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In one of the crazier things that have happened this week, Kevin Smith was kicked off a Southwest flight last weekend because he was determined to be a “person of size.” He stated that he complied with their guidelines, and was still asked to leave the plane.

Here’s his take Smodcast Final Words, and it’s definitely worth watching. You may also want to listen to SMODCast 107, where Mr. Smith talks to Natali, a young woman who was on his return flight that had an incident with Southwest over this policy.

If you look on Southwest’s website, buried under the customer service section is a single link that describes their person of size policy.

According to their Customer of Size FAQ, it’s not “just about weight.” Of course, I’m not sure if this document has been recently updated after everything that went on with Mr. Smith this week, but it seems like it’s a recent update since it goes to great lengths to cover their policy.

The problem, though, is that the policy says that the definitive guide is whether or not the person can fit between the armrests of the seat. Mr. Smith states that he had no trouble putting down the armrests, and that in spite of that, he was asked to deplane.

Neither the policy NOR the FAQ state anything that outside of the “definitive guide” that any Southwest employee can make a judgement call on who is a “customer of size.”

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Steve Jobs, that is.

The answer is, of course it can.

But, you wouldn’t know it based on the flurry of activity this week in response to Apple announcing a) that it would no longer participate in MacWorld, and b) that there would not be a “Stevenote” this year. Instead, the keynote will be delivered by Phil Schiller, Apple’s marketing guru.

Since then, there are numerous stories talking about the “end” of Apple, that Jobs is stepping down because of health issues, promises of protests at the keynote by Apple fanatics who feel slighted by the non-appearance of Jobs, the stock immediately takes a dive, etc.

We all know this and shouldn’t be surprised by this. Never before has a company’s health/success been directly tied to its CEO.

Just look back at October’s announcement of the new Macbooks and Macbook Pros. There was almost as much press about the fact that Jonathan Ive played a big part in the presentation as there was about the notebooks themselves.

Apple understands this, and this week’s announcement is simply another step in getting the world used to the idea that Apple can thrive without Steve Jobs at the helm.

What about MacWorld? Can Apple survive without it? All Apple has to do is hint that it might be scheduling a press conference, and the world will be buzzing about what they might announce. So, yeah, they’re gonna be fine, and they can be free to announce products when they’re ready instead of sticking to an arbitrary schedule.

Can MacWorld survive without Apple? Sure. The big guys aren’t attending, so what? Transform MacWorld into a conference that gives the thousands of smaller third party Mac and iPhone software developers a chance to show off their goods.

Regardless of Jobs’ health, there will eventually come a day that he wants to step down as CEO. What he will do after he does step down and who will take over as CEO is beyond speculation, but Apple certainly isn’t going to shrivel up and die without him.

Please excuse the mess for the next few days or so – I’m in the process of moving my site over to another host.

With a new host also comes the task of getting around to picking a new theme that will last for the next year… or three…

Anyway, things will be back to more or less normal here in the next few days.

With the second Presidential debate last night, you would have thought John McCain would have been smart and actually tried to talk about the issues and tell us how he plans to fix the problems facing the country.

Instead…

Obama wants to spend $800 billion

Obama wants to raise taxes

Obama wants bigger government

Obama wants to make health care a mandate

Obama likes those “pork-barrel” projects

Obama is wrong about Iraq

“That one” just doesn’t understand military strategy, foreign policy, etc.

McCain, looking more and more like Elmer Fudd, wants us to be afwaid, verwy afwaid, of Barack Obama.

The only new thing we heard from McCain was this idea of having the government step in and buy up all of the bad mortgages. He doesn’t mention that this goes against his “less government” ideology, nor does he mention what the price tag on such a plan would be.

After berating Obama over “declaring” that he’d go after terrorists inside Pakistan, McCain would do “whatever it takes” to get Bin-Laden, but only after he’d won over the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. So, he would attack inside Pakistan, he’d just be more secretive about it.

McCain wants us to look at their records in the Senate and vote based on their records. Ironically, that’s exactly what’s killing him.

