Author: Chris Morran

Even though the new FAA rules regarding tarmac delays don’t kick in until April 29, both U.S. Airways and Continental say they have already begun observing the regulations.

The new rule will require airlines to return a plane to the gate and allow passengers to deplane if it has been waiting on the tarmac for three hours, or face fines if they do not.

In an employee newsletter sent out yesterday, U.S. Airways wrote that they actually started observing the rule on April 1:

To protect itself from being fined, US Airways has implemented ‘trigger’ points to monitor delay times… If a plane is out on the taxiway for two-and-a-half hours, and takeoff isn’t imminent, the pilots will make an announcement and return to the gate.

Meanwhile, Continental, whose CEO had previously announced that the airline would cancel flights rather than be fined for late takeoffs now says that if a pilot of flight delayed two hours doesn’t expect to take off before the three-hour deadline, the pilot will “reposition the aircraft at either a remote area or gate, where customers may deplane safely and securely.”

In other news about the new FAA regulations, the DOT said yesterday that they are pushing back the start date for a new rule requiring airlines to put flight delay data on their Web sites from April 29 to June 29.

Airlines start tarmac delay response early [AP]

Police in Oklahoma say that the man arrested over the weekend for phoning in a bomb threat to an Oklahoma City Walmart is currently awaiting trial for doing the same thing to an employment agency office only a few months earlier.

The 46-year-old man suspected of threatening to blow up the Walmart was arrested on Sunday and is currently being held in lieu of $5,000 bail. He allegedly called into the store around 2:45pm on Sunday, prompting managers to evacuate the store.

Meanwhile, back in November, the same guy had been nabbed by police for calling in a bomb threat to an employment agency in Edmond, OK. He’s scheduled to have a pretrial conference in that case on April 27.

What is it about Walmart that attracts repeat offenders? You’ll probably remember that the teen in New Jersey caught making a racist announcement over the Walmart PA system had reportedly done the same thing weeks earlier at the same store.

Oklahoma City suspect in Walmart bomb threat has similar case pending in court [NewsOK]

Because the last thing a soldier stationed thousands of miles away fighting the Taliban should want is a taste of home, the U.S. military is axing several fast food vendors from their bases in Afghanistan.

“This is a war zone — not an amusement park,” Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Hall has said about the military’s decision. “Supplying nonessential luxuries to big bases like Bagram and Kandahar makes it harder to get essential items to combat outposts and forward operating bases, where troops who are in the fight each day need resupply with ammunition, food and water.”

Among the vendors on the chopping block are Burger King, Pizza Hut, T.G.I. Friday’s, Orange Julius and Dairy Queen. The military is also cutting back on other luxuries like first-run movies.

According to Reuters, donut chain Tim Horton’s will remain.

No fries with that: fast food axed at Afghan bases [Reuters]

A JetBlue plane bound for Fort Lauderdale, FL, was forced to return to Newark Liberty International Airport on Monday after an engine cover dropped off the jet shortly following taking off.

“We heard a bump,” one passenger on the plane told the NY Daily News. “It sounded like we were going over a bump… We all panicked because we thought the plane was going to come down.”

The plane, which took off at 6:15 am, was only in the air for 11 minutes before it landed safely back in Newark with no one injured.

In a statement, Jet Blue explained that “pilots received an indication of an engine cowling (similar to the hood of a car for the engine) open or separated from the aircraft. The pilots elected to return to the field.”

All 134 passengers on board were offered a refund and a free round-trip ticket.

JetBlue forced to land in New Jersey after engine cover falls off during take-off [NY Daily News]
Thanks to SteveDave for the tip

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced today that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is seeking the maximum civil penalty of $16.375 million against the world’s largest car maker “for failing to notify the auto safety agency of the dangerous “sticky pedal” defect for at least four months, despite knowing of the potential risk to consumers.”

The penalty is the largest one ever assessed by NHTSA against a single manufacturer.

Through its investigation, NHTSA learned that Toyota knew of the “sticky pedal defect” as early as September 29, 2009. But didn’t issue a recall for the millions of related vehicles until January. By law, manufacturers are to report known defects to NHTSA within five days of learning about them.

