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If the group represented a large enough collection of stockholders, maybe 5% or 10%, they could probably compel Apple to change through the courts to make the cheapest decision rather than a morally-guided decision.

It is the cheapest decision. The bad publicity for a company that isn't green and doesn't support the handicapped is truly a bad deal, financially speaking.

If Apple were in the least interested in taking a morally guided path, they wouldn't leave one in five of their users exposed to hackers; they'd likely consider it an actual obligation to fix the broken OSX (and iOS, for that matter) products they've sold to people instead of leaving them stuck with busted-ware, regardless of version or age -- instead, they blunder forward, ignoring old bugs and leaving customers exposed while spewing out new ones. It is outright nuts to ever assume Apple is on the more moral or ethical path. I can hardly think of a company more hard-nosed, more vicious with regard to customer risk and harm, or more straight-up all about the money.

Yeah, I'm an Apple user. No, it isn't always a viable option to upgrade to the next or latest and greatest OSX. Apple tends to break the living hell out of previously working operations between upgrades, and quite a few users can't just break machines without consequences.

PS -- I'm not attempting to make Apple look any worse than anyone else here, it's just Apple I'm most familiar with in recent years. I still remember Microsoft leaving the bloody file dialog code broken as living hell for many releases and revisions, and I can quote you some very persistent Qt bugs as well. It's just that reading a statement crediting Apple with taking the "morally guided path" made me spit coffee.

Iraq tried to do it in the early 2000s. They managed to switch to selling in euros (EUR) around late 2000 / early 2001 despite U.N warnings ( http://edition.cnn.com/2000/WO... ), and made a nice profit out of it ( http://www.theguardian.com/bus... ). Of course, on the 20th of March 2003 ( about one month after that article was written ), it stopped mattering much because they were very busy dealing with being invaded ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2... ).

Weapons from Holders anti-gun gambit have turned up as recently as 10 weeks ago in major shoots-outs with Mexican authorities. The gift that keeps on giving has the ATF issuing another statement accepting responsibility for their "mistakes" and "errors" funneling rifles into Mexico to create a gigantic stink over US firearms.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/14/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/s...
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/s...

You're welcome.

Not exactly. Speed is of the essence.

No.. No, WindBourne I think you're confused. Here - let me clarify:

GM & Chrysler have fully repaid their TARP "bailout" money.
http://spellchek.wordpress.com...
Ford never took TARP money - they did line of credit prior to TARP's existence.

I also think you are confused about the point I was making with the Ford F-150 pickup truck. Let me make it clearer for you:
I am not comparing the F150 to the Model S, or any other Tesla vehicle. What I was doing was demonstrating that Tesla is, and shall remain a small "boutique" automaker. Even if Tesla sells the 350,000 cars you claim they hope to in 2017, that number still come remotely close to the nearly 600,000 Ford F150 pickups that sold in 2013. That is just one vehicle, for one automaker. That does not include all the other cars & trucks Ford manufactures, nor does it include General Motors, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Subaru, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Jaguar, Range Rover, or others.

Tesla does not exist in a vacuum. Their only growth opportunity is to erode market share amongst wealthy buyers who were already in the market for a $70,000 + luxury vehicle, and would not have considered a cheaper car by a domestic, Japanese or Korean automaker. The problem is that there is a very small number of those buyers with six figure incomes to purchase them.

The average household income in the United States in 2013 was $51,017 with over 15% of Americans - 46.5 million people - living in poverty.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/1...

I assure you the 90+ percent of American earning those salaries are not lining up to buy $70,000 ++ Tesla electric cars. They ARE however gobbling up Honda Civics by the metric fuckton.

I hope this made my point clearer.

Miles just had part of his arm amputated after a slight accident packing up equipment. The former CNN science correspondent is currently working for PBS...
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/25/...

I have been saying this for years... It seems to be coming true.

If everyone is paid just enough to live on and nothing extra who will buy the luxury items?

Cheap labor was promised to deliver cheap goods, the goods stayed the same price and the average wage shot down. Combined with all the lost jobs it is no wonder the economic collapse is in full swing. How could an economic growth happen if you employ near slave wages?

It was a short term gain for sure, but the long term damage to a free flowing economy will be horrific. Recovery will only be possible if they realize exactly what happened.

