A drunken holidaymaker has been dumped on a desert island after launching a foul-mouthed tirade at the crew of a passenger jet.

The unwilling Robinson Crusoe will only be able to leave Porto Santo, a tiny patch of land off the North African coast, if he books a two-and-a-half hour ferry trip to Madeira. He will then have to book a flight to his intended destination, Tenerife, or return to Britain.

His New Year home is a mere 10 miles long by three miles wide with a population of 4,000. There is little entertainment apart from walking on the sand dunes.

Mr. Toussaint, whose back appeared to be against the wall last week, can boast of a tentative 37-month contract that meets most of his goals, including raises above the inflation rate and no concessions on pensions. Indeed, several fiscal and labor experts said yesterday that Mr. Toussaint and his union appeared to have bested the transportation authority in their contract dispute. [snip]

...(I)f there is a real winner in the walkout that hobbled the city at the height of the holiday season, it is the workers who went out on strike, and their leader.

"It's a good contract for the union in that it does keep in place, for the most part, benefits that are extremely favorable to them," said Steven Malanga, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute, a conservative research organization, who called last week for firing the strikers. "For them, you can say this is a great deal."

One guy told me he was health conscious but sent me a picture of himself eating a huge plate of pancakes slathered in butter and syrup, with hash browns and sausage. He also said, "..and nice. not a freak so much."

This year the Hanukkah menorah competes for mantel space with a pair of Christmas stockings and swag. Overhanging the Christmas tree in the crowded living room is a metallic ribbon of glittery dreidels and Jewish stars. A Kwanzaa kinara, a candelabra, is wedged into the front window.

''Welcome to Chrismahanukwanzakah," said David Balsom, whose blended family has celebrated Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa since he and his wife, Tasha, adopted their two children, both black, who are now teenagers.

Pledge Drive (featuring One Of Each) "Christmas Rhapsody" - It wouldn't be Christmastime on Fluxblog without breaking out this old chestnut! This Christmas themed adaptation of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" goes a step beyond parody - it's amazingly faithful to the original recording, and performed with a straight faced earnestness and professionalism that is both admirable and totally bonkers.

If anything, every single one of us without an interest in the strike in New York should be supporting these workers whole-heartedly.  Who else has gone and sacrificed two days pay for every day they strike so that they DON'T pass on the cost of their benefits to younger workers?  

Or take it this way, when has anyone NOT thought twice about passing on the cost of their tax cuts to future taxpayers who are going to pay the bill?  What is the difference?

For standing up for younger workers, this is what these striking workers face.  They are called "goons" and "thugs" and "greedy" by billionaires.  The other working people who are most affected by this strike and who have to walk miles to work are now being eulogized by the same people who continue to refuse giving them a raise in the minimum wage.  
 

All across this city, workers who have no pensions and who must pay huge premiums for health insurance hear about transit workers fighting to preserve pensions at 55 and employer-paid health insurance. They fall prey to the Bloomberg line of "greedy workers."

Have the rest of us been beaten down, exploited and abused for so long by our own employers that we will allow transit workers who dare to defend their standard of living to be painted as thugs?

To hear Bloomberg talk, the Taylor Law came down with the Ten Commandments - and wasn't a modern concoction by politicians to curb the power and influence of our city's municipal unions.