That's because it started out large enough to have quite a bit of momentum.

... except for the pilots of AF447, who watched their plane fall out of the sky for several minutes due to a stall, not realizing that the flight computer switches to alternate law if it doesn't receive valid airspeed input and therefore could not provide stall protection.

In putting your own mask on first, you are thinking of the children. It takes more than one minute for permanent brain damage to occur due to hypoxia, but without a mask, you only have about 15-20 seconds of useful consciousness left in a worst case case scenario.

So, put your own mask on first, then you'll have plenty of time to put the masks on everyone around you, including children and people who didn't know the basics of respiratory physiology.

Even better: If you're suicidal and have a gun, you can just get it over with and shoot yourself. No need to drag 149 people with you in a suicide-by-airplane.

Managing lots of things competing for their attention is what pilots need to be excellent at.

That's why you lock the door first. Also, are pilots being scanned, searched and groped for anything usable as a weapon even half as thoroughly as the passengers?

Right. Being a pilot requires excellent executive functions.
Someone who can't get the tasks "lock door", "incapacitate other person in cockpit" and "fly plane into ground" in the correct order has no business at the controls of a plane!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

Right. A pilot trying to kill himself and everyone else on the plane by flying it into the ground will absolutely not kill the other person in the cockpit that may be trying to stop him.

Sorry, but having two people in the cockpit is a safety measure, not a security measure. It helps if one pilot has a heart attack, but it does pretty much nothing if one pilot is a suicidal, murderous maniac.

The black or Jewish printer should make every attempt to out-bid anyone else for this job. The resulting ... discussion ... at the next KKK meeting would be highly interesting, since the dividing line between fundamentalists and pragmatists would become glaringly obvious.

Yes. The KKK would be shooting itself in the foot if they pulled something like this, so it's not going to happen. It would be quite funny to see what the consequences would be, though.

Sue due to your violating your contract.

Hire a private eye to track you down?

Not necessary if you fail to report despite agreeing to do so in the contract. This would only be necessary if the former employer suspects that your reports are not true.

How likely is it going to be even worth their time to pursue you

That depends on how many lawyers they have on their payroll that aren't busy doing other things.

Why, if you don't intend to break the contract, you'll never have to pay the $537M. So a sane person with no intention to break the contract could sign it without voiding their sanity certificate.

Heck, if an employer agrees to pay me $1M/month, I'll gladly live with a two-year noncompete clause and a $537M fine for breaking it. Where do I sign?

Which constitution explicitly bans misleading the people?