Ironically I think China could be the solution here... Implement some sort of minimum wage (at a higher rate than it is now.) or maybe kicking out some of the foreign companies and just changing the label on the box so Nike can be Neke and that would probably spur some companies to bring some jobs back to the local markets? (LOL who am I kidding they would run to India or Mexico or some other country with poor worker rights and start the process all over again.)

Maybe when the well of cheap labor runs dry? After China and India and the like have decided that being enslaved by companies for profits is a bad thing? (By being enslaved I mean in some cases literally. China has a problem with cheap labor being imprisoned in factories.)

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/06/...

Better yet, a comparison of Asimov's 3 Laws and Christ's two greatest commandments (is rule 3 really necessary? Given recent developments in Switzerland and Belgium, perhaps it is).

The true answer is to allow people to get through a full background check in exchange for skipping the screening process entirely. Frequent travelers (the majority) would do so, and this would cut the number of people waiting in line to almost nothing.

But they won't do that, because the TSA is primarily a jobs program, not a security screening service.

Well, as a matter of fact, the process you propose has been in use for over a year at a few airports and airlines, and is expanding.

But if you're drugged or drunk before falling asleep, then it's consent?

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/15/...

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9705/2...

Oh yeah, another joke/scam that never materialized. But rest assured, Space Nutters will grow tumescent and argue passionately that the species, the entire species, even the poor and dirty people will benefit greatly from some billionaires transferring money amongst each other tax-free and when the project never, ever happens, ever, give each other bailouts with your tax money.

I'm all for it. The more religious leaders push their luck and do stuff like this the sooner people who were listening to them will start to realize that it's all the same everywhere. The only difference is the degree of craziness and whose interests it's serving. When somebody comes down with a fatwa banning soccer or samosas, all I can think is, Good. Stop being coy about it and remind everybody who's paying attention what this shit is really all about.

with venezuela, the kneejerk "blame america" is pretty swift and is standard

when venezuelans started protesting last week, they kicked out some american diplomats in response

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/17/...

either:

1. the usa is pushing magic buttons in washington dc and making venezuelans revolt (and not the actual issues and problems about venezuela the people revolting articulate)

2. it's a tired bullshit cynical ploy that, unfortunately, still works with large enough of the population that it is still worth doing

or... i dunno, as an american, maybe i have dark magical powers over venezuela i have not fully explored

Wow, if only there were some kind of organized system of, say, i don't know, governance for ensuring that under-represented members of our communities get equal access to economic resources? Like a set of written guidelines or maybe rules that all members of a community need to abide by...

So you want everyone to be equal? That has been tried, it was called the Soviet Union.

In a free market, some people have more than others. If you don't want that, you'll end up having a Socialist State. And that means that the government steals^W taxes everything you earn above a certain amount, for example like in France.

Most of the people who are considered "poor" (where poor is relative, if you still have a roof, food and clothing) have had the same opportunities as those who are considered working class or even rich. They all had an opportunity to go to school and get at least a high school diploma. Not everyone is Stanford or Harvard material, but everyone has a chance in this country. If you don't take that chance and become poor, it is your own fault and I don't need a government to take my hard-earned cash away and give it to you. I earned my Masters degree two weeks after 18 months of studying, and it cost me only 4k. Being poor is a choice for most people who are.

And then you have this commie complaining about how not giving free high-speed internet to those who refused to go to school and work is only increasing the income gap. What an idiot.

Apparently, even Google has adopted it.

Looks like a real threat to me.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/2...

But I will not tech history in the last 20 years is littered with companies that were bought because of instant messaging in one form or another, stuff like Skype, that later on did not really bring it's parent company anything (eBay sold skype to Microsoft at a loss iirc).

The problem seems to be how to integrate and monetize these services without people jumping ship. Until then, they are hosting a free service that's quite a bit to fund with no obvious revenue stream in sight other than ads.

Of course, Facebook is an expert on that, so it may turn out well for them. Still, amazing returns on a 4 year old company.

Free service? It's $.99/year/user so they are currently drawing in about $450M/year and importantly, they are enrolling at a rate of 1M users/day which is adding another $1M to the net revenue, every day. By this time next year, they will have 1B users. Finally, a company charging what SMS is worth (too bad you have to bring your own data plan but I digress).

http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/2...

