Andrew Sullivan notes “AND NOW THEY WANT OUR COFFEE: The puritanical left – having tried to take away our booze, porn, and cigarettes – is now after our lattes. Okay, guys, this is serious.” I’ll leave the legal questions (about whether Berkeley can restrict trade in this manner) to law professors at The Volokh Conspiracy and Instapundit. My personally selfish reaction is that fair trade coffee is more expensive than and doesn’t taste as good as the coffee that I enjoy. I think that is more important than most people will give credit to. Enjoyable products at a low price matter However, it isn’t morally persuasive if my latte creates misery for others. The truth is, though, that “fair wages” isn’t as simple as proposition as its proponents would contend. We can’t simply decide that…
Quare notes a
Quare notes a strange legal conundrum. It’s illegal to engage non-District of Columbia residents to circulate petitions in DC (so noone from Virginia or Maryland), but it’s also illegal to advertise the fact that it’s illegal — because that would be discriminatory. Seems highly wasteful and inefficient.
This frightens me. The sitemeter
This frightens me. The sitemeter button at the bottom of the page will take you to this website’s statistics. I’m not the most frequently visited site in the world, but I make all of my stats available to the world. So, I was checking the stats the morning. One of the things available is the referring page. That is, where did a visitor come from if they clicked on a link? Apparently I got a hit this morning from someone doing a google search: “Is Bernie Ebbers a Jew?” This scares me. I don’t know what the Worldcom scandal could possibly have to do with religion, but there sure are bigots out there in the world. I’m really sad this morning.
How should I use my
How should I use my miles. I’m not going to give you the definitive answer here, but I am going to tell you about how I use mine — and point out that how you want to use them will dictate your choices of program, credit card, etc. Yesterday I received an email asking my opinion of a credit card from MBNA with No annual fee, $1 = 1 point, 25k points = 1 flight w/in contiguous US w/o blackout dates. The ticket has to be booked 21 days in advance in coach, and there’s a maximum dollar value for the ticket. Here is my reply: What I do like about the offer is that when traveling on an award ticket, since it is a PURCHASED ticket, you will be earning more frequent flyer miles…
500 Northwest miles
500 Northwest miles for taking a 30 second survey on airport security. Also, if you aren’t signed up to get email from Northwest, they’ll give you 2000 miles if you do.
(gratuitous plea for traffic) I
(gratuitous plea for traffic) I was kind of getting used to the thousand folks who came to visit More Room Throughout Coach from Instapundit‘s link on Sunday. When that post got buried, traffic started to fall. If you find this site useful, I’d appreciate it if you would send the link to some friends. If you have a blog I’d appreciate it if you’d mention us in a post. Seeing traffic numbers gets my juices flowing, and more importantly inspires me to post advice and links that benefit you. Hey, I appreciate it! (/gratuitous plea for traffic)
Tony Woodlief takes
Tony Woodlief takes down Jesse Jackson, Kweisi Mfume, and major league baseball. Check him out.
1500 miles for free on
1500 miles for free on Alaska Air. First, sign up for their free My Alaska Air profile for 1000 miles. Don’t sign up for e-statements, however. Once you’re done signing up for My Alaska Air, then sign up for e-statements for another 500 miles.
The rise of
The rise of the sleepwalking defense. A U. Mass-Amherst student is acquitted of sexual assault after claiming he was sleepwalking through it all. I wonder if that’ll work for Bernie Ebbers and Worldcom or the board of Enron? As a finance person myself, I can tell you that audit meeting have a tendency to lull participants to sleep…
USA Today reports
USA Today reports on a new trend towards private encouragement of airline service to small communities. Government subsidies didn’t work well because they failed to match the desire for air service with passenger demand for travel, and airlines wound up eating subsidy money and pulling service when the subsidies dried up. Now companies are getting together to decide what kind of air service they need and guaranteeing business up front, reducing the risk to an airline starting service. This private cooperative solution may be the way of the future for luring air service to smaller airports.
