Except nobody is saying "it was the NSA".

Yes, it's almost a text-book example of a strawman argument. Someone most certainly did break into this CVS system and someone almost certainly did insert a backdoor. Not sure who it is, but of course the NSA have been pretty much admitting that they've been spying on everything we do, so it is also not really conspiratorial or hysterical to presume that they or someone like them might be pulling crap like this. However, anything unsettling that can be marked as a conspiracy immediately is, to delegitimize criticism and complaints.

Anybody who can't put down their Facebook feeds for a few minutes during takeoff/landing doesn't deserve to fly anyway.

Based on what? Your personal estimation of how important their time is? Based on your priorities of what is or is not important?

Sometimes people's astounding high-handed arrogance just boggles my mind. Who the fuck do you think you are?

More than one. How many people absent-mindedly carry a GUN to the airport? Now imagine how many people ignore or defy the order to shut off the phone, just because.

I'm sure in the last decade every plane in the sky has carried at least 3-4 fully activated, broadcasting devices onboard, and in the last 5 years it's probably more like 10-15. These things are everywhere in our lives now.

Long long time ago. Do you actually think all airline passengers obediently turn off their devices? Many of them simply tuck it away where it can't be seen.

It has EVERYTHING to do with an authoritarian mind-set that when you get on the plane, you will behave as you are told or get a jelly finger up the ass.

If all these gizmos could crash a plane, help me understand how no plane crash has ever been attributed to one because I assure you, many passengers merely slip their cellphones into a pocket and don't bother turning them off at all.

Doesn't actually sound all that paradoxical, once you look at it.

The more useful a thing is, the more it will get used.

Until it runs out. Fortunately at the same time we're doing this renewable energy is taking off hugely, so by the time we finish rapidly eating the last few bits of the petroleum cake, we'll have a new cake to chow on.

The cake is still a lie, BTW.

Play the bass. Don't use a pick. My fingerprints are hamburger from 30+ years of abuse.

Exactly. Fingerprints are the worst password ever. You literally leave your password in plain sight RIGHT ON THE OBJECT you are supposed to be securing. How much less secure could you get?

If you saw that in the US, (you did miss saying you "saw" a government rip up the road) you saw a private contractor doing it, almost certainly.

You did not see "government" employees doing it. Prove I'm wrong. I'll wait.

I will never EVER purchase a house under an HOA. They sound like the ultimate in horror and misery that one can inflict upon oneself.

Tea Party stupid is special. It comes with a heaping side of massive, deliberate willful ignorance. It is very different and one reason the Tea Party will vanish in the next two or three cycles, taking the Republicans with them.

That's funny, I can tell how tiny someone's dick is by how fast they drive their car.

The faster the car, the smaller the dick. It is axiomatic, 100% of the time.

This is more like crossing the Rubicon. They're making a point and sticking it in hard.

I think you're inhuman and should never be allowed to make a decision for someone else again.

The bunny sled is why I have no interest in the rest of that movie. I don't even want to watch installment 1 again.

It was like Monty Python intruded, unasked, into the movie.