Wash Call: Checks find dead people ... Hello, aliens ... More

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The Social Security Administration expects to send $250 economic stimulus checks to about 10,000 dead people.
The agency said it faced such a tight deadline that there wasn't enough time to make sure their records were accurate. The checks were part of the stimulus plan hastily cobbled together earlier this year as the economy tanked.
Social Security notes that the 10,000 errant checks are a minuscule fraction of the 50 million sent out to beat a mid-June deadline. Perhaps, but $2.5 million in errant benefits isn't small change.

There hasn't been a shout-out from space after nearly 50 years of radio telescopes searching for signs of advanced alien life. But should there ever be such messages received, the folks at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute want to at least have given some thought to how we might reply.
You can make your suggestions through Earth Speaks, a SETI project launched Friday, May 15, that encourages people worldwide to submit text messages, pictures and sounds that we might send out to an extraterrestrial civilization. Submissions can go to http://messages.seti.org, with participants urged to enter labels or "tags" to help researchers categorize the messages. Scientists think the project may reveal a lot about how the world thinks about itself, even if we don't hear from ET anytime soon.

The bad economy will translate into 7 percent fewer air travelers -- about 14 million less than last year -- in the skies this summer on U.S. carriers, the Air Transport Association of America says.
Despite the recession dip, the industry warns that with fewer planes flying under the reduced demand, many aircraft will still be packed and the potential for air-traffic, equipment and summer-weather delays remains as high as in past seasons.

There has been a "huge increase" in the number of Chinese illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border recently, according to the chief of the Border Patrol's Tucson region, who spoke this past week at a border-security conference in Phoenix.
As reported by Government Security News, Robert Gilbert said tougher security on the U.S. Pacific Coast is pushing them to the land border with Mexico. Gilbert said these are far better-heeled illegals than others, with some willing to pay as much as $70,000 each to be smuggled in.

Seat-belt use last year is estimated to have reached a national rate of 83 percent, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is launching the annual "Click It or Ticket" crackdown May 18. More than 10,000 police agencies will be on the road, looking for seat-belt scofflaws.
The agency estimates that if 90 percent of us buckled up all the time, 1,600 lives could be saved and 22,300 injuries avoided each year.
Teen-agers continue to lag behind. Of the 4,500 occupants ages 16 to 20 who were killed in vehicles in 2007, more than half were not wearing seat belts.

(SHNS correspondent Lee Bowman contributed to this column. E-mail Lisa Hoffman at hoffmanl(at)shns.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
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