SR71,
You're not being a pedant at all, and I'm beginning to regret ever using the word inertia; although my dictionary [Collins] defines it as: "the tendency of matter to remain at rest (or to keep moving in the same direction) unless affected by an outside force", which is precisely what I'm talking about.
However, my old Physics book [A.R.W.Hayes] says: "Inertia or mass... is the property by which it tends to resist changes in motion. Numerically it is the constant M..." So inertia is mass, as you say: independent of velocity.
By the way, it defines momentum as "...the product of its mass and its velocity", (i.e., Momentum=Mv, where M is mass and v is velocity). It also says: "Momentum should not be confused with kinetic energy. Momentum is indestructible. Unlike kinetic energy, it cannot be converted to some other form." Kinetic energy (they refer to it as "translational kinetic energy") is defined as the familiar ½ Mv².
So you are right: I should have been more careful about the use of the word "inertia"; and not suggested it was the same thing as kinetic energy.
Am tempted to edit my posts; but that would be cheating, and I don't think the error will have misled anyone in this empirical context. Serious readers will see this, and to them I offer my apologies.
Chris