Photo: CC/Thomas Hawk

Or maybe not. The Bush Administration remains, to the end, singularly focused on preventing reefer madness, and overriding states’ rights.

The feds contend there are 98 marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco, compared with 71 Starbucks. They even provide a Google map of the supposed locations of both. This allegedly official map has some pot clubs in highly unlikely places, like the top of Nob Hill.

via Feds say S.F. has more pot clubs than Starbucks, but it might not add up

Smarter than your average carbon-based life form. Photo: Stanford U.

The Sci-Fi Channel blog says that autonomous choppers developed at Standford University are teaching each other to fly better than a human pilot.

The announcement embraces two common subtexts in media coverage of robotic technologies: that robots will soon be our betters, and that they can be trustworthy as they carry out their benign missions overhead.

Stanford says “there is interest in using autonomous helicopters to search for land mines in war-torn areas or to map out the hot spots of California wildfires in real time.”

That kind of language is the military’s way of easing robot killing machines into our consciences. The choppers will follow the Predator into the killing business soon enough.

DVICE: Stanfords robotic helicopters teach each other tricks, fly better than a human
Crazily enough, the helicopters used aren’t fancy at all. They’re just store-bought RC helicopters, with the complex innards added by the Stanford students. The team includes Professor Andrew Ng, graduate students Pieter Abbeel, Adam Coates, Timothy Hunter, Morgan Quigley, and expert remote controller Garett Oku.

George Takei: Licensed to Wed – E! Online
The Star Trek alum and longtime partner Brad Altman were among the first same-sex couples to obtain licenses in West Hollywood this morning.

“I think it’s a glorious California morning to make history,” the erstwhile Sulu said. “Congratulations to all of us: May equality live long and prosper.”

The 71-year-old actor and his 54-year-old partner have been together for 21 years. Takei said the couple will wed on Sept. 14.

(Dummy bomb: The US Air Force has a habit of accidentally dropping these babies on civilian sites near its bases. And practice bombs ain’t always for practice, history shows. Photo: GlobalSecurity.org)

“God must love the people at Canyon Creek.”

That’s what a manager of an Oklahoma apartment complex told the Associated Press after the U.S. Air Force bombed the complex last week.

But God must also love the factory workers in Choong-chung, Korea, whose workplace the US bombed in 2006:

1/12/2007 – OSAN AIR BASE, Republic of Korea — The 51st Fighter Wing and the Republic of Korea Air Force have completed an exhaustive and Air Force wide investigation of an inadvertent release of a small non-explosive practice munition on Nov. 29, 2006 by an aircraft stationed at Osan Air Base.

An A/OA-10 aircraft assigned to the 25th Fighter Squadron was returning to Osan from a routine training mission at approximately 12:30 p.m. when an apparent systems problem caused the inadvertent release of a 25 pounds practice munition — a BDU-33. The small, non-explosive training munition then struck a civilian factory in northern Choong-chung province damaging the building but causing no injuries.

… And let’s not forget the farmers near East Yorkshire, England, who were bombed by the US in 2004:

US Air Force drops practice bomb
Alan Marsland, who farms land near to the site the bomb landed, said: “It went through the asphalt on this old airfield which is now owned by Allied Grain. Luckily no-one was around.”

Or the West Texas family whose home was hit by the Air Force in 2002.

In fact, all of these incidents involved the BDU-33, which can carry incendiary materials that produce a flash on impact.

The red phosphorous in one BDU-33 also blew off half of Petty Officer John Love’s face a few years ago.

The list goes on.

On the same day in November 2007, the Air Force dropped a dummy bomb along a busy road in North Carolina, and a Navy jet accidentally dropped one on one of its bases.

Dummy bombs not just for practice

Dummy bombs have played a number of roles over the years. Military leaders have used the practice ordnance to frighten and intimidate populations since World War II.

Even as far back October 1920, the Navy dropped dummy bombs on an old battleship, the Indiana, to trick the American public into believing its battleships could not be sunk.

Note: The secret societies historian Alan Watt says Canadian forces once dropped ordnance down his chimney.

MARK BAARD