In September, the skies will be filled with cats and dogs – so says USA Today.

It’s not a bizarre weather forecast – it’s an effort by private pilots to remove some 5,000 dogs and cats (and other creatures) from overcrowded shelters and bring them to other parts of the country where there is “space and demand for them.” In other words, they’re being removed from facilities where euthanasia is the answer to overcrowding, in favor of “no kill” shelters.

Nice. Don’t know if you know this, but about 6 million shelter animals are put to death each year.

I don’t want to sound like Bob Barker or anything, but you can blame all these deaths on stupid pet owners. Anyone who refuses to have their animal spayed/neutered shouldn’t have a pet. Can’t afford the procedure? Then you can’t afford a pet.

Just read a “reporter’s notebook” item in the LA Times that made journalism sound — for a moment, anyway — fun again.

It seems LAX – the nation’s third busiest airport – is now using a $600,000 simulator to help train air traffic controllers.

It sounds pretty cool: it’s got computer screens with planes on them, and you can program the simulator to make the planes do anything – taxi, land, crash – or just follow realistic patterns, but it’s up to the trainee to get all safely on the ground.

Apparently, reporter Dan Weikel and other scribes and newsies on hand who worked the simulator did a pretty good job – as they say, “safety was never compromised”. I guess reporting has changed since I left – I wouldn’t have trusted us with anything more than pen and paper.

“A complete lack of common sense here.”

Those are the words of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, commenting on the recent “trapped on the tarmac” ordeal of nearly 50 passengers in Rochester, Minnesota.

You may recall that the passengers were heading to Minneapolis on a Continental flight – operated by ExpressJet – when they diverted to Rochester due to storms. But no one let them off the plane.

Meanwhile, the ExpressJet crew has been more or less cast as the bad guys in this saga, for supposedly forcing their passengers to sit on that plane, for nine hours – but, according to LaHood, they were actually very good guys. In fact, they pleaded with people in the airport to let the passengers come in, but – nothin’ doin’. ExpressJet executives also got into the act, with the same result.

The problem, apparently, is that ExpressJet was talking to people from Mesabe Airlines – the only carrier with a staff left in the airport at that late hour – and maybe they’d been appointed official-phone-answerers, I don’t know – but the Mesabe-ites kept saying, the passengers couldn’t come in.

Sounds nuts to me. Where were the airport people? If they weren’t around, why didn’t anyone know how to get hold of them?

How about some new procedures – like, “every airport must have a hotline for after-hours problems” – and every crew member should have that hotline number.

Since I’m no genius, I have to believe someone else has thought of this before, so – why hasn’t it been done?

We get letters…

Unfortunately, we don’t get any near as good as “Dear Amy” gets – like the one from the woman who believed her sleeping seatmate on a recent flight was in a “near-coma”. Even worse, just before take-off, the Dozing One was seen taking a pill!

Boy did that get the letter writer worried:

“I tried several times to politely rouse her, but the only time she woke up was for the meal. I’ve been thinking that maybe it was a potential safety issue. Should I have asked her what she was taking when I saw the pills? Should I have told the flight attendants?” -from Dear Amy, 8-19-09

Amy responded by saying, if the woman actually was in a “near-coma” or had to get up, then yes, a flight attendant should have been notified.

Really? Raise your hand if you can tell the difference between “near-coma” and drool-leaking sleep. I didn’t think so. Here’s my response:

“You tried several times to ‘politely rouse her’ and she didn’t take a swing at you? Count your blessings, lady. Besides, she got up for a meal – I’m pretty sure the nearly-dead don’t do that. And – you wondered if you should have asked ‘what she was taking’ when you saw the pills – why, were you hoping she’d share? I doubt she would have, not after all that ‘polite rousing’. And sure, you could have ‘told the flight attendants’ – but I suspect they wish all their passengers were near-comatose, and would have chastised you for the ‘polite rousing’.” -Standard Upright Position, 8-20-09

Okay, I hated it.

And I may well be in the minority on this, but I found North Carolina’s Charlotte Douglas International to be insanely spread out – with nary a tram in sight.

“Oh, you poor pathetic little thing,” you may be thinking. Okay, you try to get from Terminal E to Terminal A or B in the 45 minutes allotted between your flights as I did last weekend. All I can say is, forget the kitten heels and stilettos and pull out your grandma sneakers cuz you are going to need ‘em.

It truly is a hike, with only moving sidewalks between you and utter despair – and naturally, no one obeys the stand-on-the-right-walk-on-the-left rules – no one.

