Seen in the 'hood ... a laughing matter

Somehow I don't think this would have been parked happily on a foggy Mission District street in the early years of the last decade. But apparently some of us have regained our sense of humor post 9/11.


At the Bomb Truck website, I found this:

Organic Vegan Handmade Pops. We are like the Willy Wonkas of gourmet pops. Inspired by mom and pop shops,hole in the walls, neighborhood ice cream trucks, and childhood memories.

Our comparative equanimity is not universal.

A FedEx driver was delivering a package to an Army base in Utah when someone asked what it was. The driver replied it was probably a bomb. Military police evacuated more than 2,200 people, and prosecutors have charged the driver with making a threat of terrorism.

NPR

And a federal court still thinks is within the law for security authorities to order a citizen locked up as an "enemy combatant," drive the guy crazy, and only then put him into the federal court system on vague charges. That would be Jose Padilla. Padilla's lawyer, Ben Wizner, said of the decision

the appeals court “handed the government a blank check to commit any abuse in the name of national security, even the brutal torture of a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil.

“This immunity is not only anathema to a democracy governed by laws, but contrary to history’s lesson that in times of fear our values are a strength, not a hindrance,” said Wizner, litigation director for the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project.

Appropriately, there's not a lot of humor in that conclusion.