I would hardly call a procedure that involves exposure to increased amounts of radiation and a recorded virtual strip search performed by an agency that has no accountability to the public "non-invasive," but maybe that's just me.

Aside from that, though, why do we even need to "hope that something won't happen?" Unless I've missed something, no plane has ever been blown up flying over U.S. soil in the history of commercial aviation. Furthermore, there has never been an explosive that has gone off on a flight that originated from the U.S. There isn't a single example of any airplane related attack in the U.S. that's been succesfully averted by the increase in airport security since 9/11. The shoe bomber and the underpants bomber were both spotted and subdued by passengers, not security, and they didn't even board their flights in the U.S. anyway. We don't need to hope that something won't happen, because in all likelihood it's not going to happen and even if it did it's not going to be prevented by these half-assed security measures.

And I can't speak for everyone, but I don't think it's clear that "what offends people here is the invasive nature of the screening." Just as offensive is how much of our taxes are being wasted on this ineffective and, yes, invasive, security theater.

Obviously.

Tangentially related: I'm Comic Sans, Asshole.

According to Alton Brown (and others), the act of searing the meat actually causes more of the steak's moisture to be lost than if you didn't sear it. The increased heat required to sear the steak further damages the cells of the steak, and that cell damage causes more of the juices to leak out. You can see the script for Alton's episode, including a comparison by weight of a seared vs. unseared steak, here:

http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/Season8/myths/myth_smashers.htm

That being said, the act of searing the meat does produce a flavor that you wouldn't otherwise have without the searing. So there is a benefit to it, the benefit just happens to be unrelated to keeping in the juices.

Just as a followup to your point, The Straight Dope had a good article about the "copyright traps" that map makers use:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1058/do-maps-have-copyright-traps-to-permit-detection-of-unauthorized-copies

He made the point that in addition to the copyright traps, some of the errors are a result of maps including "paper streets," streets that were planned but never actually built. And some errors are just pranks. From the article:

"Of course, when it comes to map errors, you can't overlook the possibility of a little good-natured sabotage. Monmonier mentions two prank towns appearing in an official map of Michigan, the edge of which showed portions of the neighboring state of Ohio. Some diehard Wolverine fan in the mapmaking department decided that would be a good place to put the nonexistent towns of "goblu" (Go Blue, get it?) and "beatosu," referring to the University of Michigan's traditional rival Ohio State. If you had to spend all day staring at squiggly lines and benday dots, you'd need some way to let off steam, too."

"Accenture (formerly known as Anderson Consulting) did the same after Enron."

FYI, Accenture's name change from Andersen Consulting was made official in January 2001. The Enron scandal didn't become public until October 2001, and that involved Arthur Andersen not Andersen Consulting (Arthur Andersen handled Enron's accounting, Andersen Consulting had split off from them in 1989). The relationship between Andersen Consulting and Arthur Andersen was actually rather acrimonious despite (or perhaps because of) their similar origins.

Full disclosure: I worked for Avanade, a division of Andersen Consulting/Accenture, in 2000 right before the name change.

Perhaps a better approach to my original question would be:

If one were to argue that there is an infinite amount of stars/matter in the universe, would the light distortions caused by this Axis of Evil be a valid explanation for why the night sky is not filled with an infinite amount of light?

I must confess that I haven't read enough on the Big Bang or any other theory of the universe's creation to have an informed opinion on the matter, so this question may be akin to asking about possible explanations for why ships don't fall off the edge of a flat earth.

where exactly did you get the idea that there were an infinite number of stars?

It's one of the basic assumptions of Olbers' paradox, a.k.a. the dark night sky paradox. I suppose that assumption does not work well with the Big Bang model, however.

The actual distortion is similar to the ripples of light you see on the bottom of a swimming pool due to ripples in the surface of the water. So, instead of even lighting across the bottom of the pool, you see a pattern of light and dark areas.

I'll admit up front that my knowledge of astronomy is severely limited, so please excuse in advance what may be a stupid question. But could this distortion be part of the reason why the night sky is dark rather than filled with light from the infinite amount of stars that exist?

The Straight Dope tackled this question a few years ago here, with the response that "there just aren't enough stars in the observable universe to fill up the night sky," but I'm wondering if this discovery changes things at all.

Meaning that if you're a record exec who doesn't know how to adapt to the evolving music scene, you're going to be out of a job soon. So update your resume (LinkedIn page) and start buying cheaper food (Ramen) because you're going to need to save up some money while you're unemployed.

Or something like that.

Just as a warning to anyone else who's at work and is curious about scroogle, do not try going directly to scroogle.com! Not safe for work, to say the least.