No doubt you've heard about the White House's ill-advised and unannounced (to the public) flyby of the Statue of Liberty and other New York landmarks. The stunt seems almost unbelievably dumb: how could anyone not have foreseen that the sight of a low-flying 747, apparently being pursued by one or two military aircraft and just missing New York landmarks, would fail to create a panic? It's lucky, really, that no one died in a stampede.