About those bags of gasoline-- just opened my email and found this...

Biden declares state of emergency over fuel cyber-attack

Source: BBC

The US government declared a state of emergency on Sunday after the largest fuel pipeline in the US was hit by a ransomware cyber-attack.

The Colonial Pipeline carries 2.5 million barrels a day - 45% of the East Coast's supply of diesel, gasoline and jet fuel.

It was completely knocked offline by a cyber-criminal gang on Friday and is still working to restore service.

The emergency status enables fuel to be transported by road.

Experts say fuel prices are likely to rise 2-3% on Monday, but the impact will be far worse if it goes on for much longer.

Multiple sources have confirmed that the ransomware attack was caused by a cyber-criminal gang called DarkSide, who infiltrated Colonial's network on Thursday and took almost 100GB of data hostage.

After seizing the data, the hackers locked the data on some computers and servers, demanding a ransom on Friday. If it is not paid, they are threatening to leak it onto the internet.



Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57050690

Future friendly beer tastes like ass...

This is becoming an old trick and will probably the end of Tribune Cos...

The only people a hedge fund gives a shit about are certain stockholders and its own profiteers. So, find a company like Tribune who's stockholders would like a way out, but with few takers. Offer it a dirt cheap price to shut up its owners and when you buy it, saddle it with all the debt you can find to pay for it. Transferring a bunch of your own debt to the new acquisition makes the deal even sweeter. Engineer it so bankruptcy won't touch your money.

The last thing a fund wants to do is actually run a company-- that means work and risk. Nope, the only people you want to deal with are tax accountants and lawyers. No leases or needy employees, no complaining customers who actually want the stuff you really don't want to bother with selling to them...

Worked lout fine for some people with outfits like Sears, ToysRUs, A&P. and a bunch of others. Everyone made out fine except employees, customers, suppliers, and, well, the rest of the country.

The fun money is while loading up the skeleton with debt, you sell off any valuable parts and pocket the cash yourself. Look for who got the cash when Sears sold off Craftsman tools.

I don't have an answer for this chicanery, except maybe to just tax the funds out of existence. These aren't the mutual funds your grandparents' retirement money is tied up in-- they are simply tax scams for the wealthy.

American business at its finest-- let the Chinese and Koreans make the shit we need or want while we just play with Monopoly money.

Todays feelgood story...

How is he so wrong? Anyone seriously denying that workers would stay home from a shitty...

job if they got a dole paying as close to as much, or even more, than the shitty paycheck?

C'mon- a little reality here.

Now, he is an asshole for making that themain reason workers are staying home. And for bringing it up at all, since everything is always more complicated than the easy quote.

Raising the minimum wage and finding a way to give everyone health care, along with better wage&hour rules are ultimately more important, since that stuff will be around long after stimulus payments are just a memory. Mandatory paid vacations are very popular in the countries that have them. And more holidays.

Somebody actually did an honest-to-God-no-bullshit study about wages, proving that around 20 bucks an hour, plus neat bennies, did not affect the cost of a Big Mac. The burger costs the same in Copenhagen as in Chicago. How do the Danes do it? There are some subsidies, but mainly it's taken out of profits. I've seen the numbers, and fast food franchising is incredible.

You don't want to squeeze the owners to where they don't want to work either, but there's plenty of fat there. The biggest problem is the jungle attitude where it's eat or get eaten. Make everyone pay and the good ones will still make a go of it.

The big question is just what CAN we do about it? Franklin's terse reply...

"A republic, if you can keep it" is more terrorizing than humorous.

The forces of authoritarianism generally have an advantage-- they are more organized and goal-driven than us (small "d&quot democrats. They also have no qualms about using force.

Look at Myanmar for the latest example, but there are many others around the world. Turkey and Poland are heading that way at top speed. Even something as large as Brazil has lost its way.

Maoist China, Stalinist Russia, and Nazi Germany all had little problem taking over from weak republics. And the sources of Democracy, Greece and Rome, didn't take long to disappear into the mire of oligarchy.

As strong as our system seems to be, throughout history empires driven by charismatic and ruthless tyrants seems to be the rule.

My fear is that the genius of our system may have simply run its course.

Franklin's too.

Anyone else remember Bob Fass? "Radio Unnameable" on WBAI in NYC. Died over the weekend...

He was 87.

I remember listening to him in the 60s, and was one reason I never got any high school homework done. Went to a Central Park be-in and met him and some of the other nuts at WBAI.

So, yesterday afternoon I woke up and something was on NPR about vax denial...

Seems some group had a groups of antivaxers in a room and was trying to educate them. Nothing worked.

Until, of all things, Chris Christie got up and did an excellent job of telling his personal story. When he was finished, maybe half the crowd was at least thinking about changing their minds.

His secret? Well, to start with, the crowd had a deep distrust of government, and authority in general. They were, or believed they were, tricked and lied to all their lives. Cigarette companies told them tobacco was really healthy, their parents told them weird stuff, bosses lied, advertising told then each product was best, and the worst were politicians-- bullshitting them blind worse than any Nigerian prince.

So, when Fauci tries to tell them about covid, they are primed to throw him out with the trash. Same with any other "experts". Experts had been conning them all their lives, and they weren't having any of it.

Christi's push was simply to avoid anything technical or medical. He told about his time in the hospital, and about how the meeting in the White House ended up with everyone sick. Hope Hicks ran two or three miles a day and was in excellent shape and got sick. Donald hisself got sick. And not just down for a bit, but sick almost with death rattles. He told the personal story the White House glossed over.

The audience was rapt. Here was someone not repeating the usual BS, but speaking from bitter experience.

And it worked better than anything else.

Horrific acid attack on Pakistani college student...