... just in case the exam facility is hit with an EMP, take your slide rule along.

I didn't install it in the first place; it came with something else.

Oh, wait, I may have that turned around ...

... they'll let this chance slip away and we'll still have to wait for the zombie outbreak to use the nukes.

... the recommended work-around means significantly longer charging times: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/11/reports-of-overheating-chargers-halt-hp-chromebook-11-sales/

... with other people's money is a time-honored political ploy. This is just a more obvious example than the usual.

... all of this is based on our billions of years of precise records. Oh, wait ...

You make a credible point, but then take it too far. The exchanges are the problem and the algorithms, which are the only security provided in the process, cannot address that. Therefore to assume the algorithms can provide the necessary level of security to the entire process, is fallacy.

... we will perfect the exercise pill, as well. After all, there's no reason anyone should be inconvenienced by the consequences of their actions.

I'll just sit back, enjoy a GMO meal, a glass of nuohol, and do a VR hike of the Pacific Crest Trail.No actual backbone required.

It was not that long ago that banks generally were subject to little or no regulation. Banks would fail, investors would lose all, only for the process to repeat itself again, and again. Eventually, in an effort to protect their economies, governments stepped to limit the risks that banks could take with their investors' money and, often, to insure the investors against loss, thereby engendering confidence.

Bitcoin has made its stock in trade the fact that it is unregulated by anything but a few algorithms. Like Adam Smith'e "invisible hand", we are to trust to these algorithms to provide a certain Deus ex Machina for providing security.

The reality is that until Bitcoin exchanges are regulated by credible authorities, security will be a fantasm.

... if we had seriously tried to limit petroleum consumption and develop alternatives since 1979, we might not have to embrace either risky proposition.

That is the title of an excellent BBC series from 2004, that addresses this topic. The contention is that fear has replaced promises of a better tomorrow as the leverage point politicians exploit to persuade the masses. It is available on Netflix, here: http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/The-Power-of-Nightmares/70035190?strkid=2097735933_4_0&strackid=4c753cb9c81ba8d_4_srl&trkid=222336