Earlier today, a disruptive passenger with hand cream and matches -- a 59-year-old American woman -- caused officials to call for an emergency landing of a Washington-bound United Airlines flight.

This statement is somewhat misleading, because it conjures up the image of a woman getting frustrated after furtively (and unsuccessfully) attempting to ignite her hand cream with pocket matches. In fact, neither the matches nor the cream -- or, "a gelatin-like substance", according to Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney -- were found until after the crew had made the decision to divert.

Two Massachusetts Air National Guard F-15 fighter jets scrambled today to escort the aircraft to Boston's Logan National Airport.

NYT coverage is here. Note in the photo that the aircraft did not pull up to a gate to let passengers disembark. Instead they were unloaded on the tarmac and bussed to the terminal.

"The pilot of flight 923 requested to divert to Boston Logan to make an emergency landing."

Lest anyone conclude this was an overreaction on the pilot's part, let it be known:

"This isn't just an 'I want another drink' kind of thing."

No, sir. This was an "I want another motherf***ing drink on this motherf***ing plane!" kind of thing.

By all indications, there were no snakes.

Fighter Jets Intercept Inbound Airline Flight; Flight Diverted After On-Board Disturbance

Friends, we are on a losing trajectory in Iraq, and, as the latest London plot underscores, the wider war with radical Islam is only getting wider.

We need to reassess everything we are doing in this "war on terrorism" and figure out what is worth continuing, what needs changing and what sacrifice we need to demand from every American to match our means with our ends.

Yes, the Democrats could help by presenting a serious alternative. But unless the party in power for the next two and half years shakes free of its denial, we are in really, really big trouble.

Big Talk, Little Will | Thomas Friedman | NYT

Alan Kay's antidote to the dumbing down of public education.

Viewpoints Research is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving both general education and understanding of complex systems, especially through the use of new inventions in interactive constructive computing.

We want to help children develop real fluency in many important areas of learning, including thinking, math and science. "Thinking" is a higher category than "just" math, science, and the arts. It represents a synthesis of intuitive and analytical approaches to understanding the world and dealing with it.

Kay has assembled quite an impressive Board of Advisors.

About Viewpoints Research Institute

Hezbollah's campaign is a clear sign of how the democratization of missile technology -- cruise missile technology, in particular -- is reshaping global realities.

"We are trying to wage war as if it still mattered that our forces are comprised of ‘the few and the large' -- a few large heavy divisions, a few large aircraft carrier battle groups -- when in fact war is migrating into the hands of the many and the small -- little distributed units. We live in an era when technology has expanded the destructive power of a small group and the individual beyond our imaginations."

The Lebanon War and the democratization of missile technology

“We know that free nations are America's best partners for peace and the only true anchors for stability,” he said. “So we'll continue to support reformers inside and outside governments who are working to build the institutions of liberty.

"We can be confident of the outcome because we know and understand the unstoppable power of freedom.”

Bush Says America Will Continue to Push ‘Freedom Agenda’

Perhaps more worrisome than a political movement against science is plain old ignorance. The people determining the curriculum of our children in many states remain scientifically illiterate. And Kansas is a good case in point.

A key concern should not be whether Dr. Steve Abrams's religious views have a place in the classroom, but rather how someone whose religious views require a denial of essentially all modern scientific knowledge can be chairman of a state school board.

Be sure to check out the survey graph from today's Science magazine regarding belief in evolution. Americans are next to last, just ahead of Turkey, among all nations surveyed.

How to Make Sure Children Are Scientifically Illiterate

Advertising is a funny business. You get to help shape the personalities of huge companies. Most often it’s for cellphone service or credit cards or fast food or paper towels. Rarely are you faced with whether you “believe” in a product or service.

This was different. This was serious.

I guess, looking at it now, it's just advertising. It’s become mere marketing -- perhaps it always was -- instead of a genuine attempt to engage the public in the debate or a corporate rallying cry to change the paradigm. Maybe I’m naïve.

Beyond Propaganda

"I met my wife on your captcha!!!" -- Steve, from New York

OK, this is funny... Hotornot captcha.

Captcha Mashup

As it stands now, little with regard to search queries is private. No laws clearly place search requests off-limits to advertisers, law enforcement agencies or academic researchers, beyond the terms that companies set themselves.

"This is a discussion that we as a society need to have," said Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Mr. Bankston’s group, which is spearheading a class-action lawsuit against AT&T for sharing consumer phone records with the National Security Agency, issued an alert this week calling the AOL incident a "Data Valdez," asserting that it may be in violation of the Electronic Communications and Privacy Act, which regulates some forms of online communications.

Sounds like EFF may eventually pursue a class-action case against AOL.

"This AOL breach is just a tiny drop in the giant pool of information that these companies have collected. The sensitivity of this data cannot be overemphasized."

A similar sentiment was at the heart of an e-mail message sent to employees by AOL’s own chief executive, Jonathan F. Miller, on Wednesday.

"We work so hard to protect this kind of information, and yet it was made public without review by our privacy experts, undermining years of industry leadership in a single act," Mr. Miller wrote. "The reaction has been a powerful reminder of how quickly a company such as AOL can forfeit the good will we have worked for years to engender."

This is Friedman's Super-Empowered Man. In the military, they talk of the Strategic Corporal, [2].

Your Life as an Open Book

They call them "boat raves" even though they're in the middle of the afternoon.

And it’s hard to imagine a more perfect confluence of money, skin and exhibitionism.

But not everyone is excited:

Some longtime regulars worry that the scene is becoming too big, too fast, and could be headed for calamity.

Water, Water, Everywhere, and Plenty to Drink