At the New York Times:
Protests in Paris seem to be getting officials' attention to end slave auctions of migrants in Libya https://t.co/zg9ZJte1wB
— Dionne Searcey (@dionnesearcey) November 20, 2017
Commentary and analysis on American politics, culture, and national identity, U.S. foreign policy and international relations, and the state of education - from a neoconservative perspective! - Keeping an eye on the communist-left so you don't have to!
Protests in Paris seem to be getting officials' attention to end slave auctions of migrants in Libya https://t.co/zg9ZJte1wB
— Dionne Searcey (@dionnesearcey) November 20, 2017
.@conservmillen on Franken: We see that he's engaging in the very same demeaning behavior that he has been speaking out so adamantly against pic.twitter.com/dHlgmwgknS
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) November 19, 2017
Working for NYC subway pays well. Really well. From NYT: Average compensation for subway worker: $170k. Average for subway manager (2500 of them): $280k. https://t.co/Qv0vaWz1PO pic.twitter.com/UdorS8iE0Z
— Byron York (@ByronYork) November 18, 2017
NEW: The New York subway used to be an international treasure. Now it's the most frequently delayed mass transit system in the world. We investigated what happened and who is to blame. Here's what we found: https://t.co/VgjuBhYgtx … (with @emmagf/@laforgia_)
— Brian M. Rosenthal (@brianmrosenthal) November 18, 2017
The story of hubris and arrogance that drove Robert Mugabe's epic fall. This story is African opera, and there are few true heroes in it--other than the courageous people of Zimbabwe, who insisted on better from their leaders. https://t.co/7TdMENbBPn— Kim Murphy, LA Times (@kimmurphy) November 19, 2017
In a glitzy Johannesburg nightclub earlier this month, a wealthy young playboy poured an entire $660 bottle of Ace of Spades Armand de Brignac Champagne over his diamond-studded watch: It was Bellarmine Chatunga, the youngest son of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.RTWT.
He had bragged about the watch and chunky gold bracelet on an earlier social media post: “$60,000 on the wrist when your daddy run the whole country ya know!!!”
As Zimbabweans struggle to afford food, when many find themselves sleeping outside banks in the hope of withdrawing $10 in cash, the video drew outrage, even among the ruling elite that had propped up the 93-year-old Mugabe for 37 years.
It hadn’t been an isolated incident. Mugabe’s wife, Grace, and her son from a previous marriage, Russell Goreraza, recently imported two Rolls-Royces, and she was caught up in a legal battle over a $1.35-million diamond ring.
Members of the ruling ZANU-PF party were furious that the first lady had seized majority control of a $1-billion government road contract. Then there was the incident involving a model who had been partying with her sons in South Africa: Grace Mugabe left an ugly gash when she hit her with a power cord and, facing charges of assault, she claimed diplomatic immunity and high-tailed it out of the country.
“It angered people. There have always been reports of the high living by these boys, high living by the mother, the father looking aside. They became arrogant and thought ‘No one can do anything to us,’ ” confided one ruling party figure, who wouldn’t be named for fear of reprisals. “There’s palpable anger in the military.”
The alarm over Grace Mugabe was magnified by her escalating power. When she attacked, government ministers fell. She said she could be president. “Give me the job and see if I fail!” she declared recently.
Zimbabwe’s fate came to a head this fall, according to numerous interviews with those close to the political intrigue, when Grace Mugabe turned her sights on former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his close allies among military commanders. At that point, sources say, those with any power to stop what was happening knew they would be finished — unless they toppled her. That meant removing Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe’s slow-motion downfall — planned for months by the military — is a story of his own hubris and arrogance, and his conviction that he was Africa’s last great liberation hero, with no living peers. For decades he chipped away at democracy and crafted the militaristic state that kept him in power, but he forgot that he was there at the military’s whim, not the other way around.
It was grand opera crossed with “The Sopranos,” full of scandal and treacherous turns, entertaining and dangerous. Accusations flew of poisoning, plotting, CIA espionage, military desertion and the theft of $15 billion in diamonds.
As the economy shriveled without foreign investment and a hard currency crisis sent prices of staples soaring 30% in a single week, many in the rank-and-file government felt hopeless at the prospect of going into elections in 2018 led by a president who could hardly stay awake in public meetings.
