Disorderly Content

It wouldn't be the first time I've flogged a deceased equine, but I have to admit to a fascination for the trainwreck that is Sarah Palin. This latest incident comes from her interview with that terrifying muckraking journalist, Katie Couric. Couric, ambusher she is, had the nerve to ask journalism major Palin what newspapers and magazines she reads. Palin's quick and clever reply: most of them. But Couric wasn't done. Having set her trap, now she sprung it.

"What specifically?", she asked.
"Um, all of them."
"Can you name a few?"

And believe it or not, she couldn't. Not one. Not a single newspaper or magazine. Not the Times, or the Journal, or the Post, or the local Anchorage paper, or Time or Newsweek or USA Today. This Woman Who Would Be Veep couldn't come up with a single news source, likely because she doesn't read a single one.

Amazing.

Paul Krugman lets John McCain tell you why he's exactly the worst possible candidate for this moment in time:

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

Yep, can't argue with all that innovation in banking. We'll be paying for it for generations...

Southwest may just be my favorite airline. Which surprises me, since the kind of travel I enjoy is just the kind they don't do: international, in Business or First Class. But there's more to travel than comfortable seats and actual food.

On Tuesday, while enroute to a customer across the bay, I got a call from another customer in Seattle. A miscommunication had delayed a visit, so as soon as I got home that evening I booked a ticket for Thursday (yesterday as I type this), returning Friday night. The next day, before heading to San Francisco for yet another customer meeting, I got on Southwest's website, intending to print my boarding pass. Imagine my surprise when it showed only my return from Seattle, not my outbound flight. After a couple of minutes of panic, I realized I'd booked the wrong days: out Wednesday and returning Thursday instead of Thursday, Friday. My incorrect outbound flight had already left, which on another airline would have meant the forfeit of most if not all of the price.

But not Southwest. First I rescheduled the return to Friday. Then I booked a new outbound flight, which was exactly the same price as my original, and which I was able to pay for with the credit they'd issued for the flight I missed. So within another couple of minutes I had the correct flights, at a net increase in cost of zero.

And this is why I love Southwest: when things change, or when I screw up royally, they don't use it as an opportunity to shake me until my pockets are empty.

Now about those international flights...