Afternoon Tea 5.13.21 - Mississippi Cracked

Not Fast Enough, and Furious there was no gas.

May 13, 2021

Times Square gunman caught in Florida, a cracked bridge shut down the Mississippi, Chicago had a secret drone program fueled by off-the-books cash, and fuel shortages across the South & Southeast might just be because Colonial didn’t want to lose money. It’s Thursday, May 13th 2021, Eid Mubarak to all those coping with this week, and this is the Tea.

Colonial Pipeline launches restart after six-day shutdown (CNN Business) They buried the snot out of the lede here, so I’ll just quickly summarize. The pipeline wasn’t taken offline because of the hacking or ransomware, but because the billing system was compromised. From the CNN article:

People briefed on the matter also told CNN that the company halted operations because its billing system was compromised and they were concerned they wouldn't be able to determine how much to bill customers for fuel they received.

One person familiar with the response said the billing system is central to the unfettered operation of the pipeline. That is part of the reason getting it back up and running has taken time, this person said.

Judge orders suspected Times Square gunman to be held without bail (NY1) The guy who allegedly shot 3 people in Times Square last week was captured in Jacksonville, Florida. Found in a McDonald’s parking lot, he had run out of gas and couldn’t refill because of the gas station shortages. The simulation gets weirder every week.

Repairs to I-40 bridge over Mississippi River could take months, official says (KATV) The bridge linking Arkansas & Tennessee will take a long-ass time to repair, during which a major artery of both overland and water shipping will be closed. As of Wednesday, there were already 220 barges waiting in line. We’re about to have our own little Suez crisis, and only because the country is allergic to maintaining things it builds.

US cities see surge in deadly street racing amid pandemic (Associated Press) The viral marketing for the next Fast & Furious franchise movie is really getting out of hand.

Binance Faces Probe by US Money Laundering & Tax Sleuths (Bloomberg) As Wu Tang says, diversify yo bonds. If you got in early and made a bunch, get a half dozen different types of assets, stocks, bonds (meh), etfs, maybe even a rental property if you hit it big. Don’t leave all your cash in one kind of asset, or else that 20% drop yesterday is your lifeblood, not play money.

Chicago Police Started Secret Drone Program Using Untraceable Cash: Report (Gizmodo) The Chicago Sun Times reporting that $7.7 million in expenses were used to buy…secret drones, Stingrays and other goofy stuff. Every time the Chicago Police come up in the news, Al Capone becomes just a smidge more understandable in my mind.

Ohio’s million-dollar idea: Lottery prizes for vaccinations (Associated Press) Listen, as depressing as this is, if it gets vaccine hesitant people to get shots in arms, do it. We can stop spending on dorky ads no one will listen to, and start getting money to people with vaccines.

Lying is non-negotiable (Popular Info - Paywall) They really did sweep Liz away for saying Trump didn’t win the election. And McCarthy & The Distorters continue their campaign to pretend they didn’t do all the stuff we saw them do relating the Capitol Sacking.

‘Champions League of tax avoidance:’ Uber used 50 Dutch shell companies to dodge taxes on nearly $6 billion in revenue, report says (Biz Insider Australia) This is some gangster ass shit. 50 companies? Is that all of them? Are there more? How did they choose which ones to use? Did they bid? Force them to fight in gladiator combat?

If California is such an ‘anti-business’ state, why is its economy booming? (LA Times) It is an interesting question, especially given Musk moved his base to Texas just in time to get walloped by the grid collapse. It’s almost as if they forget that every tech company that you care about is based in a state that has legal weed.

The Still-Wild, Semi-Habitable McKibbin Lofts (Curbed) For those who know & were in the room when it happened, the McKibbin lofts were too weird to live, too rare to die. Some of the most special nights I had in Brooklyn either started or ended in one of those places, and you had a feeling that there was no way the vibe or the hood was sustainable. Respect to those who lived/hosted there. You’re the best of us.

Song of the Tea: For the last mashup of the week, I’m throwing the formula out. This is a 2009 dubstep re-imagining of a particularly well composed Lloyd’s of London musical advertisement. I know, sounds silly, but oh, the places it goes.

Look for fusions in all the wrong places. You might find some, like the ones featured this week, that change the way you look at things.

Yours,