Martin World News

I am going to try to lighten up the mood with a Martin World news post.  Wish me luck!

How about we start with a FoxNews "who's dumber"?

Contestant one:

ANY item that can put Kid Rock and Trump as the banner headline...

Contestant two:

Toddler kicked out of nursery school for being transphobic: 'This is totalitarian insanity'

The child was suspended from a state school in the 2022-23 academic year for 'abuse against sexual orientation and gender identity'

You know, I can only take so much before saying: This is stupidity, and if the trans community wants to be taken with a shred of seriousness, they need to stop crap like this.

BBC World

This next might be the most counter-intuitive headline I've ever seen.  I mean, I know what they were trying for, but...

Germany decides to leave history in the past and prepare for war

That past includes six major wars within 80 years- kinda sounds more like they're bringing up the past...

Moscow Times

In this same vein, but probably a bit poorer taste on my part... first, see this definition:

grap·ple

/ˈɡrap(ə)l/

verb

1.

engage in a close fight or struggle without weapons; wrestle.

"passersby grappled with the man after the knife attack"

Now, the headline:

After Losing Limbs to War, Russian Amputee Veterans Grapple With Officials’ Empty Promises

But, how do you grapple, with no... uh-oh...

Okay, okay... I'm sorry, just put the torches out...

Japan Times

Well, as long as the ice under me is already cracking...

An incident between former TV personality Masahiro Nakai and a woman was “sexual violence that took place as an extension of duties at Fuji Television Network Inc.,” a committee of outside lawyers concluded Monday.

"An extension of duties"?? Can I please see that job description?

News.com.AU (Australia)

When is a compliment not a compliment?  When someone uber-sensitive thinks it's "sexual harassment":

The independent candidate for the battleground seat of Bradfield has been banned from a local hairdresser for joking that getting her hair washed was better than sex.

Apparently the teenage hairdresser working on Nicolette Boele thought what most people would consider the highest of compliments was a come-on.

Oh, well.  I could do that good of a job on her hair, there's bound to be a less whacked sensitive salon somewhere.

Finally, The Toronto Star

I'm gonna give you all a link to the story if you want the full details, but here's the dime-store version:

Family of four, Mom, Dad, 3-year old boy, 20 month old girl.  Pay a premium to sit all together on a flight from Tampa to Toronto.  Get to the gate, told the 20-month old's ticket got 'disappeared' when the airline (Air Canada) had to switch planes in Tampa and fouled up the seating plan.  Pointing out that a baby can't be reasonably expected to stay behind, they generated little Molly a new ticket- 6 rows behind the folks, by herself.  Ticket desk, tells them, "OK. You’re gonna have to deal with it on the plane.”

So they board the plane and explain the sitch to the flight attendants- who tell them, “You’re going to have to ask people to move, we can’t legally have to do it.”  This, as it turns, is a bald-faced lie, and against Canadian law.  So Dad manages to talk the guy who was supposed to sit next to Molly to move, and he agrees- but when they get there, some other idiot was sitting in the seat by mistake, and had to be shooed out.

After months of wrangling, and finally getting the Star involved, Air Canada fessed up:

“She said they’re in the process of upgrading software (that reassigns seats) but someone is supposed to check the computer’s work and didn’t,”(The Dad) told me. “She acknowledged that multiple people dropped the ball and that someone should have called me directly when this first happened.”

To get back in the family's good graces, AC's 'fix' was to give a refund of sorts:

The airline offered each member of the McLachlan family $400 for the flight delay and refunded the return leg of Molly’s ticket, a cost of $780. Yes, I double checked that figure. That’s how much Air Canada charged to fly a child one way from Tampa to Toronto in economy.

Needless to say, the CTA is investigating AC's 'policies', their steps hotly dogged by the Air Passenger Rights group, who are rightly fuming at AC staff at the desk and on the plane. APR president Gabor Lukacs had this to say:

“There was no legal basis for the flight attendants to say it’s not their responsibility,” Lukacs said. “This is really, really troubling. There should be significant and swift consequences. This is happening because the regulator isn’t doing its job properly.”