Italy. More specifically, the worst I’ve seen is Naples (the more south you go, the worse it gets, sadly). Bruised bumpers, headlights, blinkers missing, paint faded from the sun, clear coats peeling. I guess it’s a combination of the economic troubles down there, which in turn makes people buy cheap and poorly…

If only there was a government agency focused on disease control and prevention to provide reputable information, perhaps at regular briefings given by this “presidential” leader you’ve dreamed up

It would probably be helpful if there were some sort of centralized source for important information, maybe a branch of government that might be more executive than legislative. The head of the office could present themselves in a presidential sort of way, overseeing a unification of multiple state level actors so…

I disagree. A lot of this is context.

I wouldn’t care for it no matter who proposed it, it is the changing of something that has become iconic just to change it and/or be the one changing it. The current scheme has flown both Democrats and Republicans while in office and no one opted to mess with it when updating the fleet. Subtle updates or tweaks to a…

Yeah, if was going to attach any negative adjectives to the new livery, I’d say “half-assed”.

I’ll agree. The new livery isn’t terrible. It’s just incredibly mediocre and uninspired. It looks like an early 90s budget airline. 

Easily the best thing I’ve read here in ages.  Thanks for this!

Max, that's FANTASTIC work. Well done.

The new paint scheme, like the administration itself, perfectly represents modern America: tacky, stupid, greedy and tasteless.

“Living wage? No thanks, Stalin.” -Fucking Boomers.

A further problem is that as those boomers are retiring/dying, their positions aren’t being filled. Either their pay rates are receiving substantial downgrades, or the positions are being eliminated entirely, so millenials (now in their 30s, for the most part) have no real income ladder to climb. It sucks. A lot.

I take issue with the idea of millennials or GenZ “killing” or “saving” industries. What is killing the automotive industry (and dairy, jewelry, etc) is capitalism. The tenets of capitalism keep wages low, but raise prices as high as they will go for max profit. Over decades, this philosophy prices younger people out…

I like playing with the ones with the warning systems- moving until I set off the light and then moving back- repeat as necessary

6) It has a  communitarian infotainment system with a playlist curated by strangers! (On winter nights, faraway strangers.)

It’s a bubble, it’ll burst eventually. I loathe most of streaming culture and social media in general, but these payouts are what the market will support at this point in time. I look forward to a time when we move past it because I think it’s in many ways damaging, but the power of directly crowd-sourcing your income…

It could have been unnecessary also. My (ex) father-in-law, a nuclear chemist in Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project, was one of the sixty-seven signers of the Szilard Oak Ridge Petition, which urged giving the Japanese a close-up (but low/no casualty) demonstration of the bomb along with a short time to consider…

Most of the US military establishment was against using them. Admiral Halsey, MacArthur, George Marshal, and even Eisenhower were against its usage. The only reason the Japanse didn’t surrender when the US offered in April of 45 was because the US demanded the abdication of the emperor. By August of 1945, after the…

At that point, ending World War II by any means necessary was the best course of action.

I have never heard of anyone saying the US or Truman were heroic for using nuclear weapons. The discussion is always whether it was the right call balancing the number of lives on both sides that would have been lost if the Japanese home islands had to be invaded to end the war against the losses from the bombs, and…