One of the other IAs here forwarded a note from the American Embassy, which contained the following:

About 04:50 on March 9, a man believed to be an Iranian citizen was found dead on the floor of a bar 100 m east of the Roppongi subway station with several gunshot wounds. This is the third killing in Roppongi since the end of last year, to include one American and two Iranian victims. All of these cases are still open; no arrests have been made. American Citizens are advised to exercise caution should they chose to visit the Roppongi area.

Like any intelligent person knows, preventing normal citizen from having firearms via legislation means that only the criminals will have them. Doesn't give you very good odds if you're facing down the wrong end of a gun and you don't have one to save your bacon. Don't trust the cops to save you: they always get there too late, and even if they do arrive on the scene, they aren't likely to be much help. Not to mention that the government does stuff that's criminal by their own laws on a regular basis. Why tender one's safety to them? Not a wise idea.

Here's another piece from the same email:

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has announced that all lighters will be prohibited from sterile areas of airports and onboard aircraft beginning April 14, 2005. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 requires that "butane" lighters be added to TSA's Prohibited Items List.

Damn, now I can't set off the plastic explosive hidden in my shoes anymore! One has to wonder, why now at this late date? The tobacco industry must've fallen behind on their PAC payoffs or something. This doesn't really bother me, but I'm sure plenty of smokers are going to be pissed off when their engraved, limited-edition Zippos get confiscated at the security gate; and lighters aren't something that you can just drop in the mail, either. The TSA should offer the alternative to drain the lighter fluid, at least in the case where the item is valuable and not a cheap Bic.

The world's getting to be a crazy place. Or maybe it's always been like this, and everyone's just deluding themselves that the world can be anything else but crazy?