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Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Cruisin' for a Bruisin' or "It's Raining Men"

Thank GOD!
Below is an AP article from today that discusses the FCC's decision to NOT allow cell phone usage during plane flights. I was going to say "PRIVATE cell phone usage" but that would be impossible. I like the convenience of cell phones as much as anyone, but I also know the propensity of people for abject ignorance. and by 'ignorance' I am NOT referring to the pure sense of the definition wherein someone is completely unaware.... I refer rather to blatantly rude behavior. If cell phone calls were ever allowed in planes, it would most definitely result in more in-flight ejections from moving aircraft than anyone could imagine. Certainly more than there have been to date. This, I would generally applaud, and it certainly could be explained as a simple act of Darwinism, but I must think of the innocent in this case.

The random raining down of ejected cell phone users onto the populous below would simply be too horrific to justify.

I would bet, however, that you would be able to get a number of actual cell phone recordings of people still talking on the way down. "Hello, yeah, Erica? What? Speak louder, hon. I know it's windy. They threw me off the plane.... Can you BELIEVE it? What? No, not in the terminal - over Arizona somewhere. Yeah. No, it's pretty. give me a sec, I'll snap a pic with the phone here. There, it's on it's way. What? Yeah, it's a little cold and all...but getting warmer as I get further down. It makes me mad though, because I JUST had my hair done. I'm telling you.... SOME people. Seriously...."
SPLAT.

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FCC says 'no' to cell phones on planes

WASHINGTON (AP)
A government agency on Tuesday said it will keep a rule in place that requires cell phones to be turned off during airline flights.
The reasoning behind the decision was technical. But the avalanche of comments the Federal Communications Commission has logged from airline travelers have been nothing short of visceral.
"These days it's impossible to get on a bus without at least one person hollering into their cell phone, invading the private space of everyone around them," one member of the public wrote in an e-mail to the FCC.
"That's bad enough when one can get off in 10 minutes. To have to suffer through HOURS of such torture, with nowhere to go and miserably cramped conditions -- someone is going to explode."
The agency has been considering lifting its ban on cell phone usage on airplanes since 2004. Unlike the Federal Aviation Administration, which bans the use of cell phones and other portable electronic devices for fear they will interfere with navigational and communications systems, the FCC's concern is interference with other cell phone signals on the ground.
Airphones installed in cabins use a special FCC frequency that operates outside the range of regular cellular phones.
In an order released Tuesday, the agency noted that "insufficient technical information" was available on whether airborne cell phone calls would jam networks below.
Regardless of the reasoning, some passengers are no doubt pleased with the agency's decision. In an e-mail to the FCC, one person related the story of a "dimwitted young lady" who had a "most inane conversation" after his flight had landed.
"The idea of a person being a captive audience to someone yapping on the phone is simply a recipe for a lot of anger and a fair share of conflicts," he wrote.
The phones have been snapped shut for now, at least as far as the FCC is concerned. But the issue may come up again. The agency said it may "reconsider this issue in the future if appropriate technical data is available for our review."

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