As much as he touts standing up to his own party, he hasn’t done so in the last several years. With Bush’s approval ratings at an all-time low and the economy sinking fast, Obama’s strategy of McCain = Bush is resonating with the people.

Combine that with McCain’s inability to go into specifics about any of his plans, or just the overall eerie feeling that the McCain campaign strategy echoes Bush’s campaigns, and the “Straight-Talk Express” is falling off the tracks.

So, now, like Bush, McCain will focus on the negative. Stop one step shy of calling Obama a terrorist. Sling as much mud as they can, while claiming that it’s Obama running the dirtiest campaign in history.

The problem is that it’s too little, too late. The media, much like with Palin’s “Obama is pallin around with terrorists” remark, is finally stepping up and calling the Republicans out on the mud-slinging.

McCain can sling all the mud he wants now, but it’s only going to reflect poorly on him. It’s a last gasp effort by a man who is desperate to do “whatever it takes” to win the White House, and it will ultimately cost him the election.

Today, John McCain announced that he was suspending his campaign temporarily so he could return to Washington to help deal with the financial crisis. He wanted to postpone Friday’s debate and pull all ads and asked Obama to do the same.

Part of that suspension included putting off a scheduled appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman. Letterman makes fun of the situation, but he really makes some good points.

Letterman Rips McCain for Taking a Time Out

Sure, he could participate in the discussions in Washington, but he could also still continue the campaign as well. Would it be that hard to have his people keep him briefed on what’s going on, and then go to Washington only when it’s time to vote on the program?

Can he not do two things at once? Why isn’t he, as Letterman suggested, sending in his second string quarterback to campaign in his absence?

After all, if Palin is a pit-bull with lipstick and, as the McCain campaign continually assures us, is ready to step into the Presidency at a moment’s notice, surely she can handle campaigning on her own for a couple of days.

Or can she?

McCain also wants to postpone the VP debates as well. And that’s after getting Obama to agree to a very specific set of rules and regulations around the VP debates.

Why quit now? The man whose painting himself as a war hero and a maverick shouldn’t even be flinching at having to run a campaign and do what he can to help out when the country is in need.

They need time out to figure out how to turn this mess to their advantage. Sure this hit at a bad time, but McCain hasn’t helped his situation any better.

First, he said the economy was “fundamentally sound.” Then, McCain reverses himself and makes a speech blaming the Wall Street “fat cats.” The press reminds him that oh, by the way, those “fat cats” are major contributors to your campaign.

He gives another interview defending Rick Davis, his campaign manager, stating that his firm’s ties to Freddie Mac were suspended at the end of 2005, and he boldly states that he’d be glad to have someone look at the records to back up that statement.

The press though, did their own digging and learned that yes, the initial deal did end with Freddie Mac in 2005. But, they also learned that Davis himself went back to Freddie Mac and negotiated a new arrangement that paid his firm until last month when the government bailed Freddie Mac out.

Oops.

The crisis has dumped Bush’s ratings down to 19%, which isn’t helping the Republican cause, regardless of how much they try to distance themselves from him. Obama’s numbers are jumping in key states already.

So, yeah, someone thought it was a brilliant idea for McCain to put everything on hold, go to Washington and use it to show people that he cares about the situation.

The problem, though, is that most people, like Letterman, aren’t buying it. Instead of looking like a great idea, McCain is going to get in the middle of things and turn it in to more of a circus than it already is. He’ll be a distraction instead of a help, and he’ll be more than happy to take credit for doing absolutely nothing.

In addition, he’s showing us that he can’t handle more than one major situation at a time. Well, let’s see: we have a presidential election, an economic crisis, a foreign policy nightmare, and oh yeah, we’re fighting two wars, and terrorism hasn’t gone away.

So, if things get bad as president, is he going to ask Al Qaeda for a time-out too?

And what about Palin? Well, since they’re still keeping her under wraps, the Republicans are showing us they’re petty sure she’s not ready for anything that doesn’t involve a well-rehearsed script.

What next? After this crisis is resolved, is McCain going to want a “do over” and just roll things back to right after the Republican convention?