I know, I know, they have a lot of cute shops and all – Simply Books, Rocky Mountain Chocolate, Time to Write, and, yeah, even a NASCAR shop (?) – and the people seem very nice there, but the only shopping experience I got was seeing a blur of storefronts as I sweatily streaked by (mind out of the gutter, please – I was decently covered).

Later I looked up some reviews of the airport, and was frankly shocked to see how many people really like Charlotte. I, however, did not. Where are the Els, the Trams, the Movers of People?

Anyone with me?

Ah, gotta love the first line in the Philadelphia Inquirer’s story:

“When regular folks get questioned by airport officials, we miss our plane. When it happens to Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, fans burn U.S. flags…” -Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug. 17, 2009

So what happened? Mr. Khan, who came to this country to promote a movie, was questioned as part of a routine process that took about an hour – which caused an uproar among his many fans who called his treatment “shocking” and “disturbing” and “racist” (according to the Inquirer, in India it’s considered a status symbol to avoid certain security procedures at airports).

The Philly paper quoted a customs official who said what happened to Khan is part of the “routine process” for anyone wishing to enter the U.S., and that it took as long as it did because – while his papers were all in order – the airline lost his bag!

The officials declined to name the airline. Later, Khan said he understood that this was a procedure that needed to be followed, but that it’s an “unfortunate procedure”. Amen, brother.

It’s not all Virgin Galactic when it comes to commercial space travel. There are other players in the game, and now NASA is jumping in:

“Using $50 million in federal stimulus funds, NASA is seeking to encourage private companies to develop a commercial taxi service in space…” (from SmartBrief)

NASA plans to announce it’s awards at the end of September, so private companies only have 45 days to submit their plans. So…do you think you have the right stuff (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself)?

The always thoughtful Christopher Elliott has some valuable advice for airline miles club members: “assume nothing”.

What he means is, don’t assume you have enough miles for that free trip, and don’t assume your miles are sitting there waiting for you.

That’s because miles clubs change the rules all the time, and what you think you have, may no longer exist.

One thing you can do: check that little box that says something like, “Yes, I want to receive an endless chain of airline email telling me about my miles” – because, chances are, you could learn something, and avoid a nasty surprise when you go to use those miles.

Word to the wise: in China, do not put hand in cookie jar.

I’d say, just ask the former head of the state owned airport holding company – that runs 30 airports throughout China – except, you can’t. He’s been executed by authorities.

What’d he do? According to news reports, he embezzled more than $12 million dollars – and accepted almost $4 million more in bribes.

In case you didn’t realize it, China is serious about stamping out official corruption – as one fellow learned the really, really hard way.

Thank goodness for People magazine.

They let us know that Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore suffered no injuries Thursday when their plane to New York had to make an emergency landing because (apparently) the engine overheated.

They told the world about this on Twitter. Tweeted Demi, “Yep it is always an adventure in Vegas emergency landing and all”. Tweeted Ashton, “Fire engines everywhere good times.” Good times indeed!

In case you were wondering, the couple were in Vegas for the premiere of Ashton’s new movie, Spread. Am not familiar with it. If you see it, tweet us.

A 50 year old man from Anaheim, California was convicted last week of interfering with a flight crew. But the guy was very lucky — the federal jury deadlocked on the charge of assaulting a crew member.

The passenger in question was aboard a United flight from Hong Kong to LAX when he got “unruly” (love that word). According an LA Times report, prosecutors said the man “had been drinking and was so belligerent and verbally abusive that crew members, a passenger and [an] off-duty pilot restrained his hands with plastic handcuffs.”

Which didn’t prevent him from punching the off-duty pilot in the neck when the pilot tried put his hand on the guy’s shoulder to try and keep the raging fellow in his seat. That’s when he was duct taped to his seat. When he started chewing his way out of the duct tape, they brought out metal handcuffs which did the trick.

He could face 20 years, but prosecutors say he’ll likely get less time — sentencing is in the fall.

Don’t drink and fly.

Sad and creepy story from the Washington Post, which points out that half of all scheduled flights in the U.S. today are operated by regional airlines. Piloted by people who make oh, maybe $20,000 to start -because the number of people flying has tanked and fares are cheap and pay has been cut.

How do you live on that? Crash pads.

Crash pads are temporary residences — like the suburban split level described in the Post that is the sometime home of 30 pilots, flight attendants, and other crew members. They’re packed into bunk beds – the basement sleeps 16, for example – and that’s how they live. A number of these guys describe themselves as “somewhat homeless”.

This is what happens when salaries are cut -or you’re transferred across the country from your “real home” – where the wife and kiddies live — and you don’t want to uproot them in case you’re transferred again. You do what you have to, to survive.

But hey, it’s not all doom and gloom – as a spokesman for one regional carrier says, the company supports “the right of our pilots to live where they choose…”