California has had a fruit ban for 70 years or so. Any country with a significant agricultural industry wants to control bringing pests in. California sprayed for med-flies for years because somebody brought them into the country -- perhaps on a coconut. This has nothing to do with terrorism, but just good, common, environmental sense. I don't know whether Canada takes steps to protect its agriculture, but Australia is notoriously ferocious and fines people hundreds of dollars if they bring an orange into the country.

They would sell a lot fewer bikinis if they used Bea Arthur as a model.

Service isn't that great from the airlines, but the level of service is about the norm from American businesses and government agencies today.

I got a letter from my state instructing me to have my car inspected. I drove to the state inspection facility and was asked by the employee if I had an appointment. No, I didn't know I needed one. Well, he said, you are in luck. If you had an appointment, the wait would be three hours. Since you don't, you can go home.

I tried to sell some stock through Merrill Lynch. Pretty big outfit, you would think they would have good service. No. You have to fight your way through voice mailboxes, secure websites, and various other forms of torture. What should have taken five minutes took three hours, and unfortunately I didn't have Elliot Spitzer demanding they give me a free meal.

I had to go to the hospital and eventually have surgery. Boy, do you need a sense of humor for this. The paperwork, confusion, waste and incompetence is stunning. And this is at one of the best hospitals in the state. I saw the movie Sicko which implied that if the government paid all medical bills these problems would disappear. This is roughly equivalet to saying if airlines were regulated flying would be marvelous. Yeah, right.

Boeing and Airbus compete to build planes cheaper, with greater range and greater efficiency. Perhaps they should would on a 100 percent reliable airplane that would never have mechanical issues and could fly in every type of weather. I bet Boeing and Airbus could get government grants for this.

People also think about automating the pilot function due to so many crashes being blamed on pilot error. The one where the pilots took off on the wrong and too short runway, turns out the pilots were discussing their kids and pets and a dozen other topics while taxiing toward the wrong runway. Computers tend to stay on task. Pilotless planes are quite common for military surveillence drones -- a plane can fly over Afghanistan searching for the Taliban with the pilot safely at the Pentagon. Still, pilotless commercial planes are unlikely. We are just beginning to see driverless subway cars, and a subway driver only controls the speed.

Pilots flying the airplane. Now that would scare me. Line from Pushing Tin.

How come Californians keep talking about environmentalism while they continue to set records for how much electricity they use. And they get about 100 times as much electricity from coal as from solar energy. What a bunch of humbugs.

BJD Cruz lives in a dreamworld. California's energy usuage is low because the coal for it's electricity is burned in other states such as WYOMING. Californians are too sensitive to burn their own coal so they pay for the electricty from burning coal in other states and then live in their state of denial.

I don't think Officer Fagbait was looking for US Senators in the men's room. I think he wanted to hassle gay people. Yes, he was protecting the men's room for the children, but his technique was to roust gay men.

I think I know why that bridge in Minnesota collapsed. The state was using its transportation money to bust gay people at the airport.

I'm sure the Minneapolis police never make a mistake or arrest an innocent man, but if this cop happened to be next to you in the bathroom and thought you moved your feet incorrectly, how would you be able to defend yourself? If the cop said you plead guilty now and pay a fine or we will ruin your reputation, how would you fight back?

My guess is that this woman sees the 30-year-old as the man in her life. She talks in glowing terms about him, probably goes to dinner and the movies with him on the weekends. She doesn't really want him to move out. What she wants is for him to get a better job and support her like she would expect a husband to. Getting him to support her financially is the next step in her plan to convert him from her child into her husband.

If you know very much about any topics -- science, medicine, transportation, law etc. -- you quickly realize that newspapers and other forms of journalism are filled with complete junk. Most articles are written by a naive reporter who talked to two people, misunderstood much of what he heard, and writes in an authoritative manor. The trade press can be much better, but pretty much anything from the AP is garbage.

Yes, in the good old days banks would only loan money to rich people, generally rich white people. Then they began loaning money to poorer people and now a few of those loans are in trouble. However, lots of poorer people now have homes and are keeping up with the payments. Tom Tomorrow is a stinker for suggesting that things were better in the old days when people who weren't rich were shut out of the housing market.