Kids postulate the darndest hypotheses: Two years ago, at the tender age of 9, Emily Rosa conducted a school science fair experiment debunking the alternative treatment known as therapeutic touch. Today, the 11-year-old Colorado lass is the toast of the medical establishment as the youngest researcher to be published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association. Her proud mom, a nurse and a longtime critic of non-traditional health care, swears little Emily did it all by herself; she only provided the construction paper and crayons.

Gifts that keep on giving: In yet another scathing report on waste, fraud and abuse, the General Accounting Office says billions of dollars worth of government stuff is missing from the federal closet, including a $1 million missile launcher and a $468,000 floating crane. A certain former White House intern is really miffed — all she got was some cheap earrings and that cheesy beret.

Like, oops, man: Of the roughly 68,000 signatures collected calling for the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes, the Maine Secretary of State’s office has found more than 22,500 to be invalid due to mistakes, omissions and possible forgeries. Perhaps the campaign organizers were a trifle, shall we say, medicated.

A ruse by any other name: State legislators have gotten quite testy with critics who call the new forestry bill merely one more do-nothing study. It’s not just a study, lawmakers insist; it’s a report, review, survey, assessment, appraisal. Detractors plan another referendum, vote, election, plebicite, ballot measure.

Law of the jumbled: Judge Gene Carter, who warms a federal bench down Portland way, recently ruled that a federal law banning the interstate transmission of child pornography via the Internet is unconstitutionally vague. The problem, according to his honor, is that today’s technology makes it impossible to tell if the dirty images are of actual kids being forced to commit actual sex or if the smut is digitally simulated. Fuzzy logic — it’s not just for computers.

Two signs the apocalypse is long overdue: Some 2,000 Ohio University students took to the streets Saturday night, smashing windows, throwing bottles and hurling chunks of pavement. A police horse was punched. The cause of the melee — the conversion to daylight savings time. Down in Daytona Beach, 5,000 people turned out for a church Easter egg hunt. Hundreds of adults swamped the field, trampling kids, stealing eggs from their baskets. There’s never an asteroid around when you need one.