Today’s challenge:

• Man Arrested After Ejaculating During TSA Pat-Down
• Elected Official Says TSA Pat Downs Promote ‘Homosexual Agenda’

Make your guess. Then click here and here to see how you did. Winners get a valuable prize.*

(*Note: There is no valuable prize.)

Busy day today. Here’s a link dump to keep you occupied…

• Conservatives who cheerlead federal spying on citizen correspondence call for execution of whistleblower who exposed federal government correspondences.
• NYU New York Law School criminal law professor argues that the death penalty isn’t painful enough. That would be pretty far down my list of objections to capital punishment.
• L.A. slaps jaywalkers with $191 fine.
• Nearly four dozen Prince Georges County cops swept up in corruption probe.
• So . . . $27K in concert tickets?
• If it isn’t the worst, it’s in the top ten.
• Finally! Athlete who blew game-winning touchdown blames God for his mistake.

. . . over at Hit & Run.

My crime column this week returns to the asset forfeiture issue in Indiana.

Now that they’ve finally been exposed for ignoring the Indiana Constitution’s requirement that forfeiture proceeds go to the state’s schools fund, Indiana prosecutors and their allies in the legislature are . . . trying to change the law so they can legally keep the money.

UPDATE: Link fixed. Hope you enjoyed the rapey M&M commercial!

• More of this, please. Good on Rep. Issa. We need better oversight of and accountability from executive agencies, not partisan red meat. It’s probably a smart move politically, too.
• Parts of the new Wikileaks dump are pretty amusing. The diplomatic double-crossing, gossiping, and conceit read like a global soap opera. Of course, parts of the dump also confirm the moronic duplicity in our foreign policy. Like waging a decade-long war on a country that had very little to do with Al Qaeda while we continue to cozy up to the regime that bankrolls the organization.
• Celebrities raise money for AIDS treatment in the most self-absorbed way imaginable.
• Here’s Pixar’s moving contribution to the “It Gets Better” campaign.
• We’re safer than we think.

Can’t tell you how many laughs I got growing up from the Naked Gun movies.

Rest in peace, Mr. Nielsen.

Bought a new couch this week. I wasn’t happy with the one I had, and I saw one I liked on sale. So I now have two, at least until I can sell the old one. Daisy has been a bit overwhelmed by the doubling of her napping space. So she’s been alternating between couches.

Other dog news this week: She caught a squirrel during one of our walks. For her, this was a glorious, long-sought triumph. For me, it was a mess. She maimed the thing, but didn’t really know what to do with it once she had it. Which means I had to euthanize it. This was traumatic, because it was really difficult to find a tiny squirrel vein in which to put the syringe. I’m kidding. I used a log. And it was gross. Try not to think of her savage beastliness while you look at the cute pictures.

More here.

• Ten daily consequences of having evolved.
• DHS now in the business of copyright enforcement. Because nothing protects the “homeland” like shutting down file sharing websites.
• Border Patrol arrests Willie Nelson for pot possession. Because nothing protects the “homeland” like confiscating an old man’s weed.
• On Reddit, an anonymous tale of what looks to be another isolated incident.
• Scientists have developed bacteria that signal directions to cancer-fighting nanobots. Also, scientists have developed bacteria that . . . solve Sudoku puzzles.
• I would buy one of these.

…critical of the TSA from the NY Times’ Roger Cohen.

Lavrenti Beria, Stalin’s notorious secret police chief, once said, “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.” The T.S.A. seems to operate on the basis of an adapted maxim: “Show me the security check and I’ll find you the excuse.”

Anyone who has watched T.S.A. agents spending 10 minutes patting down 80-year-old grandmothers, or seen dismayed youths being ordered back into the scanner booth by agents connected wirelessly to other invisible agents gazing at images of these people in a state of near-nakedness, has to ask: What form of group madness is it that forsakes judgment and discernment for process run amok?

I don’t doubt the patriotism of the Americans involved in keeping the country safe, nor do I discount the threat, but I am sure of this: The unfettered growth of the Department of Homeland Security and the T.S.A. represent a greater long-term threat to the prosperity, character and wellbeing of the United States than a few madmen in the valleys of Waziristan or the voids of Yemen.

America is a nation of openness, boldness and risk-taking. Close this nation, cow it, constrict it and you unravel its magic.

• Superhero grandma.
• Here’s an 80-gigapixel panorama of London.
• Washington Post columnist: You know what the Mexican drug war needs? More war.
• The great George Lois talks about his provocative Esquire covers.
• Gene Healy: Conservatives heaping scorn on TSA ought to look at their own.
• Now you too can sample Bill Blass’s Giant Hot Pecans and Jimmy Carter’s Special Cheese Ring.

“Promise,” by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

I have the cover story in the January issue of Reason. It should start appearing at your favorite newsstand in the next couple weeks. Of course, you could also just go ahead and get yourself a subscription.

….if you shop at Amazon.com this holiday season, you can help at your favorite Agitator by clicking on my Amazon box to your left before you start shopping. I’ll get a small cut of what you buy, at no cost to you.

• Once you’ve met one pork rind pundit, you’ve met them all.
• Barack Obama pardon count: Turkeys-4, Humans-0.
• Man beaten by Miami police, charged with resisting the beating for covering his head.
• It’s all about the marketing (NSFW language).
• Chris Matthews: It’s slander to point out that Michael Chertoff is both speaking as a former DHS secretary and serving as a lobbyist for Rapiscan.
• Another awkward moment, courtesy of autocorrect.
• The Daily Beast sticks up for public service janitors who make $140,000 per year. Because . . . something about Derek Jeter.
• The only thing newsworthy about this story is the horrible of judgment of the journalists who think John Conyers’ reading habits are newsworthy.

At last May’s Kentucky Derby.

• Judge says North Carolina must rehire a state trooper who was fired for abusing a police dog. He’ll also get back pay and attorney fees. Hey, just wait until TSA workers get this kind of union protection!
• Trey Parker and Matt Stone make a Broadway musical about Mormonism.
• Bruce Schneier gives the straight dope on TSA BS.
• Hey, here’s something Obama did right: DOJ reverses Bush policy requiring federal defendants who accept plea bargains to relinquish any claim to post-conviction DNA testing.
• What happens when government engages in false advertising? (Spoiler: Government tends to be okay with it.)
• Grown-ups are the new serious people.

Nashville.

• Kuwait bans cameras.
• Awkward Thanksgiving family photos.
• A non-comprehensive list of hings we do to innocent people to prevent terrorism.
• D.C. gets a taxpayer-subsidized IHOP.
• There are probably better ways to get your name in the newspaper.
• Adding to the L.A. Times’ “shut up”, the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus tells TSA protesters to “grow up.”
• Puppycide in Las Vegas.

The appropriately authoritarian-looking Teddy Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Having reached this pinnacle of journalism, I think I can now retire from the profession.

I recently talked about the Brian Aitken case on NRA Radio. Here’s the interview:

• TSA-related push-polling.
• It would probably be easier to make a list of the pundits and columnists who aren’t hacks.
• El Paso rated safest city in America. Your humble Agitator on El Paso here.
• Dogs are smarter than cats.
• NPR discovers that Social Security is a scam.
• Real-life super heroes take over Seattle.

Alexandria, Virginia.

Dancing parrot vs. dancing dog.