Mattsapundit

Might be ‘offensive’ to 7th-century Islamofascist savages.
This is bullshit:

A five-year-old girl’s passport application was rejected because her photograph showed her bare shoulders.

Hannah Edwards’s mother, Jane, was told that the exposed skin might be considered offensive in a Muslim country.

This is the real threat from Muslim extremists. I’m not really worried that they’ll conquer the free world by force and chop off our leaders’ heads. Instead, they’ll capitalize on our fear of offending anyone, back that up with subtle threats at violence, and gradually erode our liberties in the name of “sensitivity.”

Screw that. Got any bare-shoulder pics? Send ‘em my way, and I’ll put up a montage here and at Lone Star Times.

Angelina sez: “Up yours, savages!”

Matt Bramanti | August 14, 2006 at 10:32 am
Posted to International, Islamofascism, Photos, Religion, Stupidity, Travel

1 comment

George Brown is a lobbyist for the liquor industry in the state of Louisiana. He convinced the legislature of that fine state to include the following in its open-container law:

“Open alcoholic beverage container” shall not mean any bottle, can, or other receptacle that contains any amount of frozen alcoholic beverage unless the lid is removed or a straw protrudes through the lid.

That’s right: daiquiris are effectively exempt from the open-container law. Excellent. So, on the way to Paducah, I stopped off at my favorite daiquiri joint in the whole wide world: The Geaux Cup.

Hell yeah.
The Geaux Cup is a little A-frame building just off Interstate 10 in Crowley, La. In addition to being the seat of Acadia Parish, Crowley is also the Rice Capital of America and the home of my good buddy Mary (aka Clotille). The Cup is renowned for the breadth of its menu, which features literally scores of frozen beverages, including — I am not making this up — the “Jet Fuel” and the “Fuck-Up.”

Wow.

I went with a Lime Kamakazi in a big ol’ Styrofoam up. Then I hit the road:

I love Louisiana.

Fast-forward a few hundred miles, and I came across this sign, pointing me to Cooter, Mo.:

Holland is nice, but…

Then I went to Graceland:

I have done it all.

Graceland was closed, probably because I got there at about midnight on a Thursday. Oh well.

Matt Bramanti | June 26, 2006 at 3:41 am
Posted to Food & Drink, Out and About, Personal, Photos, Travel

2 comments

Last weekend, I headed up to Paducah, Ky. to see my friends Chris and Joanna get married. Here are some pics from the weekend:

Chris and Sean rock out to Peter Frampton at the post-rehearsal-dinner party.

One of several shots at the party.

The happy couple, riding the trolley to the reception.

Chris and me, in the Joe Hettler pose.

Chris, Mary and me. We are still sober at this point.

Drinking ensues.

Another one.

Mary likes the whiskey.

Shamil, Mary and me. We are quite drunk at this point.

Good times.

Matt Bramanti | June 26, 2006 at 3:15 am
Posted to Food & Drink, Friends, Out and About, Photos, Travel

6 comments

If I were Herb Kelleher, I’d be smacking my dumbass subordinates upside the head. Despite my protest, Southwest is trying out assigned seating.

Southwest Airlines will test assigning seats to travelers, another indication the maverick carrier may get in line with other U.S. airlines by junking its first-come, first-served seating system.

Passengers will be assigned seats on about 200 flights from San Diego starting July 10 and continuing for several weeks, an airline spokesman said on Tuesday.

The airline wants to know if assigning seats will slow Southwest’s ability to unload incoming planes and board passengers for the next flight.

Yes, you dumbasses, it will.

[Hat-tip: Loren Steffy]

Matt Bramanti | June 21, 2006 at 3:42 pm
Posted to Business, Stupidity, Travel

1 comment

The Whited Curse strikes again — Southwest Airlines is considering scrapping its open-seating policy:

The airline is overhauling its computerized-reservation system to add the ability to assign seats and offer international flights. Officials say neither change is for sure.

The earliest Southwest could switch to assigned seating, used by every other major U.S. carrier, is 2008, Chief Executive Gary Kelly said Wednesday. The system won’t be able to handle the tax and customs information required for international travel until the following year, he said.

It would be a mistake to move away from open seating. As SciGuy has discussed, it’s faster and more efficient than assigned seating. One of Southwest’s major competitive advantages is its quick turnaround time. Planes don’t make money sitting on the ground, so Southwest keeps ‘em in the air. By shaving just a few minutes off each flight, you can accumulate enough saved time during the day to fly one more hop. The flipside is also true: waste an extra few minutes on the ground every flight, and you run out of daylight pretty soon.

To see, let’s crunch some numbers. Let’s say a Southwest plane’s workday is 12 hours; the first takeoff is at 8:00 a.m., and the plane has to be on the ground in its final destination city by 8:00 p.m. Let’s assume 1-hour flights with 20 minutes on the ground in between flights. For simplicity’s sake, all flights are within the same time zone.

