Tim Leffel of Tim’s Cheap Travel Guide has an excellent analysis of the hypocrisies and conflicts associated with “Green Travel.”  He referenced my October “Blog Action Day” post in which I concluded that your overall COLLECTIVE decisions are what make you green.  Not feel good slick marketed reactions like carbon offsets.

He explores the nonsense of carbon offsets and why magazines even bother publishing puff “green issues” when most of their sponsors are luxury waste emitting products.

TSA Wants More of You.   Great.   Do they need to know my favorite sexual positions too?

WASHINGTON — A government proposal to start collecting birth dates and genders of people reserving airline flights is drawing protests from major airlines and travel agencies that say it would be invasive, confusing and “useless.”
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) wants passengers to give the additional personal information — as well as their full names — so it can do more precise background checks that it says will result in fewer travelers being mistaken for terrorists. Travelers currently must provide only a last name and a first initial.

Over Thanksgiving weekend I discovered Patrick Smith’s Salon column “Ask a Pilot.”  This guy hates the A380, and is neurotic, nit-picking freak  – and I love it.  He takes on the media and society stereotypes of pilots, flying, and the internal logistics of air travel.

His travel journals are interwoven in many posts.   He also tells stories of pilot training, getting laid off after 9/11, and the life of an airline pilot.  Over a few days I read every single article and as a low time private pilot myself was completely captured by it.  His archives are at Salon.com

James Van Dellen