Monthly Archives: January 2006

Are Non-Refundable Air Tickets Actually Refundable?

Posted on January 25, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

In the course of a very interesting and serious rumination about proposed air travel regulations ostensibly designed to allow the Center for Disease Control to react to epidemics — but which conveniently enact the surveillance regime on air travelers that this administration has been seeking for some time, Ed Hasbrouck throws out this great aside,

If you are ever denied transportation by an airline, ask them for a copy of their conditions of carriage, which they are required to have available at every check-in counter. Ask them to tell you under which specific clause of the conditions of carriage you are being denied transportation. Try to get them to put that in writing, preferably either on airline letterhead over the signature and legibly printed name of the station manager for the airline at that airport, or as part of a complete printout of your passenger name record , in which the reason you were denied transportation, citing the specific clause of the conditions of carriage, has been entered. (If you made your reservations from Canada, the European Union, or certain other countries, you are entitles to see what’s in your PNR. But not, unfortunately, if you made your reservations in the USA.) If the airline balks at giving you reasons, point out that your eligibility (or not) for a refund of your ticket is dependent on the reasons and the clause of the conditions of carriage under which you were denied transportation. So you need documentation of the reasons for their denial, in order to establish your refund claim. (If the airline refuses to transport you because you refuse to consent to being searched, you are entitled to a full and unconditional refund, even if your ticket would otherwise have been an entirely nonrefundable. Presenting yourself at the airport, and refusing to consent to search, is perhaps the most foolproof way to obtain a refund of an otherwise nonrefundable ticket.) The airline cannot refuse to transport you, except as provided by specific terms of their published conditions of carriage, without grave liability under the common carrier clause of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978.

I’m sure it would be one @#%@$ of a hassle, but it’s an interesting idea nonetheless.

Posted in Shopping | 3 Comments

It Worked for Harry Truman

Posted on January 25, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

It’s good to think that someone in the Senate remembers a little history. Truman became Vice President because he got famous for chairing an investigatory committee, the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program (aka “the Truman committee”).

Harry Truman remembered the ‘war profiteering’ from WW I and determined to try to root it out from the war effort in WW II. The effort made him a popular hero, even as the Washington elites turned up their noses.

Comes now Senator Byron Dorgan, taking aim at “waste, fraud and mismanagement” in the GOP crony capitalist management of the government. Unlike Truman, he hasn’t got a committee to chair, which makes running an investigation much more difficult. The Blogging of the President suggests Dorgan will use a media strategy instead.

I’d like to believe that can work. But it’s very hard to break through. (I expect some white women will go missing in the event this sort of thing gets any traction.)

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | Comments Off on It Worked for Harry Truman

Robot Uprisings. It’s Only a Matter of Time.

Posted on January 24, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

It’s good to have Bruce Schneier worrying about the big questions for us. The world is undoubtedly a safer place thanks to his work on crypto and security. And he’s funny too. In Schneier on Security: How to Survive a Robot Uprising he points us to this “good start” on the problem:

i’m reading about how to survive a robot uprising. i’m not gonna give away all the secrets, but i’ll share a few…

  • choose a complex environment. waterfalls, street traffic, and places with lots of ambient noise confuse the robots.
  • lose your heat signature. smear yourself with mud and leaves and sit real still.
  • use uncommon words to suss out robots on the phone. robots do not know how pronounce supercalifragilisticexpealidocious.
  • find a blunt weapon. serrated edges won’t work on robo exo-skeletons. nope.
  • alter your stride. robots can judge gait and injury, even height and intention, by stride, so put some rocks in your shoes and mix things up a bit. doing some ministry of silly walks stuff goes even further towards confusing them.
  • pretend that everything is normal. to forstall a mechanized killing spree, you must pretend that nothing is amiss.

If they are Daleks, I thought you just find something with a lot of stairs and no elevator. But the Wikipedia entry on Daleks suggests I’m behind the times,

Due to their gliding motion Daleks were notoriously unable to tackle stairs, which made them easy to overcome under the right circumstances. An oft-copied cartoon from Punch pictured a group of Daleks at the foot of a flight of stairs with the caption, “This certainly buggers our plan to conquer the Universe”. In a scene from the serial Destiny of the Daleks, the Doctor and companions escape from Dalek pursuers by climbing into a ceiling duct. The Doctor (Tom Baker) calls down, “If you’re supposed to be the superior race of the universe, why don’t you try climbing after us? Bye bye!” The Daleks generally make up for their lack of mobility with overwhelming firepower. A joke around science fiction conventions went, “Real Daleks don’t climb stairs; they level the building.”

In The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964) a Dalek emerges from the waters of the River Thames, indicating that they are amphibious to a degree. Remembrance of the Daleks (1988) showed that they can hover using a sort of limited antigravity — first implied in earlier serials such as The Chase (1965) and Revelation of the Daleks (1985) — but their awkward forms still limit their mobility in tight quarters. Despite this, the Daleks’ supposed inability to climb stairs is still frequently referred to for humorous effect by journalists covering the series.

The 2005 series episodes Dalek and The Parting of the Ways featured Daleks hovering and flying, the latter also showing them flying through the vacuum of space. In the Dalek episode, the Dalek said “Elevate” before hovering, in the same way it would say “Exterminate” before exterminating.

And is this a good time to link to Charles Stross’s free e-book, Accelerando? Could there be a bad time?

Posted in Completely Different | 1 Comment

It Quacks Like a Duck

Posted on January 24, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Peter Jung tipped me off to ABC News: EXCLUSIVE: Supreme Ethics Problem?:

At the historic swearing-in of John Roberts as the 17th chief justice of the United States last September, every member of the Supreme Court, except Antonin Scalia, was in attendance. ABC News has learned that Scalia instead was on the tennis court at one of the country’s top resorts, the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Bachelor Gulch, Colo., during a trip to a legal seminar sponsored by the Federalist Society.

…

“I was out of town with a commitment that I could not break, and that’s what the public information office told you,” he said.

It “doesn’t matter what it was. It was a commitment that I couldn’t break,” Scalia continued when questioned further.

According to the event’s invitation, obtained by ABC News, the Federalist Society promised members who attended the seminar an exclusive and “rare opportunity to spend time, both socially and intellectually” with Scalia.

Update: Then again, maybe it’s not a duck?

Posted in Law: Ethics, Law: The Supremes | 2 Comments

Busy Week

Posted on January 24, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Everyone wants to be in Miami when the weather is good.

  • Today, John Bruton, European Union ambassador to the United States, will speak at the law school on “The European Union Today: Consequences of the Constitutional impasse and Relations with the United States.” From what I gather it’s going to be popular–probably standing room only.
  • Tomorrow, Professor Jan Paulsson, the international arbitrator who is visiting the Law School this semester, will give an LL.M seminar on “Law and Sports in the International Arena,” which I presume will be about the IOC and other sports bodies’ athletic controversies over alleged doping by athletes.
  • Thursday, Justice Stephen G. Breyer will deliver the Cole Lecture at UM Law School. I don’t think it’s open to the public without a ticket — the faculty had to RSVP to get seats and students had to enter a lottery to get tickets. [Update: it looks like this last part is wrong — see the comments.]
Posted in Law School | 4 Comments

Dan Froomkin Column Revives Today

Posted on January 24, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

My brother’s paternity leave from the Post is over, and his column resumes later today, undoubtedly pleasing thousands of his rabid and Dan-deprived fans.

Posted in Dan Froomkin | 1 Comment