Americans love to wet their pants. Can’t get enough of the boogeyman. And there’s plenty to fear these days, what with falling TV sets (16 fatalities in 2010) and Chevy Volt batteries (no injuries, no deaths, no cost to consumers, but Congress got real scared about it anyway). Now comes Technicolor dry-heaves fear, according to Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). “This is a serious issue,” he warns.

What’s so serious? Tin whiskers, is what. It’s tin whiskers, Grassley asserts, that caused unintended acceleration (UA) in Toyota automobiles. These pesky metallic demons are microscopic feathers that sometimes sprout from solder on electrical connections. They exist. What doesn’t exist is a single person who has ever found an example of tin whiskers causing an automobile to accelerate. Here’s what we do know: Lee Harvey Oswald had a five-o’clock shadow and the 9/11 terrorists were simply all ate up with whiskers.