Even after handicapping how insane pro sports are in general, injury guarantees are still mind boggling. “We’ll keep you on as a janitor, unless you get injured on the job, in which case you’re SOL” would fly in the face of worker’s comp and common decency.

There’s definitely people who are very passionate about their cars, and there’s a “car culture” around that idea, but cultures change. Every review of a Mazda written in the US says something along the lines of “if Americans cared about driving, this would be the best selling car in America.” For a lot of people, a…

There’s ways around most roadblocks. Even for car-dependent folks, the car is most likely the 2nd most expensive asset they own (after a house), and yet it sits idle probably 90% of the time (unless they drive to multiple locations for work in their own vehicle - e.g. as a private contractor or real estate agent…

If they’re going to buy a car company, it’d be Chrysler (probably buying it from Fiat), but given that Alphabet’s now focused on actually making money in each division, I’m not sure that it’ll end up going that route.

You hit what, to me, is the essential part of the ethics: These cars are likely going to a crusher, and VW won’t strip them for parts first (it’d really piss off the supply chain/repair shops that had inventory, for starters).

And Russia has the limitation of only being able to pick one or two places to project power at a time. 4 Kirov battlecruisers in service means that they can maybe deploy 2 at a time.

Russia’s biggest advantage, right now, is that their overall strategic objectives are pretty opaque - so while the Russians know that…

That plane is actually a Bombardier 400 or even a Q400; it’s just that the aircraft was certified as a de Havilland Dash 8. The 400 was launched in 1999; Bombardier added a noise suppression system a few years later that makes the cabin quieter and renamed it the “Q400" (Q is for “quiet”).

A bird made out of mostly water and a few grams of lightweight bone can cause severe damage at hundreds of miles an hour; birdstrikes are what caused the crash of US Airways 1549 (the Sully “Miracle on the Hudson” flight).

I think part of that may have been the 3-5-2 arrangement in the first half. Part of what makes Bradley a good player, IMO, is that he can be invisible for stretches and then is able to set up situations that lead to a goal with what almost seems like casual ease - sometimes he doesn’t have he ball more than a second,…

ESPN was able to use their relative importance in sports fans’ minds to justify a huge fee per subscriber, and losing subscribers hurts that argument significantly.

I’ve also known a white Terrance and Jamal. Presumably, they would also have to wait longer for an Uber (since their names, but not faces are visible on the app).

Does “joke” mean something else in Russian?

No way. He’s far too liberal on most social issues for Republicans, couldn’t make it through a Democratic primary with his stance on reproductive and gay rights, and he’s got a master’s degree in a scientific field, meaning that he could speak about scientific issues like he knows what he’s talking about.

One thing about the Pixel deal: Both Google (Play Store) and Verizon are offering a free Daydream View headset ($80) if you buy the phone on pre-order. Sure, it’s less than a $100 gift card, but not by that much - especially since Best Buy’s prices are usually only competitive when they’re running a sale (or for…

One thing about the Pixel deal: Both Google (Play Store) and Verizon are offering a free Daydream View headset ($80)…

No, not original, just sad.

Yeah but this t-shirt’s appeared in Chicago, so, y’know, we should all probably just be ashamed.

Not to mention the fact that the cars are being assembled in Mexico. A lot of parts will undoubtedly come from the USA, and as you noted, the business work and design and engineering will be done here.

Man, that’s really clever. Maybe someday we’ll have a free trade deal with Mexico. That way the US could support high-paying engineering and design jobs here, and make complicated car parts here and ship them to Mexico, where they could be assembled for less money while actually supporting the economic growth of our…

Trump can’t simultaneously complain about Mexicans coming to the US to look for work and good paying jobs coming to Mexico, particularly when no jobs in the US are being lost as a result.

There’s a good chance that the B-52 could be flying in the mid-2040s, when the youngest will be in their 80s. How the heck they’ve kept these things from rusting away is beyond me. By comparison, the oldest deployed ship in the US Navy was built in 1970, and even the majority of our aircraft carriers were built in the…