Don't conflate pre-internet with pre-App Store

You find it odd that an Egyptian speaks Arabic and calls home every few days, then takes his phone to a phone shop after he mysteriously gets remote credit where the phone is evidently wiped?

to be fair though I think they probably don't want us installing an adblocker on our parents/childrens/friends browsers. While you may not be vulnerable you've probably helped out people who are.

That may be possible now that we know who they are. I'm concerned about my privacy as well but head out to Hindley St, Adelaide on a Saturday night and you'll start to see why these measures are necessary. Too many people walk around looking for a fight, too many bloody assaults and too many people getting away with it. Having said all that I do think taking your fingerprints is going a little too far; Let's just limit it to scanning patrons' drivers licenses.

I seriously doubt you didn't just make that up. As annoying as it is to be +1 Troll, my experience tells me that people who make outlandish claims like you just did are usually full of shit. To be fair, you might actually have had an incident where you felt your union rep was telling you off for working too hard, but more than likely you misunderstood the whole situation or deliberately misinterpreted it through your anti-union prejudices. Interestingly enough you do go on to make a rather reasonable point about working for a meritocracy, but it was completely unnecessary to start with such a unbelievable cliche.

Bullshit! I have serious doubts that your "union representative" in your "not unionized" role has spoken to you (a seemingly anti-union but evidently paying union member) about working too hard. The cliche just seems a little too convenient and hardly at all plausible.

That's quite a brazen accusation to make about "9000 PhD's" you've probably never met.

I'm guessing that they're assuming we've learned a lot more from what happened to their neighbouring country & that's only after we assume that the initial success we saw in Iraq could even be mirrored...

Well we're in Australia so we dont have SSNs. But tbh I'm surprised anything more than name, dob & address is required, even in the USA.

My sister sold some concert tickets on ebay paid for in full on PayPal. The guy came to her house & picked up the tickets and my sister withdrew the much needed money from PayPal.

About 4 weeks later my sister started receiving many e-mails from PayPal which, as she had no further business with PayPal, she assumed was spam and just ignored them. About 2 weeks ago she received a letter informing her PayPal has listed her with a credit reporting agency (yes, that means no credit cards, phone plans, mortgages for 5+ years) because she failed to pay them back $500 --- the guy had collected the tickets from my sister and saw the concert but then the bastard called PayPal to say he never received the tickets! PayPal simply put my sisters account into negative and started collections proceedings. When my sister finally figured out what had happened she explained the situation to PayPal & they just said too bad she didn't have proof that she gave him the tickets.

So yes, if you withdraw your money it makes it harder for PayPal to take it away from you, but that doesn't mean they can't screw you financially just for using their services

haha. If there were two words that I'd use to describe ARMA II they'd be "boring" and "tedious"...

You must be the worst person to go to the cinema with!

Some can go 65 minutes before, some can go 70, some can go 75, etc. Most of us don't need to piss every hour...

right, because this is directly comparable to being systematically enslaved & murdered...

Hah well honestly if you cant hold it in for *one hour* then maybe you shouldn't be flying anyway. Didn't your mother ever tell you that you'd better go to the bathroom before you leave the house because she aint stopping on the way? Is it impossible for you to go to the bathroom before you're making that final hour-long descent?

Unless your are literally medically incontinent, with a doctor's note to boot, then I'd take great pleasure in watching you pay the cleaning bill & probably be banned from that airline for life.

Not likely: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/us-bound-passengers-in-for-tightened-security/story-e6frg6n6-1225813969830

The Australian government relaxed airplane security measures, which came into affect on Friday.

Items including nail clippers and knitting needles are no longer prohibited.

Mr Albanese said those changes would remain in effect for good reason.

“To take security personnel away from worrying about whether nail clippers are on board or not and worry about firearms and high-risk dangerous items,” he said.