Bits is a bit shorter this week, as I’m experimenting with yet another new format (which you’ll see shortly). In the meantime, here are four news headlines from the last week showing just how dumb your government is.

• If you’ve got the $130 each way to pay for it, and you just can’t bear to wait for the taxi to crawl its way through traffic, you can take a helicopter from lower Manhattan to John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York City. But not without passing through Transportation Security Administration screening, which taxpayers are footing the bill for.
• Speaking of air security, TSA head Kip Hawley said last week it’s “overly rigid, static and predictable” and terrorists can easily get around it.
• Down in New Orleans, the city council is doing all it can to prevent economic recovery in the region. The latest stupidity: it passed a ban on street vendors. (Props.)
• And finally, Congress wants to continue its drive to usurp the role of parents in their children’s upbringing, this time by banning “low-nutrition” food in schools. It seems the bill might just outlaw selling candy bars to raise money for the school, too.