Falcon Heavy successfully launched its first time. But that's the only one I'm aware of.

Right. Like the proposition that admitting China to the WTO would cause them to democratize and dump the commies after they became prosperous. How’s that working out?

Her old man was a hedge fund manager, so she was already rich before she sang note one. Her feet haven’t touched the ground since the day she was born.

Managers are learning the same lessons they learned with outsourcing. Nobody takes care of you like you.

Can’t somebody come up with a process that converts researchers into CO2?

Misinformation is nothing new. The responsibility for vetting the information you consume is with you. Yeah, yeah, I know... you're competent to make a distinction... BUT THOSE OTHER PEOPLE...!

I'm not sure that's a great analogy. In the case of the horse, the owner can reasonably be expected to exercise control of the horse such that he can prevent it from behaving in a way that horses are known to behave.

In the case of the car, it's not under the owner's control, and software bugs produce unpredictable behavior. They aren't known in advance, and they can't be.

In the case of injury or property damage I can see suing the manufacturer for liability, but attaching a punishment to an equipment malfunction sounds rather pointless, unless negligence on the part of the manufacturer can be demonstrated.

I suppose as a practical legal matter it would play out that the injured party would sue the owner (or his insurance company), and the insurance company would in turn sue the manufacturer. That's frequently how accidents caused by mechanical failure are handled now.

I'm not sure about that. Catching shoplifters doesn't generate any revenue. Traffic tickets do.

I'm not entirely sure what the point is. It's not like owner has control over the car, so what is he being punished for? And how do you punish a car?

It's already illegal to use IQ tests (with some exceptions). That's why employers used to use degrees as a proxy, although recently they seem to be getting cautious about that, too.

The object of the game is to make sure the employer has no objective data by which politically preferred people can be disqualified.

Not necessarily. To this day there are countries with official religions. There's nothing preventing a country from giving priority to some religious beliefs over others. And many do.

It's no different from an economic policy. If you're a socialist country, there's no necessity for accommodating communists and capitalists.

If they'd told them to go pound sand the first time, they wouldn't be having this problem now. Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile.

Oh, I know that. The smelly homeless guy on the corner told me all about it the other day!

We've had people predicting the end of the world since there's been a world with people in it. The current iteration of High Priests crying doom and gloom appear to be about as sane (and as accurate) as they ever have.

Perhaps one day the End-Of-The-Worlders will be right. But I'm pretty sure today is not that day.

It looks like we're going to be spoiled for choice when it comes to Famous Firsts on this mission. I'm eager to see just how far this is going to go.