This isn't biometrics. This is RFID.

The highlight of your post was this: "I have this duty because if I agreed to a search, then I further the normalization of pathetic submission, embolden the authorities, and increase for my fellow citizen the expectation that they, too, should needlessly submit to the whims of dangerous thugs."

The more we accept it, the more brazen they get.

Not only calling it "probable cause", but also having the potential to accuse you of interfering with a police investigation for refusing.

Seeing that my comment irks you makes it all the more worthwhile. I generally find that if a statement doesn't cause someone to get into a self-righteous snit, it probably wasn't worth making.

I'm sorry, your five minutes are up.

Let's not forget age. Many of the cars that burned were probably much older than any Tesla on the road. We'll see how Teslas built in 2011 do in 2025.

They might, but whether anything comes of it may depend upon whose jurisdiction is relevant. Elop is Canadian, Nokia has their primary headquarters in Espoo.

That's not fishy coming from a company like Microsoft. Dirty, underhanded, and unethical, sure. But fishy? Not really. Elop did exactly what he was supposed to do. His loyalties were just not where a Chief Executive's loyalties are supposed to do. He should have been thrown out long before this situation ever happened.

I can agree with that.

I understand the journalistic desire to phrase things dramatically, but there is nothing staggering about a struggling company accepting a buyout from a company with a perceived strong market position.

I reject the subject change. I didn't miss the attempt.

That works fine as long as you're at home, but if you're not?

I will grant that most of the truck-fuelling I have done here in Texas has been fleet vehicles, but the idea of a battery swap being as simple and quick as the fill-ups (even at our own pumps) doesn't add up for me. Even the largest trucks I have dealt with (multi-thousand-gallon fixed liquid tanks) didn't take too terribly long to fuel, and definitely less risky to pump diesel than load and unload huge battery packs.

I'm not sure you understood what I was implying.

I wish the TSA had the same devotion to the showman's craft. A more convincing performance might have dodged this line of discussion altogether.

That doesn't really answer my question. It's not as if the US actually worries about how much money it takes in and how much it spends.