I think CTE, politics, and so on are just ways of justifying that the game has become less entertaining than it used to be. Nothing about sports at the elite level is truly healthy, whether it’s football or cycling - not the diets, not the workouts, not the competitions themselves, not the drugs they all do (stop…

Solve the tanking problem by making the draft lottery an actual lottery. It’ll stop the tanking craze completely.

On the one hand, you kind of have a point, but on the other hand, comic and super-hero movies are all over the place, so it’s tough to say anything can really defy the conventions thereof, especially something like Blade. I think the fact that Marvel’s brand wasn’t doing too well at the time so they didn’t brand it…

So, to recap:

“Onboard” is not really the same as “eliminated”.

Rockets. The winning car will be as little like a car as you can possible imagine while still having wheels.

Edit: Actually, a regular airplane would probably do it. Fuck terrestrial travel, in 30 years cars will seem as outdated as carriages.

Well, this is the problem - traditionally, in US/Canadian sports leagues, the markets with the most money were also happy to monopolize the top talent worldwide. But in soccer, that’s not the case (and increasingly, teams in other pro leagues want to keep profits instead of hiring top talent) - as a result, you have a…

I’m calling it now: the U.S. doesn’t qualify for the World Cup in 2022, either.

It’s a sport. You’re supposed to demonstrate your athleticism.

I think there are a couple of major factors. First, private schools are always starving for good teachers, and in places outside the northeast prep school zone tend to be religiously affiliated. Not all religiously affiliated schools are conservative, of course, but with the Catholic church, what the church hierarchy…

“You know, to be a Catholic, you’re taught to be forgiving. But if you’re gay, forget about it...”

People have always been using allusions and references as a kind of shorthand. A good example of this kind of thing pre-gifs is Bertie Wooster, who’s educated enough to know all kinds of classical and (then-) modern literature and history, even if he’s not terribly bright or good with details. When he says things…

The better advice is, “Don’t worry about it, it won’t happen to you.” Because, seriously, it won’t. Shit like this just makes the prospect of winning seem that much more realistic, which is misleading.

That’s my point. The “serious and pervasive structural problems” are not unique to MSU, gymnastics, the Olympics, or anything else. There is not a college or sporting organization in the country that would not gladly throw victims under the bus to protect their reputation and revenue. Making this only about the ones…

The NCAA is supposed to be there to enforce rules and amateurism, not to act as morality police. No punishment they could enforce, including the program “death penalty”, is really equal to the enormity of the crime - and, in any event, it punishes the Michigan State brand and its athletes (including, I think, some of…

Any solution that does not include dismantling entirely the corrupt systems that failed all those children is not a solution worth considering. 

If Mike Pence got eaten alive by starving North Koreans, would anyone mind?

It’s like the Casablanca of superhero movies - flawed in obvious ways, but also in ways that make it iconic and unique.

This is the basic problem MMA has: evenly matched fights by technically skilled fighters are boring. Haymakers and decisive wins are entertaining, but only a few people can do that well, so they end up trying to get WWE-style outcomes from boxing-style matchups.

Chastity. The best ones always have ironic names.