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United and Continental airlines aren't yet officially hitched, but some are already grumbling about the monogram they've selected for their china. The backlash is a reaction to one of the first compromises reached by the carriers' CEOs during their April courtship: an agreement to stamp Continental's stylized globe logo and blue-and-gold color scheme on all jets operated by the new United, which will be one of the world's largest carriers. United's name and its Chicago headquarters will survive the tie-up, but not the "tulip," the giant Saul Bass-designed "U" that has graced United's jets for nearly 40 years.

Ruling: Foreign countries owe no NYC property tax NEW YORK – India and other nations with diplomatic housing do not have to pay city property taxes, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a long-running dispute that once reached the Supreme Court. The decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan handed a victory to the governments of India and Mongolia, which had fought the city's demands that they pay tens of millions of dollars in taxes for their Manhattan embassy buildings. The three-judge panel said the State Department acted within its power in June 2009 when...

Honor America's Fallen Heroes and their families with a Memorial Weekend Celebration at Kelly's Irish Times on Capitol Hill, hosted by the country's largest military families organization, Families United. Sunday, May 30, 2010 7:00pm - 10:00pm Kelly's Irish Times 14 F Street NW Washington, DC With a suggested $10.00 admission, you are automatically entered for hourly drawings of FREE BAR TAB GIVEAWAYS - up to $200! Not to mention amazing drink specials, music, and awesome raffle prizes - all while helping to support our troops and their families! 100 percent of your $10.00 door fee goes to support military family...

A Michigan woman who fell asleep on a Philadelphia-bound flight and awoke to find herself trapped in the cabin more than three hours after it landed sued the airline Thursday, alleging false imprisonment. Ginger McGuire, 36, boarded a Trans States shuttle Monday night at Dulles International Airport outside Washington. During the one-hour journey she fell asleep. The aircraft landed about 12:30 a.m. at Philadelphia International Airport, but McGuire said the flight crew hadn't bothered to rouse her. She awoke at 4 a.m., alone on the 50-seat plane with all the doors locked, she said. "Waking up to an empty airplane...

Global governance is here! Hooray for Glenn Beck! Right out there in front of God and everybody, he talks about global governance as a real and present danger. But right on cue, progressive bloggers do their best to ridicule the idea with wisdom such as this: Seriously, for a moment. We're going to have to address the paranoia about a global takeover at some point – probably in easy-to-comprehend, Dick-and-Jane language – for the tea party. Could it be that these people really don't know that global governance is already here? As early as 1997, Gustave Speth, former head of...

As United and Continental executives hammer out plans to meld their airlines into the world's largest carrier, construction speeds ahead on one of the merged company's loftiest emblems: United's cutting-edge operations center in the Willis Tower. Where Bank of America traders once tracked the world's financial markets, United's dispatchers will guide thousands of its airplanes around the globe from the tower's 28th floor. It's the highest of nine floors United will occupy in the tallest skyscraper in the U.S.

If we continue to fail to recognize where the battlefield is, there is little hope of winning the war. The Elitists and the Radical Transformation of America By SavantNoir Friday, May 7, 2010 “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”—Barack Obama, October 30, 2008 “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”—H.L. Mencken (1918) “Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they...

United Nations Global Compact Farooq Sobhan The United Nations Global Compact was first proposed by the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in an address to the World Economic Forum on January 31, 1999. The Global Compact's operational phase was launched at the UN headquarters in New York on 26 July 2000. Mr. Annan urged the business leaders to join an international initiative -- the Global Compact -- that would bring companies together with UN agencies, labour and civil society to support the ten principles in the areas of human rights, labour standard, environment and anti-corruption. Through the power of...

World Health Organization Moving Ahead on Billions in Internet and Other Taxes By George Russell The World Health Organization is moving full speed ahead with a controversial plan to impose billions of dollars in global consumer taxes on such things as Internet activity and everyday financial transactions like paying bills online — while its spending soars and its own financial house is in disarray. print email share recommend (19) The World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations' public health arm, is moving full speed ahead with a controversial plan to impose global consumer taxes on such things as Internet activity...

GENEVA (AFP) – The UN warned on Monday that "massive" loss in life-sustaining natural environments was likely to deepen to the point of being irreversible after global targets to cut the decline by this year were missed. As a result of the degradation, the world is moving closer to several "tipping points" beyond which some ecosystems that play a part in natural processes such as climate or the food chain may be permanently damaged, a United Nations report said. The third "Global Biodiversity Outlook" found that deforestation, pollution or overexploitation were damaging the productive capacity of the most vulnerable environments,...

