Actually back in the 80s some Fords were considered pretty hot cars in the UK. I had UK friends move here, buy a Ford Escort, and be puzzled as to why the car sucked and no one was impressed by it LOL. Ford is now very much doing the "world car" thing. Even the "gasp" Mustang is being EU-ified.

It sounded like you said Americans are unfamiliar with European cars, which is not the case. BTW, driving a Mazda now because I got tired of BMW "quality". All 4 window regulators let loose, the sunroof shade broke, had to replace the ignition coils, 2 water pumps, a radiator, and an expansion tank. ALL of them very well known and never fixed flaws. So far at 140,00o miles the Mazda is tires/brakes/and a battery ;)

California prison-guard unions are/were well known for lobbying for stricter drug laws to increase their client base ;)

WTF? I have owned 2 VWs, 2 Mercedes, 1 Porsche, 1 Volvo, and 1 BMW. I live in the USA and these cars were not unusual. No one came up to me and said "Wow - WHAT is that car with the blue and white thing on it?" European cars and their "quality" are hardly an unknown in most of the USA. I am sure some beat coal mining town has only old pickup trucks, but outside of that........ BTW, "quality" is in quotes because exactly NONE of those cars was anything close to a Lexus in build quality.

We are a 100,000+ user operation. Our patch tracking and approval process is a giant paperwork nightmare that does nothing useful. I would get Microsoft Security Baseline Analyzer, run the report after Patch Tuesday, and send it to the management types. Say look at this nice list of required patches. If there are no objections, we will roll them out :D

Not all at once. You have heard of workplace violence and "going postal", right? These workers also go to malls and bowling alleys. The shooters want to take their revenge at the site of their humiliation, not at some random place.

In my experience a significant number of bullies think being a school administrator is a *perfect* way to extend their bullying lifestyle for decades.

No - because the kids he hates are there because he GOES THERE. The *one* nutcase that attacked the elementary school was an outlier.

WTF??? I can only say so much on here, but NO WAY are NSA employees running around being "agents". If some guy knocked on my door and said he was an NSA agent I would be falling over laughing.

Ah.........NO. Let us just say I live in an area where you can meet these people and they are NOT agents. ROFLMAO

Fun thing was knowing the local BBS Sysops.I could use "mysterious phreaking power" to "break into" someone's session. They never did figure out how I did it LOL ( I was at the BBS console - that's how!)

And then getting 49 good sections out of 50 :(

In the early-mid 80s it was no sure thing your email and your friend's email addresses could find their way to each other. I do remember gopher and archie being very cool. The "web" was annoyingly slow to me when I first started playing with it. Also remember USENET! It still exists I guess - haven't looked - but rec.xxx had awsome "forums" and who can forget their first furtive foray into alt.binaries....

As a commercial pilot for many years I can tell you day 1 of "how to be a commercial pilot" class was why this scheme is totally illegal and that is before you hurt someone. Do so much as shut the door on someone's hand and lawyers will rip you so many new assholes you will be farting in 5 part harmony!

I am a commercial pilot. This scheme will fail because the FAA really really does not want anything like this going on. Flying people as paying passengers falls under part 135 or part 121 of the regulations. People have been trying there "134.5" scams for decades now and getting busted for decades as well.