As Mugabe grew frail, he turned to promoting and protecting Grace, repeatedly warning the generals to stay out of politics, even as armed forces leaders were beginning to talk darkly of intervention.
*****
One of the ironies of the unfolding drama is the extent to which the army now confronting Mugabe has been one of the president’s chief weapons of terror over the years.
The military carried out massacres in Matabeleland in the 1980s on Robert Mugabe’s orders to eliminate opposition. Some 20,000 people were reportedly killed.
The army and war veterans evicted white farmers from their land soon after 2000 and got farms in return. Mugabe used the military to violently crush the opposition in successive elections and in Operation Murambatsvina in 2005, when up to a million people were displaced in opposition areas, their homes bulldozed.
Mugabe, say those who know him best, has always had an instinctive manipulative cunning and an acute understanding of how to wield force to break an opponent. When he saw a threat, he either crushed it or consumed it whole.
But as he aged, he grew more remote, stubborn and out of touch, and was loath to trust or consult his generals.
“He forgot the nature of the state that he himself helped to create, which is a militaristic, securocratic state,” said opposition figure Tendai Biti, a former finance minister. “He forgot that the militaristic state could just dump him when he stopped serving their interests. He could be fired, like anyone.”
Independent analyst Earnest Mudzengi said the closed, oppressive state Mugabe created likely will outlast him.
“He was made by the same guys who now want to do away with him. He made them, and he was made by them. Big people tend to overreach themselves,” he said.
“Basically what they [the generals] want is a return to the status quo,” he added. “People are celebrating, but it’s premature.”
Elizabeth Hurley Sunbathing in See Through Sun Shirt - https://t.co/JcqDnoqtG8 - pic.twitter.com/Nl6WVuWUh7
— Taxi Driver (@TaxiDriverMovie) November 15, 2017
We appreciate the dedication to their craft. https://t.co/dMJaI4Dz7J
— Maxim (@MaximMag) October 26, 2017
Perfect DNA twins! #Dodge #MoparLogic #Mopar #MoparOrNoCar #Challenger #Hellcat #Hemi #Srt8 #DodgeDemon #RaceCar #TransAM pic.twitter.com/AW4ol5uSKM
— Jerry D (@Mopar_Logic) November 3, 2017
Is there any way to be an ethical moviegoer in the post-Weinstein era? @christinebader considers https://t.co/I4s50hq2LR pic.twitter.com/JKGVa8OA8e
— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) November 15, 2017
This essay by Rebecca Traister is very good: https://t.co/rHykoF2G44— Lindsey Adler (@lindseyadler) November 13, 2017
The anger window is open. For decades, centuries, it was closed: Something bad happened to you, you shoved it down, you maybe told someone but probably didn’t get much satisfaction — emotional or practical — from the confession. Maybe you even got blowback. No one really cared, and certainly no one was going to do anything about it.Keep reading.
But for the past six weeks, since reports of one movie producer’s serial predation blew a Harvey-size hole in the news cycle, there is suddenly space, air, for women to talk. To yell, in fact. To make dangerous lists and call reporters and text with their friends about everything that’s been suppressed.
This is not feminism as we’ve known it in its contemporary rebirth — packaged into think pieces or nonprofits or Eve Ensler plays or BeyoncΓ© VMA performances. That stuff has its place and is necessary in its own way. This is different. This is ’70s-style, organic, mass, radical rage, exploding in unpredictable directions. It is loud, thanks to the human megaphone that is social media and the “whisper networks” that are now less about speaking sotto voce than about frantically typed texts and all-caps group chats.
Really powerful white men are losing jobs — that never happens. Women (and some men) are breaking their silence and telling painful and intimate stories to reporters, who in turn are putting them on the front pages of major newspapers.
It’s wild and not entirely fun. Because the stories are awful, yes. And because the conditions that created this perfect storm of female rage — the suffocating ubiquity of harassment and abuse; the election of a multiply accused predator who now controls the courts and the agencies that are supposed to protect us from criminal and discriminatory acts — are so grim.
But it’s also harrowing because it’s confusing; because the wrath may be fierce, but it is not uncomplicated. In the shock of the house lights having been suddenly brought up — of being forced to stare at the ugly scaffolding on which so much of our professional lives has been built — we’ve had scant chance to parse what exactly is inflaming us and who. It’s our tormentors, obviously, but sometimes also our friends, our mentors, ourselves.
