US move to ban use of mobiles on aircraft.

From Techmeme comes the news that some US Congressmen want to ban mobile phones on aircraft. Sez the Inquirer:

Several members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee traded their personal anecdotes about having been subjected to obnoxious cellphone users whilst their planes were on the tarmac during flights back and forth between their home districts and Washington, DC....

....Representative Peter DeFazio, a Democrat from (the politically correct People's Republic of) Portland, Oregon and sponsor of the Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace (HANG UP) Act, said "I do believe this is important that we don't make what is already a crowded and difficult environment for the traveling public and flight attendants" worse by allowing inflight cell phone use.

Heck, I've been there - can we have one in the UK too please!

Actually, what interested me reading the Techmeme blogs was in the comments sections - there are battle lines being drawn between those who feel the market should sort this out, and those that feel that this is where the silent majority need legal protection from (noisy) minorities. I suspect that many who don't see the problem here have never had to deal with an assh*le yakking at full bawl on a train or somesuch for an hour before.

Begs the question for the Libertarian Lobby of course - if the a**hole next to me has the right to talk loudly into their phone, do I have the right to play my music equally loudly, or practice opera arias in my (tuneless) voice. And if not, why not?