Saw a bumper sticker on a truck yesterday: "How's my texting?"

You do understand the difference between proposed solutions and what is/was actually implemented? In case you haven't been paying attention, what is proposed has little bearing on what is implemented.

You don't argue very well, do you? You cherry-pick a bunch of phrases I said out of context and string them together in a confusing jumble to pretend I'm not making sense. Then you mock the strawman you created with ALL CAPS and insane ranting.

I say debt is bad and you go off on a side tangent about how some efforts to reign in debt have had bad consequences. Your "argument" failed to address my point completely. Eventually, you admit that I was correct, but only after tedious argument about side tangents.

You objected to everything I said about our national debt despite the fact that everything I said was accurate. 17 trillion IS "unprecedented". 17 trillion IS massive. The national debt IS growing. The national debt is NOT being addressed. Given these FACTS, our future generations WILL be saddled with this debt. I'll admit that "doomed" was a bit rhetorical, but "massively screwed by us" wasn't so punchy. I understand you cannot confront this and must argue every single sentence, but the fact that you can't confront it does not change reality.

I hope your wishful "Oh, this debt will be paid off soon and not bother our future generations!" comes to pass, but that old pesky reality does not bode well for your head-in-the-sand viewpoint.

In the future, try to remain calm and rational, it makes for a better debate. Avoid creating strawmen, it isn't effective and makes you look stupid.

As for this conversation, I'm done. I will not converse with someone who "debates" as you do. I don't need that kind of crap.

I should just let this go but ... quit being such a pompous ass. Judging by our limited conversation, I suspect I have significantly more technical and historical knowledge in this area than you do but that's just my observation.

That is not "password cracking".

WTF? I said DEBT was bad, you have finally, reluctantly agreed that "no debt would be better than having a large debt". Why are you arguing with me? That's my point.

It appears our actual disagreement is that you seem to think that saddling our children, and their children, with this massive debt is "Ho hum, no big deal". I think it is really unconscionable and you just don't care. We'll have to agree to disagree.

Really? [Citation needed]

What is publicly broadcast is the SSID and MAC address of the AP only. (No "SSID database", no other MAC addresses.) Most wireless APs are set up to broadcast that information because that's how they operate. There is nothing illegal or even the slightest bit wrong with seeing what APs are near you -- and that means seeing their SSIDs and MAC addresses. That. Isn't. Illegal. Or. Even. Wrong.

The rest of your comment is pure speculation and highly unlikely. You make it sound like the Google car was parked outside these places, sucking down tons of data. I don't say what they did was a good idea, but it wasn't as you pretend. They changed channels five times a second. One fifth of a second is extremely unlikely to contain even a small snippet of the information you claim they obtained. Seriously, if you want to claim that Google did what you say they did, you are going to have to provide proof because what you are accusing them of is pretty much impossible.

Yeah, no. Google only sniffed unsecured access points. What part of "unsecured" (meaning no passwords) did you not understand? Also, according to the technical description: "we will typically have collected only fragments of payload data because: our cars are on the move; someone would need to be using the network as a car passed by; and our in-car WiFi equipment automatically changes channels roughly five times a second. In addition, we did not collect information traveling over secure, password-protected WiFi networks."

With changing channels roughly five times a second while moving, the actual amount of data captured from any one wireless AP would have been very tiny. That's not "password cracking" and the chance of capturing anything understandable would be almost nil.

While it was poorly thought out on Google's part, it wasn't, in most venues, illegal. This is not a good example for your "We no longer have the rule of law in the US" hyperbole.

"Pay it off"? Pay it off?! How does that happen when every year we add more and more to the debt? No one is "paying it off". Taking a look at reality instead of your fantasy world, is this massive debt we are saddling our children with still of absolutely no concern to you? You won't have to pay it off. No, people who had nothing to do with accumulating this massive debt will be the victims of it. Don't you have the slightest idea of how very, very wrong that is?

God help me. "Tax increases" do not "eliminate the deficit outright". More fantasyland thinking. While tax increases probably do need be a part of a comprehensive plan, without a lot of fiscal responsibility to go along with that, the "extra" monies could just be eaten up by increased spending. In the area of government finances, fiscal responsibility must come first.

