Unsafe at any altitude

It’s puckish timing that, immediately upon the news of a British Airways computer programmer’s arrest on charges that he’d planned to use cabin crew strikes to facilitate bombing an aircraft in flight, we receive news that BA cabin crew have voted to strike, starting 20March—a week hence.

The British style of labor actions appears to be short spurts of high-volume strikes interspersed with intervals of rather sullen showing up for work & going through the motions. (Kind of like auto-erotic strangulation which I see on many episodes of Law & Order: SVU. Tighten the noose, loosen it; repeat. The trick is to release before the participant actually dies.)

This latest follows that pattern: on strike for three days starting 20 March; four days from 27 March; no strike over Easter (because that would really piss off the leisure traveling public whose wrath would be directed at labor, not management); but possible further action after 14 April if BA haven’t caved by then.

There’s the usual pompous posturing on both sides; basically a whizzing contest between BA & Unite management. You hear the same in any dispute involving Unite; their leadership have a single script & they emote the hell out of it. PM Gordon Brown has stepped in to wring his hands & tsk-tsk the two parties, but no indication that anyone wants to actually make progress.

The union’s timing is definitely well-chosen: announcement that they’re screwing up flight schedules so soon that people won’t have much of a chance of rescheduling on airlines that aren’t constantly mired in revolving labor disputes. Plus a lot of money will be lost on cancellation penalties. This is what the Unite union had planned for December until British courts tossed out their strike vote because they were calling in ballots from Chicago graveyards.

I’m certainly no fan of Willie Walsh & the management of BA; they’re right up there with United & Continental as 20th Century businesses that haven’t sussed out this whole 21st Century model. (They remind me of generals in the First World War who just didn't get the impact of entrenched machine guns & heavy artillery on frontal assaults.)

But the union is even further into cloud-cuckoo land. They don’t seem to realize that this economy isn’t the one of 50 years ago, when labor could posture & threaten & walk away with huge gains. & they don’t seem to notice that other unions, like the UAW, have agreed to cutbacks of all sorts in order to keep their employers viable &, you know, employing them.

There’s one more worry for the flying public: if you happen to get on a BA flight that hasn’t been cancelled, how will you know that your substitute cabin crew isn’t an Al Qaeda cell?

In case you thought it was safe to fly...

More hair-raising news about airborne bomb plots: reports out of the UK about a BA computer programmer being charged on several counts of fundraising for terror groups & planning suicide bombings (presumably on BA flights).

Rajib Karim allegedly shared information about his work with “the world’s favourite airline”, including security measures, & offered to exploit BA’s neverending labor problems by volunteering to substitute for striking cabin crewmembers & then detonate some sort of explosive device.

Really, I don’t know which prospect is scarier: having a terrorist as a flight attendant, or having a programmer.

(Note to BA: you might want to run a security check on all your networks & computer systems, since the criminal charges span a time period from 2006 to now. I’m just sayin’…)

Criminal news

Update to the story last December about thieves taking the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign over the entrance to Auschwitz. A former neo-Nazi Swede, arrested last month, has been declared extraditable to Poland by a Swedish court.

Anders Hogstrom claims to have left his Nazi-loving ways behind long ago, although he doesn’t seem to be as clear about the conflicting stories he’s told authorities about his involvement in the Auschwitz crime.

There’s a certain sameness about criminals, from crackhead purse snatchers to Radovan Karadzic—not me, man. All this hot merchandise/these rotting corpses? I had nothing to do with it.

Mean streets for the barefoot

I love a good crime story, & this one out of Korea is just exactly what you need if you’re getting sick of winter weather & want something to stimulate your brain:

Seoul has been suffering from a crime wave of stolen shoes. They’re disappearing from everyplace from restaurants to funeral homes. Well, from in front of these establishments—it’s the custom in much of Asia to leave your shoes by the entry when you go indoors. Perfect setup for someone looking for a free pair of Farragamos or Charles Jourdans.

All props to the enterprising Mr. Park who’s accumulated 1700 pairs of shoes, presumably for resale on the street.

Big buzz killer, though, for the patrons coming out from a nice meal & maybe a few glasses of soju, & discovering their kicks are missing. It’s been a while since I lived in Seoul, but I have to say that I wouldn’t want to touch either streets or sidewalks unshod. My mother wouldn’t even let us walk barefoot on city sidewalks in Pasadena because “people spit on them”.

South Korea’s quite the entrepreneurial hotbed: it’s interesting that people are taking advantage of the footwear felons by inflating the manufacturer & cost of the missing shoes when demanding compensation.

God bless technology: restaurateurs are installing CCTV to bring the hopefuls back to, erm, earth.

Healthcare redux

Breaking news regarding this whole ’Pub “healthcare-reform-is-the-Antichrist” thing:

Sarah Palin winks that it’s “ironic” that she “used to hustle over the border for healthcare we received in Canada”. This in an appearance before an audience in Calgary at the weekend.

(I'm wondering if Palin confused Canada with Russia, which apparently is close enough to Alaska to run over to borrow a cup of supper.)

Canadian press coverage of the event just gives me too much ammunition for ridicule. I mean, La Palin all on her own is a joke, albeit a very dangerous one. Witness the quote from Stephanie Hansen, 18; she loves Palin despite not knowing bupkes about her politics.

See—that’s the Republican platform right there.

A politician is an arse...

My loyal readers are probably wondering why I’ve had no pithy commentary on the most recent spate of politicians brought down (or as near as makes no difference) by scandals revolving around their personal lives.

Well, it turns out I don’t have to come up with one because Christopher Buckley has already done so.

I’ve asked his question before when John Edwards stepped into it so deeply he’ll never scrape off the filth. But there never is an answer, is there?

The other question, of course, is: why do we keep electing people with the scruples of Fagin & delusions of stud-dom?