also deal with the homeless every day. But if I was cold-hearted enough to turn a hose on them I would do it myself, not send my mechanical henchman after them.

Not sure how effective this is but I admire the ingenuity behind it.

Does something really count as "ingenious" if it's ineffective?

Anybody else bothered by the idea of a mechanical centurion that turns a water hose on the homeless?

Destroying the rainforest for the benefit of American interests? Sounds like an accurate depiction of the planet to me.

Imagine what this thing would seem like to a remote tribe like the Kalahari bushmen in "The Gods Must Be Crazy."

Yoko has probably attracted more unwarranted criticism than any other artist of her generation. It's understandable that people wanted a scapegoat for the Beatles breaking up, but that's just unfair.

I'm personally not big on her work, but she's always taken the criticism in stride. Overall a classy lady.

Let's not be too hasty to judge until all the facts are in. For example, maybe the woman was also non-white.

For me, this story reminded me of the scene in "Beetlejuice" when Geena Davis tries to scare off the new buyers by posing as a dead corpse in the closet.

In many senses the terms people used to refer to race back then were better, or at least less confusing, than the ones we use today. For example:

• "African American" refers to nationality, not race.
• From an objective standpoint "black" would seem to be a more degrading term for brown-skinned people than "negroid."
• The term "Latino" refers to language, not race. Same deal with "Hispanic."
• "White" is just as inaccurate and simplistic as "black."

Granted, the politics of racial nomenclature are a very sticky subject. That's why I try to just call people whatever they want to be called.

Unless they sold him that ticket on credit, I don't see how getting busted for a drug sale AFTER the purchase proves where he got the money to pay for it.

Dumb and pointless. If all the humans are already dead, who CARES if the system can launch a counterstrike?

Good rule of thumb: Don't join any new cults started by guys named "Jones." It might be fun and games now, but you know sooner or later the leaders are going to freak out and order their flock to fall on their lightsabers.

#8: You seem typical of Christo-bashers everywhere, whose main complaint always goes back to bitching about paying for public art even after being informed that he finances his own projects.

If money was really the reason people got so worked up about this stuff they would find something more substantial to complain about than public arts funding. Ever look at what percentage of the Federal Discretionary Budget is spent on the NEA? It would probably pay for about two seconds of our operations in Iraq.

The article mentions that the octopus has figured out how to open the little door in the back to get food out of Mr. Potato Head's butt. So it appears that:

1. Aquarium staff packed a toy with crab meat.
2. They gave said toy to an octopus.
3. They acted all surprised when it didn't want to give the toy back.

I'm often impressed by the intelligence of octopi, but this story isn't really that indicative of their playfulness as it is of their appetite. It's more like a dog with a bone than a monkey with a doll.

I'm pretty sure this is one of those new technologies they said was right around the corner when I was learning to drive back in the early nineties.

I also remember seeing a rather amusing video of a car that could swivel its rear on a hydraulic fifth wheel for people who couldn't be bothered to learn how to parallel park.

I understand that ten years of dealing with kooks of all stripes must have been very draining, but I'll still be sad to see the prize go. I think it was arguably the JREF's biggest contribution to the arsenal of rationalists.

Perhaps another organization such as the CSICOP will take up the reigns with a similar challenge.

Speaking of that sandwich- has anyone come up with an electric griddle that can burn the deity of your choice onto a sandwich yet?

Funny, to me it looks more like a Ring Wraith.

Legally the MPAA has no power to restrict speech. But in practice they control so many of the distribution systems that they can decide what will or won't be seen by the majority of the American public.

It's like having all the disadvantages of a bureaucratic government censor but without any kind of democratic appeals process.

What would the legal ramifications be if someone refused to pull over, resulting in a low-speed police chase? If a cop saw something illegal in the car of a "good" driver, would such a find be supported by the law or fall under unwarranted search and seizure? Doesn't rewarding good drivers discriminate against citizens that don't own cars?

This may end up creating some interesting work for the ACLU, methinks.

Twinkies used to contain banana filling. Now you could fill a banana with icky yellow cake and make an inside-out version.

It beats the original plan to post giant billboards alerting drivers who accidentally left their keys inside.

Let me know how the revolution turns out. As for me, I'm reminded that it's almost time to renew my membership to the ACLU.

I'd rather at least give peaceful opposition a CHANCE to run its course before taking up arms. But I suppose there are those that would rather face off against guns than lawyers, so who is to say which is really more humane...

"Unlike Sudan, we in America have no laws against blasphemy. However, I am certain that this woman would face at least as hard of a time in the US if she named a teddy bear Jesus."

Aside from the fact that it is unlikely a teacher would face actual jail time or deportation (let alone risk a lashing) for such an act in the U.S., it's really not a fair comparison. "Mohammed" is the most common first name in the world, whereas almost nobody outside of Latin America is named "Jesus." It's easy to see how a non-Muslim could make such a cultural blunder.

All those years on the lam seem to have taken their toll on the poor woman.

No interview would be complete without asking him about his early career experience directing that super-cheesy '80s cartoon "Turbo Teen." You know, the one where the kid turned into a sports car when he got hot and turned back when he was cold?

I wonder if the clerk asked if he wanted that as 50,000 twenties or 4,000,000 quarters.