Bill - Your friend needs to take into account that a CME has a significantly longer duration at much higher energy levels than an EMP. There is some literature out there describing the differences (can't access it right now, Google should do the trick though). IIRC the last really severe CME was in the 1850's. What was essentially a non-event then, would cripple anyone affected today. Bottom line - your friend has cause to be concerned. Not sure how useful it'll be to have the only workable laptop on the continent though. 
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A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero (42B.C)
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