The pilots should be punished. Oh, wait they are being punished. They've had their liscenes revoked will most likely lose their jobs in the near future. Because they broke already existing rules.

So why do we need NEW rules? We don't. There are literally thousands of flights occuring daily in the US. ONE plane went off course for 90 minutes. One plane out of thousands for that day alone. One out of 10s of thousands for the week.

And we're now supposed to create a whole new batch of legislation to stop and even that occurs in less than 1/103th of a percent of all flights for the month. New legislation that addresses a problem that current regulations already address.

This is classic legislative overkill to an overhyped story.

As Patrick made clear, the bigger issue (and one that has almost certainly resulted in passenger's deaths) is pilot fatigue casued by overscheduling and limited rest periods. Taking 'distractions' out the cockpit does nothing to address that problem and in fact probably makes it worse.

How many of you can sit still and focus on a single task for 8-9 hours straight? Hell for 1-2 hours straight? There is a whole lot of research that shows requiring such constant focus is very tiring and actually leads to more mistakes than when people are permited to take short breaks and focus on different things.

The number one complaint among iPhone users, by huge margins, is AT&T's crappy coverage and poor service. If Apple has any brains at all they will drop AT&T as the exclusive carrier of the iPhone the second the current contract exprires. And if they're really smart they should be looking for a way to get out of the contract early.

I really like my iPhone and Portland is supposedly one of the areas where AT&T has GOOD coverage. And yet I hit zones where coverage disappears all the time. Areas where Verizon and other carriers (even with smartphones) work like a charm. Given the chance I will jump ship to a new carrier. And if Apple decides to retain its exclusive relationship with AT&T I will seriously consider ending my relationship with the iPhone.