Since the reports of Weinstein’s malevolence began to gush, I’ve received somewhere between five and 20 emails every day from women wanting to tell me their experiences: of being groped or leered at or rubbed up against in their workplaces. They tell me about all kinds of men — actors and publishers; judges and philanthropists; store managers and social-justice advocates; my own colleagues, past and present — who’ve hurt them or someone they know. It happened yesterday or two years ago or 20. Few can speak on the record, but they all want to recount how the events changed their lives, shaped their careers; some wish to confess their guilt for not reporting the behavior and thus endangering those who came after them. There are also women who do want to go on the record, women who’ve summoned armies of brave colleagues ready to finally out their repellent bosses. To many of them I must say that their guy isn’t well known enough, that the stories are now so plentiful that offenders must meet a certain bar of notoriety, or power, or villainy, before they’re considered newsworthy.
This is part of what makes me, and them, angry: this replication of hierarchies — hierarchies of harm and privilege — even now. “It’s a ‘seeing the matrix’ moment,” says one woman whom I didn’t know personally before last week, some of whose deepest secrets and sharpest fears and most animating furies I’m now privy to. “It’s an absolutely bizarre thing to go through, and it’s fucking exhausting and horrible, and I hate it. And I’m glad. I’m so glad we’re doing it. And I’m in hell.”
Part of the challenge, for me, has been in my exchanges with men — the friends and colleagues self-aware enough to be uneasy, to know they’re on a list somewhere or imagine that they might be. They text and call, not quite saying why, but leaving no doubt: They once cheated with a colleague; they once made a pass they suspect was wrong; they aren’t sure if they got consent that one time. Are they condemned? What is the nature and severity of their crime? The anxiety of this — how to speak to guys who seek feminist absolution but whom I suspect to be compromised — is real. Some of my friends have no patience for men’s sudden penchant for introspection, but I’m a sucker; I feel for them. When they reach out, my impulse is to comfort. But reason — and a determination not to placate, not now — drives me to be direct, colder than usual: Yes, this is a problem. In fact, it’s your problem. Seek to address it.
Then there are the men who are looking at the world with fresh eyes, who are startled by the unseemly parade of sexual molesters and manipulators — the cascading allegations against Louis C.K., the conservative former judge and Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, and so many more. These men have begun to understand my journalistic beat for the first time: They didn’t know it was this bad. They didn’t see how systemic, architectural, it was — how they were part of it even if they didn’t paw anyone, didn’t rape anyone. This faction includes my husband, a criminal-defense attorney who’s definitely not ignorant of the pervasiveness of sexual assault, yet reads the endless stream of reports with furrowed brow. “Who does this?” he asks. “Who does this?” Then one night, with genuine feeling: “How can you even want to have sex with me at this point?”
At elementary-school drop-off, a friend who’s a theater director tells me he’s been sorting through his own memories. “There’s this one woman, and I did ask her out, but only after she’d auditioned and hadn’t gotten the part. I wrote her, like I write to all actors who I don’t cast, to explain why. And then in that email, I asked if she wanted to go to a Holocaust puppet show with me. She said yes, and we went out a few times. This was probably 2004. Do you think that was bad?”
I laugh, put my hand on his arm, and tell him no, it doesn’t sound bad, but in fact I don’t know: Maybe it was bad or maybe it was human and they really liked each other. We are turning over incidents that don’t fall into the categories that have been established — a spectrum that runs from Weinstein-level brutality to non-rapey but creepy massages to lurid-but-risible pickup lines — and wondering whether or how any of it relates to actual desire for another person.
Still, I’m half-frustrated by men who can’t differentiate between harmless flirtation and harassment, because I believe that most women can. The other half of me is glad that these guys are doing this accounting, reflecting on the instances in which they wielded power. Maybe some didn’t realize at the time that they were putting the objects of their attention at a disadvantage, but I must acknowledge that some, even my friends, surely did....
*****
When I thought about my #metoo moments, I first recalled the restaurant manager who instructed me to keep my blouse unbuttoned as I served pizzas with fried eggs on top, about the manager at Bruegger’s Bagels who’d rub his dick against my ass as he passed me setting out the cream cheeses in the morning. I’ve never had a job in which there wasn’t a resident harasser, but in my post-college life, I believed I’d stayed out of his crosshairs.
