Thursday, October 14, 2021
Tesla Announces Relocating Headquarters from ‘Fascist’ Democrat-Run California to Red TX
Elon Musk announced Friday that Tesla’s headquarters will move from California to Texas, where much of the electric car maker’s production has already been relocated.
Musk made waves when lashed out at lawmakers in the Golden State in April 2020. The Tesla CEO called them “fascist” over state and local COVID regulations. The company later relocated production to Austin, Texas. Musk himself also made the move to the Lone Star State after years of calling California home.
KXAN-TV reported that during an earnings call on Thursday with Tesla investors, the billionaire announced the company will now be headquartered in Austin, and no longer in Palo Alto, California. He clarified that a facility in Fremont, California, will remain open, and would actually increase production.
“I’m excited to announce we are moving our headquarters to Austin, Texas,” he said. “Our factory is five minutes from the airport, 15 minutes from downtown, and we’re going to create an ecological paradise, because we’re right on the Colorado River. It’s going to be great.”
“To be clear, we will be continuing to expand our activities in California,” Musk said on the call, CNBC reported. “Our intention is to increase output from Fremont and Giga Nevada by 50 percent. If you go to our Fremont factory it’s jammed.”
Speaking to CNBC, business attorney Domenic Romano said the move makes a lot of sense.
“From a legal perspective, there’s less of a regulatory burden in Texas,” he said. “It’s a more business- and employer-friendly state in many ways. You have to jump through far fewer hoops in Texas or Florida as an employer than you do in California in terms of reporting requirements and more.”
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How can it be TABOO to advise girls to plan to be mothers?
By DOROTHY BYRNE
Over more than 30 years as a television journalist, I have worked on countless controversial programmes; secretly filming MPs, going undercover to expose extremist preachers, examining Tony Blair’s finances.
But this week I caused controversy by saying something which many might imagine was not in the least contentious: that girls and young women should be given more information about fertility.
In my new role as President of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, I wanted to remind female students not to lose sight of their fertility.
This has long been a taboo subject for some — but the vitriolic response on Twitter and in the media took me by surprise. Some called my comments reductive, saying that educated women should not be browbeaten about fertility. Others said there are more important issues to tackle first — maternity rights and childcare, for example. But I stand by my point that it’s perfectly reasonable to emphasise biological truths.
It’s my own experiences of very nearly missing out on motherhood that drive me to speak out. It was only when a relationship ended when I was 42 that I realised I’d forgotten to have a baby.
When I started to look into my fertility, I was surprised to discover that if I had embarked on the journey two or three years earlier, I would have had around double the statistical chances of falling pregnant.
Many young women may think they can fall back on IVF, but it’s not the silver bullet everyone seems to think it is — age very much determines success rate.
In 2018, according to the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority (HFEA), birth rates for patients younger than 35 were 31 per cent per embryo transferred, compared to below 5 per cent for patients aged 43 and above when using their own eggs.
I don’t believe that children are essential for happiness and quite a number of my friends never wanted children. But I have several friends who always just assumed they would have children one day and never did for a variety of reasons. Some are fine about it and some are sad. They succeeded in their jobs but feel they missed the joys of parenthood and, as we get older, miss having grandchildren.
All of us older adults should be encouraging young people we know to think not just about educational and professional success, but also about what they feel will make them happy in life. I wish someone had done that for me.
I moved blithely through my 30s and through an exciting career, travelling widely on the investigative ITV programme World In Action, where I became a producer, before being appointed editor of ITV’s The Big Story. I had relationships, but nothing that lasted. My job was all-consuming.
By the time I realised I wanted a child, I had to do it on my own, using a sperm donor. If it didn’t work, maybe I would adopt or foster, but I knew if I didn’t try I would always regret it.
I found out that I could have gone to my GP much earlier to have a basic test of my fertility, and that more complex tests were also available. Luckily, my fertility was pretty good for my age but it took two years to become pregnant. I didn’t have to use IVF but I needed expensive drugs to boost my fertility.
