Welcome Home Daddy

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On Nov. 21: Madison Lutes, 7, runs to greet her dad, Air Force Capt. Jaymes Lutes as he leads his unit into the hanger at the Arizona Air Guard's 161st refueling Wing at Sky Harbor International Airport early in Phoenix. Lutes is a member of the 996th Area Support Medical Company arriving home after serving one year in Iraq.

Two for the price of one

Canadian court rules the obese are entitled to two airline seats for the price of one.

Canada's airlines must give obese people two seats for the price of one on domestic flights, the country's highest court has ruled.
The supreme court declined to hear an appeal by Air Canada and WestJet, the country's two largest airlines, on a January 2008 decision by the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA), which gave the airlines a year to implement the policy after they failed to show that a "one-person, one-fare" structure would cause undue hardship.
By convention, the court gave no reason for declining to hear the case.
What remains unresolved is when exactly obesity constitutes a disability. The CTA said airlines must develop procedures to assess eligibility, adding that free seats need not be awarded to overweight people who are merely uncomfortable in a single seat.
The agency recommended that the airlines adopt a policy used by the American carrier Southwest Airlines, which stipulates that people who are too big to lower the armrest should be given an extra seat.
The airlines had lost an appeal at the federal court of appeal in May and had sought to launch a fresh appeal at the supreme court.
The "one-person, one fare" policy already exists on other types of public transport, including buses, trains and ferries.
The new policy will be in effect from Jan 2009.

Now you done it

In the News

New York Elementary School Renamed After Barack Obama

At the behest of its students, an elementary school near New York City has been renamed after President-elect Barack Obama.
The Hempstead Union Free School District board voted unanimously Thursday night to rename Ludlum Elementary School as Barack Obama Elementary School. The change went into effect immediately, school officials said Friday.
Officials for the Long Island district say they think the school is the country's first to be named after the first black president-elect, although similar efforts to rename schools, parks and streets are under way elsewhere.
The Clear Stream Avenue School in Valley Stream, N.Y., also on Long Island, will consider a renaming resolution in December. Students at the Clark K-8 At Binnsmead school in Portland, Ore., are seeking to rename it after Obama. And the prime minister of the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda has said he wants its Boggy Peak renamed Mount Obama.
Most of the 466 Hempstead pupils are black or Hispanic, and Obama's election was a big source of pride, principal Jean Bligen said Friday.
Some of the children read essays about Obama and the election at the school board meeting on Thursday night. "That really was effective," Bligen said.
The change will be formalized at a ceremony in December. School officials hope Gov. David Paterson, the state's first black governor and Hempstead High School graduate, will attend.
Built in the 1920s, the Ludlum Elementary School was named after Dr. Charles Ludlum, a local physician who served on the school board for about 40 years.

Oops!

US Airways sends elderly Tampa-bound woman to Puerto Rico
We just hope US Airways has a better sense of direction when it's actually flying.
Because if someone in the company can confuse Tampa and Puerto Rico, we're in trouble.
Here's the story.
Wheelchair-bound Elfriede Kuemmel was on her way back home to Tampa when a US Airways employee wheeled her on to the wrong connecting flight.
The 83-year-old wound up in Puerto Rico.
They made nice, though. The company put Elfriede up in a hotel, paid for her dinner, and flew her back to Tampa first class.
Hope she enjoyed the trip.

She calls herself a teacher.

Well, not anymore.
The St. Lucie County School Board voted unanimously to suspend an elementary school teacher without pay for one year after she let kindergarteners vote on whether 5-year-old Alex Barton could remain in class.
Alex, in the process of being diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, had left the class twice that day for discipline referrals to the principal’s office.
The teacher brought Alex to the front of the classroom and asked students to tell him how his behavior affected them.
After classmates talked, the teacher asked the class to vote on whether Alex should stay in the class.
Alex lost the vote, 14 to 2.
Maybe the teacher is watching too many reality shows.
We suggest she star in one: Survival: The Meanest Teacher in Florida.
What do you think?

The worst day of their lives so far for these young ladies.

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They are finding out at a young age that not everything goes the way you want it.

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Lost bird's 'phone call' to owner

A missing cockatiel is now safe and sound at home after confirming its own name in a phone call to its owner.
Accountant Sue Hill, who found the bird in Wrexham, was put in touch with a possible owner by a local vet.
When she called the number she let the bird listen to the voice at the other end of the phone - at which point it chirped its own name: "Smokey."
Mrs Hill said it was the first time the bird had spoken, which convinced her she had found its owner.
Smokey the grey cockatiel went missing for two days after flying out of the door of David and Carole Edwards' home in Wrexham.
Mrs Hill, who lives about two miles (3.2km) away, spotted him in a tree and he flew down to perch on her shoulder.
She said: "I didn't really know what to do, so I just carried on walking. One man walked past with his dog and said, 'Why don't you get a dog like everyone else?'
"I must have looked really silly.
"I took him home because I didn't think he would survive, and it was a Sunday so there was nobody I could really contact.
"But the following morning I rang the local vet and amazingly, they had been contacted by someone that morning."
The vet passed on a telephone number for the Edwards', and Mrs Hill set out to prove they were the real owners.

When is it a bad time to sneeze

When you sneeze while driving and lose control.
An untimely sneeze nearly cost Andrew Hanson his life. The 42-year-old Weymouth man told authorities that a sneeze caused him to lose control of his pickup on Soldiers Field Road and plunge into Boston's Charles River on Tuesday.
Hanson was able to wade to shore after escaping from the truck, which was partially submerged in 4 feet of water. He was not seriously injured but was taken to a hospital as a precaution.
Lawrence Callahan of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation said Hanson told him that after he sneezed, "the next thing he knew he was in the river."
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Study Finds Fast Food TV Ads Linked to Child Obesity

They spent who knows how much money and time to say what everyone already knows.

A little less "I'm Lovin' It" could put a significant dent in the problem of childhood obesity, suggests a new study that attempts to measure the effect of TV fast-food ads.
A ban on such commercials would reduce the number of obese young children by 18 percent, and the number of obese older kids by 14 percent, researchers found.
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