How Qantas is losing to oil money and penny pinchers and other news and views for Friday 28 February
- Qantas and its ilk are losing the Asian skies to oil money and penny pinchers – ‘The “Flying Kangaroo,” as Qantas Airlines is known, has announced its largest cutbacks in 20 years, including laying off 5,000 staff and a six-month loss of $226 million. CEO Alan Joyce is asking the Australian government for state aid due to “some of the toughest conditions Qantas has ever seen.” Specifically, Qantas is getting killed by competition from Virgin Australia, a fast-growing, money-losing budget airline controlled by three other so-called flag carriers—Air New Zealand, Etihad Airways of the United Arab Emirates, and Singapore Airlines. Qantas’s fate is being echoed across Asia and around the world, as Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Etihad expand into new territories, and low-cost carriers (LCCs) like Air Asia, Southwest, Easyjet, and Ryanair fight aggressive fare wars against their older rivals.”
- Asia budget airlines: no flying profits - “Competition escalates as more airlines enter the fray.”
- Climate Change: Evidence and Causes -”It is now more certain than ever, based on many lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth’s climate. The atmosphere and oceans have warmed, accompanied by sealevel rise, a strong decline in Arctic sea ice, and other climate-related changes
- The Web At 25: Hugely Popular, And Viewed As A Positive Force - “The Pew Research Center conducted a sweeping survey to coincide with the Web’s 25th anniversary.”
- Cannabis can kill without the influence of other drugs - ‘Two of the deaths could not be attributed to anything but cannabis intoxication. Both were men who died of cardiac arrhythmia – when the heart beats too quickly or slowly. … It is not clear how cannabis could trigger arrhythmias…. Even so, says David Raynes at the UK National Drug Prevention Alliance,”these deaths are rare and will remain rare. The real risks are from long-term effects on the young brain”.’
- The Mammoth Cometh – “Bringing extinct animals back to life is really happening — and it’s going to be very, very cool. Unless it ends up being very, very bad.”
- A Win For Fair Use After Record Label, Copyright Lawyer Settle - “An Australian record label that threatened to sue one of the world’s most famous copyright attorneys for infringement has reached a settlement with him. … ‘Too often copyright is used as an excuse to silence legitimate speech.’ “
- Within versus Between Sample Variation, or Why an Equal Marriage Means More Sex – “It’s clickbait, New York Times style.”
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