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Zorro

Zorro's Journal
Zorro's Journal
May 11, 2016

Venezuela first lady's nephews getting help to cover defense costs: U.S.

Two nephews of Venezuela's first lady facing U.S. charges that they conspired to import cocaine into the United States are getting their defense costs paid for by an unnamed third party, prosecutors said.

In a letter filed on Friday in Manhattan federal court, prosecutors asked a U.S. judge to pose questions to Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores about their legal fees at a hearing this Thursday.

Both men are nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's wife, Cilia Flores, and in the last two months brought on large, prominent U.S. law firms to defend them against charges stemming from their arrests in November.

Prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty to inquire whether a potential conflict of interest exists due to a third party paying their fees and ask Campo Flores and Flores de Freitas if they waive it.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/venezuela-first-ladys-nephews-getting-help-cover-defense-174939860.html

May 10, 2016

Venezuela's Military Needs to Get Out of Business

Venezuela has more than 4,000 generals, compared with fewer than 50 in 1993. This kind of runaway inflation is every bit as pernicious as the economic variety, which also afflicts Venezuela -- in fact, they have to be addressed together.

Instead, opponents of President Nicolas Maduro are hellbent on removing him from power, and they have collected some 2 million signatures on a recall petition. Maduro still has significant political support, and he will use his control of the executive and judicial branches to frustrate and delay that effort, which is unlikely to succeed this year. (If a recall succeeds in 2017, Maduro's vice president will step in to complete his term.) The opposition's credibility has already been hurt by its rash boast that it would throw out Maduro within six months after taking over the legislature in January.

It would be far better for the opposition to focus on winning votes for the election in 2019, when the current presidential term ends. That means uniting around a coherent plan to fix Venezuela's imploding economy -- an economy in which the military is increasingly involved and invested.

In February, Maduro put the military in charge of a new state oil and mining services company -- one of nearly a dozen military enterprises started under his administration. Active or former officers head about one-third of Venezuela's ministries and govern nearly half its 23 states. Service members have gotten big raises; preferential access to housing, cars and food; and promotions. Officers have won lucrative contracts, exploiting currency controls and subsidies -- selling cheap gasoline to Venezuela's neighbors at enormous profit, for instance.

http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-06/venezuela-s-military-needs-to-get-out-of-business

May 10, 2016

Inside the Gigafactory That Will Decide Tesla’s Fate



To get to Tesla’s Gigafactory, you drive east from Reno, Nevada, turn into a sprawling industrial center, and make a left on Electric Avenue. The high desert landscape dwarfs everything, even the vast white building with the red stripe along the top. As you reach the gate with the security guard, the breadth of Tesla’s ambitions becomes clear. Even the name itself suggests more to come: Gigafactory 1.

The lobby décor is classic Tesla: large windows, high ceilings, gleaming white floors, black leather chairs. One of the Powerwall home batteries made at the factory hangs like a piece of modern art. Guests receive hard hats, reflective vests, and safety glasses along with the complimentary bottled water and coffee.

The $5 billion Gigafactory was born of necessity. Tesla needs a hell of a lot of batteries, for both the forthcoming mass-market Model 3 sedan and the Tesla Energy product line. The timeline for getting those batteries made just became much shorter, too. On Wednesday, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk stunned investors by announcing a sped-up production schedule that calls for a half-million electric vehicles per year by 2018, not the previously stated goal of 2020. For a company that delivered just 50,658 vehicles in 2015, the ramp looks like a hockey stick.

Tesla has worked with Panasonic to collapse the supply chain and drive down costs. Battery production—all the way down to the cell level—will happen in one facility. Conference rooms are named after chemical elements that are key parts of the battery supply chain, including lithium, cobalt, nickel, aluminum, and silicon.

http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-inside-tesla-gigafactory/

Elon certainly thinks big.
May 10, 2016

Brazil Senate presses on with impeachment, defying house speaker

Source: Reuters

Brazil's Senate forged ahead with impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff on Monday, rejecting a surprise decision by the acting speaker of the lower house, who tried to annul a key vote just days before the president could be suspended from office.

The clash between Brazil's two most senior lawmakers threw markets into disarray and threatened to drag out a painful political crisis with a constitutional standoff that could end up at the Supreme Court.

Waldir Maranhao, a little known figure in Brazilian politics before taking over as house speaker only last week, argued that procedural flaws invalidated a lower house vote on April 17 approving the impeachment charges and the chamber would need to vote again.

The speaker's decision spooked investors betting that a more business-friendly government would take power imminently, weakening Brazil's currency over 4 percent in afternoon trading. However, markets quickly pared losses as investors bet the move would delay rather than prevent Rousseff's removal from office, given her weak support in Congress.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/acting-speaker-brazil-lower-house-annuls-rousseff-impeachment-152119720.html

May 8, 2016

5 passengers survive after Tesla Model S flies 82 feet through the air in an insane crash

Tesla is the most talked about carmaker these days, and a new report goes to show why buyers are impressed with the company’s designs. This time, we’re not talking about impressive efficiency or smart features, but about build quality and durability. A Model S was recently involved in a terrifying accident, but the five occupants of the vehicle escaped unharmed. The car’s driver lost control in a turn, the car flew 25 meters (82 feet) in the air, and rolled over at least once after crashing in a field at full speed.

These images are a testament of the accident’s brutality, but also speak for Tesla’s manufacturing skills.

