Speechless. An Air France flight from Paris to Mexico had to make an unscheduled stop in Martinique when US air traffic controllers notified the jet that it would not be receiving permission to fly over US airspace. Why, you ask? Get this: A journalist on the US no-fly list was a passenger. 38,000 feet up [...]
So David Kessler dumpster-dives at Chili’s. Probably better than the food on the tables. The high-octane career path of David A. Kessler, the Harvard-trained doctor, lawyer, medical school dean and former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration had come to this: nocturnal dumpster diving. Sometimes, he would just reach in. Other times, he would [...]
Paul Krugman comments on reports that banking pay has returned to 2007 levels – noting (1) that what they did in 2007 (that earned them their huge payouts) is exactly what got us into this economic crisis, and (2) that now they’re playing with our (public) money and shouldn’t go overboard. He concludes: In 2008, [...]
Definitely one of those “truth is stranger than farce” moments from our friends in Kansas. A group of seven congregants from Topeka, Kan., set up outside Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda yesterday to protest the sexual orientation of the poet for whom the school was named. While they’re in town, maybe they can go [...]
From the New York Times vapid lifestyle story file, comes From Highly Successful to Unemployed to Becoming Mr. Mom- headlined as “Mr. Moms (By way of Fortune 500). AS the 3 p.m. bell rang recently at the local elementary school here, there were some unusual faces in the crowd of mothers and nannies outside: a [...]
OK, so here’s the great sewer replacement of 2009. The very opposite of fun. Sewer replacement FacebookTwitterDiggItTechnoratiDel.icio.us
What do you do with a mall that no one shops at? As the recession deepens, the retail industry continues to take a huge hit. Nowhere is this more visible than in the rising vacancy rate in shopping malls across the country. Mall owners are gambling on various businesses to draw people in, from water [...]
More intriguing stuff from good old Nate Silver … this time, estimating when a state’s population might be ready for gay marriage, or at least ready not to ban it. Given the complexity of political processes in a lot of these places – rural domination, different constitutional structures, etc. – I wouldn’t venture to say [...]
Today’s plumbing adventures – a big estimate for a sewer mainline replacement – makes me want to revisit and recount the plumbing adventures I’ve had over the past 9 years.
This one is extraordinary – the Scotland Yard guy gets out of his car at 10 Downing Street holding important papers about a counterterrorism operation – face-out to the cameras. So the photographers blew up the picture and could read and report the details. At least in the movies they always have folders that are [...]