As noted, pollution in CA is the reason for all the stringent environmental laws in the state.

Anybody who lived in L.A. 25 years ago can attest to the kind pollution it had. What's remarkable today is that there's less pollution, more population and automobiles than ever, and continuing high and diverse levels of industry.

The Central Valley areas (Bakersfield, Fresno, Porterville, Visalia, etc) seem to suffer from high levels of things like plain old dust from agriculture. Not to mention the more obnoxious like animal wastes, fertilizer runoff and such. In addition, there's also significant oil pumping/drilling/refining in the area. Geography makes all those things worse.

Get the cops involved? School official needs to lighten the hell up. It was just a prank, and nobody was actually harmed.

That's a fantastic motto concisely highlighting what the American experiment has gotten right.

Like Jen, I was hoping somehow this mystery had been solved. Yes, they'd been around for a few years now. I've occasionally checked back to find if the mystery had been solved, but alas, no.

I'd wondered about a hoax. It seems either the markings could be faked or the photos themselves modern creations. If the latter, I give high marks to the hoaxer for making such authentic looking photos. If the former, the photos still seem quite mysterious, even without considering the markings, given some of the subjects seem to be the same person several years apart, the poses, and expressions, etc.

It seems this ad is successful in bringing out the insecure moron in some folks. Lighten up, already!

It's interesting, but crime rates are lower now than they were when I was a kid back in the 70s. Especially in places like NYC. And I had much more freedom back then than many kids do now.

I think the big difference is that folks are hyper aware of the potential dangers around, and tend to overreact a bit with kids these days.

That has to be one of the strangest money shots I've ever seen.

If it saves just one child from driving drunk, it's all justified.

Way to think about the children, cops!

I thought he was best on Twilight Zone, too.

When I was a kid, everyone told me that every Sunday, this guy in a frock would turn some wine and crackers into blood and flesh. Not symbolically. Actual blood and flesh.

The blood never tasted anything like the blood from a cut finger. And the flesh, though having the color of pale skin, always tasted like a stale cracker.

I still can't believe people buy into that stuff.

The reason it didn't work is that the mantra, “Om lingalingalinalinga, kilikili” is all wrong. For success, this is the one to use:

"Mecca lecca hi mecca hiney ho!"

Well, it works for choking chickens, anyway.

Reminded me of this.

Very well done indeed.

Heh. Tetanus.

Where's your God now?

How come every country that bans guns, they see their violent crime rate go way up?

Every country? I like guns as much as any decent American gun nut. But let's not make some magical claims here. Violent societies are violent regardless of the proliferation of firearms. The crime rate examples of Britain and Australia are on the low end compared to the US when it comes to murders, and closer to US when it comes to assault. Furthermore, neither hadn't a strong culture of firearm ownership previously. The attempt to link gun ban causation is rather weak. Crime trends there have a pretty weak correlation. And in the case of the UK, trends may even be heading lower.

This isn't to say a gun ban is a good idea. Just that the linking gun bans with crime is a bit of a fiction when not taken into account with other data.