But I will not tech history in the last 20 years is littered with companies that were bought because of instant messaging in one form or another, stuff like Skype, that later on did not really bring it's parent company anything (eBay sold skype to Microsoft at a loss iirc).

The problem seems to be how to integrate and monetize these services without people jumping ship. Until then, they are hosting a free service that's quite a bit to fund with no obvious revenue stream in sight other than ads.

Of course, Facebook is an expert on that, so it may turn out well for them. Still, amazing returns on a 4 year old company.

The "salary of $1 a year" is pure B.S. for all the CEOs who employ it. They get compensated in stock options worth millions. They get bonuses worth millions. They get jet planes and other perks given to them by the company. As an added benefit and tax dodge, they only have to pay lower capital gains tax rates on the stock options rather than what they would pay if it was a salary. That's why the real figure that should be reported is TOTAL compensation, not salary.

http://management.fortune.cnn....

I bet this is the Muzzies. They have it in for anything that would improve health, as their abominable religion thrives where there is pain, suffering, and misery.

I don't think it is. Whereas you are 100% correct about islam, I would expect physical attacks rather than DDOS attacks from them.

I bet this is the Muzzies. They have it in for anything that would improve health, as their abominable religion thrives where there is pain, suffering, and misery.

Wow. You are truly don't do research. Yes, FiOS. No, they aren't deploying it any more, but that doesn't negate the expenditure and infrastructure that's already in-place. As for their partnership, go read the fine print:
1) It elapses sometime in the next several years
2) This is from *Verizon Wireless*, not Verizon, themselves; I know it's easy to conflate the two, but for right now, they are not one and the same -- Verizon only has a 55% stake in Verizon Wireless, and Verizon Wireless a) doesn't offer broadband, and b) bought cellular spectrum from Comcast in exchange for advertising their (non-competing) wired broadband. Maybe *you*, Mr. ill-informed, should check your facts a bit better. Read more about it here, and note the 2016 sunset.

None of which negates my point about DSL, either.

P.S. I enjoyed your broken link to verizon wireless. Might wanna strip the trailing slash off the next time you incorrectly paste.

So many people here obviously haven't learned anything new about the NK situation in the last 10 yeears, or even the last 5.

Basically any real "stability" in the country died with Kim Jong-il. It probably collapsed much earlier, though that gets harder to pin down the further you go back. The key point, though, is what once was a more-or-less unified group of fanatics has slowly come to realize that there's another world out there, and the reality of what their leaders are has become harder and harder to ignore.

Doubt this? Think there's still some kind of politics or ideology at work here, making NK the same "annoyance" they were 10 - or even 5 - years ago? Then watch this brave NK woman publicly confront a soldier, shame him, and chase him off .

  A handful of years ago that would have been suicidal - or worse.

Oh, and China? The politics of the past doesn't matter. What they know now is that there are a VERY large number of people - mostly decent people, most likely - that have lived their whole lives in what was, more or less, a cult. And they know that there is a very real risk that those "[sometimes former] cult members" could become "starving refugees" almost overnight.

Even if they wanted to, that's a crisis on a scale not even China can sweep under a rug. They are facing the possiblity of being neighbors to a country with a small number of fanatics/old-guard that no longer have real power (enough to be a problem, though), a MASSIVE numbre of people who really need some sort of deprogramming/cult-exit-councelor, and some unknown mix of economic assistance, knowledge assistance/guidance, etc. If they end up with an incredible amount of luck, the people of NK might just be able to so they can bootstrap their country into something aproaching sustainable.

I suspect that China, more than anything, wishes they could simply get rid of this mess.

....only read their content for some nasty purpose like denying entry as a tourist for a twitter post they didn't like (US authorities already did that).

The "nasty purpose" is to prevent people from being killed, including Europeans - both in Europe and the US. If you think that similar things don't happen in Europe, you are misinformed.

This happened at Stuttgart: German held at airport after bomb-in-briefs joke

As to the incident you mention:

Caution on Twitter urged as tourists barred from US

... holidaymakers need to learn to be ultra-cautious when it comes to talking about forthcoming trips, particularly after 9/11.

"Posting statements in a public forum which could be construed as threatening - in this case saying they are going to "destroy" somewhere - will not be viewed sympathetically by US authorities," it told the BBC.

