Good morning Happy 75th birthday to the Golden Gate Bridge, which opened in May 1937. It has become one of the world’s most instantly recognizable bridges, and is approaching its two billionth vehicle crossing sometime very soon. Although having the longest span in the world when built, it lost that title in 1964 to the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, and nowadays is the ninth longest suspension bridge, with a 4,200 ft main span length. The longest [...]
Good morning I had another burst of intense self doubt earlier this week. Are airlines really as stupid as I say they are? Or am I missing something so thunderingly obvious as to imply I’m even more stupid than I suggest the airlines sometimes are? This was triggered by the confirmation that Delta is indeed buying an oil refinery, and was underscored by the near unanimous chorus of approval by the usual talking head commentators [...]
Good morning ‘Waste not, want not’ has been my motto for a long time now. It is amazing how many experiences can become Travel Insider articles – it seems a shame to waste an interesting or learning experience so I try to write about them whenever possible. Our feature article this week about in-car emergency kits arises from one such experience a week or so ago. Hopefully after reading the article you’ll be spared the [...]
While the TSA continues to blindside itself by overlooking enormous vulnerabilities in airport and aviation security, and while it seeks to expand its role to stopping ordinary cars driving on ordinary highways for random searches (goodbye, Fourth Amendment rights), it hasn’t lost sight of its prime mission : The ludicrous hassling of ordinary Americans wishing to fly; people who are 100% obviously not any threat of any sort at all. Look at these appalling examples [...]
Good morning Happy 60th birthday this week to the illustrious Boeing B-52, still operational as a heavy bomber, sixty years after it first took to the skies on 15 April, 1952. 744 of the planes were built, including 102 of the final B52-H model, of which 85 are still in active duty and another nine are in the Air Force Reserve. Current projections suggest the planes will continue in service until perhaps 2040. The plane [...]
Good morning I was excited to read about JK Rowling’s next book, ‘The Casual Vacancy’, being released in September – especially because it is a book for adults. But upon going to the information on Amazon, I saw that the book, with a recommended retail price of $35, is currently showing a street price of $21 for the hardcover book and $20 for the eBook. Furthermore, the $21 hardcover price is ‘only’ a 40% discount [...]
Good morning It is a strange and semi-random process, deciding what to write about. I started off Thursday this week with some half written materials for publication today, and then during the morning, stumbled across a strange news item. At first it seemed worthy of a single short paragraph in today’s compilation of stories, but as I struggled to distill the nonsense implied in the story down to a single short paragraph, I realized that [...]
Good morning Another week with quite a lot of additional content, and it is hard to know which of the other three blog entries I posted during the week to point you to first. And, in a totally different context, it was a busy weekend, with the first stirrings of spring causing me to spend part of both mornings mowing the lawn for the first time this year. I guess that is a good thing. [...]
Good morning Anna and I are now back from our time in the Orlando area, and – as promised – here is a huge newsletter and lots of other articles to compensate for the very short one last week. Last week’s hotel stay was a helpful reminder, of sorts, to be stranded in a hotel with appallingly slow and sometimes totally stopped internet service. We take these things for granted, and plan our business lives [...]
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