Slate’s Timothy Noah wonders: “Maybe Reagan’s decision to bust the air controllers’ union and hire burger flippers wasn’t such a good idea, after all?” Damn, you think? [HT: Tom]

Vanity Fair profiles The eXile: "Gutsy...visceral...serious journalism...abusive, defamatory...poignant...paranoid...and right!"

MSNBC: Mark Ames and Yasha Levine
Broke the Koch Brothers' Takeover of America

What You Should Know / March 31, 2011

Slate’s Timothy Noah wonders: “Maybe Reagan’s decision to bust the air controllers’ union and hire burger flippers wasn’t such a good idea, after all?” Damn, you think? [HT: Tom]

www.slate.com -- On the evening of March 23 the air-traffic control tower at Reagan National Airport went dead. Two commercial airliners approaching Reagan National were unable to reach anyone inside the control tower and landed without its help. When a third commercial airliner approaching Reagan National was informed about the control-tower silence (by a controller 38 miles to the west in rural Virginia), the pilot sounded dumbstruck. "Is there a reason it's not manned?" he asked. "Well, I'm going to take a guess and say that the control got locked out," the distant controller answered. "I've heard of this happening before."