Sometimes you read stupid things. Then you read this:

NEW YORK - For years, jets taking off from Newark Liberty International Airport have performed an act of mercy as they roar south.

Moments after leaving the ground, the planes bank left, out over an industrial port district, and away from the residential streets of Elizabeth, N.J., the working-class city that sits right up against the busy airport.

Maneuvers like this are a common method of sparing citizens from the window-ratting noise of jets passing overhead.

But now such practices are being dropped in some places in the Northeast as part of a federal plan to ease record flight delays. And some neighborhoods that fear they will be subjected to more noise are fighting back in court.

On Dec. 19, the Federal Aviation Administration began its first overhaul in decades of the jet routes that crisscross the country's most congested airspace "” a 31,000-square-mile area around New York and Philadelphia.

The corridor has been criticized for years as one of the worst problem spots in the nation's beleaguered air traffic system. Most the paths were laid out in the 1960s. Some date from the earliest days of air travel, and airlines have been complaining for years that they are horribly outdated.

Over the next five years, the FAA will be rolling out new routes it believes can cut flight delays by as much as 20 percent. Some aviation experts say improvements are essential; nearly three quarters of all flight delays nationally are caused by backups in New York and Philadelphia.

But a closer look at the revamped flight routes shows that the changes will lead to more noise for tens of thousands of people, many of whom are already are subject to the whine of jet engines because of their proximity to airports.

In Elizabeth, N.J., the changes will mean that some planes will fly straight over the center of the city.

"The FAA plan will do more harm to the city of Elizabeth than any terrorist incident," said Mayor Chris Bollwage.

"We live next to the airport, so we have to take some noise," he said. But the FAA plan, he added, stretches fairness. "There are places in town where you can touch the tires."

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The article goes on, but what makes people say stupid stuff like this? I live in the flight path of Stewart Airport in upstate New York. Not a big airport with regards to constant air traffic (yet), but it is home to the 105th Airlift Wing, which flies these things:

They're not quiet at the height they pass over my place, but they fly straight over: the city of Newburgh; the town Marlborough; Newburgh, Maybrook, Campbell Hall, and Montgomery have extremely low flights; towns of New Windsor, Cornwall, Beacon, Wappingers Falls, etc, etc.... Fly-overs for West Point come from Stewart, planes from diplomats at special UN events go to Stewart.. They just revamped some dumpy rollercoaster road into a 4-lane highway to bring more traffic and money to the airport, and nobody has cried "terrorism" yet.