Top-down is the ticket. The people who want to tell you what to do really enjoy their work, because it's fun and because it makes them feel good. They make the rules, you follow 'em. This morning we'll look a few examples of this and see if anything shakes out.

No Choice

That's what lawmakers prefer you have, because people who can make choices are so unpredictable. Here's a wrap-up of a few of the new laws we're starting with in in 2003:

In New Mexico, repeat drunk drivers have to install a "breathalizer" ignition system in their cars. Won't start unless you blow into it sober (or get a sober pal to help you out).

In Illinois, the state now has the authority to confiscate the DWI offender's vehicle.

Illinois has also made trespassing at a nuclear facility a felony. Watch out, protesters.

Minnesota and five other states now have "do-not-call" lists to reign in telemarketers. It's a start.

California is now banning junk faxes, and "more anti-spam e-mail laws are also on the way," but like New Mexico's drivers we aren't holding our breath.

California's pet shops "must provide instructions on how to care for any creature they sell."

The Golden State has also enacted a helmet law for riders of skateboards and scooters. We urge California's lawmakers to swiftly pass a kneepad and elbowpad law as well.

In New Hampshire, threatening or faking a bioterror attack is "now a felony." Well fer chrissake what was it before? A misdemeanor?

In Maryland, newly manufactured handguns "must now have a safety lock." One supposes the police are exempt because their weapons need to be functional.

You're a lot safer in Connecticut, where they've now banned mercury-filled thermometers.

It's kinda neat, actually. An arriving jet, for instance, will distribute little info-cards to all passengers who fill them out. The cards are then turned into digital form and uploaded to immigration, where the names will be checked against lists of "people suspected of being involved in terrorism or other criminal activity."

That last part is the one we need to talk about. Don't you get the sense that there's going to be a huge database where your name will go if you've ever committed a felony? Or just been suspected of one. Or if the TIA decides you look like you might commit one...

I'm Just Mad About 13

And 13's mad about me, seems to have been Jerry McClain's thinking when the 65-year-old Texas man drove more than 1,500 miles "in a car packed with sex toys" to hook up with his chat-room darling.

Take a look at "Smooth Daddy" here on the right.

As he walked toward a Turlock, Calif., Burger King where he had arranged to meet 13-year-old "Christine" on Dec. 18, McClain instead met two police officers, who tackled him.

Hedrick as "Christine": "Hello."

McClain: "You know what?"

Hedrick: "What?"

McClain: "I love you."

Christine: "I love you, too."

McClain: "You sound real nice, you know that?"

Christine: "Thank you."

McClain: "What are you wearing?"

Christine: "Jeans."

Domo Arigato

I always wondered why anyone would to thank Mr. Roboto since robots don't have feelings. That may not be the case much longer, according to Nilanjan Sarkar, a researcher for the robot project at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. The team at Vanderbilt has been programming robots to recognize human emotional responses and respond to them.

The autonomous robot roamed the labs but when it "sensed" a certain level of stress from a volunteer, it would return to a predetermined spot and ask if it could be of assistance.

"Damn machine..."

"Calm down, Sir."

"I am calm you stupid piece of—"

"Oh yeah? Maybe you're the idiot, Sir, ever think about that?"

I can't wait.

Tell It to the Enemy

The Independent has a feature on our propaganda war against the Iraqis that's currently in full swing. We've been dropping a half-million leaflets on Basra and Nasiriyah urging the foot soldiers to lay down their weapons. The leaflets also instruct them to tune into "a special radio broadcast" put together by our PsyOps people. The message begins by praising the legacy of heroic Iraqi military service, then continues:

"Saddam has tarnished this legacy. Saddam spews forth political rhetoric along with a false sense of national pride to deceive these men to serve his own unlawful purposes. Saddam does not wish the soldiers of Iraq to have the honour and dignity that their profession warrants. Saddam seeks only to exploit these brave men."

North Korea breaks all its nuclear agreements with the United States, throws out UN inspectors and sets off to make a bomb a year, and President Bush says it's "a diplomatic issue". Iraq hands over a 12,000-page account of its weapons production and allows UN inspectors to roam all over the country, and—after they've found not a jam-jar of dangerous chemicals in 230 raids—President Bush announces that Iraq is a threat to America, has not disarmed and may have to be invaded.

10:50:13 AM