1) In Siberia it was raining diamonds and gold instead of snow. A NIMBIS, love that name, Airlines Cargo Plane's cargo door flew open on takeoff. The open door allowed 3.4 tons of gold and some diamonds to rain down on the runway and as far away as 16 miles.
The gold bars on the runway were recovered by airport personal but the ones 16 miles away, well, who knows? Some folks might have gotten lucky. Just a thought here. It might be difficult to pay for a flat screen TV from the Siberian version of Best Buy with a gold bar.
2) The unfortunate, none too bright, decision of a United Airlines flight attendant to put a dog in the overhead bin resulting in its death has been commented on at length. There was an interesting column asking why didn't passengers complain and protest this dumb move? If they had it's likely they would have been told it was "policy." If they persisted they might have been thrown off or "Dragged Off" the plane like that doctor was a year ago. That appears to be a United "policy" too.
3) Self driving cars are still working to make it through snow. However, excessive sun can also pose a problem. Solar storms can spike the geomagnetic activity and sever the data connection between the car's GPS and the satellites. Should this result in an accident who can you sue? The sun? Probably not. But lawyers will undoubtedly come up with a way to sue GPS, the satellite manufacturer and who EVER launched it.
4) Barbra Streisand was asked, in an interview, if she had ever suffered sexual harassment. She joked saying no and it might have been because "I wasn't like those pretty girls with those nice little noses." As it turned out, Barbra was sure a lot more successful than those "nice little nosed" girls, wasn't she? As to why she so successful, well … nobody nose.
5) So, it turns out, according to FBI terminology, committing perjury is "Lacking Candor Under Oath." Wonder who came up with that one? Some UN survey found Finland to be the world's happiest country. The US is 18th and Burundi is at the bottom. That position caused the cancellation of the visit "Beautiful Burundi" advertising campaign.
(Tom Murphy is a writer, humorist, actor, disc jockey and an occasional contributor to CityWatch. He lives in Los Angeles.)
-cw
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