Jun
19
2002
Check back tomorrow… how to fly first class for the price of coach.
Eat Food Get Miles
Jun
19
2002
A friend asked me today whether I knew about iDine. Of course, I know all about it — it’s great. Here’s how it works. It’s free. You sign up. You go to restaurants. You earn 10 miles for each dollar that you spend at restaurants that are on their list — including miles for tax and tip. You can choose to earn miles on Alaska, American, America West, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, or USAirways. The whole system is automatic. You register your credit card, and the points post automatically when you pay your bill with that card. The only limitation is that you are generally only able to earn miles at a particular restaurant once per month. However, there’s a way around this constraint… a glitch in their system. Just sign up different credit cards…
The easiest 10,000 miles of
Jun
19
2002
The easiest 10,000 miles of my life. Northwest Airlines‘ promotion: “Fly Free Faster” — You need to click here to register. After you register, you need to qualify. You can take a Northwest flight, sign up for MCI long distance, or get a Northwest Visa. Each of these activities, naturally, earns bonus points. Now that you’ve qualified, you need to have activity with five partners. It can be any five — and you can even duplicate them. Five iDine restaurants qualify as five partners. A single towel purchased from JC Penney via the Northwest Mall works as a partner… Transferring points from Goldpoints or Starwood count. It’s easy! You have until July 31 to complete all activity.
On Monday I
Jun
19
2002
On Monday I noted that the E.U. was considering banning happy hours in bars. Now they’re considering banning packs of less than twenty cigarettes.
No new content on Tuesday.
Jun
18
2002
No new content on Tuesday. I’ll be out of town until mid-morning on Wednesday, at which point I promise to get heavier on the free travel and light on my own ill-informed opinions.
New reasons to dislike the
Jun
17
2002
New reasons to dislike the European Union The EU wants to ban coffee shops in the Netherlands in which hashish and marijuana may be legally consumed. The EU is considering banning all happy hours throughout Europe. Seriously. Socialists in the EU parliament argue that happy hours are used by big bars to drive their smaller competitors (“who can’t afford to lower prices”) out of business.
The (London) Independent reports that
Jun
17
2002
The (London) Independent reports that the Venezuelan military may stage a new coup by July 5. The Democratically-elected socialist Hugo Chavez will be hard-pressed to make a case to the world for outrage. Chavez himself staged a failed coup in 1992 before being voted-in as President in 1998.
My very first link. My
Jun
16
2002
My very first link. My friend Sasha over at The Volokh Conspiracy provides the very first linking to this site by crediting me for sending him a link. If you made it to my site from there, welcome! I hope you come back… maybe I even warrant a bookmark?
Lloyd Grove reports
Jun
16
2002
Lloyd Grove reports on “Six Degrees of Fred Thompson” .. Former representative Ben Jones (D-Ga.), who played Cooter on “The Dukes of Hazzard” and is now running for Congress from Virginia, was in “Primary Colors” with John Travolta, who was in “Pulp Fiction” with Bruce Willis, who was in “Die Hard 2” with Fred Thompson. “The Price is Right” host Bob Barker lobbied for better treatment of circus elephants with Kim Basinger, the estranged wife of Alec Baldwin, who starred in “The Hunt for Red October” with Fred Thompson. Fred Thompson’s web also involves Denzel Washington, Lou Diamond Phillips and Benji.
Two Sunday evening Reuters pieces
Jun
16
2002
Two Sunday evening Reuters pieces caught my attention. First, Jacques Chirac’s center-right coalition won a huge landslide in parliamentary elections. I don’t know that anything will change — these are the French, after all — but it’s still sweet to see the socialist left trounced to such a degree that the leaders of the Green and Communist parties even lost their own seats. Second, Microsoft came out in favor of suing software companies for bugs and other defects. The story portrays Microsoft, whose balance sheets shows $39 billion in cash and cash equivalents, as the biggest target with the most to lose. It makes no attempt to reconcile this seeming contradiction, other than to suggest that Microsoft products are pretty good and they can defend themselves well in court. Shame on journalists who miss the…
