" No web application, shopping cart, etc. should ever need to use them."

And how would you suggest keeping state over a stateless connection? The other options (hidden fields, or a GUID in the URL) are at best no more secure than using a session cookie, in many cases they are far riskier to use.

Also, all modern browsers will only send a cookie to the same domain that set the cookie. Even if a facebook cookie is set on my browser, the browser will only send the cookie to the facebook domain... so unless there is an embedded facebook script on the page, your browser will absolutely not send facebook cookies to anyone.

Cookies are absolutely not the problem, the vast array of sites installing facebook tracking scripts on their pages is the problem.

I'm no fan of Harper but that's just not true.

Minimum sentences apply only under aggravating circumstances... like selling drugs on school property, selling drugs while armed with a gun, or selling drugs on behalf of organized crime.

Sorry to let reality get in the way of your paranoid delusions. Really.

It seems quite possible that this wasn't an accident. From an article I read recently:

"The RQ-170 design lacks several elements common to stealth engineering, namely notched landing-gear doors and sharp leading edges. It has a curved wing, and the exhaust is not shielded by the wing. It has been postulated that these missing elements suggest the designers have avoided highly sensitive technologies due to the near certainty of eventual operational loss inherent with a single-engine design and a desire to avoid the risk of compromising leading-edge technology."

Additionally, the drone is relatively intact, which would indicate a somewhat controlled landing (and unlike an airliner, a flying wing will drop out of the sky without it's fly-by-wire system making continuous adjustments). Even if this drone lost contact with its operators and went into an autonomous flight mode, surely the thing would be programmed to return to friendly airspace (I would assume anyways?)

...or it's possible that this was simply an accident, a technical glitch in the system... but that's not as fun as a conspiracy theory now is it?