Criticized Or Applauded, Presidential Travel Is One Great Job Perk

by Chris Owen on

This week, President Obama and family fly to Africa for what has been described as both “frivolous spending” and a trip that brings “a great bang for our buck.” The estimated $60 – $100 million trip comes at a time when Americans face a decidedly different flying experience caused by government furloughs and cutbacks. Approve or not, presidential travel and moving the first family around the world is in no way inexpensive.

Traveling to sub-Sahara Africa from June 26 to July 3, the Obamas will be accompanied by hundreds of Secret Service agents and staff, adding to the cost of transportation and accommodations. Still, this is the leader of the free world and protecting him, his family and staff is not going to be a cheap road trip no matter how they do it. When President Clinton visited Africa the price tag was said to be $42.7 million plus the cost of Secret Service protection.

As the trip to South Africa, Senegal and Tanzania gets underway, a reported 56 vehicles ranging from limousines to trucks full of supplies will be flown in via military cargo planes. When the Obamas are on the ground in Africa, U.S. fighter jets will be ever-present in the airspace directly above them. That’s in addition to the cost of operating the President’s ride, Air Force One, estimated to be slightly less than $200,000 per hour.
“It is no secret that we need to rein in government spending, and the Obama administration has regularly and repeatedly shown a lack of judgment for when and where to make cuts. The American people have had enough of the frivolous and careless spending,” Rep. George Holding (R-N.C.) said in a RT.com article.

But the cost could have been higher. The Obama’s original plan called for a Tanzania safari, which would have required a team of sharpshooters to protect them from wild animals. But President Obama, the first sitting president to visit Cambodia and Myanmar, is visiting African countries that reportedly need attention.

“Frankly, there will be a great bang for our buck for being in Africa, because when you travel to regions like Africa that don’t get a lot of presidential attention, you can have very long-standing and long-running impact from the visit,” Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told The Hill, reports RT.com.

Still, let’s keep these numbers in perspective. The expense of flowers for the White House alone run up a tab estimated to be $252,000 per year. The Presidential limousine is a $300,000 Cadillac that is clad with 5 inches of armor, has its own oxygen supply, a blood bank of the president’s type and can shoot tear gas and smoke grenades.

Subway Hack Guarantees You’ll Always Have A Handle

by Libby Zay on

In a move that would make video game legends Mario and Luigi proud, a woman used a toilet plunger suctioned to the roof of a subway car to help stabilize herself. It’s likely that the picture, which surfaced on Twitter, is just staged for video game lovers, but it’s kind of an ingenious way to keep standing when there’s no place to sit and no hand rail in sight.

That’s not to say everyone should start carrying plungers around – but if a less silly looking, easy-to-carry invention with a release valve was manufactured, it could be a blessing to short people everywhere.

But even if you think it’s a crappy idea, it looks like we’re not the only people who found the picture hilarious: it has already gotten more than 12,000 retweets and nearly 4,000 favorites on Twitter. Let’s just hope the plunger is clean, or else I feel sorry for everyone in that train car.

[via Gizmodo]

JetBlue Helps Man Pull Off Proposal At 10,000 Feet (VIDEO)

by Libby Zay on
JetBlue helped a man pull off a sky high proposal when the company let him take over the plane’s in-flight entertainment system to showcase a video montage of the couple’s five years together before he wedged himself between airline seats to get down on one knee.

“I’ve been with Taryn for five years and she’s the love of my life, so I had to do something that was super special,” Adam Leisle, 28, told GoodMorningAmerica.com. “I had heard of people proposing on flights, but it was always over the PA system, and they didn’t really have a plan to it.”

According to ABC News, it took months of back-and-forth organization between Leisle and JetBlue to try and figure out how to get the video to play on the company’s internal channel without being broadcast on every other flight in the air. But in the end, everything went off flawlessly, except, perhaps, for the fact that it’s a little hard to hear his proposal over the sound of the flight. But still, kudos to JetBlue for going above and beyond on this one – they even handed out cake pops to everyone on board the plane, and then greeted the newly engaged couple when they exited the plane with a congratulatory cake and a champagne toast.

Study Finds Slow Airport Security Has An Upside

by Reena Ganga on

Going through airport security is a lesson in patience for even the most Zen traveler, but the good news is that those frustratingly slow security screenings might actually be more effective. According to a new study, TSA screeners who take their time are more successful at identifying targets like weapons or restricted items.

The study pitted TSA agents against Ivy League college students to test how well each group conducted a visual search. The experiment was simple and tested natural search skills (searching for a particular shape on a computer screen) – so the TSA screeners had no advantage over the students. The results showed that the college students were faster at completing the tasks but the TSA agents were more accurate.Stephen Mitroff, the psychologist heading up the research, told NBC news that the TSA screeners were slower because they were more methodical, which is ultimately what led to better results. “Our interpretation is those who are most experienced have found their strategy and use it the same way over and over – whether you spiral through the bag or are zig-zagging left and right. If you’re always doing the strategy and always doing it consistently, you’re freeing up your cognitive resources – your other abilities to try to identify targets,” he said.

The research is part of a larger study being conducted by the Department of Homeland Security.

‘Dirty Dancing’ Hotel In Ruins

by Megan Fernandez on

When the Housemans put Baby in a corner, at least it was a sanitary and safe space. Now the corners at Kellerman’s aren’t even fit for a lowlife like Robbie Gould. Grossinger’s Catskills Resort, a once-bucolic family playground in New York said to have inspired the setting in “Dirty Dancing,” sits in a state of crumbled, rotted emptiness, according to the Daily Mail (via Abandoned NYC).

The wholesome summer vacation depicted in the movie, one of privileged families learning the fox trot together and dressing up for dinner, was ancient history by the film’s 1987 premiere, yet Grossinger’s didn’t close until the year before, according to Abandoned NYC. Since then, the property has been left to decay. Where vacationers used to have the time of their lives, debris covers the floor, mattresses lie bare and wallpaper slumps to the ground. But there are also signs of its former beauty, such as Mondrian wall tiles remaining in the salon.

“Dirty Dancing” was filmed at a different mountain lodge, but reportedly a summer at Grossinger’s inspired the story. Will Ellis of Abandoned NYC, who took the photos used by the Daily Mail, wrote last year that the resort had another claim to fame besides its connection to Baby and Johnny: it was the first place to use artificial snow, in 1952.

A few commenters on the Daily Mail photo gallery call the story fake because some of the images also appeared in the paper’s photo gallery of Creedmoor State Hospital, a former mental hospital in Brooklyn. Abandoned NYC provided the Creedmoor photos, too, and Ellis confirmed that the Grossinger’s photos are authentic. It appears as though the paper mistakenly labeled some of the resort photos as the psychiatric center. The explanation makes sense, as Ellis points out: “It’s the first I’ve heard of a luxury spa and swimming pool in a state-run mental institution!” Here’s hoping the Creedmoor patients at least got to meet a hot dance instructor every now and then.