After my post about the TSA's concern over Peter Mayhew's simulated fictional weaponry ("TSA Questions Chewbacca's Lightsaber," June 10), I heard from Patrick Smith, a professional pilot and author of (among other things) the long-running column Ask the Pilot at Salon.com…
Not for slapping his attorney's butt, after slapping it, in sort of an NFL-style congratulatory buttslap for having just gotten him a deal that would have resulted in no jail time. Doing this in view of the judge and spectators turns out to…
Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca, is almost 7' 3" tall, and because of his size (and possibly his age) he has some trouble getting around. He walks with a cane (it's designed to look like a "lightsaber") and…
From the police blotter for Orange County, CA (Laguna Niguel): A caller reported that his neighbor was screaming in his backyard about how Steve Martin can’t play the banjo. The incident occurred at 12:59 a.m. in the 28800 block of…
Here's the problem with trying to maintain a comprehensive list of the dumb things legislatures do: they keep doing them. It was just a few days ago that I posted "Official State Crap: Connecticut," the most recent in the remarkably…
You know those shoes they make you rent when you go bowling? The special shoes that are so ugly that people won’t steal them and so slippery that they won’t hamper your bowling? But are also so slippery that they…
Present but not voting Of course, no reference to Jeremy Bentham would be complete without mentioning that his badly preserved corpse is still on display at University College, London. Bentham did not attend UCL but became affiliated with it in…
I haven't always been that kind to Justice Scalia (or to Justice Scalia's hats), but I do think he's a very good writer, and so I'm glad to be able to quote him saying something I agree with. If you…
Official state tree: the white oak (Quercus alba). Official state mineral: garnet, which is highly abrasive. Official state insect: the praying mantis (Mantis religiosa) (a scientific name I did not make up). Official state bird: the American robin (Turdus migratorius) (same…
Now here's a guy I can sympathize with. It's bad enough when a sign is misspelled. It's much worse when the misspelled sign is the sign for my state's Teacher Standards and Practices Commission, for God's sake, which gives out…