Zorro
Zorro's JournalChristian theme park Holy Land Experience will lay off 118 workers
The Holy Land Experience, an Orlando Christian attraction best known for its daily crucifixion performances and a campus that replicates ancient Jerusalem and a Roman coliseum, will lay off most of its employees.
On Friday, the attraction filed a layoff notice with city and state officials that it plans to eliminate 118 jobs, representing most of its employees, as of April 18. Those losing their jobs include 43 actors and musicians, plus dancers, media specialists, prop handlers, food service workers and support staff.
The Holy Land Experience “has established a severance package plan to assist employees during this difficult time,” the notice said.
For nearly 20 years, the land was set up as living museum experience that included live re-enactments of Biblical scenes. It also housed the Scriptorium, a center with one of the world’s largest collections of antique Bibles and Judeo-Christian artifacts.
https://www.tampabay.com/arts-entertainment/2020/02/18/christian-theme-park-holy-land-experience-will-lay-off-118-workers/
Looks like those daily crucifixion performances just weren't bringin' 'em in the way they used to back in the good ol' days.
BLOOMBERG ENRAGES TRUMP BY BUYING GREENLAND
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—In an apparently successful attempt to get under the skin of Donald Trump, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has purchased Greenland from Denmark.
In an official statement released on Tuesday, the Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, would not disclose the price that Bloomberg paid for Greenland but indicated that it was an “all-cash offer.” “Mr. Bloomberg has a lot of money,” Frederiksen added.
News of Bloomberg’s purchase of Greenland reportedly infuriated Trump, who immediately ordered his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to make an offer to buy the Faroe Islands from Denmark. Within minutes, however, Denmark rebuffed Kushner’s bid. “We do not believe Donald Trump is capable of running the Faroe Islands,” Frederiksen said.
As for Bloomberg, his campaign released a brief statement about the historic purchase of the 836,330-square-mile landmass, saying only, “Mike gets it done.”
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/bloomberg-enrages-trump-by-buying-greenland
One of the most important U.S. alliances in Asia has been endangered
One of the oldest and most important U.S. alliances in Asia, with the Philippines, has been endangered, along with the U.S. capacity to check China’s attempt to dominate the South China Sea, thanks to a decision by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte that could fairly be described as Trumpian.
Against the advice of his top aides, and on the basis of what amounts to a personal grievance, Mr. Duterte last week ordered the termination of a crucial military agreement with the United States. The 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) allows U.S. troops to smoothly rotate forces in and out of the country, which in turn has made possible the some 300 joint exercises the two countries’ armed forces conduct annually. Those include joint patrols in parts of the South China Sea where Chinese ships have made incursions in Philippine territorial waters.
If the agreement is indeed discarded after a required 180-day delay, the two other pacts that form the foundation of the alliance between Washington and its former colony — the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty and the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement — could be neutered. The U.S. commitment to defend the archipelago from external aggression would become a dead letter, handing China a strategic windfall.
Mr. Duterte, a populist with little respect for the rule of law, has been drifting for several years toward a break with the United States and an embrace of China. But what triggered his action was not a strategic calculation of Philippine interests but rage over the State Department’s cancellation of the U.S. visa of one of his unsavory cronies, Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/one-of-the-most-important-us-alliances-in-asia-has-been-endangered/2020/02/17/a7da5d8a-4f5a-11ea-9b5c-eac5b16dafaa_story.html
Exclusive Details on Michael Bloomberg's Plan to Rein in Wall Street
Exclusive: We’re the first to report Mike Bloomberg’s proposals for changing how the financial industry is regulated, which he is planning to announce this morning. The plan features ideas that wouldn’t be out of place for Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Among Mr. Bloomberg’s proposals:
• A financial transactions tax of 0.1 percent
• Toughening banking regulations like the Volcker Rule and forcing lenders to hold more in reserve against losses
• Having the Justice Department create a dedicated team to fight corporate crime and “encouraging prosecutors to pursue individuals, not only corporations, for infractions”
• Merging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
• Strengthening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and “expanding its jurisdiction to include auto lending and credit reporting”
• Automatically enrolling borrowers of student loans into income-based repayment schemes and capping payments
Many of the proposals are a reversal from Mr. Bloomberg’s previous stance on financial regulation. In 2011, he complained that Democrats were taking “punitive actions” against Wall Street that could harm the economy. And comments he made in 2015 linking the financial crisis to the end of banks’ so-called redlining practices have drawn fierce criticism in recent days.
It’s a sign of how far left Democratic presidential hopefuls feel they need to go to succeed in this year’s primary — even with a multibillion-dollar war chest. Mr. Bloomberg’s financial transactions tax plan is remarkably similar to one that has the backing of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/business/dealbook/bloomberg-regulation-wall-street.html
What it really means when Trump, DeVos and allies refer to public schools as 'government schools'
If you were listening to President Trump deliver his State of the Union address this month, you heard him refer to public schools as “government schools.” It was not the first time, and you can expect to hear it with increasing frequency from him, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and their allies as they push to increase programs that use public money for private and religious school education.
Trump and DeVos use the term most often with the adjective “failing” attached as a broad denunciation of the public school system, which advocates see as the nation’s most important civic institution. The president and education secretary say their goal is to provide families with the most education options even as they disparage the one that enrolls most of America’s schoolchildren and continues to get high marks from the public.
It isn’t entirely clear where “government schools” originated in this context. This term showed up in a 1929 encyclical from Pope Pius XI on Christian education in which he calls “unjust and unlawful” any “monopoly, educational or scholastic, which, physically or morally, forces families to make use of government schools, contrary to the dictates of their Christian conscience, or contrary even to their legitimate preferences.”
