Dispatches > Quick Takes  Quick Takes   Joking matter  Some
jokes just aren't funny in an age of terrorism. Practical jokers
in Olympia, Wash., managed to shut down a checkpoint along the
U.S.-Canadian border for nearly four hours on Feb. 25, and the
border patrol wasn't even their target. Canadian Mounties
discovered a strange metal object below the driver's seat of a
man trying to cross the border. Suspicious of a bomb, the
Mounties had the crossing shut down and a duty-free store
evacuated while Canadian authorities investigated. The object
turned out to be ball bearings inside a metal tube, and it had
been placed under the seat by the driver's co-workers to create
an annoying rattle.  "Momma's" boy  A baby hippo, separated from
its mother and cast out to sea in the December tsunami, has
found an adoptive "mother" at a Kenyan wildlife park-a 130-year-
old male tortoise. Zookeepers say that after the scared hippo,
named Owen, was rescued at sea and brought to the zoo, he darted
toward the tortoise, named Mze