Perhaps, in the story I’ve told myself, it was because I was never wowed by powerful men, sensing on some visceral level that they were mostly full of shit. I gravitated toward female mentors instead. But even given my wariness of Important Men, as a young woman I could never truly believe that members of the opposite sex could be as cartoonishly grotesque as they sometimes were.
I once heard that a choking person reflexively leaves the room, embarrassed for others to see her gasping for breath. I have no idea if that’s true, but it’s how I’ve dealt with harassment. One time on the subway, the man next to me wound his hand under my thigh and between my legs, as I sat there debating whether or not to stand up or scream because I didn’t want to embarrass him on a full train. That’s why, when an important writer took me to coffee, offering to help me find a new job, and asked if I’d ever fantasized about fucking a married man, I simply laughed maniacally, as if he’d just made a joke about a 65-year-old man who suggests to a 25-year-old woman that she fuck him during a professional coffee...
Planning to read every single word of @radhikajones’ Vanity Fair. https://t.co/twGaDiVJWn
— jodikantor (@jodikantor) November 11, 2017
So this is the way our brilliant colleague who just shot the moon gets written about. https://t.co/WMq3NdgLt6
— jodikantor (@jodikantor) November 17, 2017
Welcome to CondΓ© Nast!Still more at that Twitter link above.
Radhika Jones is learning the ways of One World Trade. Having been named the new editor in chief of Vanity Fair only this week, Jones, 44, headed to downtown Manhattan to get acquainted with the magazine’s staff.
But while Jones may have been editorial director of the books department at The New York Times, an alum of Time magazine and The Paris Review, a graduate of Harvard and holds a doctorate in English and comparative literature from Columbia — none of this impressed CondΓ© Nast-ers. They, instead, were aghast over her sense of style.
WWD observed one of the company’s fashion editors in candid conversation with industry peers remarking not on the context of Jones’ first visit, but rather the outfit she wore.
“She seemed nervous. The outfit was interesting,” the staffer noted. According to the fashion editor — who omitted Jones’ admirable literary accomplishments from conversation — the incoming editor wore a navy shiftdress strewn with zippers, a garment deemed as “iffy” at best.
Jones’ choice of hosiery proved most offensive, according to the editor. For the occasion, Jones had chosen a pair of tights — not in a neutral black or gray as is common in the halls of Vogue — but rather a pair covered with illustrated, cartoon foxes.
The animal caricatures may have also been too much for Vogue editor in chief and CondΓ© Nast artistic director Anna Wintour, who is said to have fixed one of her trademark stoic glares upon Jones’ hosiery throughout the duration of the staff meeting.
Unnerved by Jones’ choice of legwear — and Wintour’s reaction — the fashion editor proclaimed to her friends: “I’m not sure if I should include a new pair of tights in her welcome basket.” Jones is said to begin her new role on Dec. 11.
National Book Awards Fiction Prize: Jesmyn Ward's 'Sing, Unburied, Sing'https://t.co/U33zExNCbv
— Michiko Kakutani (@michikokakutani) November 16, 2017
Pumped Up KicksDefinitely eclectic. A nice change of pace perhaps. Or, moving on.
Foster The People
9:43 AM
Jimi Hendrix
Purple Haze
9:40 AM
Incubus
Pardon Me
9:43 AM
Real Life
Send Me An Angel
9:25 AM
Pat Benatar
Love Is A Battlefield
9:21 AM
Vance Joy
Riptide
9:17 AM
Fleetwood Mac
You Make Lovin' Fun
9:14 AM
Billy Idol
White Wedding
9:10 AM
Stone Temple Pilots
Interstate Love Song
9:07 AM
O.M.D
If You Leave
8:54 AM
Aerosmith
Love In An Elevator
8:51 AM
Outkast
Hey Ya!