Ah, well sure! The U.S. government is a paragon of efficiency, fiscal responsibility and frugal spending. Years and years of news stories have been totally wrong. How could I have missed that? As for various programs that "are deficit-reducing measures", that was all "projected" reductions. Hasn't happened yet. Taking bets?

I "should be happy"? "Happy"? The debt we're passing on to our children IS factually 17 trillion and climbing. That's supposed to make me "happy"? I'm not going into a global warming debate, I have no dog in that fight, but those problems are still, for the most part, estimated and the severity is still unknown -- while the national debt is here and factual. But I should ignore what is here and real and only worry about what might happen?

Our children aren't responsible for this massive debt, but they are totally on the hook for it. But I "should be happy".

Um... So that negates my point? Your point is the problem isn't the debt because the UK is "heading into a triple-dip recession"? Huh? My point still is that the problem isn't taxes, it's DEBT. Care to try arguing against that again?

Gee, you sure are patronizing.

Wrong and wrong.

I'm sorry you're so confused. Debt is simply not good economics. Or does that "data not matter"?

Best: No debt plus ample reserves in case of emergencies. Like Apple. That's healthy. Following so far?

Not so good: No debt but also no reserves. One disaster and you're in trouble.

Bad: Debt with no appreciable reserves or income to pay it off right away. That's bad. The bigger the debt, the worse it is. Whether it's "macroeconomics" or family economics, that's simply the way it is. You'd like to pretend that "macroeconomics" doesn't adhere to the same principles as company economics, like Apple or even family economics, but the principles are the same.

This whole "you don't understand macroeconomics" is a fraud to fool people who look at the insanity of government spending and see how insane it all is. "It isn't insane, it's 'macroeconomics'!" LOL! No, it obviously and clearly is insane.

Actually, our debt is long past the insane level. It is downright criminally insane. And we are committing this crime against our children. What floors me is that no one is even talking about reducing the debt. They blah, blah, blah about "reducing the deficit" but "deficit" means going more into debt.

You can claim it's all some mysterious "macroeconomics" that makes this "OK, don't worry about it" but you're either thoroughly deluded or you're one of those trying to delude others to ignore the elephant in the room.

Debt with no reserves and no way to pay it off in any reasonable time is bad. The unprecedented, massive, criminal national debt of the U.S. is really, really bad. Time to stop ignoring these basic facts.

As with any addict, the first step is to recognize that we have a serious problem. Congress, and people like you, need to take that step.

"Counter-intuitive" Yeah, sure. Too many people either agree with you that "everything is OK, go back to sleep" or they just don't care. I see the truth and I know how very, very bad our debt situation is -- and I don't need a lot of justifications and "counter-intuitive" stuff to justify my knowledge. You are part of the problem.

To make my point perfectly clear: The problem isn't "taxes", the problem is DEBT. It's currently $53,112.68 for every man woman and child in the U.S. and it's going to get a lot worse.

Your objections to what I said are not clear. Are you saying that a 17 trillion dollar debt is perfectly fine? Are you saying that it's great that the the rate of increase is increasing? Are you saying that the debt we are passing onto our children is of absolutely no concern?

Why do you bring up what was happening in 1953 when the national debt was 275 billion dollars?

Do you truly think that government waste, pork, duplication, mismanagement, corruption and stupidity is OK?

You brought up a whole lot of extraneous and immaterial "facts" to argue with me. Nothing you said contradicted what I said. The government is out of control and all that's going to happen is more and more and more taxes. Our children are doomed -- but that's perfectly OK with you, just look at 1953 and ignore what's going on right now.

I made less money in 2012 than 2011 but my tax bill went way up. We're totally screwed as a country and our children are doomed.

Seriously, "Government waste" has become axiomatic, rampant and inevitable, and their only solution to our massive debt is "raise taxes"? We are so doomed.

No one is responsible. No one can be brought to task for all that is bad, wasteful, stupid and useless in government. No one in government cares and no one outside of government has any power to change it.

(To those who will bleat "Vote!": I do vote but the only choices likely to be elected are those thoroughly venal politicians who will continue the irresponsible spending. It is built into the election process that those who are committed to significantly and actually cutting the government spending will never get the big donations necessary to win. The big donors give the big bucks to politicians who will turn the federal faucet in their direction -- not turn it off. )