United: The gang that can’t shoot straight

To say that Jeff Smisek’s tenure as CEO of the combined United/Continental airlines has been dismal is probably something of an understatement at this point. In so many ways, he’s taken two airlines that were better separately and made the combined entity worse. Much worse.

So the reporting of ongoing failures is hardly surprising. But in some ways, this tweet from @United sort of summed up the current degree of FAIL at the airline:

So, there are a couple

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Some nights, one just is not meant to get to Tulsa

Several weeks ago, I had a flight to Tulsa cancel on me about an hour before departure, due to an odd combination of weather and runway construction at the Tulsa airport.

I tried to get on a later flight (full, unfortunately), and ultimately wound up not going (flights with available seats the next day would not have gotten me to the funeral I wanted to get to).

Interestingly, the flight I tried to get on later that night wound up

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Scott Chaffin, RIP

News came today that my friend Scott Chaffin had passed, another victim of that damn lung cancer.

Like a bunch of people, I first ran across Scott via his awesome blog, The Fat Guy.

We became real-life friends in not much time at all. Scott was one of those guys who managed to cheer up everything and everyone when he turned up, and despite being the guy responsible for that, making YOU feel like the most important person in

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Confusion about who is paying the bills

Various media in Houston report that the Houston Housing Authority has implemented a new smoke-free policy in the public housing it oversees.

At least one resident of the public housing is upset (and a little confused):

“That’s not good, that’s not good at all,” said Georgiane Daniels. “You have lost your freedom. You pay the bills you should be able to do what you want.”

Umm, yes, but when someone else helps pay the bills for the public housing,

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A strange “gotcha” from Mitchell Schnurman

This is a strange twitter “gotcha” from Mitchell Schnurman, a columnist for the Dallas Morning News:

Of course, Obamacare represents interference with markets, large government (not small), and patronage (the “Navigator” program is not subject to much in the way of

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