Frontier Airlines filed for bankruptcy but will continue operations.  Aloha, ATA, and Skybus filed for bankruptcy and completely shutdown in recent weeks.  American Airlines and other carriers with MD-80 aircraft have canceled many of their flights for inspections and maintenance.  You know, the inspections and maintenance that they should have been doing all along.

With all of these canceled flights, you would think passengers would brush up on the refund rules, particularly this one: "Passengers whose schedules are significantly affected by cancellations — such as when the only available alternate flight involves flying on a different day or includes an unplanned stopover — are eligible for a refund in lieu of a later flight."  People just need to learn how to stand their ground and demand refunds instead of being herded like sheep.

Today, the third airline in one week filed for bankruptcy!  What the hell, everyone is doing it.  Not to be outdone by Aloha and ATA, Skybus Airlines declared bankruptcy and shut down.  Skybus is relatively small compared to Aloha or even ATA, which leads me to believe that a lot of smaller carriers are going to go down in the next couple of months.  With the most recent job figures, most economists now believe we’re in a recession so all kinds of craziness will ensue as confidence declines.  Stay tuned.

ATA Airlines followed Aloha Airlines in declaring bankruptcy and shutting down.  Another one bites the dust!  ATA serves many airports, including Kona in Hawaii and Oakland where many travelers were left stranded and will have to make other arrangements to travel.  I wonder how many more will fold?

Google lays off 300 from DoubleClick making this the first job cuts in Google history.  Google had acquired DoubleClick last month, so this could just be a way of reducing overlapping functions.  Either way, its a reduction in force and a clear sign that the economic downturn is hitting everyone.

Recent research shows no real advantage in using mouth-to-mouth CPR in outside-the-hospital cardiac arrest cases.  Additionally, the studies show that people are not likely to do mouth-to-mouth on strangers, but are willing to do rapid chest compressions. So the next time someone collapses in front of you clutching their arm or chest, remember that the mouth-to-mouth procedure is no longer required; using your hands only is just fine.

Aloha Airlines announced yesterday that it is filing for bankruptcy an halting passenger service for all its flights after today.  So if you are currently on vacation in Hawaii and you flew with Aloha–Aloha bitch, you’re stranded!  That’s totally messed up.  Hawaiian Airlines stepped up and said it would take all the Aloha passengers it can on standby for free, but only for four days through April 3rd.

A Texas woman was forced by TSA gangstaz to remove her nipple piercings with pliers before boarding a flight last month.  The woman hired Gloria Allred last week, so the TSA almost immediately changed their procedures to allow for visual inspections of nipple rings in the future.  The truth is that if the woman had not hired a high-profile lawyer nothing would have happened.  I don’t mind the TSA doing their jobs, but a lot of them have this "gangsta" mentality lately.  We should stop all of this oppressive behavior, since it does nothing to make us safer in the skies.  Are nipple rings all that dangerous?

I am glad that I am flying United this Friday when I return to San Francisco.  Why?  American Airlines canceled at least 200 flights today after doing "more thorough" inspections of their MD-80 aircraft.  The MD-80 aircraft were made by McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach and were put into production from about 1979 to 1988.  Needless to say, the planes are old.  Given the age of their planes, wouldn’t it be nice if American *always* performed thorough inspections, not just on special occasions!?  I am just saying.

A huge ice chunk collapsed off the continent of Antarctica today.  The chunk of ice was part of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, an ice shelf that has been steadily shrinking over the last 15 years.  Scientists had believed that the shelf would collapse in about 15 years, but the ice shelf had other plans.  The collapse will not raise sea levels in the rest of the world but is a sign of worsening global warming.  Yikes!

Thomas Beatie,
pregnant man.

Thomas Beatie, a person that was born a biological woman, had sex change surgery, and is now living as a man, is having a baby because his wife is unable to do so. Here is an excerpt of the story in The Advocate:

Sterilization is not a requirement for sex reassignment, so I decided to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy but kept my reproductive rights. Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire.

Damn, you have to wonder how many heterosexual husbands would be willing to do this for their wives if it were possible?

After Steve Irwin’s death a few years ago, I wrote a satirical post surrounding a true incident in which a stingray jumped onto a boat and stabbed a man in the heart.  That man survived.  Yesterday there was another freak incident in which a stingray leaped into the air striking a woman on a moving boat so hard that she fell back, hit her head, and died.  While stingrays jumping out water is not unusual, stingrays flying out of water and hitting stationary or moving objects is very unusual.  What a strange way to go.

The University of San Francisco’s School of Law is supporting it’s Intellectual Property Law Clinic’s attorneys-in-training in helping outside lawyers to defend their clients against the RIAA, pro bono. The two attorneys in the program are doing this under the supervision of law school professors and have already assisted by filing briefs in New York for two pending cases. Big ups to USF, my alma matter, in fighting the RIAA’s gestapo tactics and shakedown lawsuits against individuals.

These Japanese snow monkeys like the natural springs outside of Nagano so much that they’ll put up with Japanese and foreign tourists snapping their pictures as they chill. This has to be one of the funniest photos I’ve seen in a while, if only because the monkey in the back doesn’t look like he likes the picture-taking. What do you think the caption should read?

A slimy ex-CEO in Boca Raton stopped paying his mortgage in 2002 and forced his bank to provide evidence that they owned his bank note. They have not been able to produce the necessary paperwork in foreclosure proceedings and he’s still living in his home. Of course, he probably has had to defend himself in court which can’t be cheap. But, it’s probably less than he would have payed for his $1.5 million mortgage in a year. According to experts, about half of all mortgages in the U.S. may not have the necessary bank note paperwork. Seems like a sneaky way to get out of your personal obligations, but in the U.S. where there’s a crook there’s a way.

Fidel Castro ended his presidency, not with a burst of gunfire but with a simple announcement saying he was done. Fidel’s brother Raul, who ironically looks older than Fidel does even though he’s 5 years younger, was chosen as president by Cuba’s National Assembly shortly after. And so ends the rule of a man that 10 U.S. presidents tried to take down. Oddly enough, there have been no reports of partying in Miami, as they did last year when people thought Fidel Castro had died. I guess the Cubans in Miami learned their lesson and are now saving it for the funeral.

A year ago, Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for substantially more than the current $44.6 billion offer, but Yahoo turned them down. Now, after all of the mistakes that Yahoo made over the last year, it looks like the sale is almost an inevitability. They’ve making mistakes for a while. Yahoo had the opportunity to buy Google in the early days. Hell, in the last two years it had an opportunity to buy YouTube and Facebook for a fraction of their current valuations. Yahoo would damn near own the Valley today if it had pulled the trigger on just one of those deals (guess which one). But now, the only deal on the table is Yahoo itself. Hopefully, they won’t mess up that deal too, or they may have to officially change their name to Boo-hoo-ooo!

Everyone has seen the after-Super Bowl Disneyland spots where an athlete is caught right after the game saying, “I’m going to Disneyland!” Well, one of the NFL cameramen that make those shots happen is from the Bay Area and was interviewed by the Chronicle. Interesting read.

Yahoo is expected to layoff as many as 500 peeps fairly soon.

Two small planes collided over the city of Corona showering debris and body parts over a busy business district near the 91 freeway. The four people in the two planes died and a fifth person was killed in a car dealership when debris pierced through the roof of the business. Police are still trying to figure out the cause of this freak accident.