Under the totality of the circumstances, this is most fairly described as a ransom payment (as part of a broader butt-fucking by Iran in the whole negotiation related to nuclear access, etc.). The $400MM had been in dispute for decades. To suddenly pay it now leaves no conclusion other than a capitulation by the…

Wait, wait. Your take is kinda backwards.

I think 7 is pushing it for many people. And 4 is out of the question for the West Coast. Buying the entire Western US an hour’s viewing time, even if it’s on the back end because none of us can get home for the start even with an hour’s delay, could mean a big boost in viewership.

Mary Carillo has always been my favorite tennis commentator. Side note: she was a pro player, and grew up playing at the same tennis club with the McEnroe brothers as kids.

Seconded. Providing that info could even get someone to check out a game/graphic novel/whatever that the reader didn’t know about previously.

No, it’s not sensible. The Olympics is not the time to get younger players experience. The Olympics are when you bring your best squad to, you know, go for the gold. Leave her off the team for lesser competitions, sure. I guess if we’re quite sure she’d be on the bench, it’s much a more defensible choice, though.

I don’t get it, but I am very curious?

Yeah, she’s got it rough ;) Rich, gorgeous, on a date with Bradley Cooper. In a luxury box. At Wimbledon. All thanks to her looks, not exactly long hours in the office. I feel like she and Cooper boned their way through the rough patch shortly afterwards. So probably all is well.

Way to make this 100% about you.

She did date an NFL star. Redskins star linebacker LaVar Arrington, a top 5 pick in the NFL draft. I’d have invested in their kid’s future winnings.

To try to induce people to start using it, as a public policy decision. Ridership is in a long term significant decline.

You might mean 1.3 million rides. That is a very different meaning. Most people who take one ride are taking two. And many are taking more than two. It could easily be just a few hundred thousand people using public transportation.

My phone has my alarm clock. A standard alarm clock has lit numerals; my phone goes completely dark unless I use it. So I find my phone accomplishes my goal of a dark sleeping room better than an alarm clock, plus if somebody needs to reach me in an emergency, they can.

Let’s leave players’ sex lives private. We know them, and pay attention, because of their golf (or basketball, or tennis, or whatever). How about acting like grownups instead of gossipy high school girls?

Such a good point. I really don’t want to become a society so divided that I feel like I have to buy my headphones from the “liberal” aisle of the store, or only shop for groceries at the “conservative” grocer. And what if the manufacturer’s founder is a socialist, but the local distributor is a great, socially…

Just want to say, this piece is gold standard. This is what Gawker Media is capable of, when it turns loose the talented ones on staff. Thanks for this.

Um. You sure about this? The Marines are typically stuck with hand-me-downs from the Army. A shame, but there it is.

Typical. Rather than gracefully acknowledge it when I’ve answered your questions and the truth weakens your position, you mischaracterize and then recast the issue.

Does it matter?!

It’s weird. It’s the kind of thing that should be done extremely rarely. Guess what? Such things are done extremely rarely. Guess how often an attorney is so disruptive? Extremely rarely.