In 1954, a white Southern segregationist who opposed school desegregation used it, as did free-market economist Milton Friedman in 1955. In the mid-2010s, conservatives in Kansas invoked the term during a battle over public education funding. Now, Trump and DeVos use it as they push their No. 1 education priority: Getting Congress to pass a $5 billion tax credit program that would allow use of public money for children to attend private and religious school.
“Government schools” is invoked mostly by people who are suspicious of public institutions and see government as a problem rather than a solution. That sentiment was perhaps best encapsulated by President Ronald Reagan in an Aug. 12, 1986, speech in which he famously said, “'The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.'”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/02/18/what-it-really-means-when-trump-devos-their-allies-refer-public-schools-government-schools/
Walmart employees are preparing for job cuts as retailer rolls out its 'Great Workplace' program
Walmart last spring said it was testing a sweeping overhaul that would make its stores better run and create more opportunities for employees to “do meaningful work.” The “Great Workplace” initiative, the retailer said, would be “the key to winning the future of retail.”
But nearly a year in, workers say the effort, which will reach 1,100 of the company’s 5,300 U.S. stores by year end, has led to widespread confusion.
Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, is telling employees that it is doing away with certain positions — including hourly supervisors and assistant store managers — and replacing them with a smaller set of roles that carry more responsibilities, often for the same pay, according to interviews with current and former store employees, and internal documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Workers say they are being asked to apply, interview and test for new positions, essentially pitting them against their colleagues for a shrinking number of jobs. Some are terrified they will lose their job and insurance.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/walmart-employees-say-theyre-preparing-for-job-cuts-as-retailer-rolls-out-its-great-workplaces-program/2020/02/14/d8f4ea1c-4f63-11ea-9b5c-eac5b16dafaa_story.html
Republicans owe Vindman a public apology
In the large category of things that justice demands but will never come to pass: The elected Republicans who voted against the impeachment and removal of President Trump owe Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman a public apology.
The National Security Council staffer, Iraq War veteran and Purple Heart recipient obeyed a lawful subpoena, gave truthful testimony and was rewarded by his commander in chief with unceremonious removal from the White House and vicious criticism designed to destroy his life and career. A pathetic smattering of Trump’s congressional enablers criticized this calumny. But most winced, fidgeted and said nothing. All of them knew that Trump unremoved would be Trump unbound. And that utter predictability makes them personally responsible for all that has followed.
Cowardice on this scale is not a single act; it includes all the guilty silences that complicity continues to require. And the consequences of Republican cravenness are still unfolding.
Vindman’s treatment was part of the Great Purge of 2020, in which Trump has fired, attacked or vilified anyone with the audacity to expose or oppose his corruption. The president has checked off his enemies list one by one: Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman (dismissed for his last name), European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the four federal prosecutors who quit the Roger Stone case and past leaders of the FBI.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-republicans-have-failed-vindman/2020/02/17/50b2825a-51a1-11ea-9e47-59804be1dcfb_story.html
Obama pushes Trump's button on economy. Trump responds: 'Did you hear the latest con job?'
Source: Washington Post
On Monday, former president Barack Obama commemorated the 11th anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the $800 billion stimulus, with a tweet, boasting that it “[paved] the way for more than a decade of economic growth and the longest streak of job creation in American history.”
Obama’s tweet did not sit well with President Trump, who brags constantly about being responsible for the “greatest economy in the history of our country” and has touted economic growth as a main talking point in his bid for reelection.
Trump fired off back-to-back tweets Monday evening, writing, “Did you hear the latest con job? President Obama is now trying to take credit for the Economic Boom taking place under the Trump Administration.”
Trump went on to attack Obama for having the “WEAKEST recovery since the Great Depression,” adding, “NOW best jobs numbers ever.” The president concluded his missives with an all-caps declaration: “THE BEST IS YET TO COME. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/02/18/trump-obama-economy/
Daytona 500
Awful ending to this race.
Ryan Newman was leading on the last lap, got clipped and went airborne, car flipped and caught fire. No word yet on his condition, but it looked terrible.
Elon Musk's SpaceX is about to land its 50th Falcon 9 booster
The effort to return booster rockets to Earth had been tried and had failed several times; it turns out landing a rocket back on Earth safely is pretty difficult. So Elon Musk was not deluding himself in 2014 when he calculated the odds that his company, SpaceX, would eventually get it right: “not great — perhaps 50 percent, at best.”
And then they did. Just before Christmas 2015, a Falcon 9 booster became the first rocket to deliver a payload to orbit, reorient itself, fly back through the atmosphere, find its landing spot — in that case, a pad on the coast at Cape Canaveral — and touch down softly.
Since then, SpaceX has done it again and again, so many times that Musk has achieved his goal, normalizing a feat once thought impossible. Now SpaceX is on the verge of its 50th landing in a launch now scheduled for Sunday, a milestone celebrated within the company and the larger space industry, which has come to agree that ditching rocket boosters into the ocean — the practice for decades — is an expensive waste of a perfectly good vehicle.
“We got there much faster than I ever thought we would,” said Garrett Reisman, a former NASA astronaut who worked at SpaceX for years and now serves as a consultant. “Just over four years — that is really remarkable, the fact that it has become routine in four years. It’s still not routine to me. I get excited. I still get goose bumps.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/14/elon-musks-spacex-is-about-land-its-50th-falcon-9-booster/
It looks like they didn't recover the first stage this morning, but I'm sure they'll have the data to improve future performance; I suspect something may have gone wrong on the initial re-entry burn when they lost real-time video. Nevertheless, 49 successful recaptures of the first stage is impressive. Waiting to hear if they recovered the fairings.
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