8:47 AM
X Ambassadors
Renegades
8:39 AM
Queen
Fat Bottomed Girls
8:35 AM
David Bowie
Modern Love
8:23 AM
Michael Jackson
Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough
8:19 AM
Foo Fighters
My Hero
8:15 AM
Dead Or Alive
You Spin Me Round
8:12 AM
The Black Keys
Lonely Boy
8:08 AM
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
The Waiting
8:05 AM
TWISTED: Self-proclaimed 'nasty woman' crawls INTO THE GUTTER to victim-shame Leeann Tweeden https://t.co/MELn9CgXmQ
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) November 17, 2017
Here's Franken's accuser. A far cry from the little girls Moore groped (and why haven't you spoken out about that you horrible hypocrite) or the respectable women who've accused YOU. pic.twitter.com/Id76FjN4LE
— Vivian Copeland (@Belairviv) November 17, 2017
Leeann Tweeden as she appeared on TV to accuse @alfranken and her nude centerfold from Playboy. Quite the transformation. I don't care what party a person belongs to. Perverts need to be held accountable but false accusations aren't cool, either. pic.twitter.com/WfZXcOl1bP
— Vivian Copeland (@Belairviv) November 17, 2017
Talk about a tale of two scandals! Check out our updated graph on the Roy Moore coverage vs. the Sen. Menendez corruption trial. Full Study: https://t.co/vSVz2pqDKU pic.twitter.com/mXWVTEH0Vf
— MediaResearchCenter (@theMRC) November 14, 2017
Thank you @thetorontosun for paying attention to #SleazeBobMenendez ! https://t.co/RaELyFwaRJ
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) November 16, 2017
From @michellemalkin: Silence on Sleaze-Bob Menendez. https://t.co/aKwfuBG5Eu pic.twitter.com/eUy26EwU2y
— Toronto Sun (@TheTorontoSun) November 16, 2017
.@SenateMajLdr, you do require that all those accused step down or be expelled including @SenatorMenendez who likes them "young and inexperienced".. https://t.co/EhnqOTYwDL
— Crusader MAGA πΊπΈ (@MSPOA) November 16, 2017
Dear Creepy Liberal Guys: Virtue-signaling, by demanding draconian punishment for sexual harassment, won't help you, once you are accused yourself. Wake the fuck up. Feminists hate you, too.
— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) November 17, 2017
KABC anchor: Senator Al Franken Kissed and Groped Me Without My Consent, And There’s Nothing Funny About It https://t.co/lG4A1ZTUhC pic.twitter.com/EYIzr9ok2s
— Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) November 16, 2017
Franken Should Go via @NYTimes https://t.co/usa9edBGXD
— Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn) November 17, 2017
'As I write this, only one woman has alleged that Franken assaulted her.' Guys, (if you are a Democrat) you get a pass for assaulting 'only one woman.' More than that though, is too much. https://t.co/hyQMVYL7DG
— Kirsten Powers (@KirstenPowers) November 17, 2017
Every coup I covered in Africa in the 7 yrs I was there started with soldiers seizing state TV. https://t.co/YetvXnRDaP— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) November 15, 2017
“We just changed the head of the train,” says official in Zimbabwe, where president is under house arrest post-coup https://t.co/PP8sQobU1l— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) November 15, 2017
We all have one friend who's already this excited for Christmas! πππ (Listen with your π on!) via @DailyMail pic.twitter.com/vXtqoETq9F
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) November 5, 2017
— πϦαϦααΟ΄αlα΄π (@babeworld247) October 31, 2017
New @DerSpiegel cover: Washington, one year after pic.twitter.com/s2BANHmD5E
— Mathieu von Rohr (@mathieuvonrohr) November 3, 2017
Family in NC received this letter from Blue Cross. Next time someone says #Obamacare is helping the middle class, tell them they’re lying. pic.twitter.com/AoJhOusNdm
— Alex Vargo (@alexandervargo) November 7, 2017
πΈ @sammybraddy πΈhttps://t.co/kpXNSh8M8K pic.twitter.com/eQrayjlBdK
— SelfShotElite (@SelfShotElite) October 28, 2017
.@Instapundit Not the best photo, but it's my new Dodge Challenger, at 6:00am this morning while stopping for coffee at 7/11, ahead of my Tuesday commute to Long Beach. #YOLO @PatriarchTree pic.twitter.com/egRai0qsWB
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) November 15, 2017
I've linked to @washingtonpost over 10,000X in 25 years of doing DRUDGEREPORT. I currently give them 37% of their referral traffic, according to https://t.co/ryZX1supbD. It's a brutal business. Not even a thank you. Instead: YOU'RE A RUSSIAN OPERATIVE! https://t.co/pFjPYxkzqa
— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) November 13, 2017
Cruz's full statement: "These allegations are deeply concerning. We've now seen multiple, serious allegations of criminal conduct. One of two things should happen. If these allegations are true, Judge Moore should drop out now, today. The people of Alabama deserve to have the option of voting for a strong conservative who has not committed criminal conduct. Or two, if these allegations are not true, then Judge Moore needs to come forward with strong, persuasive rebuttal demonstrating that they are untrue. As it stands tonight, the people of Alabama are faced with an untenable choice. And so it is my hope one of those two options will occur very, very quickly."
