Recently in News Category

Thirty years ago the first spam email message (unsolicited commercial email) was sent to 393 researchers on the Arpanet network.  Nobody knew it was the first spam message and wouldn't call it that until 15 years later, but it was a harbinger of things to come.  Now there's formmail spam, comment spam, trackback spam, and every other form of spam imaginable.

A Brazilian priest wanting to break the 19-hour party balloon flight record took off from Sao Paulo, Brazil (see video) on Tuesday, apparently to never to be seen again.  I am really not making this up!  The priest took off strapped to hundreds of helium party balloons equipped with a satellite phone.  High winds took him off course and he reportedly was 30 miles from shore when he contacted authorities.  The Brazilian Air Force immediately went looking for him but suspended their search after two days.  The moral of the story:  if you strap yourself to nearly a thousand balloons not even god can save you.

A chronicle reporter, Debra Saunders, was chastised by San Franciscans after she called people that earn between $200,000 and $250,000 a year "rich."  One lawyer said that "salary cannot make one rich because a 'rich' person does not need to work. Like Bruce Wayne."  I think this was an attempt by this lawyer to argue that the word "rich" pertains to a person's wealth and not their income.  I mean really.  How spoiled are these people that contacted the reporter to complain!?

If you make $200,000 or more you may not be wealthy now, but you certainly have the means to amass a decent level of wealth over 20 years of earning that much money.  Over $4 million over 20 years to be exact.  Add to that several shrewd investments and compound interest and those $4 million in earnings could conservatively double.  That's not a bad deal.  San Franciscans and the top income earners in the state just need to concentrate on what they have, rather than what they don't have.

The reporter points out that people in that $200,000 or more earn more than 93 percent of the people in San Francisco and more than 97 percent of the people in the entire country!  She concedes that the top 5 percent of income earners pay 60 percent of the nation's taxes.  These San Franciscans can argue that they pay too much in taxes, but they shouldn't cry poor because "it looks bad to the other 97 percent."  I agree, be grateful for what you have and invest you spoiled babies!

Foreclosures in the Bay Area are up 300% for the quarter compared to a year ago. The bleeding will likely continue in the months ahead too.  Mortgage defaults, the first step to foreclosure, are also up about 150% for the quarter compared to a year ago.  Granted, things are not that bad in San Francisco county where only 124 homes were foreclosed out of the 6,579 homes foreclosed in the entire nine-county Bay Area region.

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, 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?