Jelly Roll

5:45 PM -- When you do a lot of security research, as I do, you occasionally turn up something sticky. Here's an article that turned up on BBC News earlier this week:

Okay, I have a series of questions about this story:

1) Who reported this potential hazard? Smucker's? How paranoid do you have to be to see weapons of mass destruction in a pile of goo by the side of the road? What's next, mines in the Hellman's?

2) What the heck are the Germans eating over there? If I saw "a flabby red, orange, and green substance," I don't think I'd put it on my toast, even if it happened to be on the breakfast buffet at Shoney's.

3) The fire brigade spent two hours examining the substance and "performed a variety of tests" before determining that it was jelly. Exactly what tests did they perform? "Well, first we put it in a centrifuge, then we tried it on an English muffin." And how did this take two hours? Did they watch two episodes of Emeril first, just to be sure they spread it right?

4) The spillage was eventually traced to a wedding party. Okay, I've been to a lot of weddings, but I don't recall one where any sort of fruity condiment was served, much less a "flabby red, orange, and green substance." I mean, who was getting married, Courtney Love and Jiminy Glick? If somebody served such a substance to me at a wedding, I'd take back my Mixmaster.

Seriously, are we getting a little too paranoid about security these days? Maybe we should spend more time looking for criminals and less time investigating gooey substances. Lighten up, everybody. And let the jelly roll.

— Tim Wilson, Site Editor, Dark Reading