I was recently interviewed by The New York Times over my pet peeve regarding travel fees imposed by airlines and hotels. Now, Spirit Airlines has announced that it will charge a $100 fee for a carry-on bag. Conversely, other airlines are increasing their charges for checked bags which has generated billions in new revenues. There will be a $70 checked bag fee on international flights at American for some flight, for example. At one time, airlines blamed the new fees on fuel costs but that rationale fell away as the fees continued regardless of fuel costs.
Category: Bizarre
People looking at the IKEA catalogue in Saudi Arabia thought that there seemed something was missing: women. IKEA decided to airbrush out every picture of women in the catalogue while leaving men and children. In one example of the deletion the father, daughter and son are still shown in a bathroom scene but the mother has been removed. The ultimate symbol of women being invisible in the Kingdom.
Continue reading “IKEA Deletes The Images Of Women From Catalogue In Saudi Arabia”
An Ethiopian woman working as a maid in Dubai was left homeless and penniless after her employee threw her out of the house without paying her for three months work. Destitute and depressed, the woman, 24, known only as AM, stood in the middle of a road to be hit by a car. The government promptly acted in the tragic act. The woman was gently moved to the side the road and arrested. She will now face a fine of Dh1000.
A Chinese restaurant has reportedly closed after customers saw staff wheeling in road kill to be used in the kitchen of Red Flower Chinese Restaurant in Williamsburg, Kentucky. The truly unnerving part of this story is the police report that the owner did not know that it was a problem to use road kill as a meat source.
Continue reading “Dinner A La Car: Chinese Restaurant Shutdown After Found With Roadkill in Kitchen”
This video shows a ranking Philadelphia officer sucker punching a woman during a parade for Puerto Rican heritage. There is no apparent provocation and the woman was walking away at the time. (Updated below)
Continue reading “Video: Philadelphia Officer Sucker Punches Woman At Heritage Parade”
We have previously seen Rev. John Hagee and his rather twisted sense of the divine (here and here). Now it appears that he is turning to military history and explaining how prayer and fasting clearly ended the civil war. Hagee was introduced recently by Glenn Beck as “a prophet of our times” and sat enraptured as Hagee explained how Lincoln was able to bring an end to the civil war with a day of prayer and fasting.
Shaaban Ali is an honest taxi driver in the UAE. The Pakistani driver found Dh36,000 ($10,000), a passport and some other documents left by a Saudi passenger in his cab. He worked to track down the owner and soon found his office number. He then contacted the man and waited more than an hour for the man to arrive to pick up the money. The Saudi then gave him a $3 tip for returning the papers, his passport, and the cash.
It just might be the worst endorsement ever. Seventeen top economists were asked who would be better for the economy: Romney or Obama. It was clearly viewed as a question of the lesser of two evils by the economists. Nine out of 17 economists selected Romney but Bill Watkins, executive director of the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at Cal Lutheran University, selected Romney with the world’s best example of damning with faint praise: “Romney’s policies would likely be less bad for the economy than Obama’s.” Like five others, Gary Rosenberger of EconoPlay, simply refused to “pick your poison” between the two men.
Continue reading “The Overwhelming Choice of 9 Out of 17 Economists?”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Just this past summer, American Roman Catholic bishops were decrying the Obama Administration for forcing its ancillary institutions like colleges and hospitals to pay for reproductive health services for its women employees. Lawsuits were filed, press releases were released, and commentators were assembled on cable news to express the outrage. The holy fathers even channeled Rev. Martin Luther King (never a favorite of the Catholic hierarchy — how could he be with that name?) calling for civil disobedience to contest the mandates of the new law. Letters were written to the flock (with approved language, of course) from the bishops bellowing, ““We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law.” The bishops even marketed a catchy name for their protest: the flag waiving, patriotic sounding, Fortnight for Freedom. (Yes, His truth was marching on in full display!)
One of the things that we teach law students is how to address a jury in understandable terms without talking down to them. It is sometimes a delicate balance in dealing with complex questions or fact patterns. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed how not to strike that balance when he took the entire United Nation’s General Assembly through a “this is a bomb, this is a fuse” demonstration that instantly became a mockery around the world. That was a real missed opportunity when following Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who never fails to offer a clownish, absurd performance. It is one of those debates that you win by showing up and just stating your case . . . until you pull out cutout from the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show.
Continue reading “Yes, Indeed Mr. Prime Minister, This is a Bomb”
Maria Pestrikoff has given the world another danger associated with texting. Pestrikoff was texting while walking toward a cliff to toss away a cigarette. While still texting, she slipped on the grass and went over the 60-foot cliff — causing a difficult rescue in Kodiak, Alaska.
Continue reading “OMG B4NNNNN: Woman Falls Off Cliff in Alaska While Texting”
Audrey Deen Miller has proffered a unique defense to charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon: she shot her husband to protect her cat. The police report that Miller’s husband threatened to shoot one of her cats with a pellet gun. She did him one better and shot him in the abdomen with a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun.
Source: KHOU
Continue reading “Texas Woman Shoots Husband To Protect Cat”
It looks like the bicycle out of the Flintstones but two German designers believe “the Fliz” is the future of biking. I have my doubts.
The same week that a Cook County prosecutor is being justifiably heralded as a hero for intervening to protect a gay couple, another prosecutor from the same office is under arrest for biting a man outside of an adult shop. Sarah Naughton, 31, has been put on leave so that she is not prosecuting people while awaiting for her own trial or plea for misdemeanor battery and trespassing. She is accused of biting a man on the leg — bringing a new literal meaning to being dogged by a prosecutor.
Continue reading “Dogged Prosecutor: Chicago Prosecutor For Biting Man Outside Of Adult Sex Shop”
The video below has attracted considerable interest in the latest confrontation over an anti-Muslim ad campaign in the New York subway system. Many people have objected to the campaign by the American Freedom Defense Initiative which has put up signs reading “In any war between civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” However, columnist Mona Eltahawy who appears regularly on CNN and MSNBC took that opposition to a new level in this confrontation with a woman who tried to stop her from spray painting over one of the signs — an act that led to Eltahawy’s arrest. The incident involved a sharp difference of opinion on what constitutes protected freedom of speech.