There are plenty of science museums throughout the country. The Association of Science - Technology Centers (ASTC) has more specific information, including a search engine, at http://www.astc.org/sciencecenters/find.php
These museums run a range from natural history (Academy of Natural Sciences in Philly), science museums for the general public (Boston's Museum of Science), Planetariums (Barlow Planetarium at UW Fox Valley), harder science museums (Harvard museum of Natural History, Woods Hole Oceanographic, National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO), Transportation (North Carolina Transportation Museum), Aerospace (Virginia Air & Space Center), Medicine (International Museum of Surgical Science), botanical garden (Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens in Florida), and even a Presidential Library (McKinley's in Canton OH).

Similarly, it may be worth checking out the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which other than having the obvious members, has a number of science centers included (Boston's MoS, California Science Center, etc.).

Beyond those, there are some obvious choices. The Smithsonian and other DC museums have plenty of geek options. 'Air and Space' (including the annex at Dulles) and Natural History are the 2 obvious ones. International Spy Museum is another. In Boston, you could include a campus tour of MIT along with the various local museums and the Mapparium. Any of the various NASA visitor centers across the country (Houston or Cape Canaveral are probably the best options of those). For just impressive engineering, the Hoover Damn, and the CN Tower (Yeah, technically Canada. Although if you're going from Boston or NYC to Chicago, that can be on the route). Also the Golden Gate, Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower), and Empire State Building, as well.

If you are interested in anatomy and physiology, you could look up where Body Worlds or Bodies: The Exhibition (or one of the competitors) is being exhibited.

Depending on when and where you go, you can also have the trip coincide with major SF/Fantasy conventions (Dragon*Con, PAX, GenCon, etc.).

Add in UCB Berkeley's Cyclotron, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Spaceport America or Mojave Air and Space Port, an atomic museum (National Museum of Nuclear Science and History or Los Almos Historical Museum), and a pilgrimage to a Silicon Valley site (the Apple Museum?), and it should be fairly complete.

I'll admit, I couldn't find a high-res image on the FBI seal in the 2 minutes I spent searching there, but the seal isn't overly complex, doesn't have micro text or any other anti-counterfeiting features.

However, this image, http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/fbiseal/images/fbiseal-02-02.gif, is a fairly decent image and can easily be used to produce a better, larger image. (The image is slightly obfuscated by the web page dis-allowing right clicks. Good going, guys. Security by obscurity for the Win. I mean Lose.)

However, more interesting to me is this high-res image: http://www.fbi.gov/multimedia/images/equipment/badge&gun.jpg

A high resolution image of an FBI badge. Yeah. They're concerned that a web image of their seal can be used illegally, but a badge? That's nothing to worry about. Move along.

Is there a federal exemption to search and seizure of property of a journalist? no.

Is there a state exemption in California to search and seizure of property of a journalist? Yes.

Was the search warrant executed a warrant issued by a federal bench? No.

Read the article and the response; the response cites California state law by statute. A simple web search will confirm that the quoted law is, in fact, accurate.

To me, an educated layman, it seems obvious that the warrant was invalid. There may be new case law since 2006 that changes the legal precedent, but without that, the warrant is not valid, prima facia.

This is especially interesting to me, given the US adoption of more serious, lengthy German board games in the last few years.

Well, first, it is more than the past few years. Settlers of Catan was one of the earliest BIG cross over games. I was playing it since college, means the cross over started about a decade ago.

Secondly, I get the distinct impression that the original audience doesn't take these games nearly as seriously as US players. Settlers says on the packaging that its running time is about 1-2 hours (If I recall correctly, my original packaging has been lost to the sands of time), yet my games regularly run 3 or more hours, as trades and debates and discussions of beat-the-current-leader happens. This ratio of about twice-as-long seems to be consistent with most of the German Board Games my group plays/played.

(On the other hand, it could just be false advertising. Witness the order of the Stick game that takes ages to play, despite the packaging).

And I STILL can't find anyonre to play Kingmaker with me, and very few who play Magic Realm.