Aged nearly 45, I had a baby. And I was lucky — really lucky. By her mid-40s, a woman’s chances of falling pregnant stand at a mere 3 per cent to 4 per cent. I tried briefly to have another child but it was clear I had left it too late.
Of course, most people know the basic fact that fertility deteriorates with age and, indeed, some young women say they get annoyed by being bombarded with ominous warnings about their biological clocks.
However, there is a big difference between general understanding and specific knowledge on which a person can act. Many don’t realise there is a significant difference between trying to fall pregnant at 38 to 40 and between 41 and 42.
I would never urge anyone to have a test or even suggest it to them. What each person does is up to them and I am not going to start setting myself up as an expert in reproductive health. But giving people the opportunity to have the facts is important.
Young women have told me confidentially that they don’t dare to let their line managers know they are even thinking of having a baby because they are worried they will not be promoted. This is scandalous. Ultimately, society has to change. Employers have to become less prejudiced towards those who leave the workplace for a time to have children and towards those who want to return part-time or work flexibly.
When I was considering having a baby, I was a freelance editor of a television current affairs programme. The amount of statutory maternity pay I would have received would not have covered my mortgage. I worked out that the only way I could have a baby was to go back to work after six weeks.
I was lucky that the birth of my daughter was easy, so I was fit and well enough to do so. I could afford a live-in nanny. So, while leaving my daughter each day was a terrible wrench, I could manage physically and financially.
Some days, I missed her so overwhelmingly that I’d ask the nanny to bring her to the office. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
That said, plenty of women I knew in television with less well-paid positions gave up on motherhood entirely. Today, about 10 per cent of British people say they are remaining childless because of the costs and lifestyle changes which would be involved in parenthood.
There is concern that the birth rate has fallen from 1.92 children per woman in England and Wales in 2011 to 1.53 this year. This is not the Soviet Union or communist Romania; it is not the personal duty of young women to populate our islands.
But if the Government wants to encourage women to have children, it needs to do a lot more to help them. It’s wrong that some women feel they have to choose between having children and a successful career. But it’s also important they understand the limits of their biology before they even reach that point.
I would hate for my daughter — or indeed any young woman — to miss out on motherhood through lack of information.
That is why I have always talked to her about fertility. Now 24, she works in television production and has a boyfriend. She is clear she doesn’t want to follow my example and wait until she’s 45 to have a baby.
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Now moccasins are racist! Minnetonka APOLOGIZES for making the traditional shoes for 75 YEARS because it is NOT a Native American-owned business
A Minnesota-based shoe firm has apologized for making moccasins because it is not owned by Native Americans, who pioneered the design of the traditional footwear.
Popular brand Minnetonka issued a statement Monday admitting the company had made money through 'appropriation' of Native American culture over the last 75 years.
'We deeply and meaningfully apologize for having benefited from selling Native-inspired designs without directly honoring Native culture or communities,' the statement read.
Minnetonka, which has been making its popular shoes since 1964, timed the apology to coincide with Indigenous Peoples' Day.
CEO David Miller said was issuing the statement to acknowledge that the company is not a Native-owned business, and said he promised to do more to support Indigenous communities in the future.
Miller explained that the company first publicly conceded its use of Native culture in the summer of 2020, and added that he now wanted to make a public apology.
Cultural appropriation is the term used to describe when person or group adopts visual elements of an often-persecuted ethnicity's identity without acknowledging it. It has become a hot-button issue in recent years.
White people wearing traditionally-black hairstyles like cornrow braids, or people dressing in Native American headgear, or as Mexican Dia De Muertos figures for Halloween have all sparked anger.
Critics of that outrage say people accused of cultural appropriation are often 'appreciating' other aspects of a culture, and not mocking it.