The timetable looks like this:

• Flight 1: 8:00-9:00
• Flight 2: 9:20-10:20
• Flight 3: 10:40-11:40
• Flight 4: 12:00-1:00
• Flight 5: 1:20-2:20
• Flight 6: 2:40-3:40
• Flight 7: 4:00-5:00
• Flight 8: 5:20-6:20
• Flight 9: 6:40-7:40

That’s 9 flights a day. To make it easy, we’ll assume 100 passengers per flight, each paying $100. That’s 10 grand in revenue per flight. Fly this route every day for a year, and you pull in $32.85 million.
Now let’s say you introduce assigned seating, and let’s say it adds just 5 more minutes on the ground, per flight. Now your timetable looks like this:

• Flight 1: 8:00-9:00
• Flight 2: 9:25-10:25
• Flight 3: 10:50-11:50
• Flight 4: 12:15-1:15
• Flight 5: 1:40-2:40
• Flight 6: 3:05-4:05
• Flight 7: 4:30-5:30
• Flight 8: 5:55-6:55

Because of all the dilly-dallying on the ground, Flight 9 won’t get in before closing time, so it gets cut. Using the same assumptions as before, annual revenue just fell from $32.85 million to $29.2 million, a loss of $3.65 million or 11.1 percent. And that’s just on one route. Extrapolate that figure systemwide, and you’re talking some serious coin.

Of course, this idea makes sense if enough passengers are willing to pay a premium for assigned seating. It would have to be a pretty big premium, though — 11.1 percent just to break even. I don’t think many Southwest customers would pay it, given the choice. I sure as hell wouldn’t.

[Hat-tip: Laurence]

Matt Bramanti | May 19, 2006 at 3:50 am
Posted to Audio, Business, Overanalysis, Travel

9 comments

Meg gives me a dirty look.

A bottle opener — dubbed “The Popener” — with a likeness of Pope John Paul II, of happy memory.

A nugget of fried macaroni and cheese.

Meg, expressing her approval of the fried macaroni and cheese.

The most extensive soda fountain I have ever seen.

A Rum Runner. It was good.

Matt Bramanti | May 10, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Posted to Food & Drink, Friends, Out and About, Photos, Travel

4 comments

I really, really like Kevin Whited. He’s a brilliant guy, a hell of a local blogger, and he knows cool places to drink and listen to 80s covers.

That’s why I was so disappointed when he cast a voodoo curse on me.

You see, Dr. Whited is a Continental Airlines partisan, whereas I always fly The Company Planeâ„¢. We recently exchanged comments, in which I detailed Southwest’s total and utter dominance over its tectonic counterpart. In a desperate attempt to redeem his crappy carrier, the good (witch) doctor conjured up some unholy tardiness hex against my beloved Southwest. I’ve flown four times since his demonic incantations, and every one of those flights has been late.

And so, Kevin, until karma evens out this little disturbance, may your stewardesses be surly and your luggage bound for Ouagodougou.

Matt Bramanti | May 10, 2006 at 10:26 am
Posted to Out and About, Personal, Travel

4 comments

As I write this, I’m sitting in Concourse C of Tampa International Airport, trying to digest the weekend. I flew out here to visit my friend Meg, a good buddy from my Observer days. Since it’s hard to get away from work, I tend to take my vacations in short spurts — fly out Friday, pack as much action into 48 hours as I possibly can, and fly home Sunday. This weekend was no different.

I enjoy my style of short-duration, high-intensity vacation, but it has its drawbacks. Chief among them is the fact that I get really introspective towards the end.

Meg is a fellow at the Poynter Institute, and several of her friends are fellow journalists. Hanging out with these folks, seeing a cool town with beautiful weather, and generally getting out of Houston really made me second-guess my life. Part of the problem is the thought-distorting effects of nostalgia. Seeing friends from college brings back the good old days, which I know I remember inaccurately.

I remember the fun times: shooting pool at Corby’s, drawn-out dorm-room discussions and snowball fights. Of course, in that sort of nostalgic mindset, I tend to forget the impossible statistics exams, high-pressure deadlines or not being able to get a date. That’s how nostalgia works, I suppose.

But a lot of this little mini-crisis is just good old-fashioned FUD. All these what-ifs buzz around my head, and no one can answer them. What if there’s a perfect house in Chicago or West Texas or London, just waiting for me to make an offer? What if I could make more money at another firm? In another industry? What if I bought a dog or enlisted in the Army or started a business or ran for office?

The second-guessing bothers me because it’s close to disloyalty, as though what I currently have isn’t good enough. And yet, I’m very happy with my life. I have a very comfortable armchair. I live close enough that I can drop in on my family whenever I want. I make a good living at a job I love in an industry I find fascinating. I’m in love with a wonderful girl who loves me back.

Intellectually, I know all those “what-if” questions are unanswerable. I know that constant second-guessing is paralyzing, and I’ve got too much stuff to do. So the solution for now is pretty easy — knock it off. Tomorrow I’ll get up, appraise another building, visit my folks, kiss Diane, and get on with life.

Until my next vacation.

Matt Bramanti | May 7, 2006 at 8:00 pm
Posted to Out and About, Overanalysis, Personal, Travel

1 comment