Probably not the first bad bet made in Vegas

F1 off to rough Las Vegas start. Ferrari damaged, fans told to leave before practice ends at 4 a.m.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Las Vegas Grand Prix had a bumpy opening when the first practice of the $500 million Formula One race was halted nine minutes into the session Thursday night because Carlos Sainz Jr. ran over a water valve cover that badly damaged his Ferrari.

It appears these supercars can not drive on…well…streets.

If they can't handle a water valve cover, whatever that is, they will never be racing down my block. Not for a whole nine minutes, at least. 

Of course my block is not nine minutes long, so there's that.

But if it comes down somewhere near you, let us know

Starship lost during second test; SpaceX says it likely self-destructed

NASA is investing $4 billion in the vehicle, which it intends to use to land astronauts on the moon as part of its Artemis program.

Article from the Washington Post, here. 

The machines are having a bad day, it seems.

Horsing around in the sky

Plane forced to return to airport after horse escapes crate

The plane was headed to Belgium from New York but did a U-turn roughly 90 minutes after its departure when the animal got loose.…

As the plane made its way back during the incident last Thursday, the pilot said he needed to dump 20 tonnes of fuel, "east of Nantucket", a popular enclave for the rich near Massachusetts.

No word on whether the seatbelt sign was lighted.

[H/T Shawn] 

Let's all try to keep a straight face here

The Fox Forecast Center is monitoring the arrival of a cold front and a storm system off the Eastern Seaboard that are expected to end the Northeast’s streak of beautiful weekends.

… 

We had two dry weekends in a row in the Northeast.

Thanks for the memories, NYPost.

A distinction without a difference

Supreme Court Adopts Ethics Code After Reports of Undisclosed Gifts and Travel

“For the most part these rules and principles are not new,” the court said, adding that “the absence of a code, however, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the justices of this court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules.”

The headline has been in just about every paper by now, with slight changes (this one's from the NYTimes)…and the story's about the same too. Right down to mentioning, four or five graphs down, the code makes no mention of any kind of enforcement.

Of course these people…the people subject to this code…are jurors, aren't they, and one would like to believe the most distinguished jurors in the land. And one would just naturally expect them to be of high moral standard.

Wouldn't one?

?

 

Some guys just can't catch a break

He wasn’t ‘Kenough’: Mattel’s Ken snubbed by National Toy Hall of Fame

Though Ken was chosen as one of 12 nominees up for induction, Barbie’s sidekick lost out to baseball cards, Cabbage Patch Kids, the Fisher-Price Corn Popper and Nerf foam toys.

["Kenough" is more than kenough for me but thanks anyway, WaPo.]

Losing to a Nerf has gotta sting.

Oh please, WaPo

Why companies are racing to build the world’s biggest bug farm

The quick growth of big, sophisticated facilities also signals that the industry is maturing beyond its larval state.

Really?

(Pretty good article, though. Worth a look.)