'We first publicly acknowledged our appropriation in the summer of 2020, but it was long overdue,' Miller said in his apology. 'While Minnetonka has evolved beyond our original product set, moccasins remain a core part of our brand, and in 2020 we began to step up our commitment to the culture to which we owe so much. 'We are dedicated to honoring our commitment to Native American communities with our actions going forward.'
Minnetoka announced that it had also hired 'reconciliation advisor' Adrienne Benjamin to help with its outreach to Native American people. She is a Minnesotan, Anishinaabe, and a member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe - a federally-recognized American Indian tribe based in east-central Minnesota.
The shoe firm went on to say that it is boosting its 'diversity, equity and inclusion' efforts in a bid to ensure minority groups are better represented.
And it says it plans to partner with Native American artists to try and bring a more authentic slants to future collections.
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Australia: Voluntary assisted dying [euthanasia] bill draws multiparty support across NSW Parliament
Twenty-eight MPs from across the NSW Parliament will support new legislation to legalise voluntary euthanasia, the highest number of co-sponsors to a bill in the history of any Australian parliament.
The Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill is the first major parliamentary test for new Premier Dominic Perrottet, who has promised to allow a conscience vote on the issue which is likely to be highly divisive within the Liberal Party.
Neither Mr Perrottet nor Labor Opposition Leader Chris Minns support the bill.
The proposed law, which has the support of government MPs, Labor, Greens and assorted members of the crossbench, will give terminally ill people the option to end their lives at a time and place of their choosing.
On Tuesday, the independent member for Sydney Alex Greenwich, who will introduce the bill this week, delivered a petition of more than 100,000 signatures to the State Parliament supporting the legislation.
“This year, we have all heard the calls from the community, that people with a terminal illness in NSW deserve the choice of having a peaceful end of life, rather than a cruel and painful one,” he said.
Mr Greenwich said he hoped the multi-partisan support would ensure respectful debate of the bill through the parliament by the end of the year.
“There will be members who are obviously going to be opposing this reform, and they will come from a really genuine position, a faith position, no doubt,” he said.
“I want to work with them and see if we can address any of their concerns... if a member does have a concern that they feel can be addressed through an amendment then that amendment will be seriously considered”.
Should the legislation pass, Mr Greenwich said it would not be enacted for 18 months, to ensure the right policy settings can be in place.
Liberal MPs Lee Evans, Felicity Wilson, Leslie Williams and Nationals MP Trevor Khan are among the 28 co-sponsors of the bill.
Labor MPs co-sponsoring the bill include Jo Haylen, Jenny Aitchison, David Meehan, Jodie Harrison, Trish Doyle, Sonia Hornery, Leisl Tesch, Kate Washington, Tim Crakanthorp, Adam Searle, John Graham and Anthony D’Adam.
The bill also has the support of Greens MPs David Shoebridge, Abigail Boyd, Jamie Parker, Cate Faerhmann, Jenny Leong and Tamara Smith.
Opposition leader Chris Minns on Tuesday said he would not support the bill, but added he believed his view was in the minority within the NSW Labor party.
“I don’t think that you can codify the risks for a vulnerable person who’s in the latter stages of their life who may feel that they’re a burden on their family or their loved ones,” Mr Minns said.
“I think that’s a real concern and I don’t think it can be dealt with as per the writing of the bill.”
Mr Minns said he hoped the passage of the bill would be smooth. “Look I’m not hoping for problems I’m hoping that it’s dealt with,” he said.
Mr Greenwich acknowledged the concerns raised by Mr Minns, but countered that the legislation would create criminal offences to target coercion and require doctors be specifically trained to identify if someone is under any pressure.
“NSW will be the last state to legislate for voluntary assisted dying. That means we have been able to learn from the legislation and every other jurisdiction to make sure that we have the strongest safeguards,” Mr Greenwich said.
Fellow independents Greg Piper and Justin Field will also co-sponsor the voluntary assisted dying bill, as will members of the Animal Justice Party and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers.
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