[rescue] mesg: cannot change mode

[Loomis, Rip]

> > 3.  When logged in as root, you should almost *never* do a
> >     "su - username"--because that will give you rootly powers
> >     but a configuration decided upon by an untrusted user.
> 
> Uh, "su - username" is the same as logging in as "username".
> 

True--and yes, I must not have had enough coffee this AM.
(If this is the biggest brainfart I have this week, I'll
still count myself lucky given how bad off I was yesterday
with the whole sinus phlegm thing).  You didn't need to paste
the whole man page in, though...

Corrected scorecard:
 "mesg n" good. (Still)
 "sudo" good.  (*VERY* good, dammit)
 "su - [root]" almost certainly the right answer,
	so you always end up with a known-good config
	for root. 
 "su - username" probably a good idea if you're trying to
	troubleshoot a problem with that account.
 "su [root]" or "su username" okay, but not preferred
      (keeps the current directory unchanged, but leaves
	you with a shell config from a different account--
	so there's a tradeoff for things like having "."
	in your path...)

I'll go crawl back into my hole and find my coffee cup
now...

  --Rip