Tehran’s police chief has ordered a crackdown on suntanned women and girls who walk around looking like “mannequins” in an effort to cleanse “social misbehaviour by women, and men, who defy our Islamic values.” The United Nations responded by placing Iran on the Commission on the Status of Women. How could you not put these two stories side-by-side? Read more...

"Survival" of Belgium as a unified country was called into question last night after a row between French and Dutch speakers brought the government to the verge of collapse. The wrangle has already brought down the government four times in the past three years but the latest spat is the gravest yet and threatens to split the country into Flemish areas and French-speaking areas. King Albert II warned politicians that the political crisis "seriously threatens" the country's role in Europe, after the Prime Minister, Yves Leterme tendered his resignation. Mr Leterme stepped down after talks broke down over plants to...

Supermodel Naomi Campbell is set to become a member of United Russia, a source in the party said Thursday, adding that the party saw her as an asset who could become the faction's new poster girl. “She is a young, sexy, intelligent woman who has shown how the new Russia can attract the best in the world,” said the source, who asked for his name not to be used because he was not authorized to speak to the press despite working in the United Russia press office. “Once she modernized the fashion world, now she is part of the modernization...

This exclusive interview with Dave Carroll is being published simultaneously with the release and posting of his third and final video in the “United Breaks Guitars” trilogy. The video will appear in this Interview upon its posting on Youtube Tuesday evening. With the posting of this final video of the trilogy, I thought our readers might like to get to know more about the man behind the music. Dave was kind enough to give me an exclusive interview for Grand Rants. I spoke with him following his appearance on “The View” in NYC and as he prepared for a several...

One of the top videos on YouTube last year was “United Breaks Guitars.” The catchy country tune chronicled the misfortune suffered by Carroll, whose guitar was broken by United Airline baggage handlers while he was on a flight from Nova Scotia to a show in Nebraska. The first two videos in the trilogy have been viewed nearly 10 million viewers and have made Carroll one of the fastest rising stars on the music scene today.

A United Airlines Boeing 747-400, registration N173UA performing flight UA-897 from Washington Dulles,DC (USA) to Tokyo Narita (Japan) with 227 passengers and 18 crew, was enroute overhead Alaska about 70nm east of Anchorage descending from FL320 to FL300, when the airplane encountered turbulence causing injuries to 18 people on board. The airplane continued to Tokyo's Narita Airport, where the airplane landed safely about 7 hours later. Japanese Police reported, that one passenger received serious injuries (fractured leg), 17 occupants received minor injuries. Japan's Transport Ministry reported, that the airplane was descending from FL320 to FL300, when it encountered the turbulence...

'Drunk' Airline Pilot Avoids Jail Sentence Alison Chung, Sky News Online An American pilot who tried to fly a passenger jet from Heathrow while three times the alcohol limit has been given a 10-month jail sentence suspended for two years... Captain Erwin Vermont Washington, 51, was charged after a concerned colleague who smelled alcohol on his breath reported him to police. He was readying his United Airlines Boeing 767 for a flight to Chicago and its departure was "imminent" when officers arrived at Terminal One.

1:52 PM CST, January 1, 2010 ST. LOUIS (AP) — A United Airlines Express flight returned to St. Louis as a precaution because of an unspecified "security concern." United Airlines spokeswoman Megan McCarthy says there were no incidents during the flight, and it redeparted at 9:30 a.m. Friday after the issue was resolved. She says Flight 7445 was headed from Lambert-St. Louis International Airport to Chicago's O'Hare Airport when it was called back by the airline around 8 a.m. McCarthy provided no details about the security issue and referred questions to Go-Jet, the regional carrier that operated the flight. But...

It happened again on Wednesday, December 9, 2009, less than a month after the incident aboard AirTran Flight 297. United Airlines Flight 227, scheduled to depart Denver International Airport at 1:50 pm Wednesday for Los Angeles was disrupted when several passengers who were described as Middle Eastern in appearance, confirmed by this investigator to be a group of Muslims traveling together, were removed from that aircraft due to suspicious behavior that originated in the terminal and continued to the airplane.

Taking advantage of down market prices, United Airlines said on Tuesday it placed a $10 billion-plus order for 50 wide-bodied jetliners divided between Airbus and Boeing Co, in a bid to slash fuel costs and emissions. United, a unit of UAL Corp, has letters of intent to order 25 of Boeing's 787 Dreamliners and the same number of A350 planes from its European rival Airbus, part of EADS, following a six-month contest. The carrier also has future purchase rights for 50 of each aircraft.