2013 archive
The Friendly Skies 0
Passengers reported buying tickets for $5 to $10 before United shut down the bookings on its website and phone centers to prevent more tickets from being sold or given away.
Not even that fare would get me to willingly fly that airline.
Curing an Edifice Complex 0
After 15 years, an end to a land grab (much more at the link).
Note that the Housing Authority was just the hit man. The University was Mr. Big issuing the hits, wrapped in the certainty that it was right because, after all, it’s an Educational Institution with a Rising Football Team. (What could possibly be more of a sign of virtue than a Rising Football Team?)
And, no, it won’t be an object lesson for anyone.
The next time a Mr. Big wants to take stuff from the little guys, he’ll go ahead and give it a shot.
It’s just what our Mr. Bigs do.
Facebook Frolics 0
Facebook is mucking with its “privacy” (c’est rire) policy once again in its continuing effort to parade you naked through the internets.
The Rich Are Different from You and Me 2
And they like it that way.
“We’ve got an economy that serves strictly to benefit the wealthy and not the average working person,” said Sharon Ward, executive director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, who was aghast at the findings.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
For all practical purposes, stasis with slight hints of improvement.
The decrease in filings doesn’t signal a change in job-market conditions because most of it was caused by computer-network conversions in the two states, according to a Labor Department spokesman.
(snip)
Estimates for jobless claims in the Bloomberg survey of 50 economists ranged from 315,000 to 350,000. The four-week moving average of claims, a less volatile measure than the weekly figures, fell to 321,250 last week, the lowest since October 2007, from 328,750.
I was late checking the news of the jobbed and jobless because I had somewhere to go and something to do.
The Next Next Big Thing 0
Twits on Twitter 0
Twits of shameless commerce.
“Pay for Performance” 0
All that’s missing is the performance.
Foiling the Frisbee Menace 1
Old Dominion University is a local university which started as the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary.
A few years ago, they started a football team, which has done reasonably well, if you care about such stuff. It plays at Foreman Field, a small stadium that seats about 20,000, though they are starting to have arena dreams.
Now they are going big time.
Are they doing this because there is any demonstrated threat to college football games, other than fistfights between drunken tailgaters?
No.
They are doing this because searching people is the Next Big Thing, enabled by two crackpots leaving backpacks on city streets.
All the cool teams are doing it.
Mike Fryling, assistant general manager for Global Spectrum, the company that handles game-day operations for ODU football, said bags were inspected in 2009, the school’s first season. ODU had a more relaxed attitude the past three years.
He said that’s changing in large part because other colleges have beefed up security at athletic events.
“It’s a national trend,” he said.
And you thought that The Naked City was just a movie.
Such is life in the home of the brave.
Everybody Must Get Fracked 0
Well, it’s about time.
Shockwaves my anatomy.
They thought they had been given a ticket to set drinking water on fire ride.
Why I Haven’t Posted a 9/11 Thread 0
Because there are enough empty pro forma remembrances.
Cheeseheads 0
Here’s a slice of news.
A report prepared by the city’s Department of Public Works notes that Milwaukee, like most cities, relies on rock salt as its primary de-icer on roads. Rock salt, according to the report, is plentiful, inexpensive and very effective.
News, Ripped from the Ticker 0
In the usual bad taste.
The Secesh 2
Another outbreak of my way or the highway.
A group is calling for five western Maryland counties to secede and form their own state.
Scott Strzelczyk, leader of the Western Maryland Initiative, said people are fed up with the liberal majority and want an “amicable divorce.” He wants to live in a smaller state, with more “personal liberty, less government intrusion, less federal entanglements.”
I’m beginning to wonder whether the nation will survive Teabaggery.
Come Again? 0
You realize, of course, that these people are nuts.
Afterthought:
The irony is, they don’t believe the words of the Savior they claim to venerate.