Whoever modded that Offtopic didn't read it very carefully, or at least should have modded me Offtopic too.

That's just bullshit. Those individuals can make their own expenditures in support of their First Amendment rights which are no less than the First Amendment rights that anyone not associated with a corporation has. If the corporation has rights then they are in addition to the rights their associates have on their own. I haven't always supported the positions of the corporation I'm associated with and it offends me that they can imply that I do through their expenditures.

You seem to think that money is equivalent to free speech but in reality it is merely an amplifier of free speech. Most corporations (especially the large ones) have resources far in excess of of most individuals. That stacks the deck in favor of corporations and wealthy individuals enough and I'm tired of my voice being drowned out by them.

Not quite.

MAS is owned by the Malaysian Government holdings company (either wholly or majority, I cant remember which) and the airline has recently had another period of unprofitably. This is less about assuring the Malaysian people of anything and more about trying to do damage control to the rest of the world. Sadly they're doing it in SE Asian style which is more about maintaining face than fixing issues.

In addition to this, MAS is getting a lot of competition from Malaysia's low cost airline Air Asia and anything else that could eat into the MAS's revenue is detrimental to the Malaysian Govt so they're dialling the damage control up to 11.

It's because of this.

The satcom device does not have to have been on the aircraft.

Nope. Can't say that I've ever encountered this on VLC on any platform.

Okay. Well, I apologize as well if I misunderstood you.

I agree that "equivalent" is ambiguous but that's the nature of the beast. One of the big quibbles I have with the U.S. government is how they decide what is an "equivalent" good when they calculate CPI. The whole exercise is arguably subjective; still, the methods the government uses are hardly reasonable, and lie outside what I would even call subjective. I think "dishonest" is a far more accurate description.

But the same problem arises in cases like that chart I linked to earlier in this thread. How does one compare, say, a horse & cart from 1650 with a Ford from 2014? Well, McCusker's answer was that you can't, really. You can, however, compare them in the best ways you can, including the cost of what they do. In other words, you might compare the relative cost (i.e., the cost as a percentage of your annual income) of a trip to New York from Baltimore. Other things can be treated more equally, such as the cost and maintenance of the whole "vehicle" (vehicle plus horse), and fuel (horse feed).

The Queen's official car is a 1958 Rolls-Royce, but as of a few months ago the Crown Prince uses a Tesla Model S.

"The Beast" exists mostly because of Kennedy and various other attempts on American presidents

That's true, but there's some middle ground between riding completely open-air in a convertible, and riding around in a quasi-tank. All you need to stop JFK-style attacks is an enclosed vehicle that can stop bullets, like the Popemobile.

English is the best language.

Think BIG!

What if the next presidential limo was 3000 mics of LSD, Donald Sutherland reading "The Cat In the Hat" and a disco ball?

"Ubuntu With Bing!" - shudder.

So great on lower hardware that even Nokia is going Android to lower their BOM costs and get some emerging markets business.

It is a tank made look like a car. It reminds of of this hammer I bought where all I changed was the head and the handle.