Thanks for flying

A radio version of this story helped me gain a new appreciation for talking without saying anything.

To say that our counterparts in governmentdom have their own rich lexicon of jargon is a big understatement. Take for example this phrase: "runway incursion."

Gee . . . sounds almost harmless, right? Well, consider the official definition and think again:

"any occurrence in the airport runway environment involving an aircraft, vehicle, person, or object on the ground that creates a collision hazard or results in a loss of required separation with an aircraft taking off, intending to take off, landing, or intending to land."

The Federal Aviation Administration even produced this little cartoon to help spread the word that you could be "incursioned" all the way to your local morgue.

For a little more in-depth study of runway safety, you can play with the FAA's online challenge learning tool. (For your information, I failed the first stage of questions with a 54 percent. I cannot land, taxi or otherwise make a plane take off for crap, apparently)

In other LAX news, a guy from Japan was busted for smuggling in some kind of super-rare butterflies. The "two Queen Alexandra's birdwings ... had been sold for $8,500," and the "arrest culminated a three-year undercover investigation by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service."

Great . . . Thank goodness there's one less butterfly kingpin out there.