"In the past we have seen holidaymakers stopped at airport security for 'joking' that they have a bomb in their bag, thoroughly questioned and ending up missing their flights, demonstrating that airport security staff do not have a sense of humour when it comes to potential risk."

Not really terribly different than what happened in Germany.

You should also understand that the US, Canada, EU, Australia, New Zealand, and various other countries all trade intelligence information to varying degrees to try to keep their citizenry safe. The US has helped foil plots in various European countries on many occasions.

NSA helped foil terror plot in Belgium, documents, officials say

The US has good reason to look towards Europe since there have been many terrorists there plotting against the US. One of the 9/11 attack teams came out of Germany. And European laws in the past have often render various countries almost toothless in dealing with extremism.

The EU is a coalition of nations that makes for convenient travel and trade, but national sovereignty remains. If you are French, Poland is pretty much as foreign as the US is.

I actually assumed that the biggest losers in TW/Comcast Hookup would have been the cable content producers, who have to negotiate where their programming is carried. But I checked and Viacom at least saw it's stop spike up on the news of the merger (NASDAQ: VIAB), and Disney follows the same exact spike (NYSE: DIS) Then I figured wait, they are a big enough corporation that the end of Net Neutrality must be even better for them than the merger of Carriers is bad for them.

CNN reports that perhaps the merger will provide support to reverse the end of Net Neutrality http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/20... I think the "good news" logic would be that the more big corporations monopolize, the more hope that someone will do something in the future to correct it. I

Won't this European network just be subject to the same censorship and spying paid for by American and Asian entities, as the current internet is anyway?

Think of this as an investment: at least they'll have to pay EU for it; the way it stands now, it's free.

Are there even any non-American and non-Asian entities capable of implementing and maintaining such a large scale network on their own, including using their own custom built non-American, non-Asian hardware, manufactured in a non-American, non-Asian factory?

Wake up from your exceptionalist dream, buddy. Last I checked, Alcatel is a French company and it's eating Cisco's market fast.

If you think that US foreign policy has anything to do with al Qaida's existence then you are wholly ignorant of their motivation.

What has NSA spying achieved? Here are some hints:

NSA helped foil terror plot in Belgium, documents, officials say

In a New History of NSA, Its Spies' Successes Are [Redacted]

Right before the Olympics started, I read an article that referred to this exact suit and mentioned that it was going to give the Americans an unfair advantage. Lesson learned here? Spend less money on marketing (propaganda) and more money on product testing.

Is anyone else sick of being lied to and misdirected on a regular basis? "Best speed skating suit ever developed!" "Oh, wait. Just kidding!"

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.c...

Our economy is right and truly fucked at this point. The company that previously brought us the SR-71 has so many idle engineers sitting around that all they can do is waste (presumably) millions of dollars on a failure. Am I really to believe Obama and our "business leaders" that America does not have enough engineering talent? Here is an idea. How about instead of wasting their time on designing speed skating suits, they find them some productive projects to work on?

Kids making snowmen is considered geeky

It's considered human.

Storms on this scale test infrastructure to the limits --- and it is interesting to see how and why things break. Burying power lines not always the answer

As for beta boycotts and related matters: the comments posted to Slashdot may be fewer, but, on the whole, appear to me saner and more focused than any I've seen here in quite some time. I intend to enjoy this while I can.

They'll be able to bully Netflix and Google/YouTube right out of business. With that much power, who's going to stop them? It's sure not going to be Washington (from the CNN article):

Analysts also point out that Comcast is remarkably well connected in Washington. In fact, its chief lobbyist, David Cohen, was a guest at the White House state dinner for the French president on Tuesday night.

This. When the ground temps hover around 40F, the snow melts quite easily. Then the air temps get in the 20's and water refreezes on the road. The ice is much more dangerous than the snow. That's why we close schools, businesses, etc.

And it's not the dusting that we get annually. We can handle that. It's when we get 2-3 inches of precipitation that forms ice on our roads that makes it dangerous. We don't drive with bags of kitty litter in our trunks, or just whip out our chains when it gets dangerous. So we shut down. If its orchestrated well, it's a fun holiday we can all laugh about afterwards (See "The Snow" from San Antonio, 1985. If it's not orchestrated well, well...

