TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Cellphones in Flight? This Means War!

Cellphones in Flight? This Means War!

Monty Solomon (monty@roscom.com)
Sun, 26 Mar 2006 01:24:30 -0500

Everybody's Business
Cellphones in Flight? This Means War!

By BEN STEIN
The New York Times
March 26, 2006

JOHN BELL HOOD may well have been the most destructive American of all
time. He was a Confederate general of undisputed courage and daring,
but dazzlingly little strategic or tactical wisdom. ("All lion and no
fox," said Robert E. Lee about this horrifyingly misguided soul when
it was really too late to do much about it.)

Among his many other misdeeds, he ordered the assault on virtually
impregnable Union positions in Franklin, Tenn., in November 1864.
That led to far more casualties than Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg
and accomplished absolutely zero for his side, because the Union was
about to evacuate its positions anyway. It led, in a way, to the
absolute dissolution of the Army of Tennessee, an irretrievable
disaster for the "lost cause."

(By the way, he's "the gallant Hood of Texas" referred to in the
fourth stanza of "The Yellow Rose of Texas," added as the Civil War
was ending - if anyone remembers that song.)

This comes to mind because I believe that an award in General Hood's
honor should be created for the most disastrous government decision of
the year, or of the decade. Now, some may say the award should go to
George W. Bush for deciding to invade Iraq, but the jury is still out
on that, and in any event, at the time it seemed a good idea to people
much smarter than I am.

But there is a decision pending within the bowels of the federal
government that may be the single most incomprehensibly wrongheaded
decision of the century. It's small when compared with Iraq, but it's
still maddening. It involves allowing passengers to talk on their
cellphones while they are in flight.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html?ex=1301029200&en=73098a4a84b7c952&ei=5090

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