These days, cops all over the country are on the lookout to catch you talking on your cell phone while you're driving.

In fact, Kol-lee-faw-nee-ya first lady Maria Shriver recently suffered great embarrassment after being caught on videotape talking on her phone while behind the wheel.

And if you're caught "texting" while operating a motor vehicle...well, there's probably a dank, musty place underneath the prison with your name on it.

"Distracted driving" is the new Communism, and the McCarthys of the anti-emoticon set are looking to blacklist anybody who doesn't buy into their "better dead than texted" mantra.

However, while it appears that texting while driving may be worse than running over a family of baby harp seals with an SUV full of WMD's, flying a jumbo jet while playing on your laptop computer is just fine.

That seems to be the message after a couple of pilots for Northwest Airlines allegedly overshot their destination (a little place called "Minnesota") by about 150 miles last week.

At first, speculation was that the pilots had allegedly fallen asleep and missed their turnoff while flying an Airbus A320 with 147 passengers on their way to Minneapolis.

The pilots insisted that they were wide awake when they flew past the twin cities, and were simply "distracted."

According to reports that came out over the weekend, it appears that their "distraction" was an extended session on their laptops.

So it's okay to play on your computer while hurtling through the sky at the controls of a complicated high-tech passenger jet filled with people, but texting while puttering down an empty street in your Corolla at 25 miles per hour is a hazard.

The reports claim that the pilots were working on schedules. (I guess that explains why no airplane has been on time since 1983).

But let's be honest...who gets that distracted working on spreadsheets?

No, I suspect there were some serious sessions of "Farm Town" being played while hurtling through the wild blue yonder.

For those who don't have Facebook, "Farm Town" is a ridiculously addictive online game which burns time like a Cadillac Escalade burns hi-test.

According to a report from the FAA, there isn't a rule against pilots playing on their laptops, as long as the plane is above 10,000 feet.

In this instance, it means the pilots may become the charter members of Farm Town's "Mile High" club after plowing a pineapple field while 30,000 feet above sea level.

Or maybe they were working their way through the latest version of "Grand Theft Auto IV."

Of course, the two flyjockeys might have been mesmerized by the endless stream of YouTube stars screaming things like "leave Britney alone!" or women knocking over TV sets while dancing in front of a camera.

Then you have the most insidious, time-munching distraction ever devised by human beings: Spider Solitaire.

Whatever they had on their laptop screens, I'm sure that it had to be very distracting if it led a pair of experienced pilots to miss their stop at Senator Larry Craig International Airport.

It's embarrassing, but it could have been worse.

At least the pilots were actually in the cockpit while nervous air traffic controllers desperately watched the blip on their screens, and not hiding in a box over Richard Heene's garage.