The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

It’s Always in the Last Place You Look 
“Muzak, Background Music to Life, to Lose Its Name”–headline, New York Times, Feb. 5

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control
“For a change, people were laughing with John Kerry, not at him.”–Dana Milbank, Washington Post, Feb. 5

That’s Why He Married a Ketchup Heiress
“Mayo Too Strong for Kerry”–headline, Setanta.com, Feb. 3

That’s Why He Appointed Him Secretary of State
“Biden Says Obama Agrees With French Socialist on Climate Change”–headline, DailyCaller.com, Feb. 4

Smoke Alarm
“A Sunwing flight travelling from Halifax to the Dominican Republic on Friday night had to make an emergency landing after passengers were found smoking in the plane’s bathroom,” reports CBC:

According to the Bermuda Police Service another passenger alerted the crew and the smokers became verbally abusive. . . .

McWilliams said under Canadian transport regulations the plane needed to land at the nearest available airport, which happened to be Bermuda.

“We sent a mechanic down to Bermuda, because we wanted our own people to check the aircraft,” McWilliams said.

Then “the people who were arrested refused to say if they had left other cigarettes on the aircraft, if they had hidden cigarettes on the aircraft. They were very uncooperative. So in addition to the technical things that had to be done, we had to search the aircraft thoroughly.”

There’s no defending the family’s behavior, and we wouldn’t remark on it if they’d simply been arrested upon landing in the Dominican Republic. But isn’t the rest of this excessive?

Why the need for an emergency landing over passengers who were only verbally abusive? And why in the world did they need to “search the aircraft thoroughly” for “hidden cigarettes” after the fact? Smoking was allowed on airplanes until 20 or 30 years ago, and the mere carrying of cigarettes is permissible even today.

NOTE: The excerpts above are from the Feb. 5 BOTW archives.

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”