As this blog notes: “It’s a draggable umbrella designed by Qian Jiang & Yiying Wu. Apparently, it’s for people who are so accustomed to traveling with a rolling suitcase, that they can’t make the switch to an umbrella.”

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The yellow traffic light is taking on a new meaning for motorists during these tough economic times: one expensive trap.

According to the National Motorists Association (NMA), some municipalities have been caught shortening the time in which yellow lights are on in order to generate additional revenue from tickets issued to motorists caught on traffic cameras running red lights. At least six cities including Dallas and Chattanooga, Tenn. have engaged in the practice in recent years, the organization’s Web site says.

Traffic cameras are seen as cash cows by their backers. Big cities reap millions in revenue from the cameras, which cost about $100,000 to install. Los Angeles issues about 3,600 red-light violations a month through its camera systems and netted more than $6 million last year from the program after expenses, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Shorten the time in which drivers have to stop and that revenue-stream can be even more lucrative. For the NMA, a libertarian group opposed to many traffic safety rules, shorter yellow lights is one way state and local governments can justify the expensive traffic camera systems, says the group’s President Jim Baxter.

Other groups, including the larger American Automobile Association, say the NMA is exaggerating the extent of the problem in order to whip up public hysteria. “AAA does not believe the problem is widespread,” says Justin McNaull, the organization’s director of state relations. He says the problems disclosed by the NMA were in isolated programs run by vendors motivated by profit.

Baxter, though, is undaunted. “They play games with the yellow light timing,” he says, adding that manipulating yellow lights does little to promote traffic safety

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Excerpt from a longer video that is accessible here.

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On Feb. 13, a stout 39-year-old man was escorted off an Oakland-to-Burbank Southwest Air flight on the grounds that his size presented a “safety risk.” Unfortunately for Southwest, it messed with “the wrong sedentary processed-foods eater.”

The man was Kevin Smith, who, in addition to being a well-known movie director, also happens to have well over a million followers on Twitter. So Smith, in addition to taking his outrage directly to Southwest, also swiftly broadcast it to the world, hurling the tweet grenade, “Dear @SouthwestAir — I know I’m fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?”

What happened next was a classic example of the power of social media, the changing world of corporate public relations, and our own deeply divisive attitudes about weight. Smith kept right on tweeting his expletive-rich version of the story, and his followers spread it faster than it takes to fly OAK to BUR.

Did Southwest muck it up spectacularly with regard to Smith? Sure looks like it. Smith claims that, according to the airline’s own written policies, he wasn’t violating any of its requirements. He could put his armrest down. He could buckle his seat belt without an extender. And even if he had exceeded the company’s safety restrictions because of his size, you’d think they’d have figured out a less fat-shaming way to work with their paying customers than ignobly hauling them off the plane. …

Observer Kate Harding noted:

… I am so sorry that Kevin Smith, human being, had to go through that. But quite frankly, a part of me is really happy that Kevin Smith, Famous Person With 1.6 Million Twitter Followers, is holding an airline’s feet to the fire over this bullshit. While watching him tweet furiously @SouthwestAir (and sending a few of my own), I could only think, “Oh, please, let this be Southwest’s Maytag moment.” And let the other airlines learn something from it. I’m the kind of person who thinks it was awesome that Heather Armstrong used her platform to shame Maytag into offering decent customer service, and I’d like to see more corporations realize that word of mouth is a whole new fucking ballgame in the age of social media. And the only way to make sure you don’t get burned is to offer decent service to everyone. Famous or not famous, fat or thin. …

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You can buy it here, but why would you want to?

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You couldn’t blame Lauren McClusky of Chicago if she were a bit squeamish about using her last name in this story without fear of reprisal from Ronald McDonald and his legal posse.

For McClusky, 19, finds herself at the center of a thorny dispute that involves a series of charity concerts she’s put on over the past three years. She dubbed the event “McFest” (more on that in a moment) — but McDonald’s sees that as an infringement on its trademarks, something the McDonaldland lawyers refer to as “the McFamily of brands.”

These include (deep breath): McPen, McBurger, McBuddy, McWatch, McDouble, McJobs, McShirt, McPool, McProduct, McShades, McFree, McRuler, McLight — and even the prefix “Mc” itself.

“But not McFest,” pointed out McClusky, who declined to change her last name for this story. “The whole reason I called it McFest in the first place is my name.”

Her original co-chair for the first McFest also shared the “Mc” prefix in her surname, so it seemed a natural. And indeed, not a single McDonald’s attorney seemed to object in 2007 and 2008, when McClusky’s McFests raised $30,000 for the Chicago chapter of Special Olympics.

But when McClusky applied to have the McFest name protected, McDonald’s filed an opposition. So instead of donating funds from her 2009 concert to Special Olympics, McClusky’s had to hire lawyers to answer a series of administrative proceedings McDonald’s filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. To date, it’s cost her roughly $5,000 — money she wishes had gone to Special Olympics kids instead of attorneys. …

McMakes me consider changing the names of my IP courses to McTrademark Law, McPatent Law, McCopyright Law and McIP McSurvey.

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