"I am not able to urge the people of Alabama to support his candidacy so long as these allegations remain unrefuted. Both last week and this week, there are serious charges of criminal conduct that, if true, not only make him unfit to serve in the Senate but merit criminal prosecution. Judge Moore, like any American, is entitled to present a defense, he's entitled to put forth facts demonstrating the charges are not true. But as it stands I can't urge the people of Alabama to support a campaign in the face of these charges without serious persuasive demonstration that the charges are not true."
George Takei accused of sexually assaulting former model in 1981 https://t.co/ZiL5AmMPAP pic.twitter.com/PBth567KIu
— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) November 11, 2017
Is that the technique that you used? pic.twitter.com/gCzKMuUasY
— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) November 11, 2017
Which should I️ post on IG? Right or left? ❤️ pic.twitter.com/b7XMLrLbEQ
— Devin Brugman (@devinbrugman) November 9, 2017
Natasha Oakley Nipples in Wet See Through White Dress - https://t.co/L1zrjjFPOz - pic.twitter.com/usAnfM18bQ
— Taxi Driver (@TaxiDriverMovie) November 10, 2017
Outside #Tsla showroom in Walnut Creek, CA. Looks like alot of people are upset, even customers#model3delayed #whyelon pic.twitter.com/hDjwx2uS18
— Charlie (@TSLAEE) October 15, 2017
Firing hundreds of workers all at once is rare, at least in the auto industry. But Tesla Inc. does things differently.More.
Word leaked out Friday that the electric car, battery and solar roof company had bulk-fired several hundred employees.
The San Jose Mercury News, which broke that story, said Tesla made clear that workers were dismissed for subpar performance, not laid off. Layoffs tend be blamed on business conditions or overstuffed payrolls, not on job performance.
It's unclear how many of the company's 33,000 workers were cut. Tesla won't pinpoint the number. News reports put it between 400 and 1,200.
A factory employee told the Mercury News that about 60 fellow workers were told to head for the exit. The company said, however, that most of those dismissed work in administrative and sales jobs.
Some workers at the Tesla plant have been trying to organize a union.
"I had great performance reviews. I don't believe I was fired for performance," said Daniel Grant, who told The Times he's worked at Fremont factory since 2014 as a production assistant. He suspects he was fired because he raised safety issues and supported a union drive.
"The company didn't show me or others our most recent reviews when they fired us," Grant said. "I would like the company to release our full reviews, including peer reviews, to us."
An assembly line worker, Mike Williams, said his firing last week could not be the result of a bad performance review because, in his last review in 2016, "my supervisor had nothing but good things to say about me."
Other fired workers were treated the same, he said. "Our reviews were due in June. In June they told us they would be in August. In September they told us October."
Williams said he received a disciplinary write-up about a year ago for playing music that contained profanity but stopped when he was ordered to.
He was fired, he believes, because he spoke up about safety issues at employee meetings and because he wore a union shirt on what's become Union Shirt Friday for some workers at the Telsa plant. "I had a union sticker on my water bottle, too," he said.
Tesla declined to discuss the claims of either fired worker...
Cadillac's CTS-V is a mild-mannered monster, a Clark Kent car that transforms instantly from milquetoast sedan to high-horsepower track master.Keep reading.
Moderately styled inside and out but massive under the hood, the CTS-V represents Cadillac's ambition to build the perfect all-around performance car — or what the company calls "the ultimate sports sedan."
"This is a car for someone who wants a car that can do everything," said Tony Roma, chief engineer for Cadillac's ATS, CTS and V-series family. "They don't want a fleet full of sports cars and luxury cars."
Cadillac has stuffed the CTS-V with sports car and luxury car appointments.
The four-door, five-passenger sedan is propelled by a 6.2-liter supercharged V-8 engine, jointly designed by engineers from Cadillac and its GM sibling Corvette, that makes 640 horsepower and 630 pound-feet of torque.
