Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 13 Editor's Choice: 1
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Been there, done that....
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Having been "imprisoned" several times by my beloved local airline "Northworst", and once by TWA for 6 hours in JFK while trying embark on 8 hour flight to London, I can understand people's fury, however... I might point out on that TWA flight, one reason we were stuck in JFK for that long, after a two hour wait, a passenger demanded to get off the plane which in turn required all the luggage to be offloaded on the tarmac at midnight, so his/her luggage could be found. This caused such an additional delay, that the due to federal regulations, the crews had to be changed because of they would have exceeded the number of hours they were allowed to work in on stretch had they stayed on the flight. This in turn required the airline to find an available crew at 2:00 in the morning. Subsequently, we were near riot prior to departure at 4:00 am. Once we were airborne the crew most "diplomatically" served as many alcholic drinks 'gratis' as desired by any passenger. Needless to say, there was a major party all the way to London.
From this and other experiences, I think what needs to be established by law is the following:
1) Each airport must provide all necessary equipment and facilities to allow the pilot to divert to should his gate not be available. This would help when imprisonment occurs on the destination end, as well. (I've actually been stuck in my home town of Minneapolis for two hours trying to get off after arrival because no gate was available).
2) The pilot in command should be able to make the decision to divert to any available exit/holding facilities, without any resultant reprisals by the airline as a result of upon his decision.
3) Additional resources need to be made available by airlines, such as free food, liquor, toilets, whatever, should an extended delay be eminent. This could be achieved by using an additional departure tax on all flights which would be used to service any airlines and all airlines using any specific airport. This could be coupled with item one to allow an airplane to go to a holding area for service in the event a traffic backup. Ideally, a mechanism could be developed in departure control to allow those who are in the holding area to not lose their place in the departure queue.
Oh yeah, as a former pilot I really appreciate your column. You're a great writer.
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Excellent Idea
[Read the article: Salon's new letters registration policy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm surprised Salon hasn't always done this. As a long supporter and believer in "Premium Membership", I believe that non-members should be required to provide a real name, as an incentive to become a premium member. Keep up the good work!!!
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Win for device manufacturers
[Read the article: Google's big win -- and big loss -- in a bid for the open wireless Web]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While this isn't nirvana, it's pretty good from an administration that champions monopolies. It is a definite win for device manufacturers and software developers. If Nokia were to provide a CDMA card for it's Nokia N800 it will allow phones similar/superior to the iPhone to be much more common. We will, however, still suffer the ridiculously high rates.
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Actually this is a brilliant idea
[Read the article: Get ready for the Google Phone (the gPhone?)]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]From a revenue based on device sales perspective this might not sound good, but imagine what shopping, touring a city, etc would be like if you could do store locating via a web/gps device, while on the street (directing people to their clients) and price comparisons while in a store. Given Google has the ability to index and map all of the stores within a city, it could totally control advertising for the mobile world.
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Save your emotional energy...this is going to get worse
[Read the article: Conflating the questions on Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm sorry to rain on everyone's emotional cathartic experience, but I see this entire debate as pointless. As Thomas Ricks, author of Fiasco, pointed out at speech at the Commonwealth Club, this is just the beginning of the tragedy. I believe he said that due to the fact that we've exhausted our army, we will have 60K troops in Iraq after next spring, irrespective of whether we call it a "Victory" or call it "Cutting and Running". In this respect the "Surge" or "Going big and short" was doomed from day one. The only way to "Win" this was to "Go Big and Long", which we've never been able to do because of the size our army. Until the Current Occupant is out of power, nothing can really change, as it will take an entirely new foreign policy and Regime Change in the White House to even start to sort this mess out. The question we need to ask is which of the candidates is really a regime change?
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Who's to say it still isn't the plan?
[Read the article: "Seven countries in five years"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This isn't that surprising. If you accept that we are either near peak oil, then the current powers, and I don't mean presidential, will do whatever it takes to secure what's left of the world's oil. Considering that fact that the Chinese and Russians have been locking up most of the newly found oil via bilateral trade agreements, then this game will continue, irrespective of who's in the White House. That is the real reason we will never leave Iraq, and will either be permanently be on the verge of war with Iran or will attack it outright. This is going to one interesting ride.
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Assassination of the perceived leader is the Democratic way
[Read the article: Boys against girl?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm no fan of Hillary, but piling on the perceived leader is the one common behavior all Democratic candidates always seem to eventually do, and it always seems to split the party and give the R's talking points. Rather than beating each other up, why don't people really get into real policy issues that are driving the immigration problem, the credit crisis, the wars for cheap oil, and others: ie the fact that the powers that be have gutted most of manufacturing from country and we are no longer creating wealth. This in turn leaves working people to only be employed shuffling rich peoples money, or selling crap to each other. This is exactly happened to the British Empire and it is now happening to us. The situation is sad and stupid.