A few Friday items to bring you into the weekend:
- From the “The Bad Reviews Are Always More Fun” Department: As I’ve said many a time, bad reviews are a lot more fun to read. Consider the following from today’s “Land of the Lost” review in the NY Times:
Although the original Sid and Marty Krofft series, which ran from 1974 to 1976, doubtless still has its fans, because, well, some people are happy to watch whatever pops up on their televisions, I suspect that a fair share also like to light up before tripping down that particular nostalgic byway. Alas, only popcorn and soda were served at the screening I attended.
On the positive side, the movie does have Anna Friel (Pushing Daises), who gets a nice writeup in the LA Daily News. The article notes how she will be in a new theatrical version of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, without any mention of the previous disasterous Broadway version (a well-known flop), starring Richard Chamberlain and Mary Tyler Moore.
- From the “Tell Me It’s A Joke” Department: It’s sad when a purportedly serious news article reads as a piece from The Onion: Ryanair CEO: ‘We are serious’ about a toilet fee:
Still, [Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary] did tell reporters the toilet charge is expected to be in place on Ryanair planes within two years. O’Leary adds that he’s asking Boeing to look into putting credit-card readers on toilet locks for new jets. “We are serious about it,” O’Leary is quoted as saying by the Guardian. O’Leary made the comments following the carrier’s first full-year loss in nearly two decades.
O’Leary didn’t stop there, taking the toilet idea one step farther. “He’s now proposing ripping out two of the three loos on a Boeing 737 to make way for a further six seats, claiming passengers can learn to cross their legs on flights of only an hour or so,” writes Alistair Osborne of the London Telegraph. The London Daily Mail quotes O’Leary as saying: “We are flying aircraft on an average flight time of one hour around Europe. What the hell do we need three toilets for?”
That’s not all. Ryanair says it may also begin charging customers for sick bags, if they’re needed. There’s still more. The Daily Mail says “one of (Ryanair’s) more controversial plans (now) under discussion is (to) introduce new baggage measures, which would see passengers replace baggage handlers to load luggage onto aircraft.” That, of course, would help cut costs by eliminating baggage handlers.
Right. Passengers as baggage handlers. Fees for barf-bags and to use the toilet. Nothing good can come from this idea.
- From the “Maybe We Need A Part-Time Legislature” Department: Yesterday, I wrote about two bills demonstrating the legislature had too much time on their hands. CNN highlights another today, although had they been reading California Highways they would have known a lot sooner, because I added AB 255 to the list. Here’s the summary on AB 255:
This bill would prohibit an operator, as defined, of a commercial Internet Web site or online service that makes a virtual globe browser available to members of the public from providing aerial or satellite photographs or imagery of places in this state that have been identified on the Internet Web site by the operator as a school, place of worship, or government or medical building or facility unless those photographs or images have been blurred. The bill would also prohibit that operator from providing street view photographs or imagery of those buildings and facilities.
An operator that violates these provisions would be guilty of a crime and subject to a fine of not less than $250,000 for each day the operator is in violation of these provisions. In addition, an operator who is an executive officer or member of a board of directors who knowingly violates these provisions would also be subject to imprisonment in the state prison for one, 2, or 3 years. Because the bill would create new crimes, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.I’m sorry, but this whole notion of blurring the images of buildings is security through obscurity. If I can drive my car around the building (which is where street view can get its images) or take a public flight over the building, then the information is public. I can understand restricting military bases and nuclear plants — I can’t fly over those. But schools, churches, and medical buildings? That’s going too far.
