So the picture on the left is MIT student Star Simpson's attempt to win a Darwin Award. Obviously, a piece of socket board, a LED star, and a 9-volt battery aren't exactly threatening, though we can see how loose wires on a jacket could jar security guards with loose wires upstairs. A DIYer, Simpson fabricated the sweatshirt ornament in honor of an MIT electrical engineering course, inscribing on the back "Socket To Me / Course VI." One might conclude that security personnel at Boston's Logan International Airport may have overreacted — a bit. But even if she wore it out of habit, let us not forget that we can barely smuggle liquids onto planes these days.

MIT student Star Simpson narrowly escaped death by submachine gun earlier this morning at Boston's Logan International Airport. What for? Why, sauntering about one of the terminals with a fake bomb strapped to her chest — a circuit board rigged up to a battery pack, allowing it to light up, with a ball of Play-doh in her hand — while, allegedly, awaiting an incoming passenger. She was apprehended, at gunpoint, on a traffic island outside the terminal. Her excuse? It was "art." Uh huh. At an airport? She's lucky she wasn't attacked by an angry mob of Bostonians on the spot. This is, after all, the same city ravaged by the Aqua Teen Hunger Force bomb scare/advertising campaign earlier this year. The main takeaway: They're letting anyone into MIT these days, aren't they?

You've heard Peter Bjorn and John's "Young Folks," the insanely catchy tune "built around a whistling hook so addictive that it has helped regenerate an art form long relegated to the realm of dog-walkers, bird-watchers, and the TV-hawked tunes of Roger Whittaker." Guess what? It's a big hit in Beantown! And you know what else? It is responsible for a renaissance of whistling in the hellhole by the harbor.

Ah, Philly, our sister city of brotherly love, or something like that. Once, for an incredibly brief and misguided period of time, it was considered our sixth borough. (For the next three weeks, obviously, our sixth borough is East Hampton.) But you know: it's still kind of better than that craphole Boston! What do the gays over at remarkably catty message board Datalounge recommend to do in Philly?

Boston is trying to become fashionable! (Have they been speaking with noted Boston fashion maven and Times CEO Janet Robinson?) Boston Fashion Week "serves as a platform for both established industry professionals and aspiring newcomers to showcase the great wealth of local talent," according to the event's frame-happy website. Except there's one little problem, as a reader points out: "It's being held, oops, at the same time as New York Fashion Week. Which means that none of Boston's most important buyers, editors, or fashion advertisers will even be in town. And which means that the rest of the world won't be paying attention anyway." Aw, Boston. That whole thinking you're the Hub of the universe thing might be backfiring.

Hot on the heels of this morning's second quarter earnings report was the Times Co.'s conference call, intended to explain said report. CEO Janet Robinson once again proved that she is a master of the Boston-area retail market. She just loves to bring up the opening of the new Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus in the Natick Mall! And that the Bloomingdales in Chestnut Hill moved to fancy new quarters! And like, that means more ads for the Boston Globe, ya know. But. The Bloomingdales move was completed months ago (as was the turnover of the old store to an "upscale" Macy's, if you can imagine such a thing), and we're just wondering how long she's going to beat this Nordstrom and Neiman's drum. Can those two stores alone save the Boston Globe? And then she made a fatal error. She stumbled onto our turf—thanks to our discount-loving (Jewish!) heritage.

• CBS Radio sues Howard Stern for using their air to promote his new Sirius show. So why didn't they just kick him off the air back then? "I'm the one who kept you on the air and I knew I could sue you afterwards," Stern says Les Moonves told him, presumably with an enormous, blindingly white smile. [NYT]
• Boston Globe in talks to print, distribute New York Post in Massachusetts. And finally New Englanders will have their hoped-for chance to play Post Poker. [BG]
• You know Nancy Grace, the crusading anchorwoman on CourtTV and Headline News? Yeah, well, she's kind of full of shit. [NYO]
• Bode Miller was Jim Kelly's second-worst cover decision, the Time editor, whose hindsight checks in at an amazing 20/15, tells Jon Friedman. [MW]
• NYT's Elisabeth Bumiller to write Condi bio; NYT's Steven Weisman, Bumiller's hubby, to get kicked off State Department beat. Such are the compromises of married life. [NYO]

We have no idea what they're writing about today — sports? rivalries? gay marriage? bear culture? — but we realize: We really ought to be reading Boston alt-weeklies more often.

Yesterday's Times weddings pages announced the nuptials of Clara Lora-Ospina, a clinical psychologist, and Kevin McCrea, a Boston city-council candidate. And how did the loving couple first meet?