This week’s stupid news headlines include stupid terrorist threats, stupid taxation, and that stupid no-fly list again.

• Robert Gray, 35, an Irish native, sued the Transportation Security Administration, saying that the government denied him permission to upgrade his pilot’s license and later put him on the “no-fly” list in retaliation for the lawsuit. Gray was a pilot for Cape Air in Hyannis, Mass.
• The aliens might be trying to infect our computers with viruses by sending radio signals which are intercepted by the SETI project, according to Richard Carrigan, a particle physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. Bruce Schneier calls it “bizarre” and “science fiction.”
• Massachusetts has levied a retroactive capital gains tax on sales made in 2002. The Legislature had tried to change the tax rate mid-year, and the Supreme Judicial Court said that they could not do that. “Our legislators are totalling bolloxing this up,” said The Modern American.
• Missed a call on your cell phone? Calling back could detonate a bomb set by Islamic militants, according to the latest dumb movie-plot threat. Supposedly terrorists call numbers at random and then wire the phone to a bomb. Anyone who owns a cell phone can easily figure out why this won’t work.