Rick Steves found life in Iran similar to that of the USA in his article of June 12,2008. Do you think that travelers to Germany in the late 1930s shared this same kinship? Is Ricks travelogue of Iran another Leni Riefenstahl characterization hiding the true nature of that nation?

How about a segment on the near-term outlook for passenger air travel? Taking and paying for trips is going to be very different by the end of next year.

As airlines rush to adopt a la carte business models, I bet that someone has already patented a digital scale designed to be placed in front of airline registration desks and robot ticketing machines. The scale reads out not in pounds or kilos but in dollars or any local currency. The airlines get to set the price of a unit weight, and travelers are obliged to step on the scale's platform to determine how much extra they need to pay to for the weight of their bodies, clothing, and carry-on items. Of course, the airlines would be free to change the formula whenever they see fit, even from one passenger to the next. The weigh-ins would lead to well-reported discussions of people's weight, which might be a good thing.

Of course, you would also be weighting any food you are carrying to avoid shelling out for a la carte airline meals. Maybe you'll pay a buck for two to three pounds of victuals carried; that wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for having to pay fifty cents to heat up a unit of frozen entree on the aircraft. Still, you can game their system -- just bring on dehydrated snacks and prepared meals (which you might be able to buy cheap from military surplus) and use airplane water to bulk up. That'll show them!

They may even charge you a penny per megabyte to back up the digital data you bring on board if you choose to accept their data protection plan. You'll be secure in the knowledge that if anything happens to your aircraft, your archive will live on. They'll destroy your archive a day after landing if you opt out of their universal backup and data forwarding plan. Under it, you can upload an archive before you travel, then upon arriving at your destination and renting a laptop or PDA (from the airline's vendor, of course), you can download your archive and resume your productivity without ever having to carry your gear through airport security.

If you use this, I'd like to be credited please.