And in other news….

I looked out my window this afternoon and saw the new Security Blimp. Acknowledging that Goodyear’s proficiency for picking out cheerleaders at NFL games might be good for homeland security, the Department of Defense reverts to Civil War tactics in its new high-tech espionage-meets-BladeRunner floating device. Not reported: apparently they also received tech support from the Klingons – I turned around to read this article only to look again out my window: the blimp was gone. Engage the cloaking device!

Soon the Security Blimps can float by and encourage off-world colonization. With SpaceShipOne successfully making the first of two space flights required for the X Prize, the Virgin Group’s Richard Branson said that they plan to offer commercial space flights available by 2007, based off of SpaceShipOne technology:

Branson believes he will fly some 3,000 people into space in the first five years that his “Virgin Galactic” space line is operating.

Not reported: Branson reportedly decided on the name “Virgin Galactic” because it nicely mixed the excitement of Apollo on Battlestar Galactica and the alien seduction powers of Captain Kirk from Star Trek.

Meanwhile, beware travel to Norway, where apparently they don’t believe in security at all (they need more blimps!). A man attacked two pilots with an axe:

Just minutes before the plane, a small Dornier 228, was scheduled to land in the northern Norwegian town of Bodoe at 10:50 a.m. (0850 GMT), one of the seven passengers onboard walked towards the cockpit, and suddenly attacked both the pilot and the co-pilot with an axe in an apparent bid to crash the aircraft.

Not reported: the attacker wore a helmet with spiked horns, bellowing “Give me wenches and mead!” while waving his axe in the air.

And in further news: Diebold Machines Cruise Fells Point! After hearing what a blast they could have in the dive bars around Baltimore, several Diebold voting machines were found, apparently passed out, in a bar and next to the sidewalk. One was turned into the police. The others reportedly sobered up enough to escape, screaming “You’ll never find us – we have no paper trail!” as they fled.