Said LaHood:

We now have proof that Toyota failed to live up to its legal obligations. Worse yet, they knowingly hid a dangerous defect for months from U.S. officials and did not take action to protect millions of drivers and their families. For those reasons, we are seeking the maximum penalty possible under current laws.

Secretary LaHood Announces DOT is Seeking Maximum Civil Penalty from Toyota [DOT]

If the soda tax won’t get men to cut back on cola intake, the results of a recent study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology just might. According to researchers, there may be a direct effect between heavy consumption of caffeinated cola and reduced sperm count.

Over the course of four years, researchers in Denmark looked at semen samples from over 2500 young men and compared to the levels of cola and caffeine that the men were consuming each week.

Neither moderate nor low consumption of caffeine and cola showed a correlation to sperm count or semen quality.

Meanwhile, those consuming over 7 liters of cola/week and/or 800mg of caffeine/day demonstrated “reduced sperm concentration and total sperm count, although only significant for cola.”

State the researchers on the study:

Therefore, the authors cannot exclude the possibility of a threshold above which cola, and possibly caffeine, negatively affects semen quality. Alternatively, the less healthy lifestyle of these men may explain these findings.

Caffeine Intake and Semen Quality in a Population of 2,554 Young Danish Men [AJE]

Days shy of 45 years after he patented the idea of wine in a box, Australian winemaker Thomas Angove has died at the age of 92.

Angove was also the first winemaker in Australia to use stainless steel for the storage of wine in bulk, in addition to introducing new varieties of wine grapes to his home continent.

His son John, who now runs the family wine business, recalls not thinking too highly of his father’s box wine idea at first:

I do remember when I was about 15 and he brought home a prototype and I said to him: ‘that’s ridiculous, nobody is going to buy wine out of a cardboard box and a plastic bag’… But he persevered, didn’t listen to me and he was determined.

Don’t know about you, but I plan on raising a toast in Angove’s honor this evening…

Inventor of cask wine Tom Angove dies at 92 [Herald Sun]

Thanks Dr Vino!

With the economy still creeping along on its belly, many Americans are facing mounting piles of debt. And for an increasing number of people — whether through mismanagement of their finances, loss of income or change in employment status — creditors are moving to garnish their wages to recoup their money.

Before a creditor, including the government, can begin taking their pound of flesh straight from your paycheck every week, they almost always need to file a lawsuit. But many people never appear in court to defend themselves because they assume they’re going to lose and the worst that can happen is they still owe the money.

However, this often only makes the situation much worse as the creditors will not only begin to garnish your pay — up to 25% of your take-home income — but will tack on near-usurious interest rates and penalties.

And before you think “I’ll just declare bankruptcy,” you need to know that it often costs thousands of dollars to officially be declared broke.

Says the NY Times, it’s always in your best interest to face your creditors in court:

In the rare event that a consumer battles back, creditors frequently lack the documentation to prove their claim, and cases are dropped. That is because many past-due debts are owned not by the banks that issued them, but by debt collectors who bought, for cents on the dollar, a list of names and amounts due.

So if you find yourself penned into a corner and your creditors are unwilling to work out a reasonable payment schedule, try to find a reasonably priced attorney (the money you spend on the lawyer will likely be less than the penalties incurred by losing a lawsuit) and get your day in court.

Pay Garnishments Rise as Debtors Fall Behind [NY TImes]

Perhaps in a move to not win Consumerist’s Worst Company In America title, General Motors announced today that they plan on installing brake override software in all GM cars with automatic transmissions and electronic throttle control worldwide by 2012.

For those not familiar with brake override technology, it tells your car to stop paying attention to the accelerator once the brake is pressed. So even if your accelerator is pinned to the floor, pressing the brake should stop acceleration and begin to slow the vehicle down.

“We know safety is top of mind for consumers, so we are applying additional technology to reassure them that they can count on the brakes in their GM vehicle,” some guy with an impressive title at GM said.

