BE AFRAID! -- no, not really

At a friend's house the other day, I learned that children in a school in New Jersey aren't allowed to carry backpacks from class to class anymore, presumably because they're hauling weapons of mass destruction to history class. I know I would.

When I was in high school, I had a bag that could hold about 4,000 pounds of crap. I carried all my morning books in that bag so I wouldn't have to trudge back and forth to my locker. I could fit small freshmen in that bag.

Maybe that's why schools started outlawing backpacks. Good job, me.

What the hell are people so afraid of, and why do they create crap rules that don't keep us any safer?

Cracked explores the problem with its usual brand of ferocious investigative journalism. I always suspected that Amber Alerts and the sex-offender registry were worthless, at best.

Diddling kids sucks, but if it's going to happen, odds are it's going to be creepy Uncle Todd, who REALLY likes giving horsey rides, rather than that dorky loner three blocks down who got nailed once for public urination.

Hell, if anyone had seen me peeing in Mom's backyard, I could be a sex offender now.