The CTS-V engineers said they were trying for the throttle response of a Ferrari 458 and an engine growl that "barked with a special signature," helped in part by the quad exhaust system.
Check off that box. The rear-wheel-drive CTS-V is a rubber-burning, tail-wagging hooligan car.
The eight-speed transmission comes with a track mode and a launch control function. (The daily driver modes are Touring and Sport.) The 19-inch wheels are clad in performance tires. A front splitter and rear spoiler come standard.
Together, those elements allow this refined rocket to jet from zero to 60 miles per hour in a claimed 3.7 seconds, on the way to a top speed of 200 miles per hour.
Brembo brake calipers bring the vehicle back to earth. A magnetic ride control suspension system keeps it stable. A head-up display keeps the driver's eyes on the road, and the magnesium paddle shifters allow for a pleasantly engaged drive experience.
Of course, not all buyers will be ready to take advantage of the power, speed and handling of the CTS-V. So, Cadillac has thoughtfully included in the price of the car two days of "performance training" at a race track...
Lisa Weber pushed her red-rimmed glasses higher on the bridge of her nose Thursday morning as she pondered how best to move her belongings off the dirt trail she has called home for months.More.
Her blue eyes seemed to show a glimmer of hope in contrast with her doleful expression. A friend living in a tent farther down the trail passed by and waved.
Like other parts of California, Orange County has seen an uptick in its homeless population in recent years. Scores of homeless people who have set up camp in the past year along the quiet trail overlooking the Santa Ana River in Fountain Valley feel they’ve found safety and camaraderie there.
However, beginning Friday, Orange County sheriff’s deputies began evictions at the various homeless camps along the river as part of a crackdown sparked by complaints from nearby residents.
The situation underscores the tension created by the homeless surge in this suburban county, where officials removed bus benches near Disneyland after complaints from merchants and where a massive encampment in the Santa Ana Civic Center has sparked debate.
Many homeless people are now scrambling to figure out where to go next.
The county plans to permanently close the west side of the Santa Ana River flood-control channel between 17th Street in Santa Ana and Adams Avenue in Huntington Beach as it prepares to start maintenance of flood-control district property along the trail, officials have said. That area includes the Fountain Valley encampment.
“I’m on my way out the gate,” Weber said as she looked toward the fence at the entrance to the river trail on Edinger Avenue. “I’m not scared because I have a plan, but I know other people are worried about where to go.”
Weber said she likely will begin sleeping in her Oldsmobile, which she recently bought for $100. The car runs, she said, but not very well. She’s afraid it eventually will be impounded because of child support she owes from decades ago.
But right now, she figures it’s her best option...
As Thomas E. Ricks observes, some books look at war through a telescope, others through a microscope https://t.co/j7moEUyIA9— New York Times Books (@nytimesbooks) November 9, 2017
For humanity in general, the low point of the 20th century was World War II, which Victor Davis Hanson accurately portrays as an unprecedented global bloodbath, killing about three percent of all human beings who were alive in 1939. Hanson, the Martin and Illie Anderson senior fellow in classics and military history at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, has a mixed reputation among military historians — essentially, it is that the further he wanders from his academic specialty of ancient Greek history, the less reliable he becomes. (For the details, see John A. Lynn’s “Battle: A History of Combat and Culture.”)More.
So I picked up Hanson’s THE SECOND WORLD WARS: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won (Basic Books, $40) with some trepidation. To my surprise, I found it lively and provocative, full of the kind of novel perceptions that can make a familiar subject interesting again. It wouldn’t make a good introduction to World War II, but it may win readers already familiar with the conflict’s events.
Much of the book is written at the level of the strategic overview. Hanson notes, for instance, that both Germany and Japan probably would have won the war had they stopped early in 1941 and consolidated their gains in Europe and the western Pacific, without Germany attacking Russia and Japan pulling the United States into the conflict.
One of Hanson’s running themes is that the Allied victors mainly killed German and Japanese soldiers, while the Axis focused more on killing civilians. Over all, in its accounting of the global carnage, this book amounts to an ode in praise of deterrence and against appeasement and isolationism.
Hanson is most original and enjoyable when he uses his professional background in ancient history to illuminate 20th-century war...
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