For what it's worth, my earlier observation that conservatives lack empathy and reflexively defend the rights and privileges of the corporate rich without regard for human suffering was directed at Elephantman. By contrast, the Pilot's skepticism regarding the usefulness of federal regulation is well-grounded in his technical expertise, and is therefore well taken. Though he STILL seems strangely unwilling or unable to acknowledge that it is simply inhumane (and in a better world would be unthinkable or, failing that, illegal) to keep innocent passengers in close confinement without food, water, or toilets.

Having said that, I should think it obvious that writing provocative columns will generate a pile of "horrible letters". Defending the bad behavior of airlines is as provocative in 2007 as defending the word "stewardess"; and while reader anger is never a valid excuse for obscene personal attacks, no one can credibly claim surprise. As others have pointed out, the reason Patrick's excellent columns on airport security receive relatively few responses is that most of us more or less agree with him, and thus have nothing to add or dispute.

Step 1. People needlessly suffer and perhaps even die as the result of some sickeningly inhumane yet easily avoidable problem. In this case, innocent people, including children and seniors, are held for 10 hours in close confinement in uncomfortable seats without sufficient access to air, water, food, toilets, or any information, simply because an airline company didn't want to cancel its flights and possibly have to refund fares. Go to Step 2.

Step 2. Amid public outrage, common-sense regulations are floated to solve the problem and make sure it never happens again. Go to Step 3.

Step 3. The Right-Wing Noise Machine swings into action, "repositioning" the outraged public as kook-fringe communists. The True Believers on the Angry Authoritarian Right (see Elephantman) appear in public forums to misdirect and derail any left-wing talk of impeding the lobbied-for right of large corporations to make a buck. Go to Step 4.

Step 4. Lobbyists for the misbehaving corporation or industry quietly kill or water down to the point of meaninglessness any proposed regulations. Go to Step 5.

Step 5. The CEO who successfully "weathered the storm" (unlike his paying customers in this particular instance!) awards him- or herself millions of dollars in bonus compensation for a job especially well done. Return to Step 1.

Repeat cycle as many times as necessary. (In this case, apparently, every time there is an unexpectedly severe snowstorm in the East.) Remember that in the end, it all comes back to the Golden Rule (the cynical modern version).

Captain Smith, your readers have spoken. Notwithstanding a few right-wing ideologues who will eagerly defend corporate power and prerogatives against any liberal intrusion regardless of the human toll, and other than a few hardy souls who approach domestic U.S. air travel with a fatalistic "things could be worse" spirit, we are not happy campers.

As a pilot, you naturally resent any intrusion on your authority, especially heavy-handed one-size-fits-all federal regs. I get that. We get that. But 10 hours is simply too long. The airlines failed us on Valentine's Day in New York; and the captains on board those ships failed us in their most basic duty -- our safety --just as they failed us previously in Detroit.

'Ask the Pilot'' is the name of your weekly column. Therefore, I ask you, in this deregulated age of every man for himself, knowing my safety and comfort are of zero concern to the airlines whose profits are paramount, how can I best protect myself from such inhumane indifference? U.S. military MRE's have been suggested; and NASA's adult diapers have been in the news of late. Seriously, please give this some thought, and offer your advice on how We the Increasingly Reluctant Flying Public can protect ourselves and our loved ones in a situation over which we are, in every sense of the word, absolutely powerless.

As Prosecutor Fitzgerald said, guilty verdicts, however deeply satisfying they might be, are never happy occasions. Much better that no crime had been committed -- and much, much better that no one, Arab or American, had to die because of lies about non-existent WMD.

That said, it should be noted that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted of four felonies during the same news cycle in which 93 Iraqis and nine Americans died violent deaths in Iraq, in a war of choice over WMD that never existed. His conviction, their deaths, and the deaths of perhaps half a million others in Iraq since 2003, are the direct results of Libby's lies, and the lies of his bosses. (I haven't even mentioned Walter Reed, also in the news.) If there truly is a hell, as the evangelicals conceive of it, then may Junior Bush, Cakewalk Cheney, Scooter Libby, and the whole rest of the chickenhawk neocon team, GO TO IT.

Am I the only one who remembers the sound bite of good ol' Junior Bush, at a campaign rally in Georgia in the final days before last year's election, putting on a hokey fake accent that was several degrees more deep southern fried than his usual Texas/Yankee accent? Certainly none of our celebrity media stars thought THAT particular piece of GOP poltiical theater was worth pointing out to us -- then or now. The same way none of them in 2000 thought very remarkable the persistent internet rumors of hard drug abuse and AWOL status that dogged Candidate Bush. Which in turn was quite a contrast to the breathless 24/7 reporting back in '94 that nearly derailed Candidate Clinton over whether he really inhaled once, or like millions of others avoided the same draft. Quite a contrast, indeed.

Why, laws a massy Miss Scarlett, I do declare, I don't know nothing 'bout the complex business of big-time reporting -- yet it seems the corporate media uses one standard when reporting on the Clintons, and a very different standard when "covering" Junior.