An 18-year old was behind the wheel of her father’s Model S in Pullach, Germany, and she lost control of the vehicle while driving at excessive speeds. The five people in the car were able to exit the car without the help of the first responders, Electrek says. They sustained “serious, but non-life-threatening” injuries and they were transported to the hospital via helicopter for treatment.

The numerous pictures of the crash site posted by German newspaper Merkur show that the car’s front is destroyed, but the cabin doesn’t appear to have sustained damage.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/5-passengers-survive-tesla-model-flies-82-feet-153026679.html

May 8, 2016

Chilean military base poses threat to Bolivia: Morales

Bolivian President Evo Morales on Sunday accused neighboring Chile of threatening the land-locked Andean nation by establishing a military base some 15 kilometers (9 miles) from their shared border and close to the disputed Silala river.

"This installation is an aggression to the life, homeland and to Bolivia," the leftist leader said during a public appearance in the Santa Cruz region.

Chile and Bolivia have long had thorny relations and are at loggerheads again over access to the Silala river, which crosses their shared border.

Over the Easter weekend, Morales threatened to go to the International Court of Justice in the Hague to resolve the dispute, which had until recently been a low-profile issue.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/chilean-military-poses-threat-bolivia-morales-173917383.html

Sounds as if Evo is doing some shit-stirring to draw attention away from his girlfriend issues.

May 8, 2016

What's Bernie Sanders' next move?

Bernie Sanders has plenty of sound reasons for continuing his presidential campaign, but now that Donald Trump is the apparent Republican nominee, he needs to make a change in tone.

Sanders still has a chance — albeit a vanishingly small chance — of winning more pledged delegates to the Democratic convention than Hillary Clinton. And polls show that Sanders' supporters want him to stay in the race, by a huge margin. “Bernie thinks he has a responsibility to the millions of people who have turned out for him,” his top strategist, Tad Devine, told me last week.

But the Sanders campaign was never solely about winning the Democratic nomination. The Vermont socialist's other goal was to build a progressive grass-roots movement and to push the Democratic Party to the left.

On that count, Sanders has mostly succeeded. His campaign has reawakened the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and forced Clinton to move leftward on economic issues including Social Security and trade.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mcmanus-what-sanders-should-do-20160507-8-story.html

May 8, 2016

The Republican Party is dead

I have been a Republican as long as I can remember. Joining the Grand Old Party seemed like a natural choice for someone like me who fled the Soviet Union as a boy and came to Los Angeles with his mother and grandmother in 1976. Refugees from communism, whether from Russia or Cuba, generally oppose socialism and embrace conservative political views.

My allegiance to the GOP was cemented during the 1980s, when I was in high school and college and Ronald Reagan was in the White House. For me, Reagan was what John F. Kennedy had been to an earlier generation: an inspirational figure who shaped my worldview. Reagan had his faults, like JFK, but he was optimistic and gentlemanly. He was pro-free trade and pro-immigration. He believed in limited government at home and American leadership abroad.

That's what I believed in too — and that's what I thought the Republican Party stood for. That's why, despite my disagreements with social conservatives, I worked as a foreign policy advisor to John McCain in 2008, Mitt Romney in 2012 and Marco Rubio this year. All of those candidates, different as they were, recognizably represented Reagan Republicanism.

For the time being, at least, that Republican Party is dead. It was wounded by the tea party absolutists who insisted on political purity and rejected any compromise. Now it has been killed by Donald Trump.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-boot-republicans-in-exile-20160508-story.html

Nice to hear this expressed by a once-committed Republican.

May 5, 2016

Thousands Of Cheering Americans Packed Into Park For Ted Cruz Concession Speech

HOUSTON—Gathering to celebrate a milestone that many throughout the country had long eagerly awaited, an estimated 150,000 cheering citizens packed into a public park in downtown Houston Wednesday night to hear Ted Cruz confirm his campaign for president of the United States was over, sources reported.

Major roadways were reportedly closed to traffic in anticipation of the event, and a jubilant crowd poured into the streets, swarming Discovery Green in hopes of witnessing the historic moment in person. Sources noted a mood of giddy anticipation spreading through the park as the tightly packed throngs waited expectantly for Cruz to take the stage and announce he was bringing his presidential bid to an end.

“I’ve been dreaming about this moment since the first time I heard Ted Cruz speak, and I just had to be here to see it happen,” said Kevin Chavis, a voter who drove nearly nine hours from Memphis, TN to hear the 45-year-old senator publicly state that while he was proud of all he had accomplished, he did not see a way forward for his campaign at this time. “I’m going to remember this day for the rest of my life!”

“We were all so excited watching the numbers come in and realizing this was finally going to happen,” Chavis added. “Words can’t express how happy I am right now.”

http://www.theonion.com/article/thousands-cheering-americans-packed-park-ted-cruz--52862

May 5, 2016

Senate Officially Mourns Return of Ted Cruz

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The United States Senate declared an official day of mourning on Wednesday to mark the impending return of Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to the legislative body.

Ordering all flags at the U.S. Capitol to half-staff, the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, announced the day of mourning in a somber proclamation. “We mark this day with a deep personal sense of loss that will never completely heal,” he said.

To recognize Cruz’s return, which is expected to be imminent, McConnell said that the Senate would suspend all work for the day. “Ordinarily our members would welcome a day off,” he said. “But not for this.”

In a rare moment of consensus for this bitterly divided chamber, both Republicans and Democrats expressed their sorrow, but the news of Cruz’s return seemed to cut the deepest among Republicans, many of whom now regret their decision not to endorse the Texas senator for President.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/senate-officially-mourns-return-of-ted-cruz

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