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"Everyone needs to be sure to tighten one's safety belt before approaching the cliff."

No. "Everyone" is a collective noun. In this context, the intent is that each member of that collective needs to take action individually. Therefore a plural pronoun would be appropriate.

Which means this isn't even a good example of needing a singular pronoun. It should be "their".

Most foreign nations are states, USA happens to be a collection of states. It would be equally true to say "The United States [of America] is..." because you are talking about the country as a single entity, or "The United States [of America] are..." because not every state is on board.

http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/collectivenoun.htm

As you pointed out, people more generally assume you are talking about the country and not the collection of states when you say "United States" or "US", and therefore "is" has evolved to be the most natural fit.

Your link does nothing to settle the singular/plural question, it simply reflects common usage to refer to the country as a whole instead of the individual states together.

It became more common right before the War Between the States, and right after, having a clear difference of opinion, people referred to the states as an individual collection. After that anomaly, the trend resumed.

Depending on usage, either way is still correct. The only thing that changed is the assumption that we are talking about the country as a whole. That would be expected as a country matures. Considering that most of the country was a stable size by around 1850, then the anomaly, then Alaska was acquired, a case could be made that it is more a sign of geopolitical stability than anything related to grammar.

Assuming the seal was designed by the FBI itself, it's ineligible for copyright as a work of the federal government.

Huh? I was under the impression that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was part of the federal government.

The subject is never contained within a prepositional phrase, so you can rule out "by the FBI" as containing the subject. This leaves "the seal" as the only valid thing that "it's" refers to. Here's how you should parse that sentence:

Assuming the seal was designed (by the FBI itself), it's ineligible for copyright (as a work) (of the federal government).

The parenthetical elements are optional and serve only to clarify the other parts.

It's webOS, lowercase "w."

No. Webos is the name of a specific product so it is a proper noun so the first letter is always uppercase.

If it were a common noun it would not be capitalised at all, but the common noun of Webos is operating system.

I did some internet checking and it seems we are both wrong, but to be fair, you were more correct than I. Almost everything you said was right, except "to let loose" isn't a compound verb. It is a verb phrase. A compound verb is when you use multiple verbs separated by commas. Here's the links I read:
http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/compoundverb.htm
http://members.cox.net/lenco1/grammarpractice/verbs/vphrase.htm

The Crusades were a military response to a muslim/arab invasion of Europe

It is generally considered polite to link to the site when you're quoting so that readers can follow up on topics, and so that they can be sure the quoted material is not being taken out of context.

I like No. 4, but No. 2 is wrong -- dino's is most definitely correct. Gerunds require the possessive.

Well, that'd be a neat trick and all, with exception taken to that all gerunds end in " -ing ". This, therefore, is no gerund.

I do find it amusing, however, that you've not noted that opposition #1 is in error. To capitalize a sentence is correct when the word is a simple word. However, it has long since been held that specific proper nouns may reject an initial capital, or replace the capital stricture structure (huhu,) both of which you see in iPod. To wit, it is also common to reduce poster caps titles to pure lowercase rather than sentence case when rendering into prose, and one notes that timesonline renders its own logo in poster caps; therefore, though I'm sure it's happy coincidence (a polite way of saying dumb luck,) the original poster was in fact correct to leave pure lowercase in place.

Nice try, though.

Some lovely parting gifts.

Furthermore, going over the speed limit is a crime - sure, victimless (although excessive speed is a likely catalyst for accidents), I'd agree with that, but by definition it breaks the law so it's a crime.

Collective Nouns