A famous California governor dispatched a road crew to a residential street in San Jose to create a pothole, which he later turned up and filled, grinning for news cameras and declaring his willingness to increase funding for transportation projects. The Potemkin pothole was later sealed by a roadcrew with a gigantic roller truck. Article at SFGate.

above: Don’t let Gollum on the plane!

The privacy watchdog group, Department of Homeland Security, is preparing to install specialized X-ray machines at airports that can see through clothing, but stop at the skin. From the NYT (via CNET) article:

“Well, you’ll see basically everything,” said Bill Scannell, a privacy advocate and technology consultant. “It shows nipples. It shows the clear outline of genitals.”

At least there’s sure to be an influx of new applicants for airport screener jobs. What’s worse, it’s not 100% effective. A securty expert said:

Thwarting body-scanning technology would be simple, he argues. Because of concerns about radiation, body scanners are designed not to penetrate the skin. All that’s needed is someone heavily overweight to go through the system, he said. I won’t quote him directly on the details; suffice it to say he posits that a weapon or explosives pack could be tucked into flabby body folds that won’t be penetrated by the scanner.

By extension, screeners will be on the lookout for Dolly Parton hiding two Uzis. Oh, and the name of the company that makes these X-ray devices, “Rapiscan” (pronunciation of the first syllable is ambiguous). Oh, and the name of these X-ray devices, and I’m not kidding, “backscatters”.

Snipped from the Department of Homeland Security press release:

Acting Assistant Attorney General John C. Richter of the Criminal Division, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement Michael J. Garcia, and Assistant Director Louis M. Reigel of the FBI’s Cyber Division announced today the first criminal enforcement action targeting individuals committing copyright infringement on peerto- peer (P2P) networks using cutting edge file-sharing technology known as BitTorrent.
This morning, agents of the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed 10 search warrants across the United States against leading members of a technologically sophisticated P2P network known as Elite Torrents. Employing technology known as BitTorrent, the Elite Torrents network attracted more than 133,000 members and, in the last four months, allegedly facilitated the illegal distribution of more than 17,800 titles – including movies and software – which were downloaded 2.1 million times.

Wow, the homeland feels so much more secure now.

On April Fool’s Day this year, Scientific American had a great satirical concession speech on their recant of evolution. From the article:

Nor should we succumb to the easy mistake of thinking that scientists understand their fields better than, say, U.S. senators or best-selling novelists do.

The US Department of Health and Human Services has given over $1M to Silver Ring Thing, a faith-based that distributes “abstinence rings” to teenagers, as part of a government initiative to expand abstinence-only sex education. From the BBC article:

…official rings are inscribed with verses from the Bible, 1 Thessalonians 4, 3-4, reading: “God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin. Then each of you will control your body and live in holiness and honour.”

The church/state separation issues and health issues here are obvious and horrible. But aside from that, I’m curious how it plays out with dating among teens.
My speculation is that it’s a boon for punani-seeking teenage guys. First, it lets them quickly identify those that won’t give it up. Already, that saves them much time, effort, sexual frustration, and money. Second, wearing the ring becomes a valuable tool to pass off his hormone-induced advances as platonic intent. Previously this was accomplished by the guy pretending to be gay. Conclusion: more cooch will be gotten.

Kansas is well known as the perennial subject of ridicule of the international scientific community. Here’s more of why that is.
The Kansas school board has implied that Intelligent Design falls outside of the definition of science. So they will attempt to redefine science to include pseudoscience.
From the AP article:

TOPEKA, Kan. — The Kansas school board’s hearings on evolution weren’t limited to how the theory should be taught in public schools. The board is considering redefining science itself. Advocates of “intelligent design” are pushing the board to reject a definition limiting science to natural explanations for what’s observed in the world.

Instead, they want to define it as “a systematic method of continuing investigation,” without specifying what kind of answer is being sought. The definition would appear in the introduction to the state’s science standards.

It’s hard to find the words… How about, Kansas is the rectum of American science education.