Toyota, who has faced massive amounts of scrutiny over unintended acceleration in a range of its vehicles — and who lost to GM in our WCIA matchup — has already announced a similar plan to have brake override active in their cars. Toyota’s plan is scheduled to go into effect in 2011.

GM Plans to Install Brake Override Software Worldwide by 2012 [BusinessWeek]

Someone should tell those cats that have been taking over abandoned homes that there are also plenty of empty offices waiting for them to frolick in — A new report says that there office vacancies in the first quarter of 2010 reached its highest level since Kurt Cobain was still alive.

According to the study by Reis, Inc., 17.2% of U.S. office space is unleased; it hasn’t been that bad in 16 years. It’s also a 2% increase from the same quarter last year.

But, say the folks behind the study, the high number of vacancies shouldn’t necessarily dampen hopes that the economy is recovering.

Says Reis’ director of research:

As labor markets stabilize, we expect occupancies and rents to require another 12 to 18 months before showing signs of improvement, given typical lags in commercial real estate… Even as occupancy continues to deteriorate, we’re observing signs of renewed leasing activity across different metros.

Not shockingly, Detroit was the real estate market with highest vacancy rate — 26.2%. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., has the fewest empty offices with only a 10.4% vacancy rate.

Office vacancy rate hits 16-year high [Reuters]

Baseball season is officially upon us — go Phils — which also mean it’s time for baseball fans to start snarfing down hot dogs. And with 2,430 regular season games to be played over the next few months, the sheer number of hot dogs to be devoured is astounding.

The folks at the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council (you might remember them from the whole hot dogs are deadly debate a little while back) expect that nearly 21.4 million hot dogs will be served at ballparks this season. According to their calculations, that’s enough dogs to:

– Round the bases 29,691 times
– Stretch from the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., to Coors Field in Denver with enough left over to give a hot dog to every fan at every Colorado Rockies’ home game for the entire 2010 season.

While Fenway Park in Boston is the 3rd-smallest capacity major league park, BoSox fans apparently love eating hot dogs. The Council predicts Fenway fans will eat the most hot dogs this season — 1.67 million.

Second on the hot dog list is a city known for its hot dog snobbery, Chicago. The council’s crystal ball predicts that Cubs fans will cover 1.54 million hot dogs covered in sport peppers, onion, radioactively green relish, fluorescent yellow mustard, celery salt and a partridge in a pear tree… really anything but ketchup.

The best baseball fans in the world are the third most-hungry for hot dogs. My kin in Philadelphia are expected to gorge themselves on 1.45 million hot dogs at Citizens Bank Park this season.

The Dodgers and the Mets ranked 4th and 5th on the Council’s list with predictions of 1.2 and 1.15 million dogs, respectively.

What’s your favorite kind of hot dog? Is ketchup a must-have or a no-no? How badly will the Phillies thrash the entire rest of the National League East?

Hot Dogs Still Reigning MVP of Ballpark Concessions [NHDSC]

Last week, people in New York started noticing some rather odd products showing up on the shelves of their local stores, like “Nose Job in a Can,” “Happiness” beer, “Bankos” cereal — featuring the logos of AIG, BofA, Chase, Citi and others — and the misspelled, but very Snickers-like “Bulemia” candy bar.

Turns out these aren’t new retail offerings (yet!), but the work of some pranksters calling themselves TrustoCorp.

Reads their Flickr profile:

TrustoCorp is a New York based artist (or artists) dedicated to highlighting the hypocrisy and hilarity of human behavior through sarcasm and satire. TrustoCorp targets areas in the public domain typically reserved for messages of trust and authority and subverts them with messages of mayhem and absurdity hijacked from the visual style of our authorities.

Which one of these would you most like to see become a real product:

Burger King is taking a bit of flack from some mental health advocates who claim that a TV ad the fast food chain has been running in recent weeks is insulting to those suffering from mental illness.

In the ad, which you’ve likely fast-forwarded through while skipping the commercials on your DVR, BK’s “King” character — you know, the one that gives children and adults nightmares with its ghoulish fixed plastic grin — running amok through an office while being chased by men in white uniforms who say the King is “crazy” for only charging $3.99 for his Steak House burgers.

