With all of the awful

by Gary Leff

With all of the awful changes in airline fare rules in most cases set to go into effect on January 1, 2003, it’s worth noting that America West has not crossed over to the dark side. Combined with an outstanding elite program, they just may earn some of my business next year.

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An interesting article

by Gary Leff

An interesting article suggests that CAPS, the government’s terrorist profiling system used in aviation security, is less effective than random screening. Since you know if your carry-ons have been manually inspected, you’ve been questioned, you’re asked to stand in a special line, or if you’ve been frisked, you know your CAPS profile — or at least you know what you aren’t, which makes it very easy to defeat CAPS, even if the profile itself is always kept secret.

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Bureaucrat openly defends the practice

by Gary Leff

Bureaucrat openly defends the practice of payoffs. At trial, a Philadelphia plumbing inspector describes taking money from plumbers whose work he was checking as “tipping” which is simply “part of the trade.” Angry and unapologetic, a former Philadelphia plumbing inspector yesterday defended accepting cash from plumbers whose work he checked. Joseph O’Malley told a federal jury that these “tips” never influenced him and, under probing questioning by a prosecutor, gave a candid portrait of a workday that sometimes included hours spent in a local pub or cruising around Roosevelt Park to rack up mileage on his car. Testifying in his defense in the racketeering and extortion trial of eight former inspectors, O’Malley called “tipping” a “part of the trade” that city plumbers learned as apprentices. “Is there any question that when you got paid by…

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