Los Angeles Times writer James Rainey wrote an incredibly in-depth piece this weekend on the way online commenting has evolved (or utterly devolved, depending on how you look at it) over time. As Rainey sees it, anonymity breeds abusive comments… but perhaps anonymous commenters are getting the blame for a problem that’s far more difficult to deal with.

The Egyptian revolts have brought out the passion in many of America’s journalists, but arguably in Anderson Cooper more than any other. The CNN star, who was physically attacked while on duty in Cairo by pro-Mubarak thugs, has been fast and loose with disparaging the regime in quite the deviation from his usual style. The LA Times counted up the amount of times Cooper used only one insult– “liars”– in one episode: 14.

Here’s a trick, for those of you flying on those quaint old-fashioned airlines that still don’t have wifi: Make sure your Tweetdeck is locked and loaded with all sorts of juice before you get on a plane, and then spend the next hour or so catching up with the 140-character brilliance of those you follow. That’s what I did this morning as I flew back home from Toronto (and boy are my arms tired! Wa-wa) – and as I found myself making mental notes to retweet a few when on the ground, I thought, why not a group retweet?