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Also for credit card rebates and rewards. Small potatoes, but they add up. My visa gives me 1% cash back at the end of each year. My other visa accrues mileage points for free Southwest Airlines tickets (which are transferrable in an eBay type way...) It's probably a few hundred dollars back each year, which beats paying with cash.

"This is the first black hole found to be moving fast through the plane of our galaxy," said Felix Mirabel, a researcher at the French Atomic Energy Commission who led the work.

A black hole shot from a spectacular cosmic explosion is racing across the Milky Way four times faster than the stars around it, astronomers announced today. The discovery is among the best evidence that black holes are indeed the invisible offspring of supernova, the catastrophic and explosive deaths of massive stars.

The object is at least 6,000 light years away and is headed roughly in our direction but poses no immediate threat.

The matter-slurping monster was detected because it has a visible companion star from which it feeds. The visible star orbits the black hole once every 2.6 days as they race around the main plain of the galaxy in a looping, off-kilter orbit.

How close will it come to Earth?

"Not closer than 1,000 light-years in the next 230 million years," Mirabel told SPACE.com.

The phenomenon is one of about one million wayward black holes zooming through our galaxy, said Mirabel.

Airlines were deregulated in 1978.

What was that you were saying?

Big profits are removed, and so are big losses. Since the latter is much worse than the former to the country as a whole, I support regulation.

Look, whether or not you agree with regulation is up to you. But removing big losses is generally not a good economic idea, because it makes uncompetitive companies survive. Remember that if a major airline went under tomorrow, all its physical assets don't magically disappear. Some other airline would buy up the planes, the gates, the landing rights, you name it. The world didn't collapse when Eastern Airlines bit the dust. Sure, some people lost their jobs, but that's why we have unemployment benefits - to get them through the tough times until they can find another job.

Stick with the cable cases - but don't pretend that deregulation was always a flop. It did wonders for trucking, rail transport (of freight), air travel, and long distance. It can be done badly - like power in California - but it's worked more times than it hasn't.

If someone is blind AND deaf, will they insist that every movie theater provide someone to do that Helen Keller style ... [snip]

According to ADA Title III, Commercial facilities are subject to provide "reasonable accomodations" to their primary place of business. According to the Southwest website, Southwest reported that approximately 46 percent, or over $500 million, of its passenger revenue for first quarter 2002 was generated by online bookings via southwest.com. Therefore, the WWW MAY COUNT AS THEIR PRIMARY SOURCE OF REVENUE, AND BECOME SUBJECT TO ADA Title III.

And this isn't flamebait

By even having to resort to that statement, it already is

The ADA always annoyed me

We'll see how much it annoys you if you or your children ever have the misfortune of becoming blind, deaf, physically disabled.

In fact, their license seems to forbids the use of any HTTP user agent to "acquire" some of their pages. Beware, by browsing their site you are risking to get sued

Yes, I see this idiocy a lot. My ISP T&C if taken literally, forbids web browsing as well. It's clear to me that nobody actually understands HTTP or HTML at all.

So, here's a deep link into these fuckwit's site: Refund. And another: Cancel

So sue me.

In fact, their license seems to forbids the use of any HTTP user agent to "acquire" some of their pages. Beware, by browsing their site you are risking to get sued

Yes, I see this idiocy a lot. My ISP T&C if taken literally, forbids web browsing as well. It's clear to me that nobody actually understands HTTP or HTML at all.

So, here's a deep link into these fuckwit's site: Refund. And another: Cancel

So sue me.

South West Airlines website is not an accessibility nightmare. Looks like Bobby has been slashdotted.

Nobody is entitled to use a webste. A blind person is not entitled to use a website either. It is up to the blind person to obtain the technology needed to access a website. If their screen reader software is not capable of doing the job, then they ned to get better software.

The disability laws were created to stop disabled people from being discriminated against, NOT to make their life more comfortable at the expense of the public.

Well i guess the good side is that it migght make Front Page and Dreamweaver cowboys obsolete and raise salaries for professional developes who know how to write HTML.

In their terms and conditions "Southwest Airlines" also state that they forbid "deep linking", using robots to spider their site, or just using any program to get their pages.

In fact, their license seems to forbids the use of any HTTP user agent to "acquire" some of their pages. Beware, by browsing their site you are risking to get sued =).

Southwest has democratized the airlines!

Despite Tokyo and Osaka being geographically close, it still takes you at least 3 hours to get to one city from the other. Odd, eh? It took me a while to understand this, considering I can leave San Francisco, take the BART to Oakland Airport in 14 minutes, hop on a Southwest shuttle, and arrive at Los Angeles International in under a hour.

Southwest had to set up their reservation center at 1-800-IFLYSWA, which doesn't exactly roll trippingly off the tongue, if you ask me.

This was made worse by the fact that at the time it was nearly impossible to book a Southwest flight via a travel agent, thanks to SABRE.

Nowadays, both http://www.southwest.com and http://www.iflyswa.com will get you to Southwest Airlines' homepage, but I remember it was pretty confusing trying to book a flight for awhile.

I'm sure you could stay somewhere on the peninsula for cheap as well, but let's face it, everything south of Daly City is a suburban hellhole with jack to do at night - or in the daytime for that matter. SF's not that much better for nightlife, but at least it's civilized.

It shouldn't cost you more than $250 for a flight from anywhere in the continental US if you can book a couple weeks in advance. Look at Southwest, Priceline, and the various travel specials out there.