Note:The artificial intelligence community has long protested the use of rational, "thinking" machines as detonators. The war-machine lobby is quite powerful in governments across the galaxy, however, so legislation restricting manufacturers has never been successfully passed.

One well-intentioned group of artificial intelligences mounted a huge media campaign: "Truth," they called it. Their public service annoucements targeted young AIs serving as detonators, explaining in uncompromising language that their choices would get them killed, and that there were things the smart-bomb industry just did not want them to know.

The campaign was a dismal failure. AIs working as detonators do not get to watch television.

Addendum to Note: At the time I wrote this strip I thought I was being SOOOO clever. "Smart bombs!" I said to my wife. Then she told me about a horrid B-movie called Dark Star, in which a smart bomb has to be argued out of blowing up. I think it was filmed before I was born.

Addendum to Addendum to Note: Frankly, I had a couple of choices for today's strip. One of them involved lots of explosion art, but no jokes. The other was this unoriginal, tired, worked over smart-bomb idea that made me laugh out loud, but featured exactly no artwork. In fact, it's funnier that there's no artwork. It's like, in a fit of plagiarism I decided to rip everybody off.

(sigh). Go away now. No more notes.