[citation needed]

I don't buy it, if only for the logic behind it:

Uranium is easy enough to purchase that the tobacco company can purchase large amounts of it to add it to cigarettes. But the countries are unable to purchase the uranium directly so they are forced to purchase billions of dollars worth of cigarettes in order to be able to produce weapons.

Really? That sounds like the plot to the worst Bond movie ever.

Because I want to see what Amy's obscene tattoo is.

Whoops, I stand corrected.

Off-topic: But KFC doesn't really stand for "Kentucky Fried Chicken" anymore. They wanted to distance themselves from the bad word of 'fried' and show that they can sell other things (fish, etc). If you go to one, look around, you won't see Kentucky Fried Chicken anywhere in the store (well, one store in my area has some classic posters on the wall that say it, but nothing else).

w00t!

It's a matter of perspective. If you are the company that sells BAD_WIDGET but you make a lot of money doing so, it is a 'good' product. Just because reviewers and everyone else doesn't like it, doesn't change the fact that it is making you money.

Maybe initially, but how long does it take you to get naked, especially if there is someone watching you (that you don't want to watch you) do it. The time involved would be very expensive. Also most people would freak out if you told them they were going to have to get naked in front of a stranger to fly. I'd bet that 9 out of 10 fliers don't even know what the scanner does, I bet they would think it's just a fancy metal detector.

When I was younger I used to use the $$PerHour measure for a lot of things, but now that I've gotten older and I have more money than I did before I find I use it less and less. These days I am much more willing to spend more money on a game or a good meal or a night out since using/wasting $50 isn't the end of the world.

Using a $$PerHour makes the assumption that a $ to everyone is the same. Maybe if you were to divide it again by your hourly pay rate? ($$PerHour / $PayRate)

Because in Soviet Russia Santa tracks you!

wait a minute... oh my god...

You have a living creature that is solely dependent on another creature for it's existence, you have a parasite, not a human. Personally I like to use the line of when would it be able to be removed from the mother and survive. Saying that there is 'no question' is incorrect. There is always room for debate, even in your example you gave a gray line: "But the first few months in, when you've got a brain forming, a beating heart, a nervous system, limps and other identifiable organs we've absolutely crossed a threshold.. So what is the threshold? 3 months? A beating heart? Nervous system? Organs? All of the above? 1 of the above?

From Wikipedia:The earliest gestational age at which the infant has at least a 50% chance of survival is referred to as the limit of viability. As NICU care has improved over the last 40 years, viability has reduced to approximately 24 weeks,[5][6] although rare survivors have been documented as early as 21 weeks either one of those works for me.

The law does not agree with you, terrorist threatening is more about how the person intended/perceives the statement/action and less about the literal translation of the message.

A cellphone gun is an extreme example of this, what about hidden drugs or lockpick kit behind the battery or even in the battery casing? Or what about components of the phone? Little bits of metal or chemicals that could be used to escape or injure other people arrested / officers.

Is the state supposed to pay for training to teach officers how to disassemble / reconstruct phones in order to properly search them?

I was more thinking along the lines of a pissed off drunk calling 911/the police station all night using a prepaid phone. Or calls to facilitate escape "One of the cops is in the bathroom now!"

Well maybe not punishment, perhaps I misspoke (err typed). That is exactly what arrest is: "An arrest is the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the investigation and prevention of crime..." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest). The person who is arrested gets most of their rights taken away. Liberty doesn't just mean 'go where you want'.

How would they know to? Most arrests aren't made off of warrants, most are made on-view or just thru investigations. It would make investigations of criminals a lot more difficult (destruction of evidence, establishing alibi's, etc).

Anything not made out of NERF can be used as a weapon. Pencils, pens, cellphones, belts, shoelaces, etc. What do you just hope that the crazy, meth-addict, guy doesn't stab you with a pencil while you sleep? The police are the ones responsible for you once your liberty is taken away, if you get hurt in there they will have to answer for it.

Let's say there are ways to fix everything I mentioned with absolute 100% certainty:
"Magic-Scan(r)" scans the item/phone for any item/component/chemical of a phone that could possibly be used in any sort of 'bad' way.

"Safe-Brain(r)" then scans the brain of the owner to make sure they don't intend to use the item(s) in a hazardous way or to contact anyone to do anything 'bad'.

What about all the social issues that having all those items will cause? Do you want to be stuck in a room with 10 guys who are all trying to talk over each other on their phones? What do you do when Bubba demands to borrow your phone? when he doesn't return it? when you wake up and your watch is gone? What about the people who don't have phones? Do they get loaners? What if you don't get a signal? Should you get another cell? Etc...

Let's say we have another magic device that fixes all those issues as well. To what end? So you can update your Facebook status, play Peggle or plan what movie to see next weekend?

Who cares? Having a cell-phone isn't a right. It's a few days at most until you get charged, released or post bail.

Maybe, depending on where you live.

But for the most part, no. For example if you get arrested for DUI and you have a backpack, you get separated from your bag and thus it does not create any danger to the officers (well I suppose except for an armed bomb, but that doesn't seem reasonable). But there is a good reason to search it, to do an inventory of the container so the suspect doesn't say "I had $10,000 in my bag. The cops took it!".

I'm sorry... Seriously?

Ok let's not count the fact that that a cell phone could easily have hidden weapons/means of escape (http://www.google.com/search?q=cell+phone+gun) or the previously mentioned fact about the crimes that could be committed while the person was in jail.

The people are charged with a crime and they get their rights/freedoms taken away unless they post bail. They don't get to leave, they don't get to have their phone, they don't get to tivo american idol. That's the point.

If you have a problem with the whole bail/arrest system, that is a completely separate argument.