| Las Vegas: Viva Lost Wages! and Hotel guest satisfaction drops, study finds |
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When we arrived on the Las Vegas Strip, storm clouds were gathered around the Statue of Liberty replica. A double take confirmed that they were real. Rain in the desert, what were the odds? A rhetorical question in any city but this one. The Strip. America's Id.Visiting there is like stepping into mainstream television: common-denominator vulgarity that you can't keep your eyes off of. "Pleasure" pumped into elephantine proportions. Like a basket containing the world's largest gourd held by a woman with the world's largest breasts.Don't get me wrong, I like sex, gambling and tippling, but its hyper-commercialization brings me down. Like how passing a blown-up picture of a chili dog on a semi ruins your appetite instead of whetting it.In the belly of the MGM Grand parking lot we unload our bags. Parents walk by holding children. Slightly older children walk by holding suitcases of beer. Everyone tingles with anticipation. [Read the full article] Acting Mayor Tom Padgett says it's not clear how that would happen in the future without airline service.The city is one of 24 around the country that Delta Airlines has announced it can no longer afford to service."Loss of all air service would be devastating, though it is my belief that one way or another we will get an airline," Padgett said.Facing mounting cost pressures, including the cost of fuel and losing some $14 million a year, the airline plans to cut flights to small cities that are not profitable for it anymore. The cuts would have a huge effect on the economy and be a devastating blow to small towns mostly in the Midwest.Other affected cities are in Alabama, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota.Delta says flights in these markets on average leave with 52% of the seats filled, with some locations as low as 12%. This compares to a domestic system load factor of 83% for 2010. [Read the full article] Washington (CNN) -- The Transportation Security Administration is taking steps beginning Wednesday to eliminate the image of an actual passenger in the body scanners at airports and is replacing it with a generic outline of a person.The new software on its millimeter wave Advanced Imaging Technology machines is designed to enhance privacy but maintain security standards.It "will auto-detect items that could pose a potential threat using a generic outline of a person for all passengers," according to a statement from the TSA."If no potential threats are detected, an 'OK' appears on the monitor with no outline, and the passenger is cleared," the statement said.Passengers will be able to view the same outline a TSA officer sees, and it will no longer be necessary for a separate TSA officer to view the image in a remotely located viewing room. [Read the full article] 
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