Renting a car over the weekend? Get it for $10 a day

by Grant Martin on

Been searching for a car rental deal for your escape away from your iced in snow cave? You’re in luck. Browsing the the halls of our friend Gary Leff’s View from the Wing blog, we recently found an outstanding deal from Alamo Car rental for weekend bookings through February 28th.

All that you need to do us use corporate code 7015238 when you punch in your booking and voila, your rate will drop to $10.

Checking an upcoming trip to Nevada for Trouble in Vegas, we pulled up some pretty boss prices. Arriving Friday night through a Sunday night departure, our car rental is projected to cost $36, with tax, surcharges and fees all included. That’s the equivalent of 7 seconds at a Bellagio blackjack table.

There’s a four day maximum to rentals and a Saturday night stay is required, but both of those criterion should be easy for weekend jetsetters. Just pack light (your car is going to be comically small) and say thanks to Gary on your way out.%Gallery-14657%

%Gallery-7191%

Video shows the cause of Newark Airport shutdown – a couple in love

by Katie Hammel on
On Sunday, thousands of passengers ended up stuck at Newark airport for several hours, forced to evacuate the terminal, go through security again, and wait for the many flight delays and disruptions that happened as a result.

Some passengers tried to make the best of the situation. Many probably expressed frustration with the TSA employee who allowed a mystery man to walk the wrong way through a security checkpoint. And others may have wondered who the man was who caused them to suffer through the ordeal.

Was he a terrorist checking out the security system? Was he a man who made an Innocent mistake? No, as the just-released video footage of the incident suggests, he was a just a guy in love, looking for a few more minutes with his sweetheart. On the video below, you can see him hanging out by the security desk. He’s asked to move and does so, but when the guard leaves his post just a few seconds later, the guy takes that opportunity to duck under the rope and join his lady friend.

Ah, love. Cute, right? No. Not even a little. As a result of this guy breaking the law, and of the TSA employee’s failure to do his job, thousands of people were needlessly evacuated from the terminal. Time and money were wasted. And a few hundred people probably missed important connections or meetings, or at least had their vacation get off to a really bad start.

This guy wasn’t a terrorist (just an idiot), but the next person who tries and succeeds in getting past security could be. More than just frustrating travelers going through Newark on Sunday, the incident exposed just how insufficient TSA security is. What good are X-ray scanners and full-body pat-downs when a guy can simply breeze past an empty guard desk? It looks like our biggest threat to security may not be underpants bombs, but rather the lax attitudes of some employees within the TSA.

The TSA employee has been placed on administrative leave. The man who slipped past security has not been identified.

%Gallery-68288%

Check out these other stories from the airport checkpoint!

Do full-body scanners at UK airports break child porn laws?

by Aaron Hotfelder on

There’s been plenty of resistance to the new full-body scanners that have been installed in airports all over the world in the wake of The Great Underwear-Bomb Scare of 2009. Our own Scott Carmichael worried just last week that images of nude children could surface and find their way into the hands of pedophiles.

After Alan Johnson, the UK Home Secretary, announced yesterday that full-body scanners would be introduced at Heathrow Airport in about three weeks, many in the UK have grown concerned that a full-body scan of a child would break laws against child pornography. The law in question is the Protection of Children Act from 1978, which prohibits creating an indecent image or “psuedo-image” of a child.

“They do not have the legal power to use full body scanners in this way,” said Terri Dowty of the group Action for Rights of Children. Although she admitted the child porn laws do make an exception for preventing and investigating criminal activity, it’s unclear whether broad screening by airport security personnel falls under this exception.

A spokesperson for the UK Department of Transport said he “understand[s] the concerns expressed about privacy in relation to the deployment of body scanners.”

“It is vital staff are properly trained and we are developing a code of practice to ensure these concerns are properly taken into account,” he said.

We’ll keep you posted on the legal challenges that are sure to arise in the coming weeks and months.

More here.

DOH! – TSA takes Play-Doh from child at airport checkpoint

by Scott Carmichael on


We live in a very scary world – a world where anything and everything could be a bomb. At least in the eyes of the folks manning the airport security checkpoint.

When young Josh and Nathan Pitney tried to take their Christmas gift of Play-Doh past the checkpoint., an overzealous agent confiscated it. Of course, as is often the case with the TSA, Play-Doh is not on the list of prohibited items, though agents can use “their own discretion”.

Never mind that we taxpayers invested millions on explosive detection equipment, this agent was too damn lazy to test the compound, and decided it would be easier to annoy two young children. Running Play-Doh through the explosives detector would have taken under a minute.

United Airlines pilot pleads guilty to intoxication

by Scott Carmichael on

Back in November, Tom wrote about a United Airlines pilot who was pulled from his flight minutes before take-off when his fellow crew members suspected he was drunk.

The pilot, Erwin Washington was scheduled to fly from London Heathrow to Chicago when the authorities asked him to take a breathalyzer test. He recorded 31mg/100, which is more than three times over the legal limit.

Because no replacement pilot was available, all 124 passengers had to be rebooked on other flights.

In a London court, Mr. Washington pleaded guilty to the incident, and will be sentenced next month. In similar cases, pilots are usually handed a fine or suspended sentence.

United Airlines has removed the pilot from service pending the investigation, but the guilty plea may spell the end of his career.