The commercial’s characterization of the mentally ill or of the medical profession isn’t sitting well with some.

“I was stunned. Absolutely stunned and appalled,” says Michael Fitzpatrick, executive director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, who called the ad “blatantly offensive… This is beyond edgy. Way beyond.”

Both the National Alliance and another group, Mental Health America, have written to BK asking to have the ads pulled from rotation, which was scheduled to happen this week anyway… so, yeah.

As for the folks at the Burger Kingdom, they were not taking this one very seriously. “The creative concepts used to bring this to life were meant to highlight the King’s unchecked enthusiasm about giving his guests a Steakhouse-quality sandwich at a great price and were not intended to reflect any group or situation,” said a BK spokesperson.

Here’s the commercial. Watch it and judge for yourself… or not.

Burger King ad featuring its mascot as crazy offends mental health organizations [Washington Post]

$182.3 billion is a hefty tab to pay off, but the CEO of AIG says he feels “pretty comfortable” that his company will be able to get that all back to the government between now and the Sept. 2013 deadline.

“We haven’t locked in a date (for repayment),” said CEO Robert Benmosche. “We think over the next 12 to 18 months we can see our way clear to working through some of our issues… The most important thing is to raise enough money so that we can pay back the Federal Reserve.”

A semi-sizeable chunk of that debt will be repaid once the sales of former AIG holdings American International Assurance (to Prudential for a proposed $35.5 billion) and American Life Insurance Company (to MetLife for $15.5 billion) are completed.

In spite of the fact that the government has control over how much top AIG execs are paid and the feds also just named two of their own choices to sit on AIG’s board, Benmosche downplayed the government’s role in operating the business: “We run the company, they just keep an eye on things and make sure everything’s OK.”

AIG CEO Robert Benmosche: I’m ‘pretty comfortable’ we’ll be able to repay $182B bailout by deadline [NY Daily News]

Like a few hundred thousand other people this weekend, our early adopting kin over at Consumer Reports got their hands on the iPad. And being the science-minded people that they are, they rushed right into the testing lab to begin running the device through its paces.

The team’s first impressions were generally very positive, with a handful of misgivings and concerns.

On the up side, the CR crew was pleased with the iPad’s:
-Ease of use: It’s responsive and the large on-screen keyboard works well.
-Color quality for e-reading: A big plus over other e-readers.
-More immersive gaming: Combining the larger screen with the iPhone’s accelerometer makes for a more enjoyable experience.

Now, the negatives:
-The weight: The testers found it to be overly heavy, especially for an e-reader
-USB charging “a bit hit or miss”: While the iPad is primarily intended to charge through its power cord, the testers had issues with charging the device while syncing.
-Smudge Magnet: Your fingerprints will be all over the screen in no time.
-Mirror-like surface: The reflective quality of the screen easily picks up bright light sources, severely limiting visibility.

Check out the whole video below:

iPad: Our team of expert testers speak out [Consumer Reports Electronics Blog]

Considering the number of stories we write about overdrafts, Consumerist reader Adam wanted to know if he was one of the few people left that still keep track of their cash with their checkbook.

So are you a tried-and-true book-balancer like Adam, carrying your checkbook everywhere? Or do you use your bank’s website to track your accounts? Maybe you’re one of those people who only check their balance when they go the ATM?

Let us know in the poll and in the comments…

We didn’t pre-order an iPad and we probably won’t be hitting up the Apple store or Best Buy to get one this weekend. But we know at least a few of you will have your hands on an iPad and we want to hear your first impressions.

Here are some things we want to know about:

1. How was it setting up your iPad?
2. Did you have any issues connecting to your WiFi network?
3. How does the interface compare to an iPhone?
4. Do you see yourself using this as an e-reader?
5. Is the iPad’s construction suitably durable?
6. How does it handle a 6-foot drop onto a hard surface (PLEASE DON’T TRY DROPPING IT, but if it does happen to occur by accident, please let us know the results)
7. How do you prefer to hold it when using?
8. Is it absorbent yet discreet? (again, we don’t want to you spill anything on your iPad!)
9. How was the quality of streaming video?
10. Now that you’ve got your hands on it, what do you see as its main use going forward?

Feel free to answer these questions in the comments.
If you’ve done a video review, feel free to send us the link for consideration at [email protected]
And please upload any photos to the Consumerist Flickr pool!

Our more scholarly sister Consumer Reports recently took a look at the Tummy Tub, which “looks like something out of a chemical-mixing laboratory,” but is supposed to recreate a feeling of being in the womb for your baby while you give it a bath. Because there’s nothing more womb-like than being scrubbed with soap and water in a loud, brightly lit bathroom.

The plastic bucket from Europe, which retails for $50 (and another $45 if you throw in the optional stool as seen in the photo!) isn’t exactly earn high regard from the CR Baby Blog:

Aside from making it difficult to wash the business end of a baby, it looks to us like an accident waiting to happen. We haven’t tested the tub or similar products, but have concerns that it could tip over much too easily, especially when placed on the pedestal. More concerning, it’s not covered by U.S. safety standards that apply to baby bath seats and tubs.

Here’s an idea… For about $50, you could pick up a four pack of sturdy buckets over at Home Depot, and those have wheels, so it’s more fun for everyone!

CR sums it up best: “In our view, this is one idea for baby that should have been thrown out with the bath water.”

Rub-a-dub-dub, this tub is a dud [Consumer Reports Safety Blog]

A Consumerist reader wrote into us to complain about a horrible experience he had with a hotel in Ft. Lauderdale he booked while making flight reservations on United Airlines’ website.

Writes Bruce:

When we arrived at the hotel, it is absolutely filthy. It looks nothing like the photos on the internet. The person at the front desk was new (his first day), he walked us to a room, but couldn’t open the door, we walked back to the front, he got the person at the hotel next door to help and said they were upgrading us. We went to the room and it was terrible, very old couch with stains all over it, several blinds were missing, the room furniture with dirty and beat up.

Bruce told them the room was unacceptable and they were given one at the neighboring hotel “and that room was as bad or worse… We flipped on the lights and cockroaches scattered.”

He and his family ultimately ended up at another, pricier hotel. Now, because he booked the hotel through their site. he’s asked United to A) refund the frequent flier miles he used to book the original hotel and B) compensate him for the $270 he spent on hotels in the interim.

So is the airline responsible for the quality of the hotel? Looking at the hotel on their site, users only scored it a 2.4 out of 5. A quick search of the hotel on TripAdvisor shows the following headlines for the first few reviews: “Fort Lauderdale Horror — do not go there”, “Establishment should be demolished”, “Disgusting” and “Hell hole.”

When Bruce contacted United, there response was that it was not their problem. Do you agree?

In an interview airing tonight on ABC’s Nightline, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says he feels that both gun control and firearms advocacy groups are only using the coffee company to make a point about their particular agendas and that he never envisioned customers wanting to carry their gun into a Starbucks.

“No, certainly not,” Schultz tells Nightline’s Terry Moran. “But, you know I’m not a politician, you know, I run a coffee company and we’re trying to abide by the laws in which we do business.”

When asked point blank whether or not he felt customer should be allowed to carry their guns into his stores, Schultz answered:

In the last few weeks we woke up one day and all the sudden Starbucks was in the middle of this political cross fire between the people who want to bring a gun into Starbucks and the people who want to prevent it. The question is what should we do, what should we have done. So first and foremost is we have not changed the policy that we’ve had for 39 years and then we tried to understand what the law is and in 43 out of 50 states the law of the land is that you can do this. And then the other issue was do we want to put our people in a position where they have to be a referee or get into a confrontation with somebody who perhaps is or is not carrying. It is a very difficult, fragile situation, we’re trying to abide by the law.

To see the whole interview, tune in to Nightline tonight at 11:35pm ET on ABC.

Exclusive: Starbucks CEO Says Guns at Odds with Vision for Company [ABC]