We can all complain how people in other regions can't handle unconventional weather - Hurricanes in New York (don't build where it floods), 100F+ temps in the Midwest (install air conditioners), Snow in the deep south (buy more snowplows, chains, salt, sand, etc.) Yes, there are solutions that make the situations tenable. No, the capital investment for an event that happens every xx years isn't worth the financial losses from shutting down the city for the time it takes to deal with the situation.

While I'll agree Bush instigated a number of these policies/programs, it has been entirely within Obama's power to cease them, which he has not done. If anything, he has expanded upon them.

You're right, Congress wasn't "screwing around" as you put it. Bush never had a super-majority in either house see: party divisions. As much as I don't agree with a lot of what happened during Bush's administration, most of it occurred through the proper means, i.e. congressional legislation followed by a signature. Obama has now committed to use of executive order, and some of what he's proposing to order could be viewed as violation of established federal law, and be grounds for impeachment.

For instance, the recent executive order to increase the minimum wage for companies doing business with the federal government. This is sort of open ended. For instance, if an FBI agent buys lunch from McDonalds, is that doing business with the federal government? Does it matter if it was paid our of pocket versus expensed? Does he have the authority to do so? The federal minimum wage is a federal law, and he is countermanding federal law in doing so. I'm not a lawyer, but on the surface, this latest executive order could provide grounds for impeachment. The case law would be the impeachment of Andrew Jackson. He was impeached for countermanding federal law.

Someone needs to sue on behalf of the millions of low wage full time workers of large employeers that won't be getting their ACA compliant health plans because Obama again deferred the Employer Mandate, this time out to 2016. These people should have had their plans a year ago, but Obama keeps kicking their benefits forward beyond the next election.

And how much outrage on behalf of the working poor has appeared in our media? Nothing. It's been eased a bit, no worries. A mere speed bump.

How long will these people have to live to actually witness the change from a law that will be half a decade old next year?

Possibly. A lot of Chinese people, in China, are apparently offended by any reminder of the "June 4 incident." Look up what happened when Cirque du Soleil used a pic of Tank Man in a background video in one of their performances:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/15/...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08...

So maybe they have become their own censors and Bing gives them what they want.

In the case of a car or boat when the operator becomes ill he can pull over and stop. An aircraft is a different matter in that it could kill many more people including the operator if it crashes.

Unless the driver is on a busy freeway, at which point expect a multiple-car accident with a handful of deaths. Or unless the driver is driving through a busy pedestrian mall. Or the driver has a senior moment and makes a wrong turn.

It's a bit of a fluff article, but there are certainly enough relevant examples of cell phone usage being an active element in improving the lives of 'rural farmers in 3rd world countries': http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/13/...

(Also, came across this article, which is a bit more recent and covers specific products: http://www.ventures-africa.com...)

The big problem is that some pharma manufacturers in India make crap.
They know they're making crap and they're proud of it.
Ripping people off is part of business culture everywhere, but they don't seem to make a distinction between cheating people out of their money and cheating them out of their lives.

The problem is that everyone knows they're making crap in India, but no one can come right out and say it because lawyers will be all over whoever says it. regardless of proven past practices.

Here's an example of what's being said and not being said.
Read this first, a government statement:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
Then read this to see what really happened:
http://features.blogs.fortune.... (The HIV drug part of the story is about halfway down)

They recently confused the URL for a website with the website itself.

This has been seriously pissing me the fuck off. Where the hell do I sign up for one of these free Obamacare sex changes?

Is the right just misinformed and free phalloplasty and testosterone HRT are available and they assumed that assigned males would also be given free vaginoplasty and estrogen HRT?

I don't know and don't care. Unless that's the case, you are completely full of shit. At the very least it doesn't excuse this rhetoric that Obamacare is so evil that it's giving out free sex changes! My insurance won't even cover my meds because when estrogen and an anti-androgen are prescribed to an assigned male, it's cosmetic by definition, and no fucking insurance company will cover anything cosmetic.

I think that you have to be in PRISON to get the state to pay for your sex change operation.

I'm not sure about obamacare having to do this at this time, but I don't see it as much of a stretch since this ruling went through for a prisoner.

For insight into how Mr. Ham twists logic, read this opinion piece from him:
Why I'm debating the 'Science Guy' about creationism.
If this mirrors his arguments tonight, Mr. Nye should be able to debate circles around him. Anyone minimally trained in logic and debate should be able to beat him.

Probably just another way for the south to keep an even closer eye on it's neighbor. The DMZ has a fair amount of posturing from both sides after all. See how South Korean troops will be in a basic martial arts stance while watching the border for example.

On a minor note, this tech won't do much for or against N. Korean defectors because virtually none of them enter the South through the DMZ. See this CNN article which mentions that in recent memory there's been one DMZ defection in 2010 and another in 2012.

Then you're going to love this story

It appears that The Telegraph is just making this stuff up. They often do this to increase the anti-EU crowd in the UK.

The biggest fact that this story is false is the fact there are no secret EU bodies at work here.

http://europa.eu/about-eu/inst...

Journalist are also known to make up stories.

http://www.theguardian.com/med...
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US...
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

Here are some EU myths busted.

http://youtu.be/oqVJEZnYiZo

Depending on the source, at the time of the incident the city owned between 10 and 40.

Why the sigh?

Genital regeneration may lead to the restoration of parts lost via genital mutilation. And science looks a lot more appealing than this foreskin restoration method. NSFW.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the tissue used for this type of 3d printing is sourced from genital mutilation. In the United States, neonatal foreskins are harvested and used for commercial products like skin grafts, anti-wrinkle creams, and tissue samples for research. Not surprisingly, this stuff isn't cheap.

By the way, I'm not suggesting that this happens 100% of the time but the fact that it happens at all and is perfectly legal is pretty disturbing. If harvesting healthy, normal, erogenous tissue from living human beings without their consent doesn't scream "human rights violation" then I don't know what does.

Didn't that just change?
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/13/...

No you are wrong. Coal is crappy. Coal will produce more and wider spread radiation then nuclear ever will while also producing tons of carbon. Speaking of long term effects both Coal and natural gas produce many times the carbon of Nuclear.
Solar can not work for base load. Wind is a bit better but it still needs natural gas fired peaking plants to back it up. Simple truth is you are spouting the same FUD we hear all the time about nuclear.
The anti-nuclear people are as bad as the climate change deniers.

Here are some scientists that say you are wrong.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/03/...
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10...

And a co founder of Greenpeace. http://www.wired.com/science/p...

I didn't even take biology in school and I know that you are misrepresenting it.

Just---wow. Your didactic, "us vs. them" attitude is exactly what is broken with our society, from local politics to global conflicts. You (blindly) believe in "Science," so anybody who believes in God, by definition, does not. Anybody who is not exactly like you is automatically the Enemy, is clearly motivated by personal animus against you individually, and must be attacked at all costs, with disinformation and outright lies if necessary, even as you admit your own ignorance. You are exactly what I was talking about. You are the problem. "Evolution" is so sacrosanct to you that anybody who dares to suggest that it has limitations as a theory---even somebody who at the same time says it's the best theory we have available right now---is a heretic and should be stoned. If everybody thought like you, we would still be teaching that the universe revolves around the earth, because the Bible obviously says so, and to even examine the question further is tantamount to blasphemy. Have you even read On the Origin of Species, or do you just blindly worship Darwin based on what somebody else told you, like the many Christians who blindly worship God based on what somebody told them the Bible says?

wants lots of members with money but conveniently thinks Jesus hates poor people

I know, look how much we hate poor people. Your research skills are not a credit to you. And since you have appointed yourself the judge of 15 million people's charitable tendencies, I'm curious, how much did you personally give to charity last year?

apparently the darling child of the automotive industry

What's with the snide side commentary? Tesla isn't the "darling" of anyone. Snide, obnoxious comments like this are pretty much du jour in any coverage. Everyone's gunning for them, simply because they're odd kid on the block.

A Tesla catches fire after hitting a piece of massive road debris or getiting into a crash, and it's a fucking national emergency, their stock tanks, electric cars are suddenly "unsafe", etc.

Meanwhile: do you drive a Ford SUV made in the 90's? Twice, Ford weakened the roof and support pillars to save money, against the recommendation of their engineers.

Drive a 90's Ford? Their ignition switches were substandard and could short out, causing your car to catch fire at random. 8.6 million vehicles: http://articles.baltimoresun.c...

Drive a recent GM truck? They've also got a "randomly burst into fire" problem; 370,000 vehicles: http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/1...

Just google "GM recall fire" or "Ford recall fire" and read page after page of recalls that